DIPLOMACY IN A WHIRLPOOL

Part I

Background and Developments until 1945

I. STRUGGLE ALONG THE DANUBE.

Eastern European affairs have been vital to the security of the Western World. The history of this area had been one of almost continuous turmoil, dating from the glories of the old Roman Empire down to the erection of the Iron Curtain. Dividing lines of two worlds have been drawn more than once across this region full of small nationalities which remember intensely their glories of yore and cherish embittered nationalistic feelings, if not hatred against their neighbors. In modern times powerful external forces have repeatedly used the conflicting national aspirations of the small nations for their own purposes. It is not by pure accident that the sparks of two world wars were ignited in Eastern Europe.

In this region lie the Carpathian mountains, the easternmost bulwark of western civilization. With its compact form and a readily defensible mountain arc, the Carpathian or Middle Danube Basin controls the two main gateways between the Russian steppes and Western Europe.¹ In this danger zone the Danubian pillar of European security, the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, was destroyed in the First World War.

The European state system was based on the coexistence of great powers , one of which was located strategically in the Danubian area. Its dissolution in 1918 fatally weakened the power structure of central Eastern Europe. The path lay open for a Central European Power to move toward the East and for an Eastern Power to move toward Western Europe.

Since time immemorial, the Danubian region has been a highway of migrating peoples and a focus of conflicts. The frontiers of the Roman Empire once reached the Danube. After the apocalyptic days of the Empire's disintegration, at least a dozen major nations lived in and fought for this valuable area during the period of the great migrations.²

The Magyars crossed the Carpathian mountains at the end of the ninth century and, after a period of adventures, during the course of which some of the tribes roamed as far as the Pyrenees, they created a well organized state in the Middle Danube basin. Since the Magyars were ethnically different from their neighbors, they formed a wedge between the various groups of the Northern and Southern Slavs, and Hungary became a buffer state between Germans, Slavs and eventually Rumanians. Historic Hungary enjoyed natural geographic boundaries, for the Carpathians have proved to be one of the most enduring frontiers in Europe.³

THE SITUATION AND ROLE OF THE CARPATHIANS IN THE DEFENSE OF EUROPE AGAINST EASTERN IMPERIALISM

1. First strategic defense line of Europe.
2. Second strategic defense line of Europe.
3. Third strategic defense line of Europe.
4. Important gaps in defense lines.
5. Main strategic attack lines of the Soviet Union.
6. Lines of attack by the Soviet after breaking through first defense line.
7. Naval attack lines of the Soviet Union.
8. Important cities (marked by their first letters).
9. Straits of strategic importance.
10. The Carpathian mountain arc (solid black).
11. Other important mountain areas (dotted).
12. "F" stands for the Door of Focsani. 45 miles broad between the Carpathians and the Danube marshlands close to its estuary.
13. "W" stands for Warsaw, the strategic city governing the 300-miles-broad- gap between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea (Gdansk-Warsaw-Krakow Gap).
14. "M" stands for Moscow, center of Soviet imperialism. The first strategic defense line was broken by the Soviet Union in World War II.
The possession of the Carpathian Basin now enables the Soviet:
a. to attack at any time the second defense line with its strategic points: The Skagerrak, the Rhine region, the Ljubljana-Trieste Gap, the Strait of Otranto (here the Soviet stands already through the occupation of Albania) and the Straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus).
b. to close, more effectively, the Gap of Warsaw and the Door of Focsani.

Shortly after the foundation of the state the Hungarians were forced to take sides in the great competition between Eastern and Western ideologies and political systems.

Throughout the tenth century Byzantine religious and political influence was strong in Hungary. However, the still Pagan ruler Geza and especially his son, the first Hungarian King, St. Stephen, turned their people definitely westward. Hungary embraced Christianity and King Stephen, in the year 1000, obtained the Holy Crown from Pope Sylvester II. The attachment to Rome created a lasting connection with the West and Hungary became and remained an outpost of Western culture.⁴

The prosperous Hungarian Kingdom had to defend itself against Byzantium from the south,⁵ German and Venetian pressure from the west, and recurring invasion from the east.⁶ Since the twelfth century Croatia, as an associated state, was attached to the Crown of St. Stephen. The Roman Catholic religion and similar political institutions greatly facilitated the union of and cooperation between Croatia and Hungary proper.

East and south from Hungary's frontiers the Orthodox world began. North from Hungary Poland formed a bulwark of Western European culture and civilization. To the northwest, Bohemia played an important role in Central European politics. The histories of Hungary, Poland and Bohemia are somewhat similar, although, due largely to geography, their fate differed. The existence of these strong powers in this critical zone proved to be a benefit to the whole of Europe. Hungary with her solid frontiers maintained complete independence toward East and West and did not become a member of the Holy Roman Empire. After an era of generally favorable developments, which lasted from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Hungary, like Bohemia and much later Poland, suffered a decline of political and social leadership.⁷

During this period of decline Southeastern Europe became a battlefield between Western Christianity and Islam. The wars fought by Hungary against the Ottoman Empire lasted more than three centuries. In the fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire reached the lines of the Danube and Save rivers and consolidated its rule in the lower Danube valley. After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Sultan attacked the important Hungarian outpost, Nandorfehervar, the present day Belgrade. At the time the Turks were repelled and Hungarians remained free for another generation.⁸ However, in the following century, under the renewed aggression of Islam, Hungary collapsed.

Louis Jagiello, King of Hungary and Bohemia, died in the fateful battle of Mohacs fought against the Turks in 1526. After his death the

Habsburg family successfully claimed both the Hungarian and Bohemian thrones. Another consequence of the battle of Mohacs was the Turkish occupation of two-thirds of Hungary. Buda was under Turkish yoke for nearly 150 years. The Great Hungarian Plain became a Turkish province, and Upper and Western Hungary together with Croatia passed under Habsburg rule; Transylvania, in recent times the bone of contention between Hungary and Rumania,⁹ existed as a semi-independent principality, generally tributary to the Sultan.¹⁰

The political dismemberment of Hungary was undoubtedly aggravated by religious dissension. The majority of the Hungarian nobility and their serfs had become Calvinist by the end of the sixteenth century. Even after the successful Counter-Reformation lead by Peter Cardinal Pazmany in the seventeenth century, a substantial percentage of Hungarians remained Protestant. Calvinism considered itself "the Hungarian religion," in the face of the pro-Habsburg Catholic Church. But religious intolerance generally was not as exaggerated in Hungary as in the Western European countries. In this troublesome period the Catholic and Protestant political leaders of the Hungarian nation cooperated most of the time on basic national issues. An outstanding example of such cooperation was the relationship between the leader of the Counter-Reformation in Hungary, Peter Cardinal Pazmany, and the Calvinist ruler of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen. In a famous letter Pazmany asked for Bethlen's goodwill "lest the German spit under our collar".

The Turkish wars had been fought mostly in the plains and on the hillsides, densely populated by Magyars. Consequently, many centers of Magyar culture were annihilated. The inhabitants were killed or taken as slaves to Asia Minor. Towns, villages and forests burned to ashes, and fertile lands became as deserts. Areas inhabited by non-Magyars were of a more peripheral location, mostly in the mountainous regions, and were far less damaged. The destroyed Magyar population was replaced by Serbs and Rumanians, particularly in the southern districts. They could move freely, for under Turkish rule no frontier or obstacle of any kind existed between the Balkans and Hungary.

Hungary ultimately survived the Turkish wars and occupation, but was so gravely weakened that she never recovered her former power and independence. The Hungarian constitution provided opportunities for some opposition to the Habsburgs. This opposition occasionally resulted in open resistance, plots and uprisings. None was successful. Even the great insurrection of Francis Rakoczi II, failed.¹¹

The liberated territories in southern Hungary were administered directly from Vienna and the Viennese Government directed a largescale colonization policy. Immigrants and settlers came from all over

Europe, and Slovaks from Upper Hungary.¹² The majority consisted of Germans, Rumanians and Slovaks, but also included in the migratory group were French, Italian, Catalan, Armenian, Bulgarian and other settlers. Some immigrants were granted huge properties in the liberated territories, creating a new non-Magyar aristocracy. In the course of the gradual destruction of the Turkish conqueror, the Austrian Empire thus acquired and populated new territories. Her position along the banks of the Danube was no longer threatened from the Balkan peninsula.

The growth of nationalism in Hungary began with the use of the vernacular. Until the early nineteenth century Latin was the official language of administration. But the Hungarian Diet in 1830 passed a law requiring officials to know the Magyar language, and in 1844 Magyar replaced Latin altogether, and became the exclusive language of the legislature and administration.

In the reform period (1830-1848), the Diet gradually transformed Hungary into a modern state. The Acts of 1848 swept away many remainders of feudalism and established a government responsible to parliament. Liberal legislation and establishment of constitutional government, however, did not satisfy the national aspirations of the non-Magyar peoples in Hungary.¹³ Nor could these reforms be tolerated by the absolutistic Austrian Empire. In this complex situation Vienna became the ally of the non-Magyar nationalities and incited them against the new Hungarian regime established under the leadership of Lajos Kossuth. In the ensuing armed conflict the Croats, Serbians, and Rumanians took a stand against Hungary. The Hungarian Parliament dethroned the Habsburgs and issued a Declaration of Independence on April 14, 1849. Kossuth became president. Although the majority of the Slovaks and Ruthenians supported Kossuth or remained indifferent in the struggle, and some other nationalities, especially Poles, fought for a free Hungary, eventually the Austrian Empire with the aid of a Russian army crushed Hungarian independence.¹⁴

The Hungarian war of independence was watched with sympathy in the western world. Notwithstanding, Kossuth's Hungary did not receive any effective political support from the West. Only the United States of America intended to recognize Kossuth's regime as a de facto government but independent Hungary was destroyed before the American agent reached the country.¹⁵ The general western European attitude toward Hungary was expressed by Lord Palmerston, who in the course of a debate in the House of Commons concerning the Russian invasion of Hungary had declared, on July 21, 1849, that Austria was a most important element in the balance of European power, and explained that:

Austria stands in the center of Europe, a barrier against encroachment on the one side, and against invasion on the other. The political independence and liberties of Europe are bound up, in my opinion, with the maintenance and integrity of Austria as a great European Power; and therefore anything which tends by direct or even remote contingency to weaken and to cripple Austria, but still more to reduce her from the position of a first-rate power to that of a secondary state, must be a great calamity to Europe, and one which every Englishman ought to deprecate and try to prevent.¹⁶

Kossuth went into exile in Turkey. In the West he was considered a champion of liberty and democratic ideas, and was especially popular in the English speaking countries. In 1851 he was invited to the United States, and left Turkey on an American gunboat. After a successful speaking tour in Great Britain, he sailed to New York where he met with great popular enthusiasm and official honors, as Lafayette had before him. During his stay in the United States he was presented to the Senate and to the House of Representatives. In Washington numerous official receptions were organized in his honor. Altogether, Kossuth delivered over three hundred public addresses throughout the United States.¹⁷ Later he settled down in Italy and sought in vain to direct the winds of European politics into the sails of Hungarian independence.¹⁸

Activities and plans of an exile had no influence whatever on developments in Danubian Europe. Russia loomed increasingly as a formidable great power, and the Slav nationalities of the Danubian Empire looked to her for help and encouragement. The development of Pan-Slav nationalist ideas afforded a convenient vehicle for unofficial Russian intervention.¹⁹ Prior to the nineteenth century the Turkish danger had created a common interest in defense among the peoples of the Monarchy. In the course of the gradual disappearance of this threat nationalism developed along the Danube, and Holy Russia came to be considered by most of the Slavs in a somewhat romantic way as a benevolent "Big Brother', and not as a danger.²⁰

Meanwhile the center of gravity of the Habsburg Monarchy was definitely shifted to the East. After Austria suffered defeat at the hands of the combined Italian and French forces on the battlefield of Solferino (1859), and at the hands of the Prussians at Sadowa (1866), she was ejected from both Italy and Germany. In the course of the unification of the German States, her place as a power in the West was taken by Prussia.

After these defeats the territory of Austria became smaller than that of Hungary, and under the new power conditions the importance of the strategic location of the latter was more fully recognized than ever. One of the consequences of this new development was the famous Ausgleich the compromise of 1867, which established the Dual Monarchy.²¹ The Kingdom of Hungary was placed on a par with Austria. The basis of this compromise was the establishment of three common services; foreign policy, war and finance. A minister common to both countries was appointed to control each of the three ministries, and was responsible to delegations elected annually by the respective parliaments of Austria and Hungary.

The new constitutional arrangement gave a definite advantage to the Germans and Magyars in political matters. This fact, coupled with the anachronistic political structure of the Monarchy, was the chief cause of the growing dissatisfaction which existed particularly among the Slav and Rumanian nationalities. The intransigence of Hungarian nationalism contributed to the weakening of the Monarchy and, in the decades preceding 1918, was a serious obstacle to all large-scale reforms along federative lines.

In Hungary the Nationalities Law of 1868 was a very liberal legislative measure. "It is certainly one of the best nationality laws that have ever been drafted; the League of Nations Minority Treaties which have drawn very largely upon it for inspiration, fall far short of it in generosity." ²² The provisions of the law, however, were only partly carried out. And irrespective even of the non-execution of the law, the minority nationalities were not satisfied because the law guaranteed only individual rights to the members of the various nationality groups and did not grant the desired local autonomies and other corporate rights. Later a policy of Magyarization was followed and the spirit of the Nationality law was applied even less than its letter.²³ Tile fact that Rumanian and Slav irredentist movements were fomented abroad did not incite the Hungarian governments to a more liberal nationality policy.²⁴

Russia supported the Slav nationalist movements both in Austria and Hungary with increasing vigor, for the Habsburg Empire had been one of the chief stumbling blocks to Russian expansion in the Balkans. At the Congress of Berlin the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in cooperation with the Western powers prevented establishment of Russian predominance in the Balkans. But then the German Drang nach Osten policy sought to make the Danubian and Balkan regions the first stepping stones toward the Middle-East. The Berlin-Bagdad railway was one of the primary aims of German expansion. This in turn threatened British control of India. The expansion of the German navy challenged

Great Britain even more.

With the formation of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, a rigid bi-polar balance of power a "two-power world" appeared in Europe. Tension increased dangerously after the annexation of BosniaHerzegovina and a conflagration became almost inevitable. Neither the traditional means of diplomacy nor the personal relations between the monarchs could prevent the outbreak of the First World War. The selfdestruction of the western state system began.

II. CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

One of the momentous results of the First World War was the dismemberment of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. The peacemakers of 1919, instead of reforming the antiquated political structure of the Danubian Empire on a democratic and federative basis, created small successor states dominated by jingo-nationalism. At the peace table the Allied and Associated Powers, still under the spell of their own wartime propaganda, did not even endeavor to maintain the unity of the Danubian area in one form or another. The subsequent unfortunate situation in this region was only the natural consequence of this territorial dismemberment and of the lip service paid at the peace settlement to some of the principles of President Wilson. This destruction of the Eastern bastion of the European state system not only proved foolhardy for the victors of 1918, but was, eventually, catastrophic for all the nations of Western civilization.

By virtue of the peace treaties of St. Germain and Trianon, the territory was divided among Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Rumania. Some of these states inherited much of the complex nationality pattern of the Monarchy, but none of the states possessed the fallen Monarchy's economic advantages. The new settlement opened the door to political and economic nationalism on a scale unheard of before. The roles changed. German and Magyar supremacy was wiped out and some of the oppressed peoples became the oppressors.

The dismemberment of the Monarchy was a flagrant contradiction to the general trend of world evolution which favored economic integration, a necessary consequence of the growing interdependence of nations. Destruction of the Danubian Empire created a vacuum of power in the Danubian area, thereby flinging open a strategic gateway of Europe.¹ In the light of the political events of the last thirty years, it is commonplace to say that its destruction, without adequate substitution, was probably one of the greatest diplomatic errors in modern history.² Winston Churchill was fully justified in calling the complete break-up of the Empire a "cardinal tragedy". ³ Anthony Eden recently expressed the opinion that: "The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a calamity for the peace of Europe. If the countries that formed it could one day find some arrangement that would allow them to work together again in a happy association, how welcome this would be."⁴ Such statements emanating from outstanding British statesmen are all the more significant since the secret treaties concluded by Great Britain and

France during the First World War and the wartime policy and propaganda of the same powers were instrumental, if not decisive, in bringing about the collapse of the Monarchy and the establishment of a small state system in the Danubian area.

Although Oscar Jaszi, a distinguished student of the nationality problems of Austria-Hungary, has written that the dissolution of the Monarchy was not a mechanical but an organic process,⁵ and although many facts support this view, there are some facts to the contrary.⁶ A fundamental reorganization of the Monarchy, along democratic and federative lines, would, in any event, have been necessary.⁷ Although in the last period of the war the discontent of the nationalities was stirred up by various means, important cohesive forces still existed. The armies of the Monarchy everywhere stood on foreign soil. With the exception of a considerable part of the Czech army groups, the nationalities of the Monarchy by and large fought well, despite war-weariness, economic hardships, growing Allied propaganda and Allied preponderance.⁸ Although composed of many nationalities, the administration and especially the foreign service fulfilled their task loyally until the last.⁹

In the light of these and some other evidences, then, one might say that the collapse of the Monarchy was not entirely self-inflicted. Social and political reforms and federalization probably could have revitalized the Monarchy. Serious discontent existed, and revolutionary movements were encouraged and fomented from outside, but the change of attitude by the victorious Western powers was the decisive factor.¹⁰ The leaders of the various nationalities received encouragement, support, and even instructions from abroad. The chance of being able to switch from the defeated camp to that of the victorious powers had a strong appeal to all nationalities. Under these conditions and prospects the discontented nationalities themselves had no particular reason to remain with the old Monarchy. It is therefore somewhat understandable that most of the nationalities, irrespective of other political considerations, eventually preferred to belong to the victorious Allied nations.¹¹

In Hungary the government declared on October 16, 1918, that the dual system with Austria had ended and that only personal union existed between the two countries. Soon revolutionary movements broke out and a National Council formed. King Charles, on October 31, appointed Count Michel Karolyi as Prime Minister. Karolyi was a rich aristocrat but a staunch left-wing politician with an outspoken pro-Entente and anti-German record. He attempted to bring about a compromise with the nationalities, within a democratic Hungarian state. His minister of nationalities, Oscar Jaszi, advocated the formation of an "Eastern Switzerland" in historic Hungary. In this spirit the new regime tried

to persuade the nationalities to live together in a commonwealth.¹² These actions came too late, for the victorious great powers had promised complete independence to them.

The Croat Parliament at Zagreb decided, on October 29, to sever constitutional relations with Hungary and Austria. A National Assembly of the Rumanians in Alba Julia (Gyulafehervar) decided, on December 1, upon the unification of all Rumanians in one state.¹³

King Charles surrendered the reins of government on November 13, 1918, but did not abdicate. Hungary was proclaimed a "People's Republic" on November 16, 1918, and the Hungarian National Council elected Count Michel Karolyi President of the Republic in January, 1919.

In a recent publication, a British historian has remarked, concerning Karolyi's failure, that "Unfortunately for Hungary and for Central Europe, Karolyi was not Masaryk: he had not carried his peoples with him." ¹⁴

Nevertheless, in the cases of Karolyi and Masaryk, popular support was not the primary or decisive factor. Masaryk enjoyed the full support of the Allied powers, and this Allied support rather than the opinion of the Czech people assured Czechoslovakia the status of a victorious nation. Karolyi, however, was openly rebuffed and humiliated by the Entente powers and could not give anything to the Magyars, or, for that matter, to the other nationalities. The occupation of Hungarian territories by the successor states was authorized by the Supreme Council of the Allied powers in Paris. The Rumanian, Yugoslav, and Czech armies violated even these prescriptions by advancing beyond the demarcation lines. This situation foreshadowed the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Trianon, that is, the loss of considerable territories inhabited by Magyars.

Karolyi frankly admitted that his confidence in the Entente powers and in the principles of President Wilson had been misplaced and, in desperation, he resigned his office of President of the Hungarian Republic. The succeeding Communist regime of Bela Kun (March-July, 1919) created general fear of the spread of Bolshevism all over Europe.¹⁵ In addition, the Communist Republic, to win popular support, lost no time in organizing an army, which overran a substantial part of Slovakia and attacked the Rumanians. All these happenings, particularly the Bolshevist rule and subsequent reaction, did not make Hungary popular in Western Europe.¹⁶

Although at the peace settlement the Monarchy was destroyed in the name of the self-determination of peoples, this principle was grossly violated in practice. None of the nationalities living within the former

Monarchy was allowed to express its will through a plebiscite. Only the treaty of St. Germain provided for a plebiscite in a small area of Carinthia. The Slovene majority there decided to join with defeated Austria, instead of with the newly created victorious state of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.¹⁷ This case did not justify the principle of nationality solemnly proclaimed at Paris as the principle of the new status quo. The Hungarian peace delegation futilely proposed plebiscites in territories to be detached from Hungary by the peace treaty.

In an answer given in the name of the Allies on May 5. 1920, Premier Millerand of France explained that plebiscites were unnecessary because their result would not be substantially different from the condition established by the peacemakers.¹⁸

Eventually the peace treaties shifted 38,000,000 of the 52,000,000 inhabitants of the Monarchy into countries belonging to the victors. Only small Austria (6,289,380) and Hungary (7,615,117) were considered as defeated states, and treated as such. Winston Churchill characterized the absurd situation as follows: "Two soldiers have served side by side sharing in common cause the perils and hardships of war. The war is ended and they return home to their respective villages. But a frontier line has been drawn between them. One is a guilty wretch, lucky to escape with life the conqueror's vengeance. The other appears to be one of the conquerors himself."¹⁹

The internal political structure of Austria-Hungary was obsolete, but the Empire still held advantages. It was located in the most strategically important region of Europe, and comprised an area greater than that of any European state, save Russian, with a common tariff and currency. Thus the 52.000.000 inhabitants of the Monarchy could trade freely over an area of 267,239 square miles.²⁰ In the ten years preceding the first World War, the money income in Austria increased by 86 percent and in Hungary by 92 percent: the increase in the real income per head was 63 percent in Austria and 75 percent in Hungary. This rate of increase was much more rapid than in Great Britain or Germany.²¹ Despite many adverse political factors, the advantages of the great internal market and the natural division of labor among the different parts of the Empire resulted in a rapid rise in wealth, shared in by all nationalities.

But the nationality struggle in the Danubian Empire was a serious and baffling problem to Western observers. Under the impact of this complicated and often ugly picture, it was rather easy to forget wider horizons, and to overlook the fact that the existence of a Danubian great power was both a benefit to its own people and a necessity for the European state system. In June, 1946, the late Jan Masaryk was to tell

Sir Alfred Duff Cooper, then British Ambassador to France, that "Czechoslovakia had never been so happy as when forming part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire". Sir Alfred Duff Cooper thought this a tragic admission on the part of the son of Thomas Masaryk, commenting: "Time has given it proof. It is surely now generally recognized that the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has proved to be one of the major calamities of this disastrous century". ²²

From the point of view of the European state system the victorious powers committed a fundamental mistake in failing to compel the new Danubian states to form a federal state not incompatible with the reestablishment of an independent Poland. This would have enabled the Danubian peoples and the Poles, together, later to resist pressure or invasion by outside forces. At that time the potential opponents of such a scheme, the neighboring great states of Germany and Russia, did not exist as power factors. Thus the victorious Western powers had practically a free hand in Eastern Europe. Of course the extreme nationalism of the leaders of the new states still remained an obstacle to any new form of integration. But the peacemakers had the necessary means at their disposal to check the intransigent nationalism of the governments of the new states. It would not have been difficult to make their recognition and support dependent on the maintenance of Danubian unity in one form or another. The lack of foresight of the victorious allies paved the way for Hitler's aggressive policy in Eastern Europe and eventually opened wide the door for Russian penetration.

All the newly created Danubian states, whether victorious or defeated, besides falling into political chauvinism, followed the policy of an exaggerated protectionism. They erected high tariff walls and engaged, from time to time, in economic wars. The general result was a rise in unemployment and the cost of living, and a decline in national income. As Frederick Hertz later pointed out, "progress achieved in one field was as a rule offset by retrogression in another". ²³

There were a few vague endeavors towards integration but these did not prove successful. Certain sections of the Treaty of St. Germain, and of the Treaty of Trianon opened the way for negotiating preferential trade agreements,²⁴ but in the hostile political atmosphere these negotiations proved fruitless, as did Tardieu's endeavors in 1932, which promised France's financial assistance in the event of preferential trade agreements being concluded between the Danubian States.

Co-operation in the sphere of agriculture, proposed at the Bucharest Conference of 1930 between Yugoslavia, Rumania and Hungary; the attempt at economic collaboration by the member states of the Little Entente according to the provisions of an agreement reached in February,

1933; and the Rome Protocols signed by Austria, Hungary and Italy in March, 1934, should all be considered short-lived expedients brought about by momentary exigencies. These agreements could not achieve tangible and lasting success. They could not substitute for true economic collaboration between the Danubian countries. The failure of such endeavors as these made it clear that, without a reasonable settlement of basic political issues, durable cooperation in economic fields could not be established.

Politically, it has often been claimed that Soviet Russia easily conquered and transformed the Danubian area because she found there a vacuum of power. The vacuum of power was created in 1919. The new political system established along the banks of the Danube was a weak superstructure, without solid foundation, and could not fill either the political or the economic place of the Monarchy in the international community. The expectations attached to the creation of small national states in the Danubian Valley did not materialize. The new states could not develop sufficient cohesive force, could not bring about an effective cooperation among themselves, and were swept away.²⁵

Though American intervention in the first World War was accompanied by a proclamation of lofty political ideas "to make the world safe for democracy" the new Danubian order, sometimes called the Balkanization of the Danubian area, did not help toward establishing political democracies.²⁶ In some of the successor states retrograde political conditions and corruption reached a point altogether unknown in the Monarchy. In Yugoslavia, for example, the leader of the Croatian opposition party, Stefan Raditch, and two other Croatian deputies, actually were shot while in a session of Parliament in June, 1928. In most of the successor states, political democracy remained meaningless to the masses, which were ruled by pseudo-parliamentary regimes or by outright dictatorships. Only Czechoslovakia was considered in the West as a notable exception in this respect. This country received the lion's share of the Monarchy and considerable financial support from abroad. But while the balanced economic and social conditions, the well-known administrative qualities of the Czechs, and the industrial skill of the Sudeten Germans facilitated the functioning of democratic political institutions, political democracy alone could not assure the independence and survival of Czechoslovakia in the serious crises of 1938 and 1944-48.²⁷

Despite the existence of the League of Nations, which was to end alliance-making throughout the world, alliances multiplied in Eastern Europe. France attempted to consolidate the new territorial settlement by her alliance with Poland and by supporting the alliance concluded between Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania, known as the Little

Entente. Opposition to this alliance resulted in close cooperation among Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The Little Entente, the Balkan Entente and the Hungaro-Italo-Austrian combination, however, could not survive the soon resurgent and overwhelming outside force from Germany and Russia.²⁸

The fact that jingo-nationalist, but internally weak and quarrelling, small states would not be able to check the overwhelming outside forces was disregarded by the peacemakers after the First World War. The might of Germany and Russia existed potentially even in the 1920's. Perhaps Austrian and Hungarian statesmanship had made a poor showing in the decades preceding the destruction of the Dual Monarchy, but the peacemakers of 1919 and the leaders of the successor states between the World Wars certainly surpassed them in political shortsightedness. This has been demonstrated ad oculos by the outcome of their policies in the Danubian area.

The political structure of the multi-national Empire may have been antiquated, but the new order proved to be less stable and offered less security for the Danubian people and for the whole of Europe. In one man's lifetime the Danubian nations experienced the destruction of three international and domestic orders. Peccatur intra muros et extra muros. In the course of these events, almost all nationalities committed errors and mistakes. Although one cannot turn back the wheels of history, the positive and negative teaching of these manifold experiences, if examined with mutual understanding and humility, might suggest some solutions for the future. Probably the advantages of a great political and economic unit combined with the benefits of democratic equality, extended to all nationalities, might open the door for better developments after the ordeal of the present period.

DIPLOMACY IN A WHIRLPOOL