RIVALRIES IN SOUTH-EAST EUROPE
Commonwealth and Foreign
By OUR PRAGUE CORRESPONDENT
THE conference of the Little Entente is taking place in Belgrade this week, and next week Dr. Benes is to pay a visit to Yugoslavia. Any schoolchild in Eastern Europe could write today the communiqué which will be issued thmorrow. It will reaffirm the indissolubility of the Little Entente, the unity of purpose and endeavour which animates its Governments, the lasting affection of the peoples for each other and the honour which Yugoslavia feels in the presence of Dr. Benes. But what is the real position ? What will the three Foreign Ministers of Yugoslavia, Rumania and Czechoslovakia say to each other behind the closed doors in Belgrade ? Only ardent propagandists would deny that the Little Entente is undergoing a profound crisis, and has been stunned by the readjustments which German rearmament and Italian pretensions have necessitated in South-Eastern Europe. Only the opposing propagandists maintain that the Little Entente has no force or meaning left.
The Little Entente was an alliance formed soon after the War, having as its purpose the maintenance of the status quo in South-Eastern Europe. The status quo was then most seriously threatened by Hungary, large parts of whose territory had been taken away to form, or to increase, the Little Entente States. The military obligations of these States are, to this day, confined to mutual assistance in the event of Hungarian aggression against any one of them. Since today the chief danger is seen to come, not from Hungary, but from Germany, and since Czechoslovakia alone has a German frontier, propagandists suggest that the Little Entente is obsolete in the present struggle for power in South-Eastern Europe.
They are wrong. It is true that many people in Yugoslavia and Rumania would gladly disinterest themselves in the fate of Czechoslovakia to buy their own safety from German hands. It is true that many people in Czechoslovakia propose, though discreetly, that Czechoslovakia should accept a bilateral treaty with Germany, and push the danger, as Poland has done, further South. But the rulers of Rumania and Czecho- slovakia, at any rate, are fully aware that. revision, once started in South-Eastern Europe, must lead to war, and the chances of the status quo surviving a war excessively remote.
Rumania and Czechoslovakia are firmly united. Czecho- slovakia is rearming the Rumanian Army. Economic penetration is being accompanied by political influence, sincere friendship exists between the two peoples. King Carol's visit to Prague in the autumn and M. Tatarescu's at the end of March were no hollow demonstrations. In the Little Entente circle Rumania is for Czechoslovakia the more important ally. The short strip of land which unites them is the only safe frontier which Czechoslovakia possesses. Furthermore, Rumania is the corridor not only to Yugoslavia but to Russia. Nobody pretends that Rumania would wel- come the passage of Russian troops, but it is likely that she would bow to necessity.
Obviously, therefore, it is Yugoslavia who is largely respon- sible for the crisis in the Little Entente. She is the largest of the three countries and the one whose friendship is most courted. British capital is playing an increasing part in her armament and in the development of her raw materials. Prince Paul and the Duke of Windsor acted their roles so admirably last summer that Yugoslav politicians began to see an Anglo-Yugoslav alliance looming on the horizon. Furthermore, Germany began long ago to court the Yugo- slays, to buy up their Press, to finance their Fascist parties, to change the direction of their foreign trade to the benefit of Germany. Lastly came the Italians, alarmed by German interpretations of the Berlin-Rome axis, angered by English pretensions to influence in the Eastern Mediterranean after the humiliation of Abyssinia and the fortification of Pan- telleria.
In such circumstances it was small wonder that Yugoslavia began to see herself as a Power superior to her Little Entente allies, playing for higher political stakes and destined for higher things than to be crushed in a clash between Germany and Russia which Czechoslovakia, by her Soviet Pact, was said to be provoking. When the French suggested, therefore, that the Little Entente should be extended to cover not only Hungarian revision but all cases of aggression in Central Europe, and should sign a treaty as a whole with France, the Yugoslays reacted, and a period of crisis set in for the Little Entente.
Within the last three months Yugoslavia has made her peace, not only with Bulgaria but with Italy, her two greatest enemies. Each treaty was accompanied by paeans of praise for the Little Entente, echoed by paeans of praise from the Little Entente for Yugoslavia. What does it all mean ? What are the Foreign Ministers saying to each other at Belgrade, and what has Dr. Benes, the genius of the Little Entente, to say to Prince Paul ?
The Italian-Yugoslav treaty has only two interpretations. Either Italy is playing her old game of destroying the Little Entente and her new one of revolving on the Berlin-Rome axis, or she is approaching the Little Entente under cover of a treaty to which Germany can take no exception and which will have the effect, but not the appearance, of setting a limit to German expansion.
Many signs point to the latter interpretation. It is an old- established fact that Italian and German interests conflict seriously in the Balkans, and a war won side by side could lead, sooner or later, only to a war fought against each other. Fur- ther, there has been a significant swing round to Danubian co-operation in the statements of leading Austrian and Hungarian politicians. Such statements are not likely to be made without some sort of intimation from above that the Rome Protocol is satisfied. Italian influence has certainly decreased in the two countries, but not yet to that extent. Dr. Hodza, the Czechoslovakian Prime Minister, paid a private visit to Dr. Schuschnigg at Easter, and he is well known to be the strongest champion of Danubian collaboration. Moreover, he is optimistic, and declared only last week that things were developing favourably in this direction. Lastly, democratic voices are making themselves heard more and more in all the semi-dictatorships of Eastern Europe, and in every case these voices demand that collaboration shall be fostered in South-Eastern Europe and the imperialisms of Italy and Germany restrained.
Under a calm and peaceful exterior, of State visits, of cul- tural performance3, of new capital investments, the struggle for power in South-Eastern Europe is continuing more des- perately and critically than ever before. The question is being decided—is Western Europe to continue her protection of the smaller States of South-Eastern Europe till they reach the political maturity which will guarantee not only their independence but their inheritance of the civilisation of Western Europe ? Or is South-Eastern Europe to be the prey once more of rival imperialisms and the heir of the political ideas of Hitler and Mussolini, which are falling on only too- fertile 'soil ?
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