The Succession States
Ma. ROBERT MACBRAY has conferred a great boon upon us in bringing together a survey which may well serve in time as the textbook for the rise of the Succession States. A French scholar has recently attributed the explosion known as the Great War to the internal stresses and conflicts of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. It is as well, therefore, that we should devote some attention to the settlement that has been made, and attempt to decide the question as to whether it was a good one, or is likely to lead to further conflicts.
As a basis for this discussion this book is a good one, and yet it is not perfect. For Mr. Machray takes his subject in the manner of a biographer (old style) and has given us rather an apology for the Little Entente than an impartial discussion of its value. In fact here is simply the point of view of one particular statesman concerned in it. Benesh, the apt and adroit pupil of President Masaryk, may be called the architect of the Little Entente ; and it is his speeches which are accepted here as the true gospel, his interpretation of the post- War situation which is not to be challenged, his complete sin- cerity which is not to be called in question. If he says that the Little Entente is attached as firmly to Great Britain as to France in its post-War policy, why then, it is so ; and if he throws no doubts upon the sincerity of Italian advances, neither does Mr. Machray.
This is -not to say that we do not think the Little Entente has always been perfectly sincerely on the side of peace and the treaties, and therefore a force on the right side in Europe in the last ten years, at any rate in the East of Europe. We do say, however, that it could hardly have been anything else, and that we are entitled to ask whether its policy is likely to provoke trouble in the future, or shows any tendencies that have hindered the settlement of other countries, though contributing to its own. To both these questions it would be possible to give two answers, though, to judge from this book, the affirmative has never been considered by Mr. Machray. It is, however, particularly worth considering at the moment, when a new international situation is taking shape in Europe. The so-called military hegemony " of France may have had its uses as well as its disadvantages. Whether it can be usefully continued is a question that must be in the minds of many statesmen to-day.
But we are running away from our text. It is typical of Mr. Machray that he should have succeeded in writing this book without mentioning the phrase we have quoted. And if there are sins of omission there are also some of commission. Why, for instance, does he talk of Czechoslovakia and Jugo- slavia in the early part of last century ? Such anachronisms may be matters of convenience, but they convey a misleading impression. These states may be more satisfactory creations than the Empire they have succeeded, but they are hardly the result of long-standing solidarity within themselves, as this usage would suggest. In none of them is the voice of minorities completely silent, and some of them have had to endure internal convulsions almost as severe as those which shook the Habsburg realm. Again, it is not sufficiently stressed how the economic position of Czechoslovakia was responsible for her policy of peaceful consolidation, and for her friendship with Austria. This is not to belittle her achievements, or to question the sincerity of M. Benesh. It is merely to raise the question of Mr. Machray's approach to these questions, which is hardly as impartial as it might be. Nevertheless, if we have devoted some time to criticism, it is only because we appreciate the value of what Mr. Machray has done. Probably, at the moment, a completely impartial survey is too much to hope for. We must leave that to another generation. In the meantime we have here a book which can serve as an introduction for the student, and a work of reference for the more general reader. It is also, and this is even more important, one of the first studies of the new diplomacy in practice. The methods of M. Benesh are the methods which are spreading to the rest of the world, and, we have no hesitation in saying, they are the right methods. It is a book which every student of peace, as well as every student of Central Europe, will have to read, and, in particular, every journalist. The Press has no small part to play in the diplomacy that makes for peace, and in this book one may read between the lines how it will be possible to play it.
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