The New Central Europe

In combating the campaign for the revision of the peace treaties, a favorite contention of the victors was that the status quo needed to be maintained in the interests of democracy and peace. This rather controversial view came closer to the truth when Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, and when, shortly after, Nazi Germany assumed leadership of the revisionist bloc. But the stronger the totalitarian revisionist threat grew, the weaker the democratic status quo front became. In the end the status quo front--or more precisely the French alliance system created for the defense of the status quo--collapsed without fulfilling its professed role as defender of democracy and peace.

The duels in diplomacy between the Nazi challengers and the democratic defenders of the European status quo got off to a rather ominous start in the summer of 1933. France, main defender of the status quo, and Great Britain, a hesitant partner, signed in Romea treaty with the two principal revisionist powers, Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. This Four Power Pact reiterated adherence to the existing treaties. The pact never came into force; with Germany's exit from the League of Nations and from the Disarmament Conference in October 1933 the Four Power experiment ended. Nevertheless, the attempt to strengthen the status quo through cooperation with its challengers drew after itself two adverse consequences. On the one hand it emboldened the revisionists by making them believe that the status quo defenders lacked confidence in their own cause. On the other hand it tended to confuse the members of the French alliance system by making them suspicious of their leader's intentions.

Following this miscarried experiment, French and British diplomats began probing new avenues in their quest for "collective security." In an effort to counterbalance Hitler's Germany, they tried to cooperate with the two older types of European totalitarianism, Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia. And all this left Hitler undisturbed in building a new center of tyranny in the heart of Europe.

Fascist Italy stood ideologically closer to Nazi Germany than to the Western democracies; nevertheless in the first years of Hitler's rule she preferred the partnership of the Western Powers. With her interests in the Danube Valley and the Balkans, Italy was particularly disturbed by Hitler's plot against the independence of Austria. In February 1934, Italy joined Britain and France in issuing a common declaration which pledged the defense of Austria's independence. During the Nazi coup which miscarried in Vienna, in July 1934, Italy mobilized and massed her troops along the Brenner Pass. The rapprochement between Italy and the Western Powers reached its zenith in 1935: in January of that year France signed a treaty of friendship with Italy; in April Britain, France and Italy met at Stresa, where they condemned Germany's repudiation of her obligations under the Versailles Treaty, and again pledged themselves to defend Austria's integrity and independence.

In the diplomatic battle against Germany, this cooperation between Italy and the Western Powers scored a rather dubious success--and it cost France an appreciable loss of prestige among her allies in the cordon sanitaire. The intentions behind the moves of French diplomacy and the conclusions which could be drawn from them were highly disturbing to France's allies. Czechoslovakia's Benes, the guiding spirit of the Little Entente, was worried lest a new power grouping in the West might reduce the Little Entente's collective role as a "Great Power." Yugoslavia felt betrayed by the French- Italian pact, for she looked upon Italy as her principal foe. Poland, ambitious for the rank and title of a Great Power, felt slighted at being left out of the new moves, which seemed to indicate a regrouping in the European system of alliances.

The crisis that hit the French alliance system in the cordon sanitaire, when Hitler's rise to power ended the relative tranquility of Europe, was long drawn out. France's satellites in the Middle Zone were in agreement with the basic aim of French policy in defending the territorial status quo, but the problems of French security were different from those which France's allies were facing, wedged as they were between Russia, Germany and Italy. From the very beginning, the cordon sanitaire was for France a faute de mieux arrangement; French diplomacy did not hesitate to improve France's security by moves that her satellites found it hard to keep pace with. Such a move was the rapprochement between France and Germany during the Locarno period in the twenties; such was the stillborn Four Power Pact of 1933; and such were the French- Italian and especially the French- Russian rapprochements of the thirties. It was not surprising that the rebirth of an aggressive Germany should revive the idea of an East- West alliance against Germany. But the great change in Russia, the Communist revolution of 1917 which had installed a regime so alien and so hostile to the bourgeois- democratic order of Europe, considerably complicated the resumption of old ties. Territorial conflicts between the Soviet Union and her independent western neighbors was another problem which Western diplomacy had not faced when before the First World War the foundations of the Franco- British- Russian Triple Entente were laid.

When France embarked upon a policy of rapprochement with Soviet Russia, the aim of the French alliances in the cordon sanitaire had to be revised in order to make room for the new orientation. Originally the cordon sanitaire had a double mission to fulfill, as an instrument both for Germany's encirclement and for Soviet Russia's containment. Now the containment mission had to be toned down, if not abolished al- together. But it was much easier for France than for her allies in Central and Eastern Europe to switch on and off the missions of the cordon sanitaire--not to mention that France's allies were entangled in conflicts of interests among themselves which made difficult indeed any united move for any purpose whatever.

Soviet Russia was not deterred by scruples from assuring her neighbors of her good will. In addition to separate peace treaties, she later signed one neutrality and non- aggression pact after another with her western neighbors. In 1929, the Litvinov Protocol signed in Moscow with Russia's neighbors pledged adherence to the provisions of the famous Briand- Kellogg Pact (1927) outlawing war. In 1933 the London convention for the definition of aggression was signed between Russia and her neighbors. The definition of the term "aggressor" could only be greeted with satisfaction, in view of the much- dreaded clandestine methods of communist warfare. The Russians, eager to please their neighbors, agreed that so- called indirect aggression--that is, "support to armed bands on the territory of another state, or refusal to take all the measures to deprive these bands of all assistance or protection"--should be put in the same category with direct aggression. But Soviet assurances of good will did not make France's eastern allies willing partners of the Russian orientation. Distrust of Russia and fear of communism left Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia cold, if not hostile, toward the French- Russian rapprochement. Only Czechoslovakia's foreign policy, directed by Benes, acclaimed the new trend.

Even before the French- Russian rapprochement, Benes had never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of Russia in the defense of the European status quo. With the crisis in Central Europe approaching, he often reiterated his credo. For instance, in 1931 he said: "The question of Russia will always play a great part in our destiny, if only because of our geographical position. . . . For that reason, the conception of our foreign policy will not be definitely completed until Russia becomes an active factor in Central Europe with her full might and interest engaged there. Russia is thus indispensable to us if we are to ensure our definitive position in Europe."[1]

Czechoslovakia followed France's Russian orientation, but not because she was a progressive democratic country; nor did Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia reject Russian orientation because of their reactionary regimes. Views which stressed ideological considerations often overlooked the primary factors shaping the foreign policies of these countries. In fact, geographical position and territorial disputes were of far greater importance than ideologies in deciding the question of whether an alliance with Stalin against Hitler was advisable or not. This explains also why none of the countries involved was in a position to view the Russian alliance so unequivocally as Benes did. Czechoslovakia had a huge German minority, she bordered on Germany and had never had any disputes with Russia. Poland, on the other hand, bordered on both Germany and Russia, and had a long record of hostility with both, but far greater territorial disputes with Russia. As for Romania, she was far from Germany, bordered on Russia, and had grave territorial disputes with the latter over Bessarabia. And Yugoslavia, far from both Russia and Germany, reacted more sensitively to Italian than to German pressure on Central Europe.

Nor was the policy of France, to begin with, directed by democratic ideological considerations. With the rising tide of totalitarian revisionism the French alliance system was no doubt the potential defender of democracy in Europe; but collective defense of democracy was nobody's primary concern--each member of the alliance system was concerned primarily with the security of its own status quo, France as much as those whom she was supposed to lead.

The country least inclined to follow French leadership was Poland. She was suspicious of French aims; she was also irritated by the French fondness for the Czechs, of whom the Poles were not particularly fond; she was critical of the whole policy of the League of Nations. Polish policy was directed by Marshal Joseph Pilsudski--constitutionally only Minister of War and Inspector General of the army, but actually the head of state with dictatorial powers. His principal aide was Colonel Joseph Beck Foreign Minister since 1932. Both distrusted the French alliance system. Poland began to go her own way even before the great French diplomatic efforts of the Hitler era. In July 1932, Poland signed a non- aggression pact with Soviet Russia; it was extended for ten years more in 1935. But Poland's treaty with Russia never became a part of the new, Russia- oriented, French policy in defense of the status quo. At the very time when France was making great efforts to include the Soviet Union in her collective security system, Poland signed (January 1934) a separate non- aggression treaty with Nazi Germany, without even consulting France. Although Poland voted for Soviet Russias admission to the League of Nations in September 1934, this did not narrow the gap between her own and France's policy; and apprehensive lest the Soviet Union as a League member interfere with Polish minority policies, the Warsaw government declared that it did not recognize any longer the right of the League to concern itself with the Polish minority question.

Polish leaders felt their independent course of action was justified by the weaknesses of the alliance system led by France. They were greatly deluded, however, in thinking that they would strengthen their own position by separate treaties. They weakened all the defenders of the status quo, including themselves. They helped Hitler achieve the first resounding victory of his "peace policy," which aimed at concluding bilateral treaties in order to undermine the Franco- British collective diplomatic efforts.

France and Britain, although fearful of communism, agreed on the usefulness of Soviet Russiain counterbalancing the threat of German imperialism and militarism revived by Hitler. These views were shared by President Roosevelt An important event of East- West rapprochement took place in 1933 when Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, journeyed to Washington and diplomatic relations were established between the United States and Soviet Russia American foreign policy, however, was drifting toward isolationism, and the United States remained absent from the European scene as the crisis stirred up by Hitler moved rapidly to a climax.

The Russians endorsed Western diplomacy's aim of collective security; in fact they supported it even more energetically than the British, who, although not yet appeasers of Nazi Germany, continued in their traditional aversion to entanglements in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile French diplomacy, directed by Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, worked toward a renewal of France's alliance with Russia. The Soviet response was favorable. The alliance, in its first form, was to be embedded in a broader security pact, an "Eastern Locarno," which would include Germany too. In July 1934 a draft treaty sponsored by both the French and the Soviet governments was proposed, under which the Soviet Union, Germany and France, as well as France's allies in the cordon sanitaire, Poland and Czechoslovakia, were invited to sign a mutual guarantee pact. To all intents and purposes this meant that Germany and the Soviet Union would guarantee the cordon sanitaire which had been built against them, or in other words that they would encircle and contain themselves. Strange as it may seem, the Soviet Union was willing in this instance to contain herself. Germany, on the other hand, showed no willingness to participate in her own encirclement.

This "Eastern Locarno" came to nothing. It was supplanted by a simpler formula, in which France and the Soviet Union entered into a bilateral mutual assistance treaty on May 2, 1935. Among France's satellites only Czechoslovakia was pleased, and she too signed a mutual assistance treaty with the Soviet Union, two weeks after the Franco- Soviet pact, on May 16. In the Czechoslovak- Soviet treaty, however, mutual assistance was made dependent upon the fulfillment of France's obligations to assist Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union, in case they were victims of aggression. Yet, Benes's efforts to see Russia among the guarantors of the existing order were crowned with success at long last. He had the privilege of being chairman of the League Council when in September 1934 the Soviet Union entered the League of Nations--the "robbers' den," as Lenin had once defined it--a step Benes favored strongly and helped to effect.

Thus the Soviet Union, recently a castigator of the Versailles system, entered the ranks of the status quo supporters. Litvinov became the most ardent and eloquent advocate of collective security--so ardent and so eloquent that collective security, originally a platform of Western diplomacy, became as much a Communist watchword as were some of the teachings of Lenin. Stalin evidently took seriously the aggressive plans against Russia which Hitler outlined in Mein Kampf: Even before Hitler proved, in the years to come, that more serious than his violent outbursts against communism was his hatred of the Slavs, Stalin seemed to understand that the old contest between Germans and Slavs had been reopened under the disguise of nazism versus communism.

The change in Soviet thinking was reflected in the platform of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, when the so- called Popular Front policy was adopted. Communists throughout the world were encouraged to cooperate, not only with the Social Democrats-who had been branded as "Social Fascists" at the Sixth Congress in 1928--but even with the nationalist- capitalist bourgeoisie and practically every- body who opposed Hitler. In response, Hitler proclaimed himself the defender of Western civilization against the menace of communism. Absurd as was Hitler's claim, it was far from unsuccessful in making his brand of tyranny appear a lesser evil than communism and even an effective counterpoise to it.

The Franco- Soviet- Czechoslovak treaties in the spring of 1935, supplemented by the Franco- British- Italian agreements, marked the culmination of France's effort to strengthen the status quo front against the growing menace of Nazi- German revisionism and totalitarianism. The treaties and agreements were nothing more nor less than products of power politics, but this was the best Europe was able to produce in defense of democracy.

The stabilization of the status quo front against Hitler had begun under Barthou's foreign ministry, when France was more alert to the Nazi danger than at any other time during those critical years. It was completed under Barthou's successor Pierre Laval--who later distinguished himself as a collaborator of Hitler. Barthou was assassinated at Marseilles in October 1934. Another victim of the Marseilles assassination was the dictator of Yugoslavia, King Alexander The assassins were Croat and Macedonian nationalist extremists--Yugoslav subjects, that is. The Yugoslav government, anxious to explain the assassination as the work of outside enemies rather than the result of fratricidal domestic strife, charged the Hungarian and Italian governments with complicity. But whatever the complicity of Yugoslavia's outside enemies, France lost in King Alexanderone of her friends and allies; after the king's death, Yugoslav policy came increasingly under the influence of the Germanophile Premier Milan Stojadinovic and veered away from France. French diplomacy in Central Europe suffered another setback in 1936, when Romania's king, Carol 11 began to lose faith in the French security system and dismissed his Francophile foreign minister, Titulescu.

No less serious than the crisis in the old ties of the French alliance system was the crisis in the new ones. French- Italian cooperation ceased in the autumn of 1935, when Italy invaded Abyssinia. The French- Soviet alliance, while still in effect, was more a source of confusion than one of strength. Its Western opponents became especially vociferous when in May 1936 Leon Blum formed his Popular Front government in France. The Communists, although not formally members of the government, attained great strength and influence, mainly through the new united labor organization, the Confederation Generale du Travail. In reaction, the fear of communism, latent when the Franco- Soviet pact was concluded, burst into the open. The anti- Communist reaction was strengthened, both in France and throughout Europe, by the outbreak of the Spanish civil war in July 1936, Russia's informal intervention in Spain on the Republican side arousing far greater fears than Italy's and Germany's similar intervention on Franco's side. The chasm between the European "Right" and "Left" was growing, the former showing concern over the threat of communism, the latter over that of nazism and fascism. And as one observer, standing on the Left, characterized the temper of Europe, these events "struck fear into the hearts of the middle classes, stirring latent sympathy for fascism and fanning distrust of Russia."[2]

Meanwhile in Britain a new ideology of peace crystallized which suited well the temper of the West. This new ideology, if not born from sympathy for fascism, was nevertheless distrustful of Russia, and it gave Hitler the benefit of the doubt which he assuredly did not deserve.

Up to 1935 the British government was in sympathy with the idea of enlisting Russia as a counterweight to Hitler's Germany, though it abstained from making such formal commitments as France had made in her mutual assistance treaty with the Russians. But no sooner had the French- Soviet- Czechoslovak alliance become a reality than Britain turned against the Soviet orientation. German propaganda, denouncing the French and Czech alliances with the Russians as "a threat to European civilization," was too scurrilous to affect British public opinion. The change in Britain's mood was rather the result of another, more subtle type of propaganda, the one which had been directed for years against the inequalities of the Versailles peace settlement. The historian Edward Hallett Carr described very well this change in Britain: "A growing body of opinion came round to the view that the only effect of the French understanding with Italy and the Soviet Union was to isolate and encircle Germany and perpetuate the inequalities of the Versailles Treaty--in short, to maintain those very conditions which had been largely responsible for the Nazi revolution."[3]

The policy of appeasement which resulted from this view treated Hitler as a nationalist leader whose only ambition was to undo the injustices inflicted upon Germany by the Versailles Treaty. In a somewhat similar fashion the Western Powers, during the Second World War, allowed themselves to believe that Stalin was becoming a nationalist, interested mainly in Russian security. Democratic vigilance could have discovered promptly that the inequalities of the Versailles Treaty were a poor excuse for the violent agitation, let alone for the brutalities, committed by Hitler and his Nazis. But, as a result of the long years of revisionist propaganda, the Western democracies were "materially and psychologically disarmed", in the words of Hans Kohn, a keen commentator of the tragic first half of the twentieth century--they were "unprepared to understand the totalitarian challenge and much too peace-loving to take it up."[4]

Mounting fear of war began to paralyze the will of the nations whose destiny it was to defend Western civilization against Hitler. Far stronger than democratic vigilance or democratic solidarity was the longing for peace and tranquility. Unfortunately, the West was as ill-prepared for Hitler's diplomatic offensive in the middle thirties as it was ill-equipped for Hitler's shooting war which followed in 1939.

Meanwhile the small nations of the Danube Valley, who lay in the path of Hitler's eastward expansion. were engrossed in their mutual fears and jealousies. Democratic Czechoslovakia, chief target of Hitler's wrath, was relying on friendly Great Powers for support against her enemies. Meanwhile her chief Danubian antagonist, revisionist Hungary was watching with manifest delight the erosion of the status quo, hopeful of satisfying her national aspirations and like the others forgetful of the small nations' common destiny. Czech-Hungarian collaboration could have laid the cornerstone for defense of national independence in the Danube Valley. Czech-Hungarian antagonism paved the way for Hitler's aggression against the small nations of Central Europe.

This Czech-Hungarian antagonism has been generally viewed as a conflict between two diametrically opposed social systems--Hungarybeing portrayed as the standard-bearer of conservatism and reaction, Czechoslovakia as the champion of progress and democracy. Some such conflict undoubtedly existed; but a closer look at Czech and Hungarian policies reveals that, above all, conflicting nationalist aspirations pitted the two nations against each other and frustrated all chances of compromise and cooperation between them.

The New Central Europe