THE LITTLE AGREEMENT CONFERENCE OPENS TODAY IN ROMANIA, IN SINAIA

In the aftermath of the Great War. peace was threatened in central Europe. As early as April 1919, Hungary bolshevised by Bela Kun invaded the newly created Czecho-Slovakia and the young republic of Prague was not then aided either by Rumania, whose armies bordered the Theiss. nor by Yugoslavia, whose forces occupied Baranya. This serious alarm, which the Czecho-Slovak army valiantly overcame, and the first attempt to restore Charles IV to the throne of Hungary, decided M. Benès, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Czecho-Slovakia, to create between his State, the Yugoslavia and Roumania, local agreements aimed at maintaining the order established by the Treaties of Saint-Germain, Trianon and Neuilly in Central Europe. Concluded two by two, between Prague and Belgrade, between Prague and Bucharest, between Bucharest and Belgrade. these agreements constituted what is called the Little Entente, an extension on the Danube of the agreement of the great powers. It took a year and a half, from August 1920 to January 1922, to work out the political treaties and to establish the military conventions before, as precise aims, intervention against any aggressive attempt or any violation of the treaties by Hungary and Bulgaria. Finally, in August 1922, at Marienbad, Czecho-Slovakia and Yugoslavia extended their special understanding, undertaking "to lend each other complete political and diplomatic support in their international relations" and "to take the necessary measures to the safeguard of their common interests, in case they consider them threatened”. Prague and Belgrade thus demonstrated that the Hungarian danger could find birth or be combined with the resistance policy of Germany.

What are the means of action available to the Petite-Entente to achieve the very purpose of its formation? These means are of three types: political, economic and possibly military. From the political point of view, the three States affirmed their European influence in the conferences of Genoa and Lausanne and we know the welcome received by Mr. Benès during his travels in the great Allied capitals, at the eve of major crises. Their monitoring of the military situation in Budapest and Sofia is extremely close, as the incidents last January on the Romanian-Hungarian border proved. From an economic point of view, the Little Entente dominates the commercial artery of the Danube by the river fleet which it inherited from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and it is the linchpin of agreements, such as those of Graz and Porto-Rose, or trade treaties with ex-enemy countries, agreements or treaties essential to the economic life of Central Europe. But the most important means of action lies in military force. Already, in October 1921, at the time of the second equipped of Charles IV in Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia and Yugoslavia had mobilized 500,000 men in total. This figure indicates only part of the mobilization capacity of the three States.

Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania undertook major track works. railed. Not only will the territories of the three allies be united by rapid means of communication, but also, within each of the three states, all the provinces will be linked together, all that will remain for them is to enhance or develop their mineral wealth and their tools, to acquire economic independence
necessary both in time of peace and for the manufacture of war material and ammunition which Czecho-Slovakia is already capable of providing to her two allies,

All these questions have been the subject, on the part of the Little Entente, of conferences of which that of Sinaia is the follow-up,

Neither the question of German reparations nor that of inter-allied debts could leave States not favored by the decline indifferent! distant from Austrian, Hungarian and Bulgarian payments. Apart from the problems raised by the next assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva, the Little Entente had above all to examine the attitude to adopt with regard to its immediate neighbours, friends or ex-enemies. The question of the attachment of Poland and Greece to the grouping of Prague-Bucharest-Belgrade will doubtless arise. Already an ally of Romania, Poland, which also had a political agreement, without a military convention, with Czecho-Slovakia was separated from the latter only by the unfortunate affair of Jaworzyna, a territory of four hundred inhabitants disputed by the two states. As for Greece, the conclusion of the peace of Lausanne and the Greek-Yugoslavian agreement relating to the free zone of Salonica could facilitate the renewal of the old alliance of Athens and Belgrade of 1913. The Polish and Greeks would blend into the Petite-Entente to form an imposing bloc. On the side of the ex-enemies, the advisability of the loan granted to Hungary, following the decision of the reparations commission, will be better examined than that of the Austrian loan granted to Czecho-Slovakia. alone was interested. The discussion will be all the tighter since, last June, in the Belgrade Parliament, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister reproached Hungary for not carrying out the Treaty of Trianon. Finally, the recognition of the new Bulgarian government, to which Yugoslavia consented on July 9, will not prevent the Little Entente from studying the situation in Bulgaria.

Thus, when the Sinaia conference opened, the Little Entente gave the impression of a political, economic and military force, a force oriented towards the maintenance of peace, the transformation of the Prague-Belgrade-Bucharest triangle into a quadrilateral encompassing the two summits of Warsaw and Athens, would further lighten, in Central and Eastern Europe, a task made difficult for the Western allies the problems of the Ruhr and reparations.

Pierre BRUNEAU