to enter into close relations with the members of the Little Entente'. Towards the close of the year 1923 the French Government offered credits for the purchase in France of munitions and other military equipment to Jugoslavia and Rumania as well as Poland; and it was evidently hoped that the treaty signed with Czechoslovakia on the 25th January, 1924, would be followed by the signature of treaties on the same model with her two partners. Even the rebuff to this project which France received in January at the hands of Rumania did not deter her from carrying forward the ratification of the Bessarabian Treaty of the 28th October, 1920, on the eve of the Russo-Rumanian negotiations, or from completing it immediately after the Vienna Conference had broken down.1 As for the new South-East European policy of Italy, it was expounded as follows by Signor Mussolini in a statement which he made to his Cabinet on the 21st February, 1924, at a meeting in which the Fiume Agreement and the Italo-Jugoslav Pact were approved :

The reasons for the political agreement do not need to be laboured. For too long the Fiume Question has been a kind of portcullis impeding a vision of, and direct and immediate contacts with, the immense Danubian world. Now Italy can only move in an easterly direction, the fact being that on the west there are national states which have taken definitive form and to which we can send nothing except our labour though even our export of that may be prohibited or restricted any day. Therefore the lines for the pacific expansion of Italy lie towards the east; but, in order to arrive there, it has been necessary to begin by establishing relations of cordial and sincere neighbourliness with the first country that presents itself as soon as we pass beyond our own frontiers. In the quarters responsible for the policy of Jugoslavia, the true character of Italian policy has been realized and not only goodwill, but a loyalty that is above suspicion, have been shown in the contribution made on that side towards bringing the agreement about.2

These new developments in the policy of Italy and France on the

that, having come to a [previous] understanding with our neighbours, we should simply be setting the seal upon our policy of peace and reconstruction in concluding an agreement with a Great Power like France, and should not thereby be threatening or exercising pressure upon other states-to ensure, in a word, that this agreement should be an act of peace and consolidation and not of political pressure.

M. Beneš then referred to the criticisms of the Franco-Czech Treaty in British quarters, and added that it would be logical to negotiate with Great Britain likewise' but he justly pointed out that, : as an insular country, England does not feel the need for such treaties and has little interest in concluding them with other states. On the contrary, her traditional policy has always been to decline rigid commitments on the Continent, especially in Central Europe.' 1 See p. 265 above.

2 Quoted from G. Benedetti: La Pace di Fiume, pp. 137-8.

one side, and Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania on the other, took effect in the conclusion of three important international agreements: the Italo-Jugoslav Pact of the 27th January, 1924; the Franco-Czech Treaty of the 25th January; and the Italo-Czech Pact of the 5th July. It may be noted that (as has been mentioned already) no Franco-Jugoslav or Franco-Rumanian agreement was concluded this year, and that a Czecho-Polish agreement was not concluded until 1925.1

In general it may be said that, in 1924, the relations of the several members of the 'Little Entente' with France and Italy were more important than their relations with one another; but this did not mean that the principles which had inspired the 'Little Entente were being abandoned. The three agreements of 1924, though either France or Italy was a party to each of them, were modelled on the agreements which the Little Entente' states had previously made with one another, except that the new instruments imposed no military obligations. Moreover, the Little Entente ' states showed as strong a determination as ever to keep a free hand and not to let themselves fall under any Great Power's hegemony. Thus, though their local problems were growing less acute and the range of their interests was extending, the Little Entente' statesmen did not alter the bases of their policy and showed themselves inclined, not to liquidate their partnership, but rather, if possible, to extend it from South-Eastern Europe over the entire Continent. In a general European entente, the divergence of interest between Rumania and her two existing partners might be resolved; and this seems to have been the ideal in M. Beneš's mind when, at the Fifth Session of the Assembly of the League of Nations, he threw himself into the task of constructing the Geneva Protocol.2

It remains to trace in greater detail the history of the developments indicated above.

The proposal put forward by M. Poincaré's Government that 400,000,000 francs should be advanced to Poland, 300,000,000 to Jugoslavia, and 100,000,000 to Rumania 3 for the purchase in France of munitions and other military equipment aroused considerable opposition among the parties of the Left in France itself, and was

1 This will be dealt with in the Survey for 1925.

2 See I. A. (v) above.

3 In February 1924 M. Beneš stated to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Czechoslovak Parliament, in answer to a question put by a German member, that Czechoslovakia had never asked France for armaments credits and that France had never offered them to her. (Le Temps, 10th February,

also resented by British public opinion, on the ground that France was not justified in lending large sums (especially for an object which, in the British view, would not promote the pacification of Europe) unless and until she had made arrangements for meeting her own debts to her Allies. When the proposed credits had actually been voted on the 17th December, 1923, by the French Senate,1 the British Government presented a note to the Polish, Jugoslav, and Rumanian representatives in London, inquiring whether these new French credits or the war debts previously owing to Great Britain were to have priority over the revenues upon which both obligations were secured.2 The British note was discussed at the Little Entente Conference which was held at Belgrade on the 10th-12th January, 1924,3 and MM. Ninčić (Jugoslavia) and Duca (Rumania) were reported to have agreed in taking the view that the two debts were on a par and that the question of repayment was interdependent with the settlement of the Reparation Problem. Eventually, the French offer was refused by Rumania on the 22nd January 5 and accepted by the Jugoslav Parliament on the 28th January by 112 votes to 72.6 It was also accepted by the Polish Government.7 The question of priority was raised once more in Mr. MacDonald's letter of the 21st February to M. Poincaré, but M. Poincaré turned it aside in a bland phrase of doubtful significance.

9

8

The Franco-Czech Treaty took shape in an exchange of views between the French Government and MM. Masaryk and Beneš during the visit of the two Czech statesmen to Paris and London in October 1923; and although it was not signed until the 25th January, 1924, and the ratifications were not exchanged until the 4th March, the terms, if not the text, seem to have been already fixed before the opening of the Little Entente Conference at

1 The Senate on this occasion voted the credits to Poland and Jugoslavia but not that to Rumania. The credits to all three countries had previously been voted by the Chamber, that to Poland on the 15th February, 1923, that to Rumania on the 29th May, and that to Jugoslavia on the 12th July. 2 The Times, 8th January, 1924.

3 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 11th January, 1924.

4 The Times, 14th January, 1924.

5 The Rumanian Government appears to have been piqued at the greater alacrity which, in its opinion, was shown by the French Government in sanctioning the credits to Jugoslavia and Poland.

The Times, 30th January, 1924.

At the end of April 1925 the Polish Government, in view of the financial position of France, renounced the balance of the credit then outstanding, which amounted to 100,000,000 francs.

8 For the MacDonald-Poincaré correspondence see p. 360 above.

9 See The Manchester Guardian, 19th December, 1923.

Belgrade on the 10th January. It will be seen from the text, which is reprinted in the Appendix, that this instrument conformed to the type of the 'Little Entente' treaties (e. g. the Czecho-Jugoslav Convention of the 14th August, 1920) 2 in its objects but not in its obligations. The intention of the signatories was stated in the preamble to be ' to ensure respect for the international juridical and political order established by the treaties which they had signed in common', just as, in the preamble to the Czecho-Jugoslav Convention, the main purpose of the instrument was declared to be the maintenance of the Treaty of Trianon. On the other hand, while Articles 2 and 3 of the Czecho-Jugoslav Convention, and the corresponding articles in the complementary Little Entente' Agreements, bound the parties to give one another military assistance on the basis of military conventions in the event of an unprovoked attack upon any of them by Hungary, Articles 1 and 2 of the Franco-Czech Treaty merely bound the parties to consult one another on questions of foreign policy involving a danger to their security or to the treaties signed in common, and to come to an agreement as to the measures to be taken to safeguard their common interests in the event of their being menaced. They were also 'to consult one another on the measures to be taken' in case of attempts to bring about the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich (Art. 3) or to restore the Hapsburg Dynasty in Hungary (Art. 4) or to restore the Hohenzollern Dynasty in Germany (Art. 5). They likewise bound themselves (on the Little Entente' model) to consult one another before concluding further agreements [with third parties] and to communicate to one another their existing commitments affecting their policy in Central Europe (Art. 7). A new departure was that, in accordance with the principle set forth in the Covenant of the League of Nations,' disputes between the two contracting parties themselves which could not be settled by friendly agreement and by diplomatic means were to be submitted either to the Permanent Court of International Justice or to arbitrators.

Owing largely to the juncture at which it was concluded, this Franco-Czech Treaty aroused misgivings in Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and Italy; and its terms had no sooner been announced (which was done some weeks before the text was signed and published) than their apparent inoffensiveness gave rise to the rumour that there were secret military clauses. As early as the

1 Le Temps, 8th January, 1924, quoting the semi-official Prager Presse. 2 See Survey, 1920-3, p. 287, and, for the text, pp. 505-6.

1st January, 1924, the Czechoslovak Minister in London, M. Mastny, found it advisable to declare authoritatively in advance, in a letter to The Times,1 that the treaty would be found not to contain any features equivalent to a military alliance'. On the 18th March the Berliner Tageblatt published the text of an alleged secret agreement between France and Czechoslovakia containing a number of military provisions as well as a pledge to intervene if either party, or Poland, found itself at war with Germany.2 Categorical démentis were issued by the Czechoslovak Legation in Berlin on the 18th March and by the Quai d'Orsay on the 19th,3 to which the Berliner Tageblatt retorted on the 21st by publishing the alleged text of another Franco-Czech secret treaty purporting to have been concluded on the 28th October, 1918, and providing that, for a period of ten years, the Czechoslovak army should be under the absolute control of the French General Staff.4

Meanwhile, the Polish Press had commented unfavourably upon the fact that the Franco-Czech Treaty only referred to treaties signed in common by France and Czechoslovakia (that is, to the three Peace Treaties between the Allied Powers and Germany, Austria, and Hungary respectively) and that it passed over in silence the other allies of France, such as Poland, and the other Peace Treaties, such as the Russo-Polish Treaty of Riga.5

On the eve of the Belgrade Conference of the 10th-12th January, 1924, it was rumoured that M. Beneš intended to advocate the conclusion of Franco-Jugoslav and Franco-Rumanian treaties on the Franco-Czech model. But the new departure in Czechoslovak policy does not seem to have commended itself to Czechoslovakia's allies, and before the conference met it had become clear that they did not intend to follow her lead. Officially, at any rate, the question did not even appear on the agenda.8

1 Published on the 2nd January, 1924.

2 The German text purporting to be a translation of this alleged secret Franco-Czech agreement, together with four other related documents (one of them a secret Czecho-Jugoslav Protocol purporting to have been signed by MM. Beneš and Ninčić during the Belgrade Conference of the 10th-12th January, 1924), was reprinted from the Berliner Tageblatt in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of the 20th March, 1924.

3 The Times, 19th and 20th March, 1924.

4 The Corriere della Sera, 21st March, 1924.

5 Le Temps, 5th January, 1924. See also the message published in The Times of the 4th January from its Berlin correspondent.

The Times, 7th January, 1924.

Ibid., 7th, 10th, and 12th January; the Corriere della Sera, 9th January, 1924.

8 See The Times, 12th January, 1924.