Book dossier

Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe

by Dragan Bakic

"An exploration of British foreign policy towards interwar Danubian Europe."-- "The British Foreign Office's attitude towards the alliance known as the Little Entente, comprised of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, is the primary focus of this study, though its attitude towards Hungary and Austria is also explored to a lesser extent. Danubian Europe presented constant and serious security risks for European peace and stability and, for that reason, contrary to conventional wisdom, it commanded the attention of British diplomacy with a view to appeasing local conflicts. Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe examines the manner in which the Foreign Office perceived and treated the antagonism between the Little Entente and Hungary, on the one hand, and the impact that the former had in connection with Franco-Italian rivalry in Central/South-Eastern Europe, on the other. With Hitler's accession to power the Little Entente was viewed in Whitehall in relation to its place in the prospective policy for preserving Austrian independence and containing German aggression in the region. Dragan Bakic argues that the British approach to security problems in Danubian Europe had certain permanent features which stemmed from the general British outlook on the new successor states--the members of the Little Entente--founded on the ruins of the Habsburg monarchy. This book shows that it was the lack of confidence in their stability and permanence, as well as the misperceptions about the motives and intentions of the policies pursued by other powers towards Central/South-Eastern Europe, which accounted for the apparent sluggishness and ineffectiveness of the Foreign Office's dealings with security challenges. Based on extensive, original archival research, this is a fascinating volume for any historian keen to know more about the 20th-century history of East-Central Europe or British foreign policy in the interwar years"--