Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/146



pense of Czecbo-Slovakia and Roumania. A third agreement provided for the sending of a Hun- garian army against Soviet Russia under French command. These agreements were undoubtedly accepted by many people as fully concluded. The Magyar Premier in open session of the national assembly boasted of having achieved an alliance with France; the same understanding was also accepted by certain Paris newspapers. The French Government, however, did not sanction what secret negotiators had prepared in Hungary and disavowed the agreements, with the exception of the lease of the Hungarian railways. This il- lustrates how in times of unsettlement and sharp national rivalry, representatives on the spot or agents of powerful interests in close touch with the home government may by secret means try to bring about arrangements which the conscience of their nation does not approve and which serve merely to generate suspicion and distrust.

There is reason to believe that the draft of a secret treaty between France and Yugo-Slavia which was published in 1920 by the Idea Na&ionale was at the time actually being considered by the two governments concerned. One of the points of the proposed treaty was that upon the declara- tion of war between France and any Mediterra-