Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/147



nean power, Yugo-Slavic troops would be massed along the hostile boundary according to previ- ously determined plans. In connection with this provision the representatives of France made the following suggestion: "In case of a conflict it would be better that the Yugo-Slavic troops, in- stead of massing on the hostile frontier, should rather provoke a 'Casus Belli' on the part of the nation at war with France. Otherwise their in- tervention might bring on the interference of other powers." The proposed arrangements, even though not adopted by the two governments, nevertheless illustrate the methods acceptable to secret diplomacy, but which open public opinion would never sanction.

Whatever we may think about the exact share of the blame for having brought on the great catastrophe which should be attributed to secret methods and policies, we cannot have any doubts about their influence since the armistice. Whether or not secret diplomacy brought on the war, it certainly has not ended it. War still exists, not only when actual hostilities are going on, but in the whole temper of international affairs con- tinuing enmity, continuing armaments, 'Unending' waste of human effort. Thus, for one thing, the entire Near Eastern situation remains unsettled.