The Little Entente

At Bled, Jugoslavia, the foreign ministers of Czechoslovakia (Benes), Roumania (Mitilineu) and Jugoslavia (Nintchitch) assembled amid the awful diplomatic secrecy characteristic of all meetings of the Little Entente.* The announced agenda included discussion of: 1) The European situation--presumably reference to the growing ascendancy of Italy/- as the protector of the Little Entente and the coincident ambiguous position of France in that role. Notorious are Mussolini's secret conferences with Jugoslav Premier Nintchitch, his furtherance of a Roumanian loan at Rome, his diplomatic feelers into the Eastern Balkans, notably signalized last week by the bestowal upon Greek Dictator-President Pangalos of the Italian Great Cross. 2) Proposals to abolish inter-Little Entente customs control. 3) The perennial "Hungarian question" (i.e., Hungarians are perpetually talking about monarchy and hatching means to burst the encirclement of Hungary on three sides by the Little Entente). As the three Premiers sat down to deliberate these issues a telegram was handed to Czechoslovak Benes. It contained an order from the chiefs of his party (Czech National Socialist) that he assist it in an attack upon certain grain tariff laws dear to the Czechoslovak Cabinet by resigning his Foreign Ministry forthwith. The Little Entente Conference broke up ere it began, as its dominant figure (Benes) hastened to Prague.

* Established (1920) at Belgrade upon the instance of Benes (See CZECHOSLOVAKIA) by the signing of a Convention between these nations based upon existing treaties and providing for mutual defense and especially against an attack by Hungary on one of the member states.

/-Notorious are Mussolini's secret conferences with Jugoslav Premier Nintchitch, his furtherance of a Roumanian loan at Rome, his diplomatic feelers into the Eastern Balkans, notably signalized last week by the bestowal upon Greek Dictator-President Pangalos of the Italian Great Cross.