LITTLE ENTENTE. The Little Entente is a political or ganization, created after the World War, which binds together three Central European States, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania, for purposes of their common interest.
Those nations had in the past been throttled by the Germanizing, Magyarizing system of the old Austria-Hungary; one of the objects of the Little En tente is to defend the freedom they won after the war against all attempts to restore the former regime. The Little Entente had its roots in a series of political acts and declarations dating back to the days of the old monarchy. In the Austrian half of the Habsburg empire the representatives of the small nations in the parliament at Vienna joined in opposition to the centralizing sys tem which opposed the non-German peoples. In the Hungarian half the oppressed Slovaks, Serbs, Croats and Rumanians met in 1848 and made a protest against Magyar imperialism; they did so again in 1895 at Budapest ; and in 19o5 ten non-Magyar depu ties of the Budapest parliament formed a club for a like purpose.
During the World War, when the Austro-Hungarian peoples revolted and helped the Western Entente to break the system of militarist imperialism, a common aim again produced common ac tion. In April 1918 a congress of the oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples was held at Rome, and in the autumn of that year the Central European Democratic Union was formed in America. A year earlier a great n?eeting of representatives of the Austro Hungarian nations had taken place at Kiev in Russia and had established a special committee to fight against German and Austro-Hungarian imperialism. A prominent place was taken in all these actions by the Czechoslovaks, Yugoslays and Rumanians, supported by Poles, by the Italians of "Italia irridenta" and fi nally by Ukrainians. The co-operation of the first three nations was particularly close, and toward the end of the war they under took diplomatic action in common. The Little Entente was formed soon after the Peace treaties had been signed, when attempts be gan to be made by various elements of the pre-war regime to bring about a restoration of the Habsburg dynasty.
The Czechoslovaks, Yugoslays and Rumanians knew that a return of the Habsburgs would mean the restoration of the German-Magyar absolutism and the destruction of the freedom won by the political revolu tion of 1918. The Habsburg intrigues were chiefly engineered in Hungary, where the new regime in Central Europe was last to be recognized and where intense propaganda was conducted for the recapture of the Slovak, Serbo-Croat and Rumanian territory. The Habsburg menace led to corresponding defensive measures on the part of the threatened States. The Czechoslovak foreign min
ister travelled on Aug. 13, 1920, to Belgrade, where, on the follow ing day, a defence treaty, of which the broad outlines had already been negotiated, was concluded between the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Czechoslovak republic, binding both States, in case of an unprovoked attack by Hungary on either of them, to provide mutual aid the one to the other, and to refrain from making any alliance with a third Power without the consent of both. At Bucharest, whither the Czechoslovak foreign minister proceeded from Belgrade, the basis was negotiated on Aug. 19 for an analogous entente.
On Sept. 19, 192o, Rumania informed both those States that she recognized a similar obligation, though she concluded special treaties to that effect with Czechoslovakia on April 23, 1921, and with Yugoslavia on June 7 of that year. The opportuneness of that defensive alliance was proved in April and in Oct. 1921, when two attempts were made to restore the Habsburgs. Those at tempts failed only because they met with the combined armed resistance of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania.
The three States forming the Little Entente were aware from the beginning that mere defence measures would not suffice for the maintenance of the new regime if the States concerned were themselves lacking in creative forces, or failed to attain the greatest possible degree of political and economic solidarity and an atmosphere of mutual trust and fruitful co-operation throughout the whole area of Cen tral Europe. The ultimate and wider aim of the Little Entente is therefore to educate Central Europe as to the advantages of universal peace and European consolidation. The progress made in the realization of this policy is best seen in the political and economic spheres. The main political object was to persuade all the Central European States to work in peaceful co-operation with the new States, and much success was soon achieved. Start ing from the Treaty of Rapallo between Yugoslavia and Italy and the agreements worked out on the occasion of the visit of the Czechoslovak foreign minister to Rome in Jan. 1921, that policy bore fruit in the Czechoslovak-Austrian agreement of Dec. 16, 1921, which bound both States to abandon hostile propaganda and to settle all disputes by peaceful arbitration. The same princi ples were the basis of the Czechoslovak-Polish treaty of Nov. 6, 1921, which, although not ratified, created better relations be tween the two States, and, being followed by the Polish-Rumanian political treaty, materially improved the relations of Poland with the Little Entente as a whole.