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BRITAIN AND THE WORLD

Britain and
Danubian Europe in the
Era of World War II,
1933–1941
Andras Becker
 Britain and the World

Series Editors
Martin Farr, School of History, Newcastle University,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Michelle D. Brock, Department of History, Washington
and Lee University, Lexington, VA, USA
Eric G. E. Zuelow, Department of History, University
of New England, Biddeford, ME, USA
Britain and the World is a series of books on ‘British world’ history. The
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 Andras Becker

Britain and Danubian

Europe in the Era
of World War II,
1933–1941
Foreword by R. J. W. Evans
Andras Becker
Department of Central Eurasian Studies
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN, USA

Britain and the World

ISBN 978-3-030-67509-7 ISBN 978-3-030-67510-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67510-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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I dedicate this work to the memory of my father, whose passion for history I
inherited, and to the memory of my grandfather, whose stories and
anecdotes of this era grabbed my attention as a child.
 Foreword

Most people know that two crucial stages in Britain’s descent into war
with Nazi Germany were foreign-policy decisions relating to east-central
Europe: the Munich agreement of 30 September 1938, and the guar-
antee to Poland issued exactly six months later. Both proved to be disas-
trous miscalculations: the one assuming after years of tergiversation that
Hitler’s aggressiveness could be bought off definitively by cession to him
of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland; the other imagining in spring 1939 that
an ill-prepared and isolated Poland could be defended militarily against
Nazi Blitzkrieg.
Those decisions reflected the opinions and calculations of Foreign
Office staff and Britain’s diplomatic corps relating to the region treated
in this book. Just twenty years earlier, Danubian Europe had been recon-
structed on lines and according to principles laid down by the United
Kingdom and the other victor powers. At the time of the Paris peace
settlement there had been a clear appreciation that maintenance of the
new order in the region required constant vigilance. That task was
massively exacerbated by the Nazi assumption of power in Germany early
in 1933, Becker’s point of departure.
As he shows, British officials were well schooled, professional and dili-
gent in reporting on the area—they generated rich sources which are
effectively mined here. However, they often seemed out of their depth
and lacking in options. They favoured confederal solutions most of all, or
at least multilateral alliances secured by international agreement, but these

vii
viii FOREWORD

never had sufficient traction. Instead they found the vulnerable polities of
the new Danubian Europe embroiled in interstate disputes and endless
quarrels about frontiers. British observers failed to plumb the depths of
the mutual animosities involved. They failed to recognise the destruc-
tive power of the ethnic nationalism, with increasingly racist undertones,
which was so corrosive of most cross-border neighbourliness—not least
because they tended to be blind to its role in fashioning their own English
attitudes too.
This book is a study of the contemporary mind of the Foreign Office
in a comparatively pure form. It was little affected by the views of a largely
disinterested wider public, or even of academic experts who had carried
weight during World War I and its aftermath. Thus Robert William Seton-
Watson, the most prominent friend of the central-European Slavs, fell into
eclipse, to be followed by his younger rival, Carlile Aylmer Macartney,
who had counted as a sagacious Magyarophile. Yet Becker identifies
among his officials historical stereotypes and traditional ways of thinking,
largely unspoken assumptions about the area and its denizens. On the
whole London’s political expectations of the new or reconstituted states
in the eastern half of Europe were not matched by any real engagement
with their current cultures and values.
At the heart of this account lies a fresh analysis, based on comprehen-
sive research, of Hungarian revisionism, the most unremitting internal
threat to the security of the Danubian region. There were some in British
government and public life who thought the post-war dismemberment of
Hungary by the treaty of Trianon had been unfair. Yet, as Becker shows,
almost everyone was alienated by the strident, obsessive and intransigent
nature of the Magyar campaign, which appeared to aim, whether explicitly
or not, at a restoration of the whole territory of the former kingdom.
In relation to Hungary, as well as to the region as a whole, British
policy finally unravelled from that crucial juncture in late 1938 and early
1939 onwards. There is one key piece of testimony to this which even
Becker’s forensic skills can’t fully explain. In the months after Munich
London forwent any further say in frontier rectifications in the region,
although it had formed a key part of the strategy of appeasement precisely
to maintain such influence. Thus Hungary, mainly through the two
Vienna awards, was fed with crumbs from the Axis feast, and the rest
of the area fell into ever greater dependency on Germany, from complete
subjugation through client status to nervous and unequal alliances.
 FOREWORD ix

Becker leaves off his story in 1941. By then Britain no longer seemed
to have anything to offer, whether political or economic. The terms were
set for the future. In general, appeasement of the Soviet Union replaced
appeasement of Germany, as it had already begun to do even before the
Nazi invasion, while Stalin and Hitler still held to their formal pact. The
Balkans and the Mediterranean took over as theatres for direct British
involvement. In particular, when that year Hungary finally threw in her
lot with the Nazis—having already granted droit de passage to German
troops moving east—she lost the remnants of sympathy in London. Subse-
quent feelers for reconciliation, though some historians have made much
of them, never had a chance. Britain now quickly committed to undoing
both Munich and the Vienna awards.
However, the biggest loser, in power-political terms, would be the
United Kingdom herself. Becker documents how British influence slipped
away, in an area which is especially revealing for having lain more and
more on the margin of her strategic commitments. Ultimately the burdens
of her empire frame this narrative, which shows how Britain’s imperial
overstretch was a cause as well as a consequence of World War II.

Oxford, UK R. J. W. Evans
 Acknowledgements

Without the support of numerous friends and colleagues this study would
not have been completed. First and foremost, I would like to express
my gratitude to Prof. Mark Cornwall Professor of Modern European
History at the University of Southampton for his continuous support,
advice and guidance throughout not only my Ph.D. candidature, but also
during the creation of this book. His patience and knowledge guided
me through difficult times. My sincere thanks also go to Prof. László
Borhi, my mentor during my years as a Visiting Research Scholar at
the Hungarian Studies Program of the Department of Central Eurasian
Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington for offering his expert advice
on important Hungarian aspects of this research. Without the stimulating
conversations on all matters Hungarian I would not have gained those
insights, which are necessary for the understanding of Hungary’s complex
and turbulent past. I am also grateful to Prof. Jamsheed Choksy, the
chair at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University,
Bloomington for his encouragement in this academic endeavour.
An enormous debt is owed to the diligent and very knowledgable
archivists, librarians and staff members in the UK, Hungary and the
United States whose help, advise and guidance helped me throughout
this process and saved me numerous working hours. For my wife, Anikó
I reserve my most profound gratitude for her understanding during the
frequent and lengthy periods of self-imposed isolation this book required.

xi
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe, 1933–1938 19
2.1 Locarno, the Great Depression and the British Strategy
of European Concert of Powers 19
2.2 The Impact of the Rise of the Nazis to Power on British
Danubian Strategy 30
2.3 Hungary Raises the Problem of Frontier Revision
Internationally 36
2.4 The Collapse of Great Power Concert in Europe,
1935–March 1936 41
2.5 ‘We Cannot, Disinterest Ourselves in the Course
of Events’, the Rhineland Crisis and Its Effects
on British Strategy 47
3 The Czechoslovak Crisis and British Danubian
Strategy, 1938–1939 67
3.1 The Impact of the Anschluss on British Danubian
Strategy 70
3.2 Active Appeasement and the Problem of Danubian
Europe 77
3.3 The Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian Angles
of the Munich Agreement 82
3.4 The British Reaction to the First Vienna Award 89

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

3.5 From the Policy of Appeasement to the Strategy

of Confrontation 95
3.6 Hungary Occupies Ruthenia; The British Guarantee
of Poland and Romania 101
4 Illusions and Disappointments: Britain and Danubian
Europe in the ‘Phoney War’ 125
4.1 The Balkan Peace Front Before the War: Neutrality
or the Encirclement of Germany? 128
4.2 Hungary and the Peace Front: Victim or a German
Trojan Horse? 136
4.3 Hungary, Bulgaria and the Neutral Bloc
in the ‘Phoney War’ 170
5 Contemplating Alternatives: Britain and Danubian
Europe Between War and Peace, March 1940–April
1941 201
5.1 Hungary Grants Military Passage to Germany 204
5.2 The Impact of the Hungarian droit de passage
on British Strategy 208
5.3 Shifts in British Danubian and Balkan Strategy After
the Fall of France, and the Problem of Transylvania 212
5.4 British Reaction to the Second Vienna Award 221
5.5 The Origins of British Post-war Planning 223
5.6 British Strategy in the Balkans in Late 1940,
and the Hungarian-Yugoslav Relationship 227
5.7 Germany and Hungary Turns Their Attention
Southwards 229

Conclusion 251
Select Bibliography 255
Index 269
 Abbreviations

BEF British Expeditionary Forces

CAB British Cabinet Papers
COS Chiefs of Staff
FO Foreign Office
FPC Foreign Policy Committee
FRPS Foreign Research and Press Service
JPC Joint Planning Committee
MI3 The British Military Intelligence
MI5 The United Kingdom’s Domestic Counter-Intelligence and Security
Agency
MI6 The British agency which supplies the British Government with foreign
intelligence
PID Political Intelligence Department
PWE Political Warfare Executive
RAF Royal Air Force
RIIA Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)
SOE Special Operations Executive
TNA The National Archives

xv
 List of Maps

Map 1 The Dissolution of Austria-Hungary, 1919–1920 xviii

Map 2 The territorial changes of Hungary between 1920 and 1941 xix
Map 3 The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia, 1938–1939 xix
Map 4 The territorial changes of Romania, 1940 xx
Map 5 Foreign Office sketch-map of anticipated Hungarian
claims in Romania (Jan. 1940) (TNA, FO 371/24985, R
1892/246/37) xxi
Map 6 Transylvanian corridor plans xxii
Map 7 The Second Vienna Award, 30 Aug. 1940 xxiii
Map 8 Bulgaria between 1919 and 1940 xxiv

xvii
xviii LIST OF MAPS

Map 1 The Dissolution of Austria-Hungary, 1919–1920

 LIST OF MAPS xix

Map 2 The territorial changes of Hungary between 1920 and 1941

Map 3 The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia, 1938–1939

xx LIST OF MAPS

Map 4 The territorial changes of Romania, 1940

 LIST OF MAPS xxi

Map 5 Foreign Office sketch-map of anticipated Hungarian claims in Romania

(Jan. 1940) (TNA, FO 371/24985, R 1892/246/37)
xxii LIST OF MAPS

Map 6 Transylvanian corridor plans

 LIST OF MAPS xxiii

Map 7 The Second Vienna Award, 30 Aug. 1940

xxiv LIST OF MAPS

Map 8 Bulgaria between 1919 and 1940

 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Hungary is just a bit too far from the sea to have received very much
attention from us.1

British strategy in Danubian Europe in the era of World War II remains

an under-researched topic, despite the region’s importance in Britain’s
anti-German calculations from 1936. Other countries in East Central and
South-East Europe such as Poland and Yugoslavia have appeared regu-
larly in the English language historiography (due to their heroic resistance
against the Nazis), but British policy in Danubian Europe (i.e. Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria) still remains neglected.2 This is
particularly the case after the failure of appeasement, when the treatment
of these countries has either been limited to inquires into their bilateral
relations with London, or were reduced to the role of passive objects of
British attention as German satellites. This enduring oversight has delayed
the need to analyse British strategy regionally, which, in reality, was the
approach British officials in Whitehall had taken when the implications
of Hungarian, Czechoslovak, Romanian or Bulgarian actions in the war
were assessed.
A few works have touched upon this geographically broader perspec-
tive, but research was either restricted to the pre-war era, or addressed
only a sub-region. For example, Gábor Bátonyi, in his seminal work of
Britain and Central Europe, 1919–33 has reviewed British policy towards

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
A. Becker, Britain and Danubian Europe in the Era
of World War II, 1933–1941, Britain and the World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67510-3_1
2 A. BECKER

Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and Miklós Lojkó has carried out
innovative research in the field of British financial policy in Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Hungary during the same period.3 Crucially, the
works that have directly addressed the significance of a broader regional
perspective proved the usefulness of this angle in offering a more accurate
representation of British interests and priorities. The first serious discus-
sion of the topic emerged recently from Dragan Bakić, who convincingly
argued that British security challenges in each of these countries were
assessed in London from a broader Danubian framework. Bakić’s work
has also achieved the rare feat of including Hungary in a regional anal-
ysis, and this book picks up the threads in 1936 from this pioneering
work.4
Of course, there is an abundance of works addressing British attitudes
towards individual Danubian countries in the era of World War II. History
writing from this perspective has evolved along three lines: local, subcon-
tinental and international. It began with works on the subcontinental
level in the 1970s debating the role of this region and the Balkans in
British war strategy.5 Then, it saw the eruption of a local phase in the
1990s, after the fall of Communism, which concentrated on the ways
local territorial issues, such as, for example, the Sudeten-German problem,
affected Britain’s strategy towards Germany.6 This second school focused
on London’s bilateral relations with countries in the context of the all-
encompassing problem of German ascendancy, but it failed to explore
a perspective broader than that.7 The late 1990s and early 2000s have
seen more work touching upon aspects of diplomacy, but the regional
dimensions of British strategy have not been adequately explored.8
It is clear from this brief overview of the existing literature that
there is plenty of scope for new and original research. For example,
only few studies have recognised that the plethora of interstate disputes
between Danubian countries very closely tied the international history
of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria together,
which strongly indicates that London’s bilateral relationships with them
cannot be understood in isolation either. Also, far too little attention has
been paid to the impact of British imperial mindsets on local strategy.
Crucially, after the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936
(which shook the foundations of the European balance of power), British
officials, with a keen eye on the security of imperial interests in the vicinity
of Danubian Europe (i.e. communications through the Mediterranean
Sea, and Turkey), have viewed the implications of political and military
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

developments in the region beyond national boundaries. Similar atti-

tudes have, to some extent, also shaped policy before, but the priority to
check Germany expansion ushered in a new era of pragmatism, which, for
example, swept away earlier British distinctions between traditional friends
(i.e. Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia) and foes (i.e. Hungary
and Bulgaria) in the region. This work demonstrates this re-fashioning
of British Danubian strategy within the changed context of German
ascendancy from 1936, and argues, contrary to the viewpoints of the
existing literature that regional security ranked high in British global
priorities. And then later, after the outbreak of war, Danubian Europe
was also looked upon as a suitable target to inflict unexpected damage
to Germany in its own backyard by exploiting regional interstate disputes
and resistance movements, and by tempting German satellites (Hungary,
Romania and Bulgaria) to the Allied cause.
The approach here deals with the three closely related academic fields
of diplomatic, political, and international history. Since frontier and
minority questions were at the crux of international tensions in the region,
and they also formed the core issue of Britain’s relationship with these
countries, it is crucial to submit greater scrutiny to them than histo-
rians hitherto thought necessary. Since 1920, from the British point of
view, Danubian and Balkan territorial and ethnic issues were the source
of international concern. They had become a serious clog in the wheels of
disarmament, collective security and international cooperation, especially
after Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, and they provided ample oppor-
tunities for German and Soviet meddling in the region’s affairs. British
policy-makers were clear in their assessment that particularly the frontier
issues relating to Hungary tied together concerns relating to the security
and integrity of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, since German
temptations for territorial gains in these countries fell on fertile grounds
in Budapest. Previous research has proved that the analysis of the British
reactions to Hungary’s territorial expansion between 1938 and 1940 can,
for example, provide a new angle to the understanding of the Anglo-
Czechoslovak, and the Anglo-Romanian relationship.9 Thus, the deeper
scrutiny of the British perspective on the growing international rigmarole
surrounding the ‘Magyar question’ between 1936 and 1947 can provide
4 A. BECKER

a fresh and useful framework for the understanding of British strategy in

this broad geographical area.
For these reasons, this book focuses on the formulation of official
British policy towards territorial and minority disputes in the region,
specifically the ones relating to Hungary. Since the peace treaty was signed
with that country (Treaty of Trianon, 1920; see Map 1), Hungarian
governments did everything to overturn it. Hungarian revisionism in
the interwar became an overarching national project that aimed to
regain the country’s pre-1920 frontiers.10 The primary objective is to
determine how the dramatic territorial transformation of Hungary and
Central Europe between 1938 and 1941 affected British views. The
First Vienna Award (2 November 1938), which transferred Southern
Slovakia to Hungary, the Hungarian occupation of Ruthenia (March
1939), the Second Vienna Award (30 August 1940), which returned a
large portion of Transylvania to Hungary, and the Hungarian occupation
of northern Yugoslavia (April 1941) (see; Map 2), as well as the terri-
torial mutilations Czechoslovakia and Romania sustained between 1938
and 1940, have substantially increased the territory and population of
Hungary formidably increasing its strength compared to its rivals. In the
period, perceptions towards this radical territorial reorganisation grad-
ually evolved in London, as British power increased or diminished. It
started from cooperation with Germany and Italy in 1938, to contem-
plating the political, economic and territorial reconstruction of Danubian
Europe and the Balkans as a war aim after 1940. The multiplicity and
complexity of territorial issues raised by German expansionism gave way
to serious debates in Whitehall about the ways and methods of effectively
guaranteeing European security for the post-war period.
In order to achieve the specific goals set out here, this book aims
to identify the British criteria in evaluating changes to the frontiers of
this region, and the ways they were measured against increasing concerns
relating to international and imperial security. Closely attached to this,
we find British concerns regarding the most appropriate guiding prin-
ciple to be applied after the war for territorial reconstruction. We address
whether the concept of ‘national self-determination’, the original aim of
the Versailles peace settlement in 1919, was considered by London as
a viable solution for reconstructing the region after World War II, or
whether more forceful approaches, such as creating ethnographic fron-
tiers by population transfers, redrawing frontiers on the basis of economic
viability or historical precedence were contemplated as workable solu-
tions. Such viewpoints have been of little concern in the historiography.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Analysing this array of interrelated perspectives help answering the ques-

tion whether Britain had a collective policy towards the region, or whether
individual countries and issues were viewed on their own merits.
As for the primary sources, this book is based predominantly on British
Foreign Office records, the vast majority of which originates from the
general diplomatic correspondence, as well as from the Private Office
Papers of some of the key decision-makers. Perhaps a first for this kind
of synthesis, this book brings together Foreign Office papers on each
Danubian country in a comparative analysis to provide a more balanced
understanding of British strategic goals. In terms of British official docu-
ments, the most important evidence for understanding how decisions
were made are of course Foreign Office minutes. While historians to a
great extent have recognised this type of distinctive record keeping, their
particular importance for us lies in their uniqueness in accurately reflecting
the perceptions and mindsets of policy-makers towards this region. The
papers of the Cabinet (CAB) and the Prime Minister’s Office (PREM)
have also been used extensively. Despite the fact that they contain less on
Danubian affairs, they were most useful in identifying British continental
and global priorities. More than the well-mined general records of British
foreign policy-making, this book also draws upon the less explored docu-
ments of the War Office (WO), the Ministry of Information (MoI), the
Political Intelligence Department (PID) and the Foreign Research and
Press Service, a scholarly government agency founded with the purpose
to provide informed advice on peace policy.11 Finally, in perhaps a first
for works of this kind, the Hungarian State Archives supplied a signifi-
cant part of the material for the Hungarian aspect, although the loss of
a substantial proportion of diplomatic material relating to Britain in the
siege of Budapest in 1944–1945 has, to some extent, hindered research.
The personal papers of a number of British officials and public figures
supplement these. Here too, the book went beyond the usual pantheon
of personalities and brings to bear upon Danubian Europe new light
from contemporary figures like the historian C. A. Macartney or R. W.
Seton-Watson, whom actively participated in advising the British govern-
ment and conducting propaganda towards the region, and through their
personal influence had significant impact on shaping Hungarian, Roma-
nian and Czechoslovak foreign policy. Moreover, this project is the first
to use the unpublished diaries of György Barcza (Hungarian Minister in
London, 1938–1941). With this also, it aims to look beyond collective
players in international relations and argues for Barcza’s personal influence
6 A. BECKER

in shaping the Anglo-Hungarian relationship. Unlike Barcza’s memoirs

and diplomatic dispatches, his diaries reveal some of Hungary’s (and his)
unknown attempts to find British support against Germany, and thus help
rethinking the pro-German stigma left upon Hungary by the Cold War.12
To provide a background to this complex subject, it is both useful
and necessary to briefly introduce the British approach to the 1919
Versailles peace settlement and the interwar international order. After
the Great War, Britain awaited with expectation the construction of a
stable Europe, one that self-regulates and requires minimal supervision
or intervention. The British government had high aspirations to return
to the traditional strategy of European balance of power that had so
far conveniently served national and imperial interests. Prime Minister
David Lloyd George (1916–1922) envisioned that Britain’s global power
would exercise a restraining and stabilising influence on the status quo and
would guarantee peace in Europe. If this would be guaranteed, Britain
could concentrate on the Empire, and on recovery from the devastating
economic and social affects of the Great War.13
In 1918, in British politics, the enormous toll of victory encouraged
some to speak of isolation and even of complete withdrawal from Euro-
pean affairs, while others argued in support of a purely imperially focused
course, or a strategic ‘Atlantic’ partnership with the Americans. However
attractive some of these options might have seemed, it was impossible
for Britain to completely abandon Europe, as unmanaged continental
discord posed the risk of a repeated world conflict. The problem for Lloyd
George was how to stabilise Europe politically and economically (both
were prerequisites to British recovery), but, at the same time, weaken
and penalise Germany and restrain French expansionism. Working within
these constraints left him with two possible negotiating options at the
Versailles Peace Conference (1919). One required wide-ranging political
and military commitments in Europe coupled with a close alliance with
a strengthened France. The other offered global cooperation with the
Americans, but required British support for President Wilson’s vision of
a new world order, one that policed Europe through international coop-
eration and collective security. Both the Cabinet and the Foreign Office
showed considerable reluctance to offer wide-ranging guarantees, and, by
early 1919, not least due to war weariness and fear of French domination
in Europe, viewpoints grouped decisively around the Atlantic option.14
In 1919, the Versailles peace treaty severely punished Germany and
laid the foundations of a new world order, based on collective security.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Germany’s territory, population, industrial might and military potential

were reduced significantly, and the victors also enforced financial repara-
tions for war damages. This gave France a temporal measure of protection,
which, however, would have required guarantees from its allies to remain
a long-term leverage against German power. However, both the British
and the Americans refused guaranteeing French security on the basis
that the League of Nations would, in the end, secure European and
global peace. But, feeling frustrated about the atmosphere of intrigue
surrounding the peace conference, the Americans withdrew from Euro-
pean politics, and refused ratifying the peace or joining the League. The
Versailles system still could have been enforced, if London and Paris
stood united. However, in 1919, it was already clear that crucial elements
of Versailles were left undecided, and its success largely depended on
whether its terms could be properly executed and enforced.15
The fairest admission of the fundamental flaws of peacemaking came
surprisingly from Clemenceau, who noted apologetically: ‘[In the ‘West’]
we all did what we could to work fast and well’.16 Contrastingly, ‘the
East’ received limited attention, and the peacemakers mainly left it to
their underlings to get on with the unfinished job of dealing with Austria,
Hungary and Bulgaria. Instead of a methodological approach, which
might have produced a more consistent status quo, treaties with these
countries were based on vague and idealistic notions about national self-
determination. In the end, the Habsburg Empire was dissolved and
independent nation states were created. But, in the light of interna-
tional uncertainties, peacemakers were looking for way to consolidate
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, the pillars of Versailles in the
region. To this end, the principle of self-determination was applied at the
expense of the vanquished, and millions of Germans, Magyar and Bulgar-
ians were transferred to foreign rule. Since peace in Danubian Europe
was not founded on agreed and clearly defined international principles, its
enforcement was left to local elites, whom however found it challenging
to deal with the conflicting requirements of their populace, and in the end
(except for a few exceptions) resorted to authoritarian rule. Such develop-
ments left little room for making any amendments to the peace treaties,
which was hardly an encouraging prospect for future stability.17
British thought towards Danubian Europe in the interwar and World
War II can only be considered against this backdrop. It is also neces-
sary to explain the relative importance of this part of Europe in British
global strategy in the interwar, in order to fully grasp the mechanisms of
8 A. BECKER

the formulation of British strategy here. Until now, both in public and
scholarly attention, the region’s relative strategic irrelevance was weighed
against imperial priorities (India, Singapore, or, for example, Egypt),
and placing the Danubian region into this global framework has been
neglected. This book takes a different view and argues that it would be
erroneous to claim that developments away from imperial centres were
beyond the concern of British strategic planning.
After 1919, war-weariness in British politics and society, mounting
war debt, growing national strife in the Empire (i.e. Ireland and India),
and drastic reductions in armament spending have markedly affected
Britain’s international positions. These issues were aggravated by interna-
tional security concerns. The most pressing one of course related to the
endurance of the Versailles peace settlement, which, due to its harsh, hasty
and often irresponsible provisions left no one content. For example, it left
the French-German relationship (burdened by the issues of German repa-
ration payments and disarmament) in a very precarious nature.18 Another
was linked to uncertainties about a new paradigm in international rela-
tions. Cooperation under the auspices of the League of Nations intended
to regulate international relations, diplomacy, trade and economic coop-
eration and aimed for creating mechanisms for collective security and
conflict prevention.19 While the idea of a new international body policing
the status quo in an imperial periphery (such as Danubian Europe) suited
British interests, its effectiveness was hampered by the absence of some
of the Great Powers in its mechanisms. The United States refused to
join the League, and between 1919 and 1939 Germany and the Soviet
Union (two powers with significant influence in Danubian Europe) never
shared membership in the organisation. All of these prevented Europe
from settling down into a period of peace and stability. In Britain, in the
1920s, the peace treaties sparked very mixed emotions, and perceptions
that Germany had been treated unfairly gradually gained ground.20
In these circumstances, British policy concentrated on promoting inter-
national stability in Europe. Policy-makers did not forget that it was a
local conflict that became responsible in 1914 for plunging the world
into a war of global proportions, thus, since the region remained unstable
after 1920, any changes to the status quo were discouraged in order to
preserve the existing balance of power. This also included the need to
prevent any single power from becoming dominant. In British assessment,
the domination of Danubian Europe and the Balkans by any of the Great
Powers posed potential security threats for imperial communications in
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

the Mediterranean Sea towards Egypt, the Middle East and India. Since
Britain was not in the position to militarily challenge such a scenario in
the 1920s and 1930s, the strategic priority was to prevent the escalation
of local disputes into international crisis through political, diplomatic and
economic intervention, whenever they became necessary.21
Although the new status quo managed to resolve (or at least put in
cold storage for the time being) some of the many international issues
affecting European security, Central Europe as a region presented some
obscure and seemingly inextricable issues, which, although at present
dormant, made their existence permanently felt under the surface. Most
of these related to the exceptionally diverse ethic and cultural condi-
tions in the region, which periodically erupted to the surface in the
forms of radical nationalism or separatism. The radical redrawing of the
map of Eastern Europe in 1919–1920 undermined regional cooperation.
Centuries-old geographic, cultural and economic units were ripped apart,
and the foundations of new ones were not created. The multi-ethnic
Habsburg Monarchy disappeared. Austria and Hungary were separated
and significantly reduced in size and potential, Czechoslovakia gained
independence, and large swaths of lands were transferred to Romania,
Yugoslavia, Poland and Italy (see; Map 1). These dramatic changes left the
new states politically and economically divided and strategically weak and
vulnerable. Externally, the new states had conflicting national interests and
had very different cultural characteristics from one another. Domestically,
they suffered under the weight of deep social and economic disparities,
and ethnic antagonisms. States supported by the victors (Czechoslovakia,
Romania and Yugoslavia) became multinational and comprised millions of
discontented minorities of the defeated (Germans, Magyars and Bulgar-
ians). And, what is more, the unprecedented harshness of the peace
treaties on the defeated added a new layer of resentment into international
relations. This plethora of issues made national and regional integration
impossible and injected a degree of inherent instability into regional and
continental inter-state relations.22
Hungary and the ‘Magyar problem’ presented particular difficulties
after the peace treaty was signed with Budapest in 1920 at Trianon.
The ink was barely dry on the document when it was already clear that
Hungary would do everything in its power to overturn it. Indeed, from
the late 1920s, Budapest openly contested Trianon’s economic and mili-
tary restrictions, and, most importantly, its territorial mutilations. From
the British perspective, this intransigent attitude contributed to the failure
10 A. BECKER

to stabilise Central Europe, as, first during the Great Depression, then
in 1938, Hungary set a territorial prize for participating in any regional
cooperation. Never sympathetic to reopening the dormant issues of the
hard-thought peace, British officials refused considering such demands.
For this uncompromising attitude, Hungarians blamed Trianon.23 The
Treaty of Trianon between the Entente and Hungary after the Great War,
regulated the status of Hungary and defined its frontiers.24 While Trianon
wrecked the Hungarian economy by fracturing the country’s centuries-
old economic coherence, it is the demographic and territorial aspects that
later caused the greatest international issues. Before 1920, Hungary was
a multi-ethnic state, with nearly half of the population non-Magyars (18%
Romanian, 11% Slovak, 6% Serb, etc.). Trianon left Hungary with 32%
of its original territory, and 36% of its population.25 Territory allocated
to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia comprised the majority of
the non-Magyar population, but about 3–3.5 million Magyars were also
forced to live outside the newly defined frontiers of Hungary. Ethically
almost purely Magyar districts, comprising about 2 million Magyars, were
situated in a typically 50 km wide strip along the new borders of Hungary,
in foreign territory.26 The new frontiers favoured the strategic interest of
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia with little or no regard to the
ethnic, cultural, geographic or economic characteristics of the region.
Before 1914, the Foreign Office knew very little about the national
question of Austria-Hungary.27 In 1914, Britain did not declare war for
the cause of national self-determination, but to maintain the balance of
power. Since the region was an area of secondary importance, during
the Great War the government gave very little thought to its post-
war settlement. Aims were considered only in the most general terms,
and British policy-makers would have been satisfied by a settlement
conducive to peace and stability.28 However, by the turn of 1917 and
1918, due to serious military difficulties in the war, the Entente could
not afford abstaining from turning the nationalities against Austria-
Hungary.29 Thus, when a separate peace with Austria-Hungary proved
impossible in 1918, Britain and the Entente decided to give maximum
support to the separatism of the nationalities.30
Beyond the strategic benefits minority discontent in Austria-Hungary
provided in the war, the nationality question also gained moral support in
British public discourse. The writings of scholars and journalists (partic-
ularly, R. W. Seton-Watson and Wickham Steed) about the adverse
conditions minorities had to suffer under Habsburg and Magyar rule
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

convinced many about the righteousness of national liberation. In the

jubilant atmosphere of 1919, and influenced by the persistent publicity
campaigns of powerful Czech, Slovak and Yugoslav émigré organisa-
tions, British officials thought they could become the honest brokers
of repressed nationalities in the region.31 In both the Cabinet and the
Foreign Office, there was considerable sympathy for the principle of
national self-determination, and officials argued that in a region that was
in perpetual turmoil, peace and stability would be best secured if based
on this principle.32 After the Great War, everyone in Britain accepted that
such an approach, combined with the expected future influence of the
League, and the minority protection treaties signed by all successor states,
have created a fairer world, and had finally settled Danubian Europe and
the Balkans.
In contrast to this stood Hungarian revisionism, which, from 1928
openly challenged the Danubian status quo with the aim to restore
as much as possible of Greater Hungary. Hungarians called Trianon
into question from historic, ethnographic, economic, moral and legal
perspectives. Hungarian governments in the interwar period contested the
legality and validity of the treaty on the basis that the Hungarian dele-
gation was only invited to sign the peace, hence the treaty constituted
a diktat. Questioning the morality and sincerity of the entire Versailles
settlement was directly connected to this. Budapest claimed that self-
determination was only a bombastic catchphrase, which ignored 3–3.5
million Magyars, and was intentionally applied at the expense of the
defeated. The demographic and minority consequences of Trianon were
however only one side of the Hungarian grievances. Principally, Trianon
was a territorial trauma for Hungarians, and the conceptual foundations
of revisionism related to the notion of the ‘1000 year old kingdom of St.
Stephen’, which was based on the territorial integrity of Hungary, as it
existed—with some interruptions—between 1001 and 1918.33
The Foreign Office considered this state-concept as archaic, and its
reiteration in the interwar period by Hungary as a sign of ill intention
and instability.34 Most crucially, the territorial fixation and inward-
looking nature of Hungarian national mythology, and the concept of the
supremacy of state over national independence alienated British policy-
makers, who interpreted Hungarian revisionism as aiming to restore
Magyar rule over others. Generally speaking, pro-revisionist arguments,
propagated constantly by Hungarians made little impact on the Foreign
Office, and did not enjoy much public popularity either. Even more, they
12 A. BECKER

negatively affected British viewpoints about Hungary, as they were viewed

to be self-interested machinations to undermine the international order.35
In contrast, the enthralling narratives of British travellers to Czechoslo-
vakia, Romania and Yugoslavia described the locals as clear-sighted heroes,
but pictured the Germans and Hungarians as untrustworthy.36 Books
on Czechoslovakia, and That Blue Danube, Roumanian Journey and
particularly Black Lamb and Grey Falcon significantly reinforced British
sympathies towards Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians and Yugoslavs later in the
1930s and 1940s.37 Family ties between the Romanian and British royal
families further strengthened these feelings. For instance, the memoirs
of Marie, the Queen of Romania and cousin of Queen Victoria, enjoyed
great popularity in Britain.38
In terms of the British policy-making process, this book, drawing on
a range of fresh findings from archives, shows that inside their shared
international calculus, the various departments and authorities in White-
hall approached and used the regional frontier and minority questions
with rather different aims in mind. On the one hand, Danubian Europe’s
strategic location between Germany and Soviet-Russia impinged upon the
Cabinet’s anti-German calculations in the region, and influential voices in
the Cabinet (such as Prime Minister Chamberlain, and Foreign Secre-
tary Lord Halifax) hoped that Hungary would place common sense in
front of greed, and would decline German temptations for territorial gains
and join the Allies. On the other hand, Hungary (as well as Bulgaria)
were constant nuisance in the wheels of the collective security visions of
the Foreign Office, which based its strategy in the region on the princi-
ples set out in the Versailles peace treaties. Key officials in the Foreign
Office formed their image of Hungary and Bulgaria through percep-
tions from the Great War era and made direct links between notions
about the German-Austro-Hungarian-Bulgarian alliance in the Great War,
Hungary’s illiberal treatment of its nationalities in the nineteenth century,
and now Hungarian and Bulgarian ambitions to overturn the territorial
status quo. As a result, they distrusted these political elites and aimed to
cooperate with their traditional allies from the Great War in the region,
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. The competing interest groups
operating within both the Cabinet and the Foreign Office meant that
there was, often, no common British approach, contrary to the viewpoint
insisted upon in most existing works.
This meant that on several occasions more than one ‘official mind’
existed in London. While the Foreign Office conducted the day-to-day
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

business of foreign policy towards individual countries on the basis of

rejecting broader territorial changes, the Cabinet intermittently pulled
British policy towards a more conciliatory attitude, which at times
included the consideration of territorial adjustments in favour of Hungary
and Bulgaria. This state of affairs that especially prevailed during in the
period of 1933–1941, when revisionist countries still hesitated to openly
side with Nazi Germany, is not appreciated enough in the current histo-
riography. These sharp contrasts in official British policy have provoked
much debate amongst historians about the true nature and aims of British
intentions. In unveiling these differences in the mechanisms of British
policy-making, this book argues that these viewpoints cannot be sepa-
rated from each other, as they simultaneously informed official policies.
Depending on the international situation, and, particularly, with regard to
current British strategic aims against Germany, one or the other became
more prominent.
The particular timeframe covered (1933–1941) also needs some expla-
nation. It has been chosen, because both starting and ending points mark
defining junctures in British Danubian policy. The rise of the Nazis to
power is taken as a starting point, as it has fundamentally transformed
the strategic situation on the continent. The introduction of German
conscription in 1935, the establishment of German military installations
in the Rhineland a year later, and the fortification of the frontier with
France has removed any earlier strategic advantage France (and Britain)
have enjoyed in Western Europe against potential German aggression.
At the same time, the small states of Danubian Europe became even
more vulnerable to German meddling and aggression, and their hopes
for Western support greatly diminished. 1941, the endpoint, relates to the
end of Britain’s relationship with the Danubian countries, due to the war.
In January and April, London severed diplomatic relations with Romania
and Hungary respectively for providing bases for the Wehrmacht, and in
December war was also declared on them for their continued military
operations against Britain’s ally, the Soviet Union. Within this timeframe,
we are following a chronological approach, as far as possible, but occa-
sional overlaps will be necessary to enable the complete consideration of
the development of long-term British viewpoints on specific issues.
Finally, a note is needed on the terminology applied. Concerning
geographical names, such as the Carpathian Mountains, the English
name will be used, if there is one available. However, we will use the
Hungarian names of cities, counties and regions, with their foreign name
14 A. BECKER

in brackets, if they belonged to Hungary at some point in the period

1918–1941 (e.g. Kassa [Košice]). Although the Hungarian language does
not make a distinction between Hungarians and Magyars, this study,
following the terminology of the English-language historiography, will
refer to Hungarian speakers living outside of the frontiers of Hungary as
Magyars to define them ethnically and will call the population of Hungary
Hungarians.

Notes
1. Stuart Laylock, All the Countries We Have Ever Invaded: And the Few We
Never Got Around to (London: The History Press, 2013), 108.
2. Here, the term Danubian Europe is determined by an outsider (British)
perspective, and interpreted geographically, reflecting contemporary
British views.
3. Gábor Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 1918–1933 (Oxford, 1999);
Miklós Lojkó, Meddling in Middle Europe: Britain and the ‘Lands
Between’, 1919–1925 (Central European University Press: Budapest,
2006).
4. Dragan Bakić, Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe: Foreign Policy and
Security Challenges, 1919–1936 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017).
5. Elizabeth Barker, British Policy Towards South-East Europe in the Second
World War (London: The Macmillan Press, 1976); William Deakin et al.,
British Political and Military Strategy in Central, Eastern and Southern
Europe in 1944 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988), or, more recently
about South East Europe: Christopher Caterwood, The Balkans in World
War II. Britain’s Balkan Dilemma (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
6. The English language historiography of the 1938–1939 Czechoslovak
crises is vast, because of its intimate links with British appeasement. Ques-
tions about Danubian Europe, beyond the fate of the Sudeten-Germans,
were also mostly raised only in this framework; see, for example: David
Gillard, Appeasement in Crisis (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
7. See particularly: Simon Newman, March 1939: The British Guarantee
to Poland: Study in the Continuity of British Foreign Policy (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1976); Anita J. Prazmowska, Britain, Poland and the
Eastern Front, 1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
8. András D. Bán, Hungarian-British Diplomacy 1938–1941, the Attempt
to Maintain Relations (London: Routledge, 2004); Ignác Romsics, “A
brit külpolitika és a „magyar kérdés”, 1914–1946” in Helyünk és sorsunk
a Duna-medencében, ed. Ignác Romsics (Budapest: Osiris, 2005), 34–
132. Vít Smetana is an exception, who has explored some of the broader
implications of the Munich Agreement for Britain: Vít Smetana, In the
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

Shadow of Munich: British Policy Towards Czechoslovakia from the Endorse-

ment to the Renunciation of the Munich Agreement (1938–1942) (Prague:
Karolinum Press, 2008).
9. András Becker, “The Dynamics of British Official Policy Towards
Hungarian Revisionism, 1938–39,” Slavonic and East European Review
93, no. 4 (October 2015): 655–691; András Becker, “British Diplomacy,
Propaganda and War Strategy and the Hungarian-Romanian Dispute over
Transylvania in 1939–40,” Central Europe 14, no. 1 (2016): 1–25.
10. The evolution of Hungarian revisionism from being a local, then regional
British complication in the 1920s and 1930s to becoming an international
crisis by 1938 has been discussed only to a limited extent in the historiog-
raphy, and the ways the problem affected British regional strategy has only
been started to be disentangled recently. For example: Gábor Bátonyi,
“British Foreign Policy and the Problem of Hungarian Revisionism in the
1930s,” in British-Hungarian Relations Since 1848, ed. László Peter and
Martyn Rady (London: University College London, School of Slavonic
and East European Studies, 2005), 205–216; Tibor Frank, “Treaty Revi-
sion and Doublespeak: Hungarian Neutrality, 1939–41,” in European
Neutrals and Non-Belligerents During the Second World War, ed. Neville
Wylie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 150–173. Miklós
Zeidler, Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary, 1920–1945 (Boulder,
CO: East European Monographs, 2008).
11. The PID was a department of the Foreign Office at the outbreak of war.
Its main function was the production of weekly intelligence summaries,
but from 1940 it became very influential in political propaganda towards
Danubian Europe and the Balkans; see particularly: David Garnett, The
Secret History of PWE, 1939–46. The Political Warfare Executive (London:
St Ermin’s, 2002), 7–59.
12. Pál Prizt has publised extensively about Barcza’s memoirs, but the diaries
of Barcza has mostly been unresearched. See particularly: Pál Pritz,
“Barcza György két arca – emlékirata és jelentései tükrében,” in Pártok,
politika, történelem. Tanulmányok Vida István egyetemi tanár 70. születés-
napjára, ed. Pál Pritz (Budapest: MTA-ELTE, 2010), 305–319; A short
preliminary analysis of the diaries were given by András Bán, who trans-
lated and annotated a selection of the diary entries: András D. Bán,
“Naplórészletek, 1938–1944, Barcza György,” 2000 8 (March 1996):
37–54.
13. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed: European International History
1919–1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 29.
14. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 32; Alan Sharp, The Versailles Settle-
ment: Peacemaking in Paris, 1919 (London: Macmillan, 1991), 80. See
also Michael Dockrill and J. Douglas Goold, Peace Without Promise:
16 A. BECKER

Britain and the Peace Conference, 1919–1923 (London: Archon Books,

1981).
15. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 69.
16. Cited in Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers. Six Months That Changed the
World (London: John Murray, 2009), 469.
17. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 69–70.
18. For the problem of war debts and reparation; see, for example: Bruce
Kent, The Spoils of War: The Politics, Economics, and Diplomacy of
Reparations, 1918–1932 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
19. See George W. Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League
of Nations: Strategy, Politics, and International Organization, 1914–1919
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1978).
20. The forerunner of critics was John Maynard Keynes, who argued that the
European economy could not prosper without an effective and integrated
economic system, which the peace treaties were unable to provide.
Keynes’ analysis, which became a bestseller in both Britain and the
United States, had a significant influence on British public opinion and
official policy. The perception that the defeated powers had been treated
unfairly, and that as a consequence the peace treaties needed revision
largely rooted in Keynes’ thesis; J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences
of the Peace (London: Harcourt, 1919), 129–144.
21. See, for example: Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The
Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars
(London: The Ashfield Press, 1989).
22. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 256.
23. The historiography of Trianon is immense, and its analysis is beyond the
scope of this book. For the impact of Trianon upon inter-war Hungary,
see Steven B. Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon upon Hungary and
the Hungarian Mind: The Nature of Interwar Hungarian Irredentism,”
Hungarian Studies Review 10, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 21–42.
24. For the antecedents of Trianon; see Mária Ormos, From Padua to
Trianon, 1918–1920 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1991).
25. Throughout the book, data of the 1910 Hungarian census will be used.
This census has been criticised by many. It classified the population by
mother tongue and religion, which may or may not have corresponded to
the individual’s national identity. David K. Paul, Péter Hanák and László
Katus have stated that the data of the census is reasonably accurate, quoted
by: Paul R. Brass, Ethnic Groups and the State (New York: Barnes &
Noble Books, 1985), 132–133, 156. Others believed that the number of
Magyars was exaggerated: Valerián Bystricky, “Slovakia from the Munich
Conference to the Declaration of Independence,” in Slovakia in History,
ed. Mikulás Teich et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),
157–174 (165).
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

26. Károly Kocsis and Eszter Kocsis-Hódosi, Hungarian Minorities in the

Carpathian Basin (Toronto: Simon Publications, 1995), 13–28.
27. For British policy towards Austria-Hungary before the war; see Roy
Bridge, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary 1906–1914 (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, LSE Monograph, 1972).
28. Mark Cornwall has pointed out that as early as late 1914, the Foreign
Office viewed Hungarian chauvinism as a liability to the stability of the
region. He has argued that this notion became the basis of viewing
Greater Hungary as non-viable in the long run, but pointed out that
the dismemberment of Hungary had not been seriously considered
at this time: Mark Cornwall, “Great Britain and the Splintering of
Greater Hungary, 1914–1918,” in British-Hungarian Relations Since
1848, 103–122.
29. Cornwall, “Great Britain and the Splintering”, 110–111.
30. Kenneth J. Calder, Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914–1918
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 214–215, 218; see also
M. Cornwall, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary. The Battle for Hearts
and Minds (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 218–221.
31. See particularly: Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a
New Europe: R. W. Seton-Watson and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).
32. Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed, 30.
33. The Hungarian state was founded by Stephen (Saint) I (1001-1038) in
1001. The state concept of Stephen I. is a complicated mixture of the
tradition of the establishment of the Hungarian state, Magyar rule in the
Carpathian basin, and Christianity. This concept was mingled with the
notion that throughout history Hungary protected Western civilization
from the ‘barbaric hordes’ of the East and Muslim expansion from the
South.
34. Bátonyi, “British Foreign Policy”, 205.
35. Some of the pro-revisionist British publications included: Lord Rother-
mere, My Campaign for Hungary (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939);
The Hungarian Question in the British Parliament: Speeches, Questions and
Answers Thereto in the House of Lords and the House of Commons from
1919 to 1930 (London: Grant Richards, 1933); Richard Gower, Treaty-
Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers (London: Grayson & Grayson,
1936); Richard Gower, The Hungarian Minorities in the Successor States
(London: Grant Richards, 1937).
36. For example: C. J. C. Street, East of Prague (London: Geoffrey Bles,
1924); C. J. C. Street, Slovakia: Past and Present (London: P. S. King
and Sons, 1928).
37. Andrea Orzoff, Battle for the Castle: The Myth of Czechoslovakia, 1914–
1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 148–149; J. D. E. Evans,
18 A. BECKER

That Blue Danube (London: Denis Archer, 1935); Sacheverell Sitwell,

Roumanian Journey (London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2012); Rebecca West,
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (London: Canongate Books, 2006).
38. Tibor Frank, “Luring the English-Speaking World: Hungarian History
Diverted,” Slavonic and East European Review 69, no. 1 (January 1991):
60–80 (62); see Marie, Queen of Romania, The Story of My Life (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934).
 CHAPTER 2

Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe,

1933–1938

The monster awakened! The conscious action of the individual was

replaced by the crowd’s unconsciousness.1

2.1 Locarno, the Great

Depression and the British Strategy
of European Concert of Powers
In 1925, the Treaty of Locarno normalised the relationship between
the Entente and Germany and secured the post-war territorial settle-
ment. Germany, France and Belgium undertook not to attack each other,
and Germany formally recognised its Western borders, with Britain and
Italy acting as guarantors.2 These security guarantees allowed Britain to
return to the nineteenth century concept of balance of power in its conti-
nental strategy. Officials in London believed that until the four Great
Powers in Europe (Britain, France, Germany and Italy) could settle their
differences through mutually accepted mechanisms, stability and peace
would be guaranteed. The small state region of Central and South-East
Europe was perceived through this general strategy, and the British were
convinced that regional territorial and minority contentions arising from
the imbalances of the Versailles treaties did not threaten peace, as long

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2021
A. Becker, Britain and Danubian Europe in the Era
of World War II, 1933–1941, Britain and the World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67510-3_2
20 A. BECKER

as a ‘concert of Europe’ existed.3 However, beyond this broad calcula-

tion, British policy lacked any coherent or specific aims, and resolving any
outstanding issues was subordinated to matters of broader continental
concern, e.g. to problems relating to war reparation payments and to the
question of general disarmament. Nevertheless, policy-makers as well as
the British public widely accepted that the liberation of the nationalities
of Austria-Hungary and the Russian and Ottoman Empires as well as the
creation of a New Europe based on the principle of national indepen-
dence and development would contribute, at least in the long term, to
European stability.
But, in Britain, many believed that there had been a miscarriage of
justice in the outcome of the Versailles settlement. A forerunner of critics,
influential British economist and financial representative for the Trea-
sury to the Paris Peace Conference John Maynard Keynes argued that
the European economy (and the impoverished small states of Danubian
Europe) could not prosper without an effective and integrated interna-
tional economic system, something the peace treaties failed to provide.4
Keynes’ analysis enjoyed widespread popularity both in Britain and the
United States, and the growing perception in the interwar that the
defeated powers had been treated unfairly, and that, as a consequence,
the peace treaties might require revision, largely rooted in Keynes’ thesis.
In the 1920s, criticism coming from British elite groups, including
academics, bankers and for example the bishops of the Church of England
also contributed to the public’s increasingly negative perceptions of the
entire peace edifice, as they condemned Versailles for its failure to restore
the healthy balances in societies, finance and international relations.5 The
disillusioned members of the League of Nations Union also asserted that
the unprecedented harshness of the treaty with Germany presented an
unusual ‘breach of faith with a beaten enemy’, which, they warned, would
haunt Europe’s future.6 Moreover, historians such as G. P. Gooch, W. H.
Dawson and R. Beazley recognised that rampant nationalism, extremism
and irredentism could be attributed to the ‘ruinous peace of crushing
severity’, which, they argued, would eventually lead to future German
revanchist tendencies.7 But, regardless of these early critics, in the late
1920s, the Locarno system seemed stable. The optimism attached to the
concrete security assurances of Versailles and Locarno, as well as to the
conflict resolution mechanisms of the League of Nations far outweighed
any sense of disillusionment, and seemed to invalidate suggestions that
the provisions of the peace should be reconsidered. From this perspective,
 2 BRITAIN AND INTERWAR DANUBIAN EUROPE, 1933–1938 21

the more specific issues relating to Danubian Europe and the Balkans,
such as, for example, the discontented voices of the millions of German,
Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities, as well as the revisionist cacophonies
echoing periodically from Budapest and Sofia, appeared less consequen-
tial and remained on the periphery of debate. On the whole, British
and Western European elites maintained an attitude of ‘cool aloofness’
towards local issues, which, in reality, they hoped to contain in the spheres
of the League.8
Regardless of the limited official British attention, commentators after
the war realised that territorial and minority quarrels of Danubian Europe
would continue to dominate European tensions. The new status quo and
the particularly harsh treatment of Hungary in 1920 was vehemently crit-
icised by a noisy minority. For example, British visitors, witnessing the
situation on the ground, assessed that political and economic disintegra-
tion and manifestations of petty revenge gave rise to poverty, nationalism,
revisionism and to a general sense of uncertainty. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett,
a British war correspondent, who, on the side of Hungarian right-wing
officers, fought the Hungarian Bolshevik regime of Béla Kun, labeled the
entire settement, as such, ‘a dead letter’, […] which cannot, in common
justice to millions, be allowed to continue, and sharply condemned the
dismemberment of Hungary arguing that the successor states of the
Habsburg Monarchy were too small and weak to survive on their own.9
Others, such as Sir Charles Cunningham (former editor of the Daily
Chronicle), or the MPs Sir Robert Gower and Sir William Mabene who
also both visited Hungary, similarly argued that the solution to restoring
the optimum balance in the region lay in the reversal of some of the
territorial mutilations that country suffered.10 While British Ministers in
the region usually also lent a sympathetic ear to complaint about the
treatment of German and Magyar minorities in the successor states, and
senior officials in London on rare occasions admitted ‘it would be extraor-
dinarily difficult to make any statement against revision [in relation to
Hungary]’, discussions in Whitehall relating to treaty revision were mostly
limited to the Treaty of Versailles with Germany. In the 1920s, British
decision-makers refused to dedicate any significant attention to local
reports about the potential future implications of the Magyar problem,
or acknowledge that Hungarian revisionism was an issue deserving any
serious consideration.11
On the other hand, the British visitors, who showed any interest
towards Hungary’s predicaments, enjoyed enormous popularity in
22 A. BECKER

Hungary and were crowned as champions of revisionism without giving

too much attention to their actual stance. In Hungary, they were lavishly
entertained, promenaded before the country and were explained ad
nauseam the details of the righteous character of revisionist demands.
Generally speaking, the reports these visitors later provided to the Foreign
Office about what they saw were welcome in view of the fact that
Whitehall was usually starved of detailed and reliable information on
local conditions. Also, they were encouraged to publish their experi-
ences since books and articles on Hungary were also exceedingly few
in general circulation, which contributed to the average Englishman’s
ignorance about Hungary and the Danubian region. But, the tremen-
dous outpouring of Hungarian sentiments towards British guests soon
became the subject of ironic amusement and ridicule. For example, in
1928, Esmond Harmsworth (the son of press magnate Lord Rother-
mere) was received with royal pomp during a visit to Budapest, and some
Hungarian political actors went as far to later invite him to the Hungarian
throne left vacant by the Habsburgs. The reaction in London, as reported
by Hungarian Minister Baron Iván Rubido-Zichy (1924–1932) ‘was an
object of ridicule […] in society and in the press alike, and in the Foreign
Office they have […] a pitiful smile for “King Esmond”’.12 Officials in the
corridors of power either turned a blind eye to these Hungarian baits, or
the accounts of the somewhat gullible British visitors were simply brushed
aside as the opinion of individuals who fell victim to revisionist propa-
ganda. But, the more noisy these Hungarian demands became, the more
difficult it was for any politician to risk public association with it.
The situation was rendered more serious, when the case of Hungary
was picked up by the popular newspaper Daily Mail .13 On 21 June
1927, the owner of the paper Lord Rothermere published the front
page article ‘Hungary’s Place in the Sun’, in which, under the influ-
ence of his Hungarian mistress Countess Stephanie Hohenlohe, he openly
took up the case of ‘Justice for Hungary’ and recommended extending
Hungary’s territory with approximately 50–100 km beyond its current
frontiers against Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.14 The topic
of Hungarian revisionism appearing on the front pages of Britain’s most
popular daily had profound and immediate domestic and international
repercussions. For one, it aroused a great uproar across the Little Entente,
where the sporadic flow of pro-Hungarian articles was interpreted as a
shift in British official policy. At the same time, it also radicalised Hungar-
ians who now rejoiced to have found a wealthy and prominent British
 2 BRITAIN AND INTERWAR DANUBIAN EUROPE, 1933–1938 23

supporter.15 These unwelcomed developments were coupled with the

rapid expansion of German and Italian influence in the region. Already
in the late 20s, sponsoring Hungarian and Bulgarian revisionism opened
up new possibilities for Berlin and Rome to further their influence in
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Hence, Rothermere’s press
campaigns, which, until February 1939, continued with fluctuating inten-
sity, were strongly discouraged by British Prime Ministers and senior
officials in the Foreign Office for their unwelcomed representation of
the Magyar problem as an international issue and the undesirable nega-
tive affects it was having on Britain’s relationship with Prague, Bucharest
and Belgrade, not least, since, as such, it jeopardised British hopes for
finding rapprochement between the Little Entente and Hungary. In order
to counter these regional concerns, in the following months, strong
diplomatic efforts were made to reassure the Little Entente that any ‘Jus-
tice for Hungary’ campaign was not part of official British policy.16 In
sum, the increasingly negative assessment of Hungarian revisionist claims
was only exacerbated by the highly inconvenient Daily Mail campaign.
British sentiments in the late 1920s were aptly summed up by an MP
commenting: ‘this is a question which long ago lost the charm of novelty.
Everybody is sick of the whole thing’.17
However, the eruption of global economic downturn from 1929 soon
put the problems relating to the peace treaties into a very different
light. The Great Depression (1929–1933) broke out in a moment, when
Britain was still far from having recovered from the effects of the Great
War. The American economic and stock-market collapse shook the indus-
trial world, and the ensuing crisis in Europe brutally disrupted finances,
banking, trade, labour markets and individual life and wealth. In Britain,
the decade of slow and quiet recovery has ended, and by 1931, the
economy was in dreadful shape. Britain’s trade with the world fell by
half; the output of the manufacturing industry fell by a third, and at
the depth of the crisis, in the summer of 1932, registered unemploy-
ment numbered 3.5 million. Moreover, the threat of prolonged financial
crisis forced Britain off the gold standard, and plummeting government
revenues and economic output pushed the country into a deep reces-
sion.18 It did not take long before British and European elites recognised
that the severe economic and financial meltdown could irreparably break
European commerce, trade and international relations, exacerbate old
animosities and destroy the results of the slow consolidation of the 1920s.
It was clear that the new circumstances required radically new responses.
24 A. BECKER

Stresses of economic depression and uncertainties about international

cooperation made everyone start searching for nationalistic solutions.
From 1931, Britain also concentrated on making unilateral approaches
towards economic recovery and international trade.19 For example, at the
Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa in 1932, with a radical change
in tariff policy, Britain removed the ban on the taxation of food imports
from the Dominions and, at the same time, raised tariffs and imposed
quantitative restrictions against foreign (non-imperial) imports, thus, this
way, opening the way for the policy of an imperial preferential system.
In essence, the Ottawa Agreement (1932) established a closed domestic
and imperial economic and monetary bloc that maintained trade barriers
against outsiders. As a result, trade within the empire increased, while
that with other European countries essentially stagnated, not least thanks
to the existence of the sterling bloc that held the bulk of the currency
exchange reserve of the empire with the Bank of England.20
While some research has been carried out on the effects of imperial
preference on the British and world economy, there has been no detailed
investigation of the impact it had on British European strategy.21 Simi-
larly, the Ottawa Agreement is rarely recognised by historians of Danubian
Europe and the Balkans as a defining juncture in British policy in that
part of the world. The creation of the ‘Empire First’ preference meant
that British economic recovery was no longer dependent on European
trade and prosperity, as it was in the 1920s. Consequently, regardless of
the still notable trade and economic interest, e.g. in Germany, Danubian
navigation, the Romanian and Hungarian oil industries, and in mining
in Yugoslavia, trade with the region became less important.22 Conse-
quently, it was difficult for the government to consider expanding British
commerce there or to drum up any significant political or public interest
in increased trade with the small nations of that region, regardless of
their pleading for British import licences to negate the deadly embrace
of German economic penetration.
While new economic and financial initiatives were proffered in the
United States (the New Deal) and Western Europe (imperial preference
and the abandonment of the gold standard), Danubian Europe plunged
ever deeper into economic catastrophe in 1932–1933. Most countries
suffered from near or complete financial, budgetary and banking sector
collapse and sustained severe interruptions to international trade and in
some cases faced a 20–25% economic contraction. The crisis was partic-
ularly ruinous in Austria. Since the Treaty of Saint Germain (1919), the
Another random document with
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lead encephalitis. Bromides and iodides should be given, and the
patient placed in quiet surroundings, and fed on light, nutritious diet,
and every attempt made to produce elimination of the poison.
In the acute attacks vaso-motor spasm is no doubt partially
accountable for the symptoms, and various dilators, previously noted
in discussing colic, may be made use of, such, for instance, as amyl
nitrite, scopolamine, etc., whilst pyramidon, antipyrin, phenacetin,
and other similar drugs may be given between the attacks. Under no
circumstances should any person who has suffered from
encephalitis or other cerebral symptom of lead poisoning be allowed
to resume work in a lead industry.
The treatment of eye affections in lead poisoning requires little
comment, as the essential treatment must be the same as in other
cases, mainly devoted towards the elimination of the poison.
Attempts may be made to treat paresis of the ocular muscles by
means of mild electric currents, but of this we have had no
experience. About 50 per cent. of cases of lead amaurosis and
amblyopia recover, but a number progress to total and permanent
blindness, and prognosis in such cases must always be guarded.
Prognosis.—The prognosis of the first attacks of lead poisoning
of simple colic or even slight unilateral paresis is good; practically all
cases recover under proper treatment. It is unusual for a person to
succumb to a first attack of simple colic, or paresis.
In most cases the serious forms of poisoning only make their
appearance after three or four previous attacks of colic, but a single
attack of paresis is much more frequently followed by a severe form
of poisoning, such as encephalitis.
A limited number of persons are highly susceptible to lead
poisoning, and these persons rapidly show their susceptibility when
working in a dangerous lead process. Lead poisoning occurring in an
alcoholic subject is more likely to result in paretic and mental
symptoms than in a person who is not addicted to alcohol, and the
prognosis of lead poisoning in an alcoholic is much less favourable
than in the case of a normal person.
Mental symptoms very rarely follow from a single attack of lead
colic, and as a rule do not become established under three or four
attacks at least.
 A small number of persons exposed to excessive doses of lead
absorption through the lungs develop mental symptoms, such as
acute encephalitis, without any prodromal stage. The prognosis in
such cases is always exceedingly grave.
Sudden generalized forms of paralysis are not common in the
early stages, but are invariably of grave import. A few cases of
paresis, particularly those of the peroneal type, and affecting the
lower limbs, become progressive, and eventually develop into a
condition resembling progressive muscular atrophy with spinal cord
degeneration.
The prognosis of simple colic in women is about as good as for
males, but if an attack of abortion is associated with lead poisoning,
eclampsia often supervenes and permanent mental derangement
may follow. In the dementia associated with lead poisoning the
prognosis is not so grave as in other forms of dementia, especially
alcoholic, but depression is an unfavourable symptom. The mania of
lead poisoning is not so noisy as that of alcoholic mania, but where
there is suspicion of alcoholic as well as lead poisoning the
prognosis is exceedingly grave.
As a rule the prognosis of cases of lead poisoning occurring in
industrial conditions is more favourable when colic is a marked
feature than when it is absent, and there is no doubt that the
prognosis in cases of industrial lead poisoning at the present time is
more favourable than it was before the introduction of exhaust
ventilation and general medical supervision—a fact no doubt to be
explained by the relative decrease in the amount of lead absorbed.

REFERENCES.
[1] Goadby, K. W.: Journ. of Hygiene, vol. ix., 1909.
[2] Hunter, John: Observations of Diseases of the Army in Jamaica.
London, 1788.
[3] Drissole and Tanquerel: Meillère’s Le Saturnisme, p. 164.
[4] Hoffmann: Journ. de Méd., October, 1750.
[5] Weill and Duplant: Gazette des Hôpitaux, lxxix., 796, 1902.
[6] Briquet: Bull. Thérap., Août, 1857.
[7] Peyrow: Thèse de Paris, 1891.
 [8] Stevens: Bulletin of Bureau of Labour, U.S.A., No. 95, p. 138, 1911.
[9] Zinn: Berl. Klin. Woch., Nr. 50, 1899.
[10] Serafini: Le Morgagni, No. 11, 1884.
 CHAPTER XII
PREVENTIVE MEASURES AGAINST LEAD
POISONING

Amount of Lead Fume and Dust in the Atmosphere

Breathed.
—Lead fuses at 325° C. and boils at between 1450° and 1,600° C. It
is volatile when heated to a cherry-red colour—about 550° C.
Experiments[A] carried out in the laboratory of a lead smelting
works in London to determine the temperature at which leady fumes
rise from the surface of open baths of molten lead, showed that
unless pure lead is heated to about 500° C., and at the same time
stirred, no appreciable fume comes off, and that from lead, at the
same temperature, under ordinary working conditions, little or no
lead in the form of oxide passes into the air. From lead that has been
unrefined or which contains zinc—that is, lead in the earlier stages of
its manufacture (in the reverberatory furnace)—leady fume was not
given off at temperatures less than 760° C. even when stirred,
because at a temperature of 600° C. the surface of the molten metal
became covered with fluid slag, which will not allow any oxide to be
given off. Impurities such as tin or antimony prevent the oxidation of
molten lead at lower temperatures, and give it a bright, shiny colour.
When heated to about 600° C., these impurities form a slag on the
surface of the lead containing antimoniates and stannates of lead,
which do not evolve lead fumes unless heated to temperatures never
likely to be reached in open lead pots. The reason why molten
refined lead can give off lead fume more readily than those named is
because the oxide formed on the surface is a dry powder and not in
the form of slag. Hence, when the bath is stirred, some of the dry
oxide is broken up and may rise into the air. When a bath of molten
lead is not stirred at all, it can be heated to over 740° C. without
finding oxide in the air aspirated—a temperature not obtained under
ordinary working conditions.
[A] In these experiments air was aspirated through an iron funnel having an
area of 113 square inches (12 inches diameter), placed at a height of 1¹⁄₂
inches above the molten metal, and connected to an iron tube 3 feet in
length and ¹⁄₂ inch in diameter. Inside the iron tube was a glass tube, one
end reaching own to the top of the funnel and the other connected with a
tube containing pure loose asbestos wool, and continued down to a tightly
stoppered bottle holding dilute sulphuric acid. Another glass tube connected
this bottle with an aspirator. The asbestos tube was weighed before and
after each test, and the asbestos then treated with nitric acid, and the lead
determined volumetrically. In none of the tests made was lead found in the
bottle containing sulphuric acid.

Were there nothing else to consider but escape of lead fume from
a pot or bath of molten metal, obviously hooding over of the bath and
removal of the fume from the atmosphere of the workroom would be
unnecessary until this temperature was reached. Usually, however,
the bath is kept standing exposed to the air, and the oxide which
forms on the surface has to be skimmed off periodically, and
whenever the ladle is emptied a small cloud of dust arises. Or at
times, in certain processes, chemical interaction takes place in the
bath, as in the dipping of hollow-ware articles previously cleaned in
hydrochloric acid, with evolution of fume of volatile chloride of lead.
Any vessel, therefore, of molten metallic lead in which skimming is
necessary, or in which chemical action gives rise to fume, requires a
hood and exhaust shaft, even although the temperature is little, if at
all, above the melting-point—unless, indeed, a separate exhaust can
be arranged for the removal of the dust immediately above the point
where the skimmings are deposited.
Of many samples of dust collected in workrooms where there are
baths of molten lead, it is impossible to say definitely how much of
the lead present is due to fume, and how much to dust. Thus, a
person tempering the tangs of files was attacked by plumbism, and a
sample of dust collected from an electric pendent directly over the
pot, at a height of 4 feet from the ground, was found to contain 15·6
per cent. of metallic lead. Similarly, a sample taken above a bath for
tempering railway springs contained 48·1 per cent. metallic lead[1].
And, again, a sample collected from the top of the magazine of a
linotype machine contained 8·18 per cent. Such analyses point to
the necessity of enclosing, as far as possible, the sources of danger
—either the fume or the dust, or both. Determination of the melting-
point of the molten mass will often help in deciding whether there is
risk of fume from the pot, and, if there is not (as in the sample of dust
from the linotype machine referred to), will direct attention to the
sources of dust in the room. Proceeding on these lines, S. R.
Bennett[2], using a thermo-electric pyrometer which had been
previously standardized and its rate of error ascertained, and
checking the results in some cases by a mercury-in-glass
thermometer (the bulb of which was protected by metal tubing),
determined the temperature of the various pots and baths of molten
lead used in the Sheffield district. As was anticipated, temporary
cessation of work, stirring up of metal, recoking of furnaces, and
other causes, produced fluctuations of temperatures from minute to
minute in the same pot, and in its different parts. The compensated
pyrometer used gave for file-hardening pots a maximum of 850° C.,
and a minimum of 760° C., the average mean working temperature
being about 800° C. The variations of temperature of lead used for
tempering tangs of files and rasps was found to be high, and largely
unrestricted from a practical standpoint. The maximum was 735° C.,
and the minimum 520° C., the average mean working temperature
being 650° to 700° C., varying more than this within a few hours in
the same pot. Spring tempering is carried out at some comparatively
constant temperature between a maximum of nearly 600° C. and a
minimum of 410° C., depending on the kind of steel and the purpose
for which the steel is to be employed. Generally, the temperature
required rises as the percentage of carbon in the steel is diminished.
As these baths are larger than file-hardening pots, the temperature
range is higher at the bottom than at the top unless well stirred up.
Some lead pots are set in one side of a flue, and the temperature in
the mass is then greater on the furnace side. From further
observation of these pots during experiments, he was inclined to
believe that the lead did not volatilize directly into the atmosphere, as
heated water does, but that the particles of coke, fused oil, etc.,
which rise from the surface, act as carriers of the rapidly oxidized
lead particles which cling to them.
Similar experiments were carried out in letterpress printing works.
The average temperature was 370° C. in the stereo pots, and in the
linotype pots at work 303° C. Scrap lead melting-pots when hottest
registered 424° C., but registered as low as 310° C., according to the
amount of scrap added, the state of the fire underneath, etc. The
best practical working temperature depends largely on the
composition of the metal used. That at some factories is the same
for stereo drums as for lino pots—viz., 81·6 per cent. lead, 16·3 per
cent. antimony, and 2·0 per cent. tin, added to harden the lead. On
the other hand, some printers use a higher percentage of antimony
in the lino than in the stereo metal. Lead melts at 325° C., and
antimony at 630° C., but by adding antimony to lead up to 14 per
cent. the melting-point is reduced at an almost uniform rate to 247°
C., after which further addition of antimony raises the melting-point.
This explains why temperatures as low as 290° C. are practicable for
linotype pots. The molten eutectic has a specific gravity of about
10·5, whereas the cubic crystals average 6·5 only; therefore in these
pots the latter float on the top, and excess of antimony is to be
expected in the skimmings or on the surface.
Administration of certain sections of the Factory and Workshop
Act, 1901, would be simplified were there a ready means available
for determining the extent of contamination of the air—especially of
Section 1, requiring the factory to be ventilated so as to render
harmless, as far as practicable, all gases, vapours, dust, or other
impurities, generated in the course of the manufacturing process,
that may be injurious to health; of Section 74, empowering an
inspector to require a fan or other means if this will minimize
inhalation of injurious fumes or dust; of many regulations having as
their principal object removal of dust and fumes; and of Section 75,
prohibiting meals in rooms where lead or other poisonous substance
is used, so as to give rise to dust or fumes. Unfortunately, owing to
the difficulty hitherto of accurate collection, only a very few
determinations of the actual amount of lead dust and fume present in
the atmosphere breathed have been made. This lends peculiar value
to a series of investigations by G. Elmhirst Duckering, which have
thrown much light on the amount of lead fume present in the air of a
tinning workshop, and the amount of lead dust in the air during
certain pottery processes, and the process of sand-papering after
painting. Incidentally, also, they help to determine the minimal daily
dose of lead which will set up chronic lead poisoning[3]. Aspirating
the air at about the level of the worker’s mouth for varying periods of
time, he determined the amount of lead in the fume, or in the dust,
per 10 cubic metres of air, and from knowledge of the time during
which inhalation took place he calculated the approximate quantity
inhaled per worker daily. We have summarized some of his
conclusions in the table on pp. 204, 205:
Duckering’s experiments as to the presence of fumes containing
compounds of lead in the atmosphere breathed were carried out in a
workshop for the tinning of iron hollow-ware with a mixture consisting
of half lead and half tin. The process of manufacture and the main
sources of lead contamination in the air (knowledge arrived at from
these experiments) are explained on p. 59. As the result of
laboratory experiments designed to show the effect of the violent
escape of vapour produced below the surface of molten metal in
causing contamination of the air, and the nature of the contaminating
substances, he was able to conclude that the chemical action of the
materials (acid and flux) used, and subsequent vaporization of the
products of this action, was a much more important factor than the
mechanical action of escaping vapour. Subsequently, experiments
carried out on factory premises gave the results which are expressed
in the table as to the relative danger, from lead, to (a) a tinner using
an open bath; (b) a tinner working at a bath provided with a hood
and exhaust by means of a furnace flue; and (c) the nature and
extent of air contamination caused by the operation of wiping excess
of metal (while still in a molten state) from the tinned article. In all
three experiments aspiration of air was made slowly: it was
maintained at the rate of 3 to 4 cubic feet an hour in the first
experiment for between seven and eight hours; in the second for
twenty-eight to twenty-nine hours; and in the third for twenty-four to
twenty-five hours. The person engaged in tinning at the open bath
was shown to be exposed to much more danger than one working at
a hooded bath, while the wiper was exposed to even more danger
than the tinner using an open bath, since not only was he inhaling
fume from the hot article, but also fibre to which considerable
quantities of metallic lead and tin adhered.
Analysis of samples of dust collected in different parts of the
workroom bore out the conclusions derived from analysis of the
fumes. Thus, samples collected from ledges at varying heights
above the tinning bath containing the mixture of tin and lead
contained percentages of soluble lead (lead chloride) in striking
amount as compared with samples collected at points in the same
room remote from any source of lead fume, while the insoluble lead
present, as was to be expected from the fact that it consisted of lead
attached to particles of tow floating in the air, was less variable.
TABLE XII., SHOWING QUANTITIES OF LEAD (Pb) IN THE
ATMOSPHERE AT BREATHING LEVEL.
(G. E. Duckering’s Experiments.)

Approximate
Present in Quantities
10 Cubic Metres of Lead (Pb)
of Air Estimated Time expressed
(Milligrammes). (in Hours) in Milligrammes
during which inhaled by Percentage
Total Lead Inhalation Worker of Lead
Occupation. Dust. (Pb). took place. per Day. in Dust.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Tinner using — 37·79 5¹⁄₂ 10·70 — T
open bath

Tinner using — 6·36 5¹⁄₂ 1·80 — T

bath
covered by
hood, and
having
fumes
 exhausted
by draught
of furnace
Wiping off — 124·31 5¹⁄₂ 35·20 — 1
(tinning)

Earthenware 38 1·80 7¹⁄₂ 0·69 (average 8·30 D

dipping of 4 expts.)
(pottery)
Earthenware 84 6·27 7¹⁄₂ 2·40 (single 7·42 V
dipping expt.)
(pottery)

China dipping 36 2·12 7³⁄₄ 0·83 (average 5·43 C

(pottery) of 4 expts.)

Rockingham 44 2·26 7¹⁄₂ 0·86 (single 14·37 D

ware dipping expt.)
(pottery)
Earthenware 47 2·29 7¹⁄₂ 0·88 (average 5·90 C
cleaning of 7 expts.)
(pottery)

China ware 123 13·34 6 4·08 (single 10·85 V

cleaning expt.)
(pottery)

Earthenware 25 2·19 8 0·92 (average 8·58 F

drying of 3 expts.)
(pottery)

Earthenware 34 2·08 8³⁄₄ 0·93 (average 6·58

glost placing of 3 expts.)
(pottery)
China glost 30 1·08 9 0·50 (single 3·64 B
placing expt.)
(pottery)
China glost 21 0·32 9¹⁄₂ 0·16 (single 1·50 O
 placing expt.)
(pottery)
Majolica- 61 9·11 7¹⁄₂ 3·48 (single 15·00 T
painting of expt.)
tiles
(pottery)

206 53·70 — — 26·10 P

Sand-papering
and dusting 241 116·10 — — 48·10 R
-​
railway
coaches

453 83·10 — — 18·30 A

Sand-papering
coach -​
wheels 1343 1025·60 — — 76·40 O

Sand-papering 600 278·30 — — 46·40 D

motor-car
body
 88 38·70 — — 44·00 W

Sand-papering
motor-car -​
wheels

35 4·70 — — 13·30 S

Sand-papering 494 143·80 — — 29·10 A

van wheel

Burning off old 52 3·40 — — 6·50 W

paint

Dust.—Reference to the table shows that the conditions in the

pottery workrooms, as stated in Column 7, are reflected in Columns
3 and 5. Further details from his experiments may be useful. Thus, in
a dipping room where low-solubility glaze was in use, the amount of
lead in the dust collected per 10 cubic metres of air was 0·70
milligramme. The average of four experiments where there were no
dipping boards was 1·80 milligrammes, and where dipping boards
were used, 3·75; i.e., 1·95 milligrammes of lead in the dust per 10
cubic metres of air is added by the use of dirty dipping boards. As
the result of his experiments, Duckering believes that approximately
1·95 milligrammes of lead per 10 cubic metres of air was due to the
fine spray given off in the shaking of the ware. In bright sunlight, he
says, the spray can be seen dancing high above the dipping tub. In a
dipping house where work was done slowly by two occupants only,
the proportion of lead in the measured quantity of air was also low—
0·58 milligramme per 10 cubic metres. Where, in the absence of
special provision made for admission of fresh air to a fan, the air was
drawn from a neighbouring room in which lead processes were
carried on, the amount of lead rose to 5·76 milligrammes at the level
breathed by the gatherer at a mangle. In ware-cleaning the average
of all his observations where lead was used (eleven) was 3·44
milligrammes; and he concluded that “wet cleaning of ware causes
less direct contamination of the atmosphere, even where no local
exhaust is applied. A still more important result of wet cleaning,
however, is that the overalls keep much freer of dust.” The highest
results were obtained when the process of ware-cleaning was done
outside the influence of the exhaust draught. In one instance, where
the ware was cleaned at a distance of 6 feet from the exhaust
opening, 13·34 milligrammes per 10 cubic metres of air were found.
Subsequently at the same point, after the exhaust system of
ventilation had been remodelled, 0·95 milligramme only was present.
Even in a stillage room in which no work was done other than the
placing on and removal of the boards from the racks, the lead
content per 10 cubic metres of the air was 1·08 milligrammes. In
glost-placing, the average of four experiments was 1·83
milligrammes—no doubt the result of glaze on the boards. As much
as 9·11 milligrammes of lead was found per 10 cubic metres of air in
the centre of a large majolica-painting room, with wooden floors and
much traffic in it. Wooden floors generally appeared to influence the
results, as determinations of the lead present were higher in rooms
with them than with tiled floors.
 In coach-painting the proportion of lead found by Duckering in the
air breathed during the actual time of sand-papering explains the
severe incidence of poisoning in this class of work. The table shows
the amount of lead in the air to be enormous, and in many cases
much in excess of the amount found in the air when wiping off in the
tinning of hollow-ware. The work of sand-papering is, however, very
rarely continuous, the time occupied in it being, for the painter, about
one to two hours daily; for the brush hand, two to three and a half
hours; and for the painter’s labourer, four to five hours.
Knowing intimately the processes at which the estimations
recorded in the table were made, the relative frequency of cases of
plumbism reported among those employed at them, and the duration
of employment prior to attack, we believe that, if the amount of lead
present in the air breathed contains less than 5 milligrammes per 10
cubic metres of air, cases of encephalopathy and paralysis would
never, and cases of colic very rarely, occur. And this figure is a quite
practical one in any process amenable to locally-applied exhaust
ventilation. Somewhere about 2 milligrammes, or 0·002 gramme, of
lead we regard as the lowest daily dose which, inhaled as fume or
dust in the air, may, in the course of years, set up chronic plumbism.
Local Exhaust Ventilation.—In considering preventive
measures against lead poisoning, precedence must be given to
removal of fumes and dust by locally-applied exhaust ventilation, as,
unfortunately, the wearing of a respirator is neither in itself a
sufficient protection, nor, if it were, could the constant wearing of one
be enforced. A respirator is of no use against lead fume. In the case
of dust, the conditions which it must fulfil to be effective are, first, that
the air breathed is freed from dust, and, secondly, that it should not
incommode the wearer. Further, it should be simple in construction,
easily applied, and allow of frequent renewal of the filtering medium.
No existing respirator of moderate price conforms quite satisfactorily
with these requirements. The more closely to the face it is made to
fit, and the more effectually the air is filtered, the greater is the
inconvenience experienced when it is worn. This inconvenience is
due to the exertion (showing itself in increase of the respiratory
movements and pulse-rate) caused in aspirating the air through the
filtering medium, and rebreathing some portion of the expired breath,
containing a much greater proportion of carbonic acid gas and of
moisture at a higher temperature than are present in fresh air.
Respirators, therefore, except for work lasting a short time—half an
hour to an hour—cannot be considered an effective or sufficient
means of protecting the worker against dust. If a respirator must be
worn, the simplest form is a pad of ordinary non-absorbent cotton-
wool (absorbent wool quickly becomes sodden and impervious),
about 3 inches by 4 inches, placed over the mouth and nostrils, and
kept in position by elastic bands passed round the ears. The pad
should be burnt after use.
With a smooth, impervious floor, however, and ventilation
designed to remove the fumes and dust at, or as near as possible to,
the point of origin, lead poisoning would become very rare in most of
the industries to be described. The essential points of such a system
are—(1) The draught or current of air set in motion either by heat or
by a fan; (2) the ducts along which the current travels; (3) the hoods
or air-guides designed to intercept and catch the fumes and dust at
the point of generation; (4) inlets from the outside air into the room to
replace continuously the air extracted, and, in many cases, (5) a
suitable dust filter or collector.
Exhaust by Heat.—Processes giving rise to fumes or to dust
liberated on stirring or skimming, which can be dealt with by the
draught created in the furnace flue or over a bath of molten metal
provided with adequate hood and duct up which the heated air
travels, are—Smelting, refining, spelter manufacture, and the
numerous operations necessitating the melting of lead, such as
tinning with a mixture of tin and lead, sheet lead and lead piping,
stereo pots in letterpress printing, pattern-making, tempering springs,
file-hardening, etc. The dusting of red-hot metallic surfaces, as in
vitreous enamelling, might possibly also be dealt with in the same
way. The disadvantage of the exhaust by heat is the uncertainty and
inequality of the draught, and the size of the duct necessary to cope
with the volume of rarefied air from above the molten vessel.
The closer the hood is brought down over the point where the
fumes escape, the less risk is there of cross-currents deflecting them
into the workroom. Hence all baths of molten metal should have the
sides and back closed in, leaving as small a space open in front as is
practicable in view of necessary skimming or other operations.
In the case of tinning baths, Duckering[4] describes completely
successful results when from the top of the hood a shaft at least 24
inches in diameter was carried vertically upwards into the open air to
a height of 18 feet, and the top of the shaft fitted with a wind screen
in the form of a very large cone, having its lower edge below the
upper edge of the shaft, and its nearest point at least 8 inches from
the top of the shaft. Smoke produced in large quantity at any point 6
inches outside the front of the hood was entirely drawn into it. As,
however, the inrush of air caused an eddy of the fumes at the upper
edge of the opening, the edges of the hood were turned inwards, so
that the operation of wiping was done in a sort of short tunnel. In
general, it may be said that the diameter of pipes leading from hoods
to the outer air (on the efficacy of the draught in which success
depends) is much too small. Frequently mere increase in size will
convert an indifferent draught into a good one. The height of the
hood also—i.e., the distance between its lower border and the point
where it joints the duct—is of importance. The shorter this distance
is, the less serviceable does it become for the removal of fume.
Indeed, it may even retain the fume which, were the hood not
present, would rise to the roof. Sometimes safety is increased by
making the hood double, leaving a space between the two sheets,
and so concentrating the draught at the centre and at the margin.
With a fan, ducts of less diameter can be used than when
dependence is placed on heat alone. A duct carried into a chimney-
stack has the advantage of dispersing the fume at a safe distance
from the workroom.
The variableness of the draught produced by heat makes it
unsuitable for removal of dust, except such as arises from skimming.
The receptacle for the skimmings should always be kept inside the
canopy of the hood. We have, however, seen the dust given off in
the heading of yarn dyed with chromate of lead successfully carried
away under hoods connected up by branch ducts with the main
chimney-stack.
 Fig. 1.—Davidson’s Sirocco Propeller Fan.

Exhaust by Fans.—The draught for removal of dust, and

frequently also of fumes, is produced by a fan, of which there are two
types: (1) low-pressure volume fans and (2) high-pressure
centrifugal fans. In the first the draught is created by the rotation of a
wheel with inclined vanes, causing the air to be driven transversely
through the wheel parallel to the axis of rotation (Fig. 1). During a
revolution a portion of the air is cut off from one side of the wheel,
and transferred through the wheel to the other. Such fans are light,
run easily, and are cheap. They are of many forms, both with regard
to the number of blades—from two to eight—and general manner in
which they are arranged. Some closely resemble the screw-propeller
of a ship, while others have blades turned over and fastened on an
outer rim. Their main defect is inability to overcome any but slight
resistance in the course of suction behind, as from constriction in, or
friction along the sides of, the ducts and right-angled bends, or of
outflow in front, as from wind-pressure. Under favourable conditions,
however, and when carefully fitted, a volume fan will exhaust dust
and fumes through a system of ducts several feet in length, as, for
example, from mono and linotype machines and electro melting-pots
in letterpress printing works. But, in order to avoid resistance from
friction, the ducts have to be somewhat larger in diameter than when
a centrifugal fan is used. With nine[A] linotype machines connected
up to a 14-inch propeller fan, the branch ducts should be about 4
inches in diameter, and the main duct 12 inches, increasing from 12
to 15 inches within 2 feet of the fan-box. The shorter and straighter
the course of the duct to the propeller fan, the more efficiently it
works. Wind-guards are necessary to overcome resistance from this
source in front, but their position requires to be carefully considered,
so as to prevent the screen itself crippling the outflow.
[A] If gratings are also inserted in the same duct for general ventilation the
number of machines must be decreased pro ratâ.

All fans require frequent cleaning, and in this respect propeller

fans have the advantage over centrifugal, in that they are usually
more accessible.
 Fig. 2.—Davidson’s Dust Centrifugal Fan.

Centrifugal Fans.—Generally, in the removal of dust, a strong

suction has to be set up in a system of narrow ducts by means of a
centrifugal fan—i.e., a fan-wheel formed by a number of vanes
attached to an axle mounted in a spiral-shaped casing—so that
when the wheel rotates air is carried along by the vanes, and flies off
tangentially into the space between the blades and the casing, and
thence to the outlet (Fig. 2). The air inlet or junction of the fan with
the exhaust duct is at the centre of the fan, an arrangement by which
the kinetic energy created by the rapid motion of the air leads to
increase of draught instead of being wasted in production of eddies
in the surrounding spaces. They are made in many different
patterns, according to the nature of the work to be done. Their