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Now and then, however, this rule deserves to be discarded in theinterests of professional standards — standards which must apply toscholars and publishers alike.Dr. Komjathy calls his book, The Crises of France's East CentralEuropean Diplomacy, 1933-1938. One need not quarrel with a title, butone has every right to measure its appropriateness against the book'scontents. It is true that one can live with the "East Central" designation,although the Introduction makes it clear that "Central" would havebeen quite adequate (2). So too we can accept with grace the idea ofsuccessive "crises", even though the crises identified by the authorgenerally failed to be regarded as such by French statesmen of the day.And we can even suppress our curiosity as to why the book ends withoutexplanation in 1938, shelving for the moment our doubts that Munichwas "the last diplomatic defeat of Britain and France before the outbreakof World War II" (210). But we can only swallow so much.The title suggests that this is to be a book about French foreign policywith special reference to Central Europe. In fact, the emphasis isreversed in the work itself. Much attention is paid here to the CentralEuropean states, "Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumaniaand Yugoslavia", and relatively little to France. For instance, theMunich affair is rather brusquely dismissed with the remarkable pronouncementthat "the Munich crisis became the crisis of Britain and notof France" (208). In the long run we may be grateful for such facility, fora good deal more research would have been necessary in order to makethe exercise worthwhile. Is it really possible to say anything aboutFrance in the 1930's without having read the eleven volume post-warcommission of inquiry entitled Les evenements survenus en France de1933 a 1945? Can one really afford to venture remarks on Frenchmilitary preparations before having consulted Weygand's memoirs, orBankwitz, or Tournoux, or Challener, or at least some of the vastperiodical literature on the subject? Searching in vain for references tosuch works in this book, the reader might properly balk at some of theauthor's suggestions: for instance, that which blames the French forsquandering the Polish alliance by not planning for the "speedy occupationof Denmark" (31). And if one is really going to explore Frenchpolicy in Central Europe, can one afford to ignore the ambassadorialmemoirs of Laroche, Noel, Coulondre, Puaux and Chambrun, thepublished papers of Lukasiewicz, the collection of papers in StudiaBalcanica (1973) or even the monographs of Budurowycz, Wathen,Gehl and Bruegel? In a word, the rare instances of unpublished sourcematerials, combined with League of Nations publications and the pub-
lished diplomatic documents from Germany, Britain, France, Americaand Hungary, do not compensate for what constitutes some quiteextraordinary omissions.The kindest thing that one is able to suggest is that such omissions areresponsible for some equally extraordinary judgments. Weygand'smemoirs alone should have pre-empted references to the "undisguisedadmiration of French military experts for the Soviet armed forces"(61),just as they would have qualified the notion of the "militarily uselessSoviet mutual assistance" (139) by pointing up the principal Frenchdesire to avoid any renaissance of the Rapallo agreements betweenGermany and Russia. Similarly, many of the neglected sources wouldsurely have encouraged, if not demanded, qualifications for such contentions,that French "military leaders . . . proved to be incapable ofunderstanding the influence of changed technology on strategy" (213),that the French felt "absolutely secure . . . behind the Maginot line"(139), that Popular Front foreign policy "did not accept the validity ofnatural alliances" but allowed "ideology and not realistic interests" todetermine "allies and enemies"(78). Finally, one would have hoped thatmore caref ul research might have reduced the chances of presenting theFrench as quite unimaginably stupid. If a point is incorrect in the firstplace, no amount of repetition is going to change the fact; and thus thereviewer is moved to deny the claim that Laval was "naive" enough tobelieve that "the Little Entente would unconditionally follow the desiresof France" (107) and to deny that Blum was "naive" enough to believethat "Britain had the same feelings vis a vis Germany as France did"(171). Throughout this work it is repeatedly suggested that the Frenchwere simply oblivious to the special and competing needs of theirindividual allies and clients.One is less confident that problems of documentation are responsiblefor the many internal inconsistencies. For instance, what are we tobelieve after having been told that Titulescu's rapprochement withRussia was "pursued over the objections of his government" (149) andthat "the government agreed with Titulescu's rapprochement attemptswith the Soviet Union" (161)? Should we conclude that Blum entertained"the hope of reconciliation" with Italy, which he considered"absolutely necessary" (165), or rather should we accept that Blum didnot care about offending Mussolini (176), that he refused to believe inthe Duce's sincerity, and that he "excluded the possibility of anycooperation with Italy" (178)? Are we to believe that French tradingpolicy with Central Europe was "disastrous" (26) because it wilfullyneglected the economic interests of France's client states, or should we
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Canadian-American Review of Hungari
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the best possible settlers who woul
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than a decade later they were follo
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Sociologists have yet to explain sa
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fifteen minutes, and spent the rest
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from the "Canadian poetry" of Icela
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garian community of Western Canada,
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lowed translations from other, more
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which took place in the pages of th
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from teaching in 1968, Kirkconnell
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Magyar poets and writers to the rea
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tive of his helpful attitude and un
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33. Kirkconnell, A Slice of Canada,
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The groaning of the slaves on Egypt
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ecause most such lines are imbedded
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;Two spheres contend with one anoth
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matched it to this feeble hurdy-gur
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NOTES1. The only full-length study
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terest in Hungarian literature, has
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limitations of Bowring and others:
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Jones' Five Hungarian WritersJ 4 Su
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REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Poetry in E
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ooks written in English. A table of
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Page 59 and 60: REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Religious P
Page 61 and 62: magas és a mély magánhangzójú
Page 63 and 64: SPECIAL SECTIONToldiAn Epic Poem (1
Page 65 and 66: CANTO ONE"He lifted, with one hand,
Page 67 and 68: "Who should be squire of this whole
Page 69 and 70: What meant this hubbub in a widow's
Page 71 and 72: "Lad, here's your share! Don't say
Page 73 and 74: The heavy stone flies on: where wil
Page 75 and 76: The homes of moorhen, plover, gull
Page 77 and 78: Perhaps I'll shed my blood, some no
Page 79 and 80: CANTO FIVENicholas went wandering a
Page 81 and 82: Her tongue was like a coulter in th
Page 83 and 84: Rosemary pots mourned on its window
Page 85 and 86: Such were her words. No more would
Page 87 and 88: As if a nest of hornets rose to sti
Page 89 and 90: Upon an isle, by a Czech's hand the
Page 95 and 96: REVIEW ARTICLEQuo Vadis Transylvani
Page 97 and 98: Hungarians in Rumania in terms of t
Page 99 and 100: down by serious shortcomings in bot
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Page 106 and 107: Carpathian Federation, and printed
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Page 112 and 113: OUR CONTRIBUTORS (continued from pa
Page 115: TO THOSE WISHING TO SUBMIT MANUSCRI
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