state, would require a protector. Its
sponsors, who had foreseen this, provided for it by promising to assign
the humanitarian role of protectress of the Banat Republic to democratic
France. And French agents were on the spot to approve the arrangement.
Thus far the story, of which I have given but the merest outline.[177]

In this compromising fashion then Bela Kuhn was left for the time being
in undisturbed power, and none of his friends had any fear that he would
be driven out by the Allies so long as he contrived to hit it off with
the Hungarians. Should these turn away from him, however, the
cosmopolitan financiers, whose cardinal virtues are suppleness and
adaptability, would readily work with his successor, whoever he might
be. The few who knew of this quickening of high ideals with low intrigue
were shocked by the light-hearted way in which under the aegis of the
Conference a discreditable pact was made with the "enemy of the human
race," a grotesque regime foisted on a simple-minded people without
consideration for the principle of self-determination, and the very
existence of the Czechoslovak Republic imperiled. Indeed, for a brief
while it looked as though the Bolshevist forces of the Ukraine and
Russia would effect a junction with the troops of Bela Kuhn and shatter
eastern Europe to shreds. To such dangerous extent did the Supreme
Council indirectly abet the Bolshevist peace-breakers against the
Rumanians and Czechoslovak allies.

It was at this conjuncture that a Rumanian friend remarked to me: "The
apprehension which our people expressed to you some months ago when they
rejected the demand for concessions has been verified by events. Please
remember that when striking the balance of accounts."

The fact could not be blinked that in the camp of the Allies there was a
serious schism. The partizans of the Supreme Council accused the
Bucharest government of secession, and were accused in turn of having
misled their Rumanian partners, of having planned to exploit them
economically, of having favored their Bolshevist invaders, and pursued a
policy of blackmail. The rights and wrongs of this quarrel had best be
left to another tribunal. What can hardly be gainsaid is that in a
general way the Rumanians--and not these alone--were implicitly classed
as people of a secondary category, who stood to gain by every measure
for their good which the culture-bearers in Paris might devise. These
inferior nations were al