Word: blocs
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Ever since the present war started, enlightened statesmen of the little States of southeastern Europe have believed that the Danubian countries must either hang together or be hanged separately. They urged the formation of a bloc of Danubian neutrals who would temporarily forget their sectional differences. Fortnight ago even Hungary, most intransigent of revision-seeking powers, was believed ready to join up. Then last week something happened: the big powers yanked their strongest strings, and Danubian federation was once more pulled asunder. The biggest string stretched was Count...
...when Count Csáky, in the course of his travelogue, arrived at the Rumanian border, his tone grew tough. That country, he said, was the chief stumbling block to a Danubian bloc of neutrals. Until Rumania decided to listen to the "voice of the new era"-i.e., hand back to Hungary Transylvania, which Rumania took at the end of World War I-Hungary would refuse to play ball. "It is up to Rumania to accept the ideas of modern times and thus cooperate in forming a new order on the Danube," threatened the Foreign Minister. "Otherwise history will...
...held; the land that paid its war debts, and carried on a brisk trade with the United States. Now it is being ruthlessly destroyed. The effect over here on the large body of Scandinavians in the Northwestern States will not be insignificant. Thus far they have meant a great bloc of isolationist sentiment in Congress, but their enthusiasm to steer clear of the European turmoil may be dimmed by the present tragedy of a nation...
...servants might have their hour. But foreign commentators could not help noticing an obvious common denominator: the important purgees were strongly pro-Axis. Only ministers left were Foreign Minister Count Ciano, popular Minister of Justice Dino Grandi, Premier Mussolini himself (War, Navy, Air, Interior), and three others-the neutrality bloc. Italy, it seemed, wanted no entangling alliances...
...Hitler "invited" all three Scandinavian States to sign bilateral non-aggression pacts with the Reich. Norway and Sweden promptly refused, saying this would infringe their "strictly neutral" status, but Neighbor Denmark felt obliged to sign, and this marked the first minor break in the Neutral Front of the Nordic Bloc. Whether or not the Führer can use it as an opening wedge, Scandinavia was becoming war-jittery, Stockholm citizens were building air-raid shelters, and Norway, Sweden and Denmark were reported on the point of placing orders in the U. S. for war planes...