The Baneful Balkans

Extract

Monitor Wyndup swore, he, at least, would avoid swift generalizations when he started on his combined honeymoon and political trip to the Continent. As writer of a remarkable letter on Road .Transport to the Limechester Gazette, he felt called upon to apply his insight to a wider field; and the conditions of South Eastern Europe clearly demanded what light he could throw on their problems. He was not one of those lightning tourists who confound Bucarest and Budapest, or Teschen with Wreschen (the latter being, of course, the Polish name for Warsaw); and he understood that the Balkan and Baltic Republics were to be kept quite distinct. Their fusion, he declared, would endanger the peace of Europe almost as much as the German Reich had done. Now, however, casting a discouraged look at the monotonous chairs and tables of the stereotyped, modern restaurant in the twenty-fourth town he had inspected, he found he was a little too early on the scene to guage things properly.