Britain and Danubian Europe in the Era of World War II, 1933-1941

This book is a study of British official attitudes towards the Danubian countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia) from Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 to the year 1941, a period that marked serious but fruitless British political and economic efforts to unite this unruly part of Europe against Nazi ascendancy. Set against an international backdrop of regional revanchist, revisionist and irredentist tendencies, particularly in Hungary and Bulgaria, the book explores how these movements affected international relations in the region as they aimed to overturn the territorial order set down in Versailles following the Great War to restore the status quo of a more glorious national past. Offering fresh insights into the British-East Central and South East European relationship, the book charts the shifts in British official policy towards Danubian Europe, amidst competing regional nationalisms and the sudden and abrupt shifts in British global priorities during the early part of World War II.
Andras Becker is a historian of modern Europe, and a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. He previously studied history at the University of Southampton, UK, and is interested in ‘Great Power’ rivalries within Danubian Europe and the Balkans during the first half of the twentieth century.