British, and American, experts at the peace conference were aware that the problems of reconstructing the new states and lesser defeated countries of east central Europe were different from those of the west. They also regarded them as smaller. This judgment may have been based on an assumption that the restoration of a more complex economy would require greater resources than that of a less advanced one; or on the relative importance of western and eastern Europe to the economies of Britain and the United States. It may have been based on ignorance, since few experts were any better acquainted with the region than were the politicians. At any rate the judgment was ill-founded. The problems of east central Europe proved to be a particularly intractable mixture of the economic and the political, and some were barely on the way to solution by the end of 1922. Experts thought that private enterprise could suffice to restore the smaller countries but the west would need governmental help. But in the event it was in central Europe that various experiments in international action were tried; and these form much of the subject-matter of this chapter. Russia was another problem again, largely beyond the reach of western action but featuring in policy discussions and negotiations in 1921 and 1922 that are dealt with in Chapters 5 and 6.

For over a year after the end of hostilities the principal problem of east central Europe was relief.