 The fourth, Austria, was a struggling nation and little more than an economic competitor.In 1924, after the white terror had waned and Hungary had gained admission to the League of Nations (1922), the Bethlen government was able to borrow a US$50 million loan from the League, which in order to protect its investment placed the country in effective receivership, even placing an American banker, Jeremiah Smith, in charge of the country's finances.Hungary's outcast status had prevented it from obtaining any foreign aid in the immediate postwar period, but by the middle of the 1920s, the British decided to extend the hand of friendship to the losers of World War I. Hungary also obtained sympathy from the United States and Mussolini's Italy.