1: Introduction
List of Principal Persons || 2: August, 1919 >>
Introduction by
Fritz-Konrad Krüger
A integral part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Hungary participated in the World War
on the side of the Central European Powers. It is now a well-established fact that her
Prime Minister, Count Stephan Tisza, was the only leading statesman of the Dual Empire who
opposed the fateful ultimatum to Serbia, the rejection of which led to the outbreak of the
World War.(1)
In March, 1914, Tisza wrote a memorandum in which he advocated a peaceful policy of
readjustment in the Balkans. In this document he proposed the strengthening of Bulgaria
against Serbia in order to attach the former country to Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, he
advised a careful treatment of Roumania for the purpose of winning back, if possible, this
country which had lately been alienated from the Central Powers, or, in the event of the
failure of this attempt, to threaten her from two sides. In procedure he favored a
"politique de longue main." Immediate war with Serbia he considered a
"fatal mistake," one which might provoke a world war.(2)
This memoir was laid before Count Berchtold and Emperor Franz Joseph. Both approved it.
Later on -at the time of his visit to Vienna (October 26, 1913) - Emperor William II
accepted in general the proposed Balkan policy of Austria-Hungary. Before any action could
be taken in conformity with this memorandum, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
took place at Sarajevo on June 28.
Three days later Count Tisza wrote a letter to Franz Joseph recommending the
maintenance of peace and, in the council of the Austro-Hungarian ministers on the seventh
of July, he again advised moderation and strong diplomatic, rather than military,
action. This position he again stated the next day in a letter to Franz Joseph, and he
maintained it throughout the fateful month of July.
However, on the twenty-eighth of July, when war against Serbia broke out, Tisza
immediately and unreservedly supported the cause of Austria~Hungary and her ally.(3)
His ultimate support of the cause of Austria-Hungary and the Central Powers may be
explained in various ways. He was not a friend of the assassinated Archduke Franz
Ferdinand or of his policies, for it was well known that the Archduke was quite
sympathetic to the desire for more extensive rights for the Transylvanian Roumanians and
that he had certain plans for the federalization of Austria-Hungary at the expense of
Hungary. However, when the unfortunate Archduke fell by the hand of a fanatic assassin,
Tisza, always chivalrous and noble in thought, was greatly shocked and incensed at the
complicity of the Serbian government, whose hands were obviously not clean. The whole
Hungarian nation, which has throughout its history been distinguished by a somewhat feudal
fealty to its legally recognized leaders, shared Tisza's feelings. It was indignant over
this outrage, the last of a chain of political assassinations which had characterized the
history of Serbia, in marked contrast with Hungary's record, which in this respect, was
absolutely clean. Of course, Tisza realized that the aspirations of the Serbian
"Black Hand," which was back of the crime at Sarajevo, were directed towards the
creation of a Greater Serbia, which meant the severance of Croatia from Hungary and
probably the complete dismemberment of the Dual Monarchy. He also regarded the
semiofficial Serbian conspiracy and the official policy of Serbia, encouraged as it was by
Russia, as merely links in the policy of encirclement, directed by the Entente against the
Central Powers. In a letter to his niece, written on August 26, 1914, he expressed this
opinion in the following words:
'My conscience is dear. Already the noose with which they would have strangled us at a
favorable moment, unless we cut it now, had been thrown around our necks. We could not do
otherwise; but it agonized me, that we had to do as we did'.(4)
When Tisza, therefore, was assured that an ultimatum to Serbia was unavoidable and that
Germany was supporting the policy of the Ballplatz, he acquiesced in the majority decision
and from then on fulfilled his duty in a most loyal way.
For two reasons I have dwelt at some length on the position of the responsible leader
of Hungary in connection with the outbreak of the World War. First, because it seems to me
that, in the light of these and other post-war disclosures, some rectifications of the
incredibly harsh and dangerously foolish Peace Treaty of Trianon should be considered, in
the interest of Hungary and humanity;(5) second, because in
many respects Count Tisza is the personification of his nation, especially of its ruling
class, with its virtues and some of its shortcomings. He was, on the one hand, proud,
cultured, loyal, strong in adversity, intensely patriotic, honest, courageous; on the
other, haughty, contemptuous of the plebs, autocratic, and supernationalistic.(6)
Once more before the end of the War did Tisza raise his voice in protest against the
policies of the Central Powers, when he opposed the declaration of unrestricted submarine
warfare, which, he feared, would give President Wilson the opportunity of bringing the
United States into the War and thus of saving England from threatened disaster.(7) He opposed unrestricted submarine warfare because he felt
sure that America's entrance in the War would mean the defeat of the Central Powers and
the destruction of Austria-Hungary.
On May 23, 1917, Count Tisza resigned his position as Prime Minister of Hungary, which
position he had held since 1913. Shortly afterwards he left for the battle front.
On October 17, 1918, the announcement was made in the Hungarian Parliament that the War
was lost and that Hungary would be transformed into an independent state in an
Austrio-Hungarian Federation.(8) Two days later the last
Prime Minister of old Hungary, Alexander Wekerle, presented his resignation, and on
October 25 Count Michael Károlyi reorganized a National Council. From now on events of
the greatest importance followed in quick succession. Between October 30 and November 1 a
revolution occurred in Budapest, during which Michael Károlyi was entrusted by the
National Council with the formation of a cabinet and given dictatorial powers, Tisza was
assassinated on October 31, and on November 1 Emperor-King Karl was forced by Károlyi to
retire from his governmental duties.(9) On November 3
General Diaz, representing the Allies, signed at Padua an armistice with Austria-Hungary,
and the Hungarian soldiers soon began to return home. But Károlyi, thinking that he could
secure more considerate treatment for Hungary from the French Commander in Chief on the
southern front, General Franchet d'Espérey, went to Belgrade on November 13 to obtain
from the latter new armistice terms.
Károlyi believed himself entitled to friendly treatment by the Allies because he had
always been an advocate of Western European political democracy. During the War he had
been a leader of the Hungarian defeatists, who had been more interested in over throwing
the aristocratic government at home than in the safety or victory of their fatherland. Dr.
Oscar Jászi, Minister of Nationalities in the Károlyi government,(10)
has expressed in these words the hopes held by the Károlyi followers:
We had confidence in the democratic and pacifist quality of public opinion in the
Entente states and especially in the policy of President Wilson, a policy which stood
higher than any mere nationalism. - We were convinced that the conquering Allies would
show the utmost good will to her [Hungary's] pacifist and anti-militarist government, and
especially Károlyi, who had so often stood with unexampled courage for the policy of the
Entente; we were sure that they would apply the plebiscitary principle on which they had
so often laid stress, and that if we had to suffer losses of territory it would still be
possible, with the aid of just and liberal commercial treaties, to assure the undisturbed
continuance of communication with the lost area.(11)
These phantastic ideologists, Michael Károlyi, the Don Quixote mounted on the
Rosinante of the Fourteen Points, and Jászi, his Sancho Panza, were quickly
disillusioned. To use the bitter words of Dr. Jászi:
The bright promise of Wilson's League of Nations, the just peace and the right of
self-determination and the plebiscite, in which the Hungarian people had placed their
trust, burst like soap bubbles. We saw ourselves not only defeated, broken and plundered,
but, a much crueler wound to public feeling, bluffed and swindled.(12)
General Franchet d'Espérey was a typical French militarist, as a victor, arrogant and
merciless. He received the Károlyi delegation with studied brutality. When the radical
Socialist member of the delegation, the President of the Council of Soldiers and Workers,
Mr. C. S. Csernyák, who had been selected to impress the General with the change of heart
of the Hungarian government, was introduced to him, he remarked contemptuously,
"Well, have you come to this already?"(13)
As a result of the military convention concluded with Franchet d'Espérey without the
specific sanction of the Allied Supreme Council, a line of demarcation was laid down
foreshadowing the territorial provisions of the future peace. This convention transferred
a large slice of Hungarian territory to the Serbs and Roumanians, who immediately began to
occupy it. It was expressly stated that the Hungarian police and civil administrations
were to be continued. This agreement was violated. The inhabitants of the occupied area
were forced to take the oath of allegiance and were even pressed into military service.
The Czechs, who had not been included in the military convention, were authorized by the
Supreme Council to occupy Slovakia, and they not only carried out this mandate, but
notified the Hungarians that they would proceed beyond the fixed line of demarcation.
On December 1, 1918, the Roumanians of Transylvania declared their secession from
Hungary and on December 27 they were formally annexed by Roumania.
In vain did the Hungarian government protest against the Czech invasion of Northern
Hungary as a violation of the Belgrade Convention. The Allies merely ratified the action
of the Czechs post hoc and fixed new frontiers for Hungary, information as to
which were on March 20 communicated to the Hungarians by the French Lieutenant-Colonel
Vyx, the chief of he Inter-Allied Military Mission in Budapest.(14)
Thereupon Károlyi immediately resigned.
On November 16, 1918, Hungary had been proclaimed republic by Michael Károlyi, who on
January 16,1919, had been appointed its Provisional President.
We have seen how unsuccessful Károlyi was in his dealings with the Allies, misjudging
completely their motives and miscalculating their aims. He had permitted Hungary to become
stripped of all means of self-defence.(15) Naively he had
relied on a sense of justice and fairness in Hungary's enemies, and now no one could tell
when and where their desire for more territory would stop.
Economic conditions had become extremely bad. The food blockade of the Allies had
continued after the Armistice, causing unspeakable misery in the large cities of Hungary.
Under these circumstances it is no wonder that the radical element in the government
got the upper hand and gradually replaced the Liberals and moderate Socialists.
Furthermore, the Károlyists must be charged with ignorance of the dangers of Bolshevism,
an ignorance resulting from a combination of their naive liberal doctrinarianism and their
hatred of the old régime. Thus Jászi informs us:
I was in agreement with those who held that no limit should be set to the Bolshevist
propaganda as long as it used, no matter how recklessly or with what demagogy, the normal
means of political controversy; I agreed that the Bolshevists must be respected as the
pioneers of a great unrealizable idea.(16) . . It was
generally felt that this government was no longer able to save the October Revolution; and
if a choice had to be made between White and Red counter-Revolution the Red was preferred.(17)
Károlyi was in despair and felt extremely bitter against the Allies, who had rewarded
so cruelly the services he had rendered them and the trust he had put in their professed
ideals. He furthermore was a vain political amateur,(18)
an over ambitious hazard player, who was willing to risk his country's welfare to
satisfy his passions, with a terrible result to Hungary and great danger to civilization.
This explains why he finally decided to turn over the government to the Communists, with
the words:
'Our Western orientation, our policy of reliance on Wilson, has been definitely
wrecked. We must have a fresh orientation, which will ensure us the sympathies of the
Labor International.'(19)
The new government, a combination of radical Socialists and Communists, with the latter
in control, was established on March 21. It set up a Soviet Republic and affiliated itself
immediately with the Third International.(20) Its nominal
president was the bricklayer Garbai, but the real power was Béla Kun,(21)
a capable, shrewd, and unscrupulous young Jew, who had been captured by the Russians
during the War, and who had become an ardent admirer of Lenin and his teachings. Converted
to Bolshevism, he was employed by the expert propagandist, Radek, for the spreading of
communistic propaganda among the prisoners of war.
A few weeks after Károlyi's revolution, Béla Kun returned secretly to Budapest and,
lavishly supported by the Moscow government, carried on extensive propaganda in Hungary.
On February 22 he and other Communist leaders were arrested by the Károlyi government
but, at the instigation of its radical wing, he was released on March 21.
Knowing the intense patriotism of the non-Bolshevik Hungarians, he appealed to all
Hungarians to unite against the "imperialistic aggressors." In a wireless
message to the workers of the world, he stated: "The reply of the Hungarian people to
the ultimatum of the Entente demanding the immediate and final surrender of Hungarian
territory to the Roumanian oligarchy, is the proclamation of the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat!"
On April 20 Soviet Hungary declared war on the invading armies of the Czechs,
Roumanians and Serbs. At first the Communists were successful against the Czechs, and on
June 7, receiving a distress signal from the French general at Pressburg [now Bratislava],
the so-called "Big Four" issued an ultimatum to Béla Kun promising him
provisional recognition of his government, provided he withdrew his troops from Slovakia.
During all this time the Soviet leaders in Budapest had been trying to establish firmly
their rule in Hungary, and to bring about the socialization of all means of production. To
take revenge on the hated bourgeoisie, and to crush all attempts at counter-revolution, a
bloody terror was established, both in Budapest and in the rest of the country, under the
direction of Tibor Számuelly, Cserny, Korvin, László, and others.(22)
The men who carried on the Red régime in Hungary are described as follows by Dr. Oscar
Szöllösy, Councilor in the Royal Hungarian Ministry of Justice:
Lenin's well-known axiom to the effect that in revolutions for every honest-minded man
(unfortunately) are to be found hundreds of criminals, can scarcely be applied to
Hungarian Bolshevism.- Criminologists of long standing who lived through the horror of the
Red regime in Hungary, which lasted from March 21st to the end of July, 1919, could
testify, even without the decisions of the court of laws, that the leading spirits of the
"Soviet Republic" (with the exception of a few fanatics) consisted of common
criminals, to the greater part of whom may be applied with perfect aptness the definition
of Anatole France, "encore bête et déjà homme."(23)
In general the policy of the Soviets followed Béla Kun's dictum: "I do not admit
the distinction between the moral and the immoral; the only distinction I know is the
distinction between that which serves the proletariat and that which harms it."
The explanation of the temporarily apathetic acceptance on the part of the majority of
the Hungarian people of the rule of a handful of Communists, may be expressed by the two
words, despair and hunger.(24)
The main reasons for the downfall of the Bolshevik government lie in the abandonment of
Béla Kun by the Supreme Council,(25) the
counter-revolution of the bourgeoisie and the nobility,(26)
and the stubborn passive resistance of the peasantry, who showed a determined hostility to
the economic and antireligious ideas of communism and who starved Budapest, the citadel of
Bolshevism, into submission by boycotting the city.
In vain did Béla Kun try once more to appeal to Hungarian patriotism, for the benefit
of international Bolshevism, by sending a workers' army against the Roumanians. It was
utterly routed. The Roumanians pursued the defeated Bolshevists. Their rule collapsed,
Béla Kun and some of his companions fled to Austria, while others were captured and
punished.
On July 31 the Roumanians, after having pillaged and devastated the country through
which they had marched, entered Budapest, where a social- democratic government under
Peidl had then been established.(27)
On the sixth of August the Peidl government was replaced through a coup d'etat by an
extreme nationalist-clerical government under Prime Minister Stephen Friedrich. The new
government desired to put on the throne Archduke Joseph, who, before Emperor-King Karl's
withdrawal, it is alleged, had been entrusted by him with the power of appointing Prime
Ministers.
The invasion of Hungary, the sacking of the country, and the seizure of Budapest had
taken place in defiance of the order of the Supreme Council.(28)
The Roumanian adventure was being eagerly watched by Hungary's other neighbors and by
Italy, who were all anxious to help themselves in Hungary or elsewhere, in case the
Supreme Council should acquiesce in the fait accompli. In addition, the
prestige of the future League of Nations was at stake, for if Roumania could defy the
principal powers of this future association, it would be an object of ridicule even before
it was born.(29)
Therefore the Supreme Council sent a message, signed by Clemenceau, to the Hungarians,
through its military representative at Budapest, the Italian Lieuenant Colonel Romanelli:
Hungary shall carry out the terms of the Armistice(30)
and repect the frontiers traced by the Supreme Council,(31)
and we will protect you from the Roumanians, who have no authority from us. We are sending
forthwith an Inter-Allied Military Mission to superintend the disarmament and to see that
the Roumanian troops withdraw.
In accordance with this decision, four generals, representing the four chief Allies,
were appointed to head the Military Mission to Hungary, viz.:
General Bandholtz of the United States Army,
General Gorton of the British Army,
General Graziani of the French Army,
General Mombelli of the Italian Army.
Here the narrative of General Bandholtz begins. He was commissioned on August 6, 1919;
started for Budapest in an automobile with the then Director of Food Supplies, Herbert
Hoover; arrived in the capital of Hungary on August 10 and stayed there six months, until
his mission was ended. He left Hungary with the Hungarian Peace Delegation on February 10,
1920.
FRITZ-KONRAD KRÜGER
Professor of Political Science
Wittenberg College
Springfield, Ohio
November, 1932
1. Proof of this Statement is, above all, found in the collection of
official Austro-Hungarian diplomatic documents, Östreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von
der Bosnischen Krise, 1908, bis zum Kriegsausbruch, 1914; Diplomatische Aktenstücke des
Österreich-Ungarischen Ministeriums des Äusseren; Ausgewählt von Ludwig Bittner,
Alfred Francis Pribram, Heinrich Srbik und Hans Uebersberger, Wien und Leipzig, 1930, Vol.
VIII. Of special importance is the report of Tisza to Kaiser Franz Joseph on July 8, 1914
(pp. 371-73). In addition, see statements on pages 343-51 and 448. Count Ottokar Czernin
says in his Im Weltkriege, Berlin, 1919 (p.16): "Ich habe mehrere Monate
nach dem Kriegsausbruch eine lange Unterredung mit dem ungarischen Ministerpräsidenten
Grafen Tisza über alle diese Fragen gehabt. Er selbst, Tisza, war entschieden gegen das
scharfe Ultimatum gewesen, weil er einen Krieg voraussah und denselben nicht wollte. Es
ist einer der verbreitetsten Irrtümer, wenn Tisza heute als einer der 'Kriegshetzer'
bezeichnet wird." Compare with Czernin's opinion that of Oscar Jászi in his Dissolution
of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Chicago, 1959, p.408: "It must be noted that
his [Tisza's] resistance to the catastrophe-policy of Vienna was very platonic and
lukewarm"; and p. 409, "He helped to make the ultimatum unacceptable to
Serbia." Jonescu's opinion, as expressed in Some Personal Impressions,
New York, 1920 (p.183), that "Count Tisza was the prime mover in unchaining the
conflict," and that "he provoked the universal carnage," is unwarranted by
the facts. Likewise E. Bene was mistaken when he wrote in 1917: "When the Crown
Council in July, 1914, decided on the declaration of war against Serbia, Tisza and the
Magyar nobility gave the decisive vote." See, on the other hand, sidney Bradshaw
Fay's Origins of the World War, New York, 1928, Vol.11, p. 188 passim;
and the symposium of Harry Elmer Barnes, Count Berchtold, Count Hoyos, von Wiesner, von
Jagow, and Zimmermann in Current History, July, 1928, pp. 619-36, on the
question: Did Germany Incite Austria? Also Harry Elmer Barnes' Genesis of the
World War, New York, 1927, pp. 178-80 and 247; A. Weber's "Graf Tisza und die
Kriegserklaerung an Serbien," in Die Kriegsschuldfrage, Berlin, 3. Jahrgang,
Nov. 12, 1925, pp. 818-26; and Rodolfo Mosca's Problemi politici 1'Ungheria
contemporanea, Bologna, 1927, pp.27 ff.
2. The German text of this memorandum may be found in Wilhelm
Fraknói's Die ungarische Regierung und die Entstehung des Weltkrieges, Vienna,
1919. An English translation of the original Hungarian, as given by Professor Henrik
Marczali, is contained in the American Historical Review, Jan.. 1924,
XXIX, 303-10, in an article entitled "Papers of Count Tisza, 1914-1918,"
pp.101-15. See also Pierre Renouvin's Immediate Origins of the War, translated
from the French by T. C. Hume, New Haven, 1928, pp.37 and 55-56.
3. See S. B. Fay's Origins of the World War, Vol.11,
"Berchtold's Efforts to Convert Tisza," pp.224-36, "The Conversion of
Tisza," pp.239-43.
4. Cited from S. B. Fay's Origins of the World War, p.241.
5. The outstanding non-Hungarian advocate of such a revision is Lord
Rothermere. See his article in the Daily Mail of June 24, 1921. It appeared in
German translation in the Pester Lloyd of June 24, 1927, and was reprinted in Europäische
Gesprache, Berlin, Oct., 19117. Charles à Court Repington says in his diary, After
the War, Boston, 1922, p.168: "It is pathetic how all the Magyars confide in the
legendary justice of England and in her power to put matters right. I tell them all that
the mass of our people were too much preoccupied with affairs more vital to them to worry
about little Hungary, and that I felt sure that few outside the official classes knew of
the measure meted out to her and what it all implied."
6. To characterize as a "deluded Don Quixote" this
realistic and powerful personality, to whom posing was absolutely foreign, indicates
either bad judgment or poor taste. Dr. 0. Jászi, in Revolution and Counter-
Revolution in Hungary, London, 1924, p.4.
7. I wish to state explicitly that I am presenting Tisza's opinion,
not my own. The latter I have expressed in Deutsche Stimmen, April 9, 1922, in an
article entitled "Woodrow Wilson-Tumulty versus Graf Bernstorff."
8. This statement, as well as many other documents concerning
post-war Hungary, may be found in Malbone W. Graham's New Governments of Central
Europe, New York, 1924, pp. 538-601.
9. It is to be remembered that Károlyi had accepted his position as
Prime Minister from the hands of Emperor-King Karl. Karl did not formally abdicate.
10. Oscar Jászi was an official in the Ministry of Agriculture
under the old regime. He resigned because he disagreed with the government. Founder of the
Hungarian Sociological Society and editor of its organ, The Twentieth Century, he
was associated with the movements for land reform, universal suffrage, and cultural
autonomy for the minorities in Hungary. On the eve of the world war, he founded the
so-called Radical Party, a pacifistic and liberal-socialistic group. After the outbreak of
the October revolution, Dr. Jászi entered the Károlyi cabinet. Shortly before the
collapse of the Károlyi regime, he resigned to become professor of sociology at Budapest,
a position which he held until compelled by the Bolsheviks to give it up. Since 1919, he
has lived as a voluntary exile, first in Vienna and later in the United States, where he
now holds a professorship in political science. [Later he taught at Oberlin. Ed.] Dr.
Jászi's book, mentioned before, is the most responsible and the ablest explanation and
defense of the Károlyi regime yet published. Michael Károlyi has thus far written only
the first volume of his story, entitled Against the Whole World. This volume does
not contain his account of the Hungarian revolution.
11. Oscar Jászi, ibid., p.37. In view of this and of
other statements, as well as of the actions of the Károlyi cabinet, we can hardly believe
Jászi when he says (page 3): "Nor was I blind at any time to the Janus-headed policy
of the Entente."
12. 0. Jászi, ibid., pp.56-57; also p. 40: "We were
doomed by the very internationalism which was the basis of our whole policy."
13. "Êtes-vous tombé si bas?"
14. Vyx, like Franchet d'Espérey, was a typical militarist who
offended the Hungarians unnecessarily by the form in which he handed his orders to them.
This is contrary to the statement expressed by Jérome and Jean Tharaud, When Israel
is King, New York, 1924, p.144. Translated from he French: Quand Israel est roi,
Paris, 1921, by Lady Whitehead. These French writers are Hungarophiles and try to explain
away the bad treatment which the Hungarians received from the French. The diary of General
Bandholtz is ample evidence of the futility of such efforts. The Hungarian opinion is
expressed in the following words: "Taking advantage on his position, Colonel Vyx has
trodden on our self-respect. He has treated the Eastern bulwark of Europe as the French
officers treat the savages in their own colonies." Cécile Tormay, An Outlaw's
Diary: The Commune, New York, 1924, p. 39.
15. See J. and J. Tharaud, op. cit., p.144. The first measure of
the Károlyi government had been to demobilize the army. Béla Linder, the War Minister,
had said that "he did not wish to see soldiers."
16. 0. Jászi, op. cit., p.86.
17. 0. Jászi, ibid., p.88.
18. It seems to me that his vanity can be implied from the
statements in Jászi's book (p.63): "Károlyi rewarded and overvalued men who brought
news and material which bore out his pet ideas and convictions." The incompetence of
Károlyi and his colleagues can be seen from the words of Dr. Jászi: "It proved
impossible to control the course of events." Like the apprentice in Goethe's poem,
Der Zauberer, these leaders could not control the ghosts whom they had summoned and were
duly overpowered by them.
19. In a speech before the Council of Ministers, end of March.
Quoted by Jászi, p.94.
20. The dictatorship of the Proletariat was formally declared on
March 22.
21. Previous to the war, Béla Kun had been an obscure newspaper
reporter and secretary of a worker's mutual benefit society, in which capacity he had
misappropriated a small sum of money and was about to be hailed into court, when the war
broke out and prosecution was halted.
22. See the graphic description of the rule of the Red Terror by
the well. known Hungarian writer Cécile Tormay, in An Outlaw's Diary, New York,
1924; also the popular pamphlet From Behind the Veil, the Story of Hungarian
Bolshevism, Budapest, 1920. The author of this interesting pamphlet is Karl Huszár,
as Count Paul Teleki states in The Evolution of Hungary and its Place in European
History, New York, 1923, p.138. On the other hand, Dr. Jászi always explains,
excuses, and minimizes the Red Terror, in contrast to the so-called White Terror.
Korvin-Klein, for instance, is called a martyr. According to the Hungarian Ministry of
Justice, 585 persons were publicly executed by the Bolshevists.
23. Reprinted from the Anglo-Hungarian Review, in the Appendix
(pp. 215 ff.) to Cecile Tormay's Outlaw's Diary.
24. The blockade of the Allies was not raised until March, 1919.
"Der Bolschevismus ist die fürchterliche Fratze staatlicher Einrichtungen. Der Krieg
ist sein Vater, die Hungersnot seine Mutter, die Verzweiflung sein Pate." Ottokar
Czernin, Im Weltkriege, Berlin, 1919. "The bewildering fact of military
defeat threw the older and established classes of Hungary, together with the bourgeoisie,
into a state of torpid lethargy." Stephen Bethlen, "Hungary in the New
Europe," in Foreign Affairs, Dec., 1924, Vol.111, No.2, p. 432.
25. The Entente officially broke with the Soviet government of
Hungary on July 16.
26. It was organized in May at Arad, then held by the Roumanians.
In June it was transferred to Szeged. Its leader was Julius Károlyi. He was joined by
Count Stephen Bethlen, who had worked for the counter- revolution in Vienna. Horthy
organized the Army of Loyal Veterans of the World War.
27. The statement made by Professor William Bennet Munro, in The
Governments of Europe, revised ed., New York, 1931 (p.794), to the effect that
"with the aid of the Roumanian troops this soviet administration was ousted and a
national government restored," is somewhat misleading. The Roumanians were as hostile
to the Hungarian national government as to the Bolshevik government, but they desired to
weaken the latter through the former. The Hungarian feeling in this matter is given in the
words of Cécile Tormay: "what a terrible position is ours: The invaders fill us with
horror, and yet we await them eagerly: we look to assassins to save us from our
hangmen."
28. Charles Vopicka, a Czech by birth and naturally Slavophil, who
was then minister of the United States at Bucharest, tells us that he did not join his
colleagues at Bucharest in their advice to the Roumanians not to take possession of the
new line of demarcation until they were given permission by the Peace Conference to do so.
On the contrary, he incited the Roumanians indirectly to go ahead (p.301). Since the
Allies did not reply to their request, the Roumanians went to war. Thereupon Vopicka
telegraphed to Paris asking the Peace Commission to force Béla Kun to retreat, and to
call the Czechs, Jugo-Slavs, and Roumanians up against him in case he did not obey. Secrets
of the Balkans.
29. This point is well brought out by Frank H. Simonds in the
article 'Hungary, the Balkans and the League," in The American Review of Reviews,
Sept., 1919, which, with the article, "The European Reaction," in the issue of
October, 1919, is an interesting and, in general, well-informed journalistic commentary of
the situation then existing in Hungary.
30. Of Nov. 13, 1918.
31. On June 13, 1919
List of Principal Persons || 2: August, 1919 >>
