Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944

In October, 1918, it became apparent that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had lost the war and its break-up was impending. During the last days of October, the Hungarian political parties agreed on the need for establishing a separate political entity, Hungary, and on a separate peace treaty. On October 30, 1918, the Habsburg King Charles IV was forced to make Count Michael Karolyi Prime Minister of Hungary (this was termed the "October revolution"). King Charles surrendered the reins of government but did not abdicate. Count Michael Karolyi was the leader of the opposition in the Hungarian Parliament and a convinced "western" democrat. Karolyi believed that he was entitled to friendly treatment by the Allies because he had always been an advocate of Western European political Democracy. During the war a report spread ,that he was in secret but close contact with the leading states men of the Great Powers. Consequently, the opinion was held that he alone could secure the protection of the Hungarian nation. ⁽¹⁾

As prime minister, Karolyi was obsessed with Hungary's boundaries. He and Dr. Oscar Jaszi, Minister of Nationalities in the new Hungarian cabinet, attempted to save Hungary's territorial integrity by making the non-Magyar nationalities forget the past and reconcile themselves to the new Hungarian democracy. Oscar Jaszi promised them true national equality in a "Danubian Confederation."⁽²⁾ Even the English historian, R.W. Seton-Watson, who did not conceal his pro-Slavic and pro-Rumanian sympathies, wrote sympathetically about the proposals made by Jaszi.⁽³⁾

The new Hungarian government faced staggering problems. The whole political and administrative organization of the country try, as well as its economy, were in a slate of collapse. Karolyi's government represented a coalition of his own small Independent Party (a bourgeois radical party), the Radical Party (the leftist intelligentsia), and the Social Democrats. The cabinet soon met with increasing pressure from within the country and from the Entente. The parties to the right of the government found it impossible to agree on common goals and methods in domestic affairs, such as land reform. They continued to go their separate ways and worked from the very beginning for Karolyi's overthrow.

On the other hand, the left wing of the Social Democrat Party, which was by far the most powerful member of the government coalition, wanted more socialism. They were radical and sympathetic towards communism. The cabinet was divided and hopelessly paralyzed. Furthermore, tens of thousands of Magyars were seeking refuge in the country from the occupied territories, while the Entente continued to maintain its blockade against Hungary. These refugees only increased the number of the unemployed. Under these circumstances the government found the solution of its internal problems increasingly difficult.

The external problems were even more hopeless. Karolyi's primary objective was to secure a moderate peace by enlisting President Wilson and some European forces against the advocates of a harsh treaty. Therefore he favored a republican regime in order to convince Wilson that Hungary's transition to democracy was as thorough and sincere as that of Germany, Austria, and the successor states. ⁽⁴⁾ Hungary was proclaimed to be a "Peoples's Republic" on November 16, 1918, and the Hungarian National Council elected Karolyi President of the Republic in January, 1919. Even those who, in other circumstances, would have preferred a constitutional monarchy were satisfied in their belief that the republic was in the best national interest.

The government and the nation looked with both anxiety and hope toward the Paris Peace Conference, though none of the policy statements or acts of Western statesmen had given any grounds for hope.⁽⁵⁾ Karolyi hoped to elicit a gesture of good will

and sympathy for himself and his regime, favorable occupation terms, and assurances for the integrity of Hungary's borders. To secure this and a modification of the Padua armistice, he himself headed a Hungarian delegation that traveled to Belgrade on November 8, 1918. ⁽⁶⁾

But unlike Karolyi, the French~ General Franchet D'Esperey. Allied Commander in Chief for the Southeastern theatre, was not disposed to forget that Hungary was a defeated enemy suing for terms at a time when French armies might still have to fight their way to Berlin. Treating the Hungarian delegation with rudeness and arrogance, he made it clear that the new Hungary was still the enemy. Karolyi pleaded for generosity toward the young Hungarian democracy, but Franchet D'Esperey, while paying homage to Karolyi personally, was determined to punish the Hungarians. He reminded them of France's support of the Hungarian rebels against the Habsburgs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and reproached them bitterly for being accomplices of the Germans: "You marched with them, you will be punished with them

You offended France and we will not forget . " On being introduced to Baron Louis de Hatvany, a Jewish delegate, Franchet D'Esperey could not conceal his anti-Semitism. He took Baron Hatvany to a window in order to look him over closely and insolently remarked: "Ah, I see, you must be a Jew by your nose."⁽⁷⁾

To Hungary's political parties and the entire Hungarian nation Karolyi's meeting with General Franchet D'Esperey proved

to be a bitter disappointment.⁽⁸⁾ A new military convention was accepted and signed in Belgrade on November 13, 1918, by the delegates of the Karolyi government and representatives of General D'Esperey. This new Convention required the demobilization of all Hungarian forces except six infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions. In addition, it prescribed a line of demarcation which ran across the whole of south and east Hungary from Beszterce in Eastern Transylvania, southward to the Maros River, west along the Maros through Szabadka. Baja, and Pecs to the Mur River. Though Allied troops were to occupy the region south and east of this line, Hungarian administration was to continue to operate. After November 13, 1918, however, the region was occupied by Serbian and Rumanian troops (Hungary had expected this area to be occupied by troops of the Great Powers). This action greatly alarmed Hungary in view of the territorial claims of Serbia and Rumania to the area and the fact that the Hungarian administration was immediately deposed. ⁽⁹⁾

Having failed in his first diplomatic foray, Karolyi appealed directly to President Wilson. In a message of November 16, 1918, he advised the President that his government relied on the generosity of the Western democracies, and that Wilson should support the Hungarian Republic in its crucial} struggle against dissolution and against the menace of anarchy. Within ten days Karolyi sent a second note to the President asking for his support: "Mr. President, we appeal to your feeling . . . come to the assistance of the young Hungarian democracy."⁽¹⁰⁾ Karolyi never received an answer.

When Czechoslovakia's territorial claims were presented to the Peace Conference by Eduard Benes on February 5, 1919, it becamed obvious that the Allies were taking the side of the successor states against Hungary. Benes asked for the Danube as a new frontier. He did not deny that the ethnic composition of the Hungarian districts north of the Danube was chiefly Magyar.⁽¹¹⁾ But he argued: "Slovakia must be a Danubian country, because the Danubian frontier is a geographic necessity and the new Czechoslovak state cannot survive without it."⁽¹²⁾

In early February, 191g, Rumania presented to the Supreme Council in Paris her claims to former Hungarian territories. On February 21, the Paris Peace Conference made a new decision about the Hungarian-Rumanian border. The new line of demarcation behind which the Hungarians were to withdraw was quite similar to the one assured to the Rumanians in the wartime treaty Of August 17, 1916. Though the Western Powers had reached this decision as early as February 21, 1919, it was not until several weeks later, on March 20, 1919, that it was presented to Hungary in the form of an ultimatum by the French Lieutenant Colonel Vyx, Chief of the Allied Military Mission in Hungary.

On March 19, Colonel Vyx asked the Chiefs of the three other Allied Missions to meet him at his headquarters at nine o'clock the following morning, prior to making a collective demarche with the Hungarian government. Captain Nicholas Roosevelt, the ranking member of the Budapest branch of the American Mission, arrived fifteen minutes early in order to explain

to Vyx that he was not empowered to take any action of a diplomatic or military nature. Vyx pointed out that the note about to be presented by the mission chiefs to Hungary incorporated a decision taken by the Allied Powers at the Paris Peace Conference, with which Roosevelt was connected. Having failed to reach Archibald C. Coolidge, his chief at Paris, by phone for instruction, and at the urging of the British and Italian representatives, Roosevelt decided to go along.⁽¹³⁾

The four Allied representatives arrived at Karolyi's office sometime between l0:00 and ll:00 A.M. Vyx handed the note to Karolyi. In handing over the ultimatum to Karolyi, Vyx remarked that the new line of demarcation, which once again took purely Magyar districts from Hungary, would be the provisional political frontier. He warned that the rejection of the Allied demand would be followed by the withdrawal of the Allied missions from Budapest, which was generally interpreted as a threat to renew the state of war with the Hungarian republic.⁽¹⁴⁾ This ultimatum destroyed the Democratic Hungarian Republic within the next few hours.

Karolyi did not have to read through the entire document to realize its full import. Karolyi pointed out to Vyx that the note was against the Belgrade agreement and to accept it could lead to anarchy and Bolshevism. He urged him to make a last attempt in Paris to postpone the matter. Vyx merely shrugged his shoulders and declared that it did not matter to him how the Karolyi government would respond. Karolyi continued to stress that the note was a matter of the greatest internal political importance; and that neither his own government nor any other government would last a day if it signed such a humiliating agreement. Vyx promptly replied in German: "Das ist mir ganz egal" ("I couldn't care less") either about the growth of Bolshevism, the consequences of resignation, or the composition

of a new government. In conclusion, should Karolyi fail to accept the ultimatum by 6:00 P.M. on March 21, the Entente Missions would immediately leave the country.⁽¹⁵⁾

Karolyi met with his cabinet during the afternoon of March 20; he confessed that the Allied note, as interpreted by Vyx, vividly demonstrated the failure of his Western orientation which had been based on Wilson's policy. In his answer to Colonel Vyx on March 21, Count Karolyi emphasized that the Hungarian government, "finds itself unable to accept this decision of the Peace Conference and unwilling to safeguard its execution." He charged that it ran counter to the armistice provisions of November 13.⁽¹⁶⁾

Count Karolyi resigned assuming that a purely socialist cabinet would be formed which would refuse to accept the new

armistice line and would possibly threaten to fight a patriotic war. He now believed that the Social Democratic Party was the only political force capable of controlling the army and of ordering it to the front as well as the only party capable of gaining new friends for Hungary in East and Central Europe. Count Karolyi had reached the bitter conclusion that Hungary had little to expect from the victorious Western democracies.

The socialist ministers, however, without Karolyi's knowledge, had entered into an agreement with Bela Kun, the imprisoned Bolshevik leader, for a union betveen the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. In consequence of this fact Bela Kun moved directly from the prison into public office as head of the new government and commissar for foreign affairs. The new course was based upon the expectation that "we ought to get from the East what the West denied us."⁽¹⁷⁾

The Hungarian Communist Party had been founded on November 24, 1918. Bela Kun, who before the war had been an insignificant provincial journalist and had lost his job in a workmen's insurance office because of embezzlement, had arrived in Budapest from Moscow on November 17, 1918. ⁽¹⁸⁾ He and other war prisoners returning from Russia constituted the Bolshevik nucleus. In Russia, these Hungarians had become faithful converts to Leninist principles and tactics. Immediately after the foundation of the Hungarian Communist Party, they began publication of a communist organ, Voros Ujsag (Red News). Bela

Kun began his propaganda work through this newspaper and in speeches among the demobilized soldiers and officers, the unemployed, and the poor farm laborers.⁽¹⁹⁾

The communists held the Karolyi cabinet accountable for the plight of the poor, for the neglect of their grievances, and for blocking the road to Socialist paradise. Mainly because of this propaganda, violence and terrorism occurred widely throughout Hungary in early 1919. On February 20, a mass of unemployed workers congregated at Budapest in the center of the city. Bela Kun called on the workers to procure arms for themselves and summoned them to a mass meeting in front of Parliament for the following afternoon to protest against the existing social and economic order. ⁽²⁰⁾ There was a heavy exchange of fire, with the security forces using machine guns. Who fired the first shot remains a mystery. At any rate, when the shooting was over, there were seven dead policemen and eighty wounded. The number of the injured workers is unknown. Bela Kun and the leaders of the Communist Party - a total of sixty-nine activists were thrown into jail. ⁽²¹⁾

Now Karolyi's cabinet was afflicted by yet another problem. Lenin expressed his displeasure over events in Hungary by arresting three members all Social Democrats - of the Hungarian mission, which happened to be in Moscow to negotiate the

repatriation of some 100,000 prisioners of war. Lenin notified the Hungarian government that these men would be put to death if anything happened to the communists in Budapest. This external pressure brought about the release of twenty-nine of the sixty-nine prisoners, while Bela Kun and those who remained in jail with him were classified as political prisoners and treated as gentlemen.

On March 21, 1919, as stated above, Bela Kun moved directly from prison into public office as head of the new government and commissar for foreign affairs. Kun promised a new course for foreign policy. Territorial integrity and defense would be achieved not through bidding for American help, but rather through an alliance with the revolutionary proletariat of Russia. In any event, to save Hungary, the Hungarian proletariat would fight a revolutionary war with Russia against predatory neighbors.

The proletarian revolution in Hungary had its own peculiar characteristics. It was, as the Vienna Social-Democratic daily, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, quickly pointed out, not so much a revolution against her own bourgeoisie as one against the Entente bourgeoisie.⁽²²⁾ Izvestias's explanation of the political turnorver in Hungary, as serving the purposes of national defense, followed virtually the same lines.⁽²³⁾

The prevailing view among the communists and noncommunists, both in Hungary and abroad, was that the Entente was largely responsible for the radical turn of events in Hungary. In addition, it was felt that the communist seizure had come as a direct consequence of the allied ultimatum - not as the result of victory in the internal class struggle.⁽²⁴⁾ The Pester Lloyd flatly

declared that the creation of the Soviet Republic was the reply of the Hungarian proletariat to the reckless, booty-seeking imperialism of the Entente and her satellites. This paper attributed the economic crisis to the loss of the wealthiest provinces and charged that the proposed Rumanian line of demarcation crudely violated Wilson's principles: "The answer to the peace of violence which the Conference of Paris seeks to dictate is the Red flood which, starting from Russia, now will spread from Hungary toward the West."⁽²⁵⁾ In Vilag (The Globe) Louis Biro insisted that Hungary would have "signed her own death warrant by accepting the ultimatum which clearly proved the bankruptcy of bourgeois policy to everyone." In this same inflamed nationalist spirit, Thomas Kobor, the editorialist of the conservative Az Ujsag (The News) claimed that Hungarians have set their own house on fire in order to set fire to the whole world. The bourgeois Az Est (The Evening) seemed proud that Budapest "was shaking up the world," notably Paris, and that together with the Russian giant, "the courageous and vigorous Hungarian proletariat was at the forefront of progress." All these papers and editorials refrained from commenting on internal developments, preferring to justify the revolution in purely nationalist terms.

Not only in Hungary, but also in Western Europe, everyone traced the Hungarian explosion back to the Peace Conference. While the main line of criticism was directed at the error of the Conference in imposing such harsh policies on the Hungarian nation as to drive her into the arms of Bolshevism, the French press blamed Wilson's idealism. The Temps was shaken because Wilson was on the point of yielding to the enemy.⁽²⁶⁾ Figaro took the view that the Hungarian revolution was sheer blackmail, the Red spectre being the chosen weapon and Germany being the thinly disguised mastermind.⁽²⁷⁾ The Echo de Paris stated that with the

Hungarian revolution the "door to the heart of Europe was wide open to Bolshevism" and that instead of Wilsonian leniency towards the enemy the Conference should face up to the danger.⁽²⁸⁾

Except for the charge of German complicity, the British press stressed the same themes as the French press. The Times (London) stated that Hungary lay well on the western side of the sanitary cordon against Bolshevism, and by the terms of the Armistice she indubitably submitted to the authority of Paris. The paper called the attention of the President to the fact that "between the Red League of Lenin and the ideals of the League of Nations there was a chasm which no compromise could bridge."⁽²⁹⁾ The Daily Mall vented its rage on Wilson whom the paper held "directly responsible for the nervous inertia of the Conference"⁽³⁰⁾ The Morning Post wanted to give Clemenceau the supreme direction of allied diplomacy in order to counter the Hungarian "try on" and, further, to wrest security and reparations from the enemy at once ⁽³¹⁾

The communist seizure of power in Hungary made the Hungarian question the first item on the agenda of the Paris Conference. The first impact of the news that a Soviet republic had been established in Budapest was disturbing. Furthermore, there were authentic reports of an imminent collapse in Vienna; a Soviet-type republic was proclaimed in Bavaria; strikes broke out in the Ruhr, in Hamburg, and in Saxony; the sailors of the French squadron at Odessa mutinied, thus hastening the evacuation of this strategic Black Sea port; and the Russian Red Army stayed Kolchak's advance and continued to push ahead in the Ukraine. To make matters worse, there was labor unrest in Britain, France, and Italy.

1 Karolyi went to Switzerland on November 25 1917. He met with Hugh R. Wilson, United States Charge D'affaires in Switzerland. He coincidently predicted that he would soon come to power and would be in a position to dictate Austrian policy. In that case, the Allies should suggest a peace conference. He would send delegates to that conference and they would line up with the Allies against Germany See U. S., Foreign Relation, 1917, Suppl. 2, 1, pp. 322ff.

A rumor also circulated among Czech and Slovak immigrants that Karolyi had come secretly to the United States in the hope of inducing President Wilson to preserve the integrity of Hungary. See Thomas G Masaryk, The Making of a State, Memories and Observations, 191~1918 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1927), p. 209.

2 Wilhelm Bohm, Im Kreuzfeuer zweier Revolutionen ( Munich, Verlag fur Kulturpolitik, 1924 ), p. 109.

3 He offered them independence and complete racial equality as the basis of a new Danubian Confederation of the free peoples. The Commune and no longer the county, was to be the unit of political organization, and this unquestionably offered true democratic guarantees. History of the Roumanians (Cambridge: University Press, 1934), p 532

4 Michael Karolyi, Memoirs: Faith without Illusion (New York: Dutton. 1957), pp. 125 142.

5 As Dr. Oscar Jaszi said: "We had confidence in the democratic and pacifist quality of public opinion in the Entente states and especially in the policy of President Wilson. We were convinced that the conquering Allies would show the utmost good will to Hungary's pacifist and anti-militarist government. We were sure that they would apply the plebiscitary principle on which they had so often laid stress." Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary (London: Grant Richards, 1924), p. 37.

6 The armistice at Padua, on November 3, 1918, which terminated hostilities between the Allies and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, was the last document which bore the latters name. The armistice was signed by the representatives of the Italian supreme Command and by the Supreme Command of the Dual Monarchy. The new Hungarian government, which had come into existence before this agreement, on October 30, 1918, was on principle opposed to the arrangement since it was signed by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff. see Karolyi, Memoirs p. 130.

For the text or the Padua armistice, see u. S., For. Rel. Peace Corderence, 1, 175.

7 Karolyi, Memos, p. 134.

8 Oscar Jaszi wrote later: "The bright promise of Wilson's League of Nations, the just peace, the right of self-determination, and the plebiscite in which the Hungarian people had placed their trust burst like soap bubbles. They saw themselves not only defeated, broken and plundered, but, a much crueler wound to public feeling, bluffed and swindled." Revolution and Counter-Revolution, p. 56.

9 For the text of the Military Convention of Belgrade, see U. S., For. Rel. Peace Conference, II, 183.

10 Karolyi, Memoirs, p. 146.

11 Magyar was 80 percent and Slovak was only 11 percent. See U. S., National Archives, Inquiry, No. 108.

12 Ibid. It may be interesting to note in this connection that at the Paris Peace Conference the American Peace Delegation advocated an ethnic boundary for Czechoslovakia until April 4, 1919, when, during a period of the President's illness, Colonel House gave in to the French demand for the retention of the historical boundary of Bohemia and Moravia. See Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel House (4 vols.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1926-1928), III, 152.

13 U. S., For. Rd. Peace Corderenee. XII, 413-14.

14 Bohm, Im Rreuzfeuer pp. 268-69.

15 For full details see "Presentation to President Karolyi of Peace Conference Decision Regarding Evacution of Transylvania," March 20, 1919, in U.S., For. Rel. Peace Conference, 1919, XII, 413-14.

Vyx, like Franchet D'Esperey, offended the Hungarians unnecessarilly by the form in which he issued his orders. The Hungarian opinion is expressed in Cecile Tormay's word's: "Taking advantage of 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." An Outlaw's Diary (New York: Berko, 1924), p. 39.

Peter Pastor is of the opinion in a recently published study that Vyx and some other French generals can be considered as pro-Hungarian. According to Pastor, the strongly anti-Hungarian French government and the Supreme Council - and not the French military - were responsible for the rise of a communist regime in Hungary. See "The Vyx mission in Hungary, 1918-1919: a Reexamination," Slavic Review, XXIX, No. 3 (September, l970), 481-98

16 See Karolyi, "Die Geschichte meiner Abdankung," Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna daily), July 25, 1919.

Also a document is quoted by Francis Deak: 'The Hungarian government, not being in a position to bear the responsibility for the execution of this decision, as It was not invited to the Peace Conference and could not participate in taking this decision, found itself today obliged to hand in its demission." Hungary and the Paris Peace Conference (New York: Columbia University Press", 1942), p. 409.

17 Pester Lloyd, March 22, 1919. (This publication was a well-known Budapest Liberal daily written in the German language.)

18 About Bela Kun, see: Geza Herceg, Bela Kun: Eine historische Grimasse (Berlin: Verlag fur Kulturpolitik, 1928); or Arpad Szelpal, Les 133 purs de Bela Kun (Paris: Fayard, 1959); or Albert Kass and Fedor Lazarovics, Bolshevism In Hungary: The Bela Kun Period (London: Grant Richards, 1931). The communist opinion is expressed in the following works: Bela Kun, La Republique hongroise des conseils (Budapest: Editions Corvine, 1982); or The Hungarian Communist Party, ed., Kun's Speeches, Articles and Official Statements, 1918-19 (Budapest: State Publishing 1958).

19 According to Von Furstenberg, the chief German envoy in Budapest, in March, 1919, the Bolshevik Party had 10,000 members In Budapest and 25,000 in the provinces, and had spent about 1.5 million crowns of Soviet Russian origin over the last three months. German Foreign Ministry (Microfilm of records) 92/I/27/9294

. According to other records, on March 19, 1919, Colonel Vyx told the members of the American Mission in Budapest that there were "about 1,000 Russians, more in Hungary." U. S. Department of State 184.01102/254.

20 See Kun's speach as reported in Nepszava (People's Voice; Budapest daily), February 21, 1919.

21 Wilhelm Bohm, Defense Minister of the Karolyi government, wrote later on that the government received an urgent message from the Allied Missions to jail all Bolshevik agitators. Im Kreuzfeuer, p. 198.

22 "Ungarn und Wir," Arbeiter-Zeitung, March 23, 1919

23 Izvestia March 25, 1919; similarly Pravda, of the same day .

24 AIthough the Social-Democrat Wilhelm Bohm held that the fall of the Karolyi government had been due largely to internal causes he wrote later: "The responsiblsity for having brougt about the downfall of government must mainly be attributed to the behavior of the Entente and Its representative Vyx. Hungary and the Hungarian Social Democratic Party had been pushed onto this new road by the Entente Imperialisn." Im Kreuzfeuer, p 181.

25 This Hungarian paper and those following are cited in Bulettin Periodique de la presse hongroise (Paris). No. 31, pp. 2-3.

26 Le Temps March 24, 1919.

27 Le Figaro, March :13, 1919.

28 Echo de Paris, March 25, 1919.

29 The Times (London), March 25, 1919.

30 Daily Mail (Paris edition), March 23, 1919.

31 "The Need for a Generalissimo," editorial in the Morning Post, March 25, 1919

Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944