From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

The aim of this work is to focus attention on some internal political problems of the first Czechoslovak republic, primarily investigating the legal position of the Hungarian nationals of that state. The first Czechoslovak republic in history, after a short twenty-year existence, disappeared from the political map of the sovereign states of Europe. Similarities exist in the formation of the first and second Czechoslovakia in 1938 and in 1945. This Central European republic, in which many other foreign peoples from the neighbouring countries were forced to live under Czech domination, came into existence by the dictates of the victorious allies of a non-existing state after two world wars. In both cases, several exiled Czechs organized national councils abroad and they were recognized by some states as an allied belligerent government. "Czecho-Slovakia was formed in October 1918, as a result of the efforts of Thomas G. Masaryk and Edward Benes, whose Gzechoslovak National Committee in Paris had been recognized as a co-belligerent in World War I. [...] it was carved entirely out of the old dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.''l On October 5, 1938 Edward Benes, the former minister of foreign affairs and later the second president of the CSR, resigned and escaped from Prague, via Rumania, to London; British authorities were not aware of his arrival. At the end of World War II, in 1945, Benes returned to Prague from London, via Moscow. With the help of Soviet Russia, Benes functioned again as head of state. Now Czechoslovakia was smaller in area than it had previously been between 1918 and 1938. "For his part, Edward Benes voluntarily tied the fate and future of Czechoslovakia to the Russian star. No hue and cry was raised when Czechoslovakia ceded

Ruthenia to Stalin, thus the first time in history bringing the Russian frontier beyond the Carpathians into the plain of Danube."2

If one is willing to modify a view of a given period by using historical sources to explain political movements, then the behavior of some Czech politicians and political adventurers living in exile during the two world wars can serve as studies in political intrigue. These politicians, remaining abroad during the wars, tried to create a new state with the help of foreign government leaders but without the consent of the population of the territory they wished to rule. The first effective resistance against this oppressive Czech rule was organized in t938 on an international scale.

This study further examines the fate of the Hungarian population in the first Czechoslovakia where it was condemned to live with curtailed rights in a state of oppression as a minority group in the newly founded so called democratic republic of the Czechs. The Magyars of Czechoslovakia were placed in that country without being given a chance for self-detennination. They were compelled to live on the Czechoslovakian side of the border in the immediate vicinity of Hungary. During the period of 1938-1945 the larger part of the Magyar minority group in the CSR was liberated and returned to Hungary. The borderline of the dictated peace treaty of Trianon of June 4, 1920 between Czechoslovakia and Hungary was revised by peaceful means on November 2, 1938

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award