Endre Csapó : Peace to end Peace

In the Introduction,

Roland E. L. Vaughan Williams K. C. writes:

This collection of speeches made in the House of Lords and the House of Commons at various times between 1919 and 1930 concerning Hungary has been delivered, and was pub-lished, with the object of helping public opinion to come to a just conclusion as to the Treaty of Trianon and its consequen-ces.

No one will today seriously deny that the Treaty of Trianon violated the principle of self-determination. Three and a half million Hungarians were left outside Treaty Hungary, forming in several instances solid "blocks" immediately adjoining the new frontier. In recent years the principle of self-determination has fallen into some discredit, but it was the principle which the Allies invoked during the war and on which the peace treaties were avowedly based. It was applied rigorously whenever it told against Hungary, but subordinated to other considerations whenever it told inconveniently in favour of Hungary. Can it be said that the course actually taken has created a satisfactory state of things?

As a palliative to this violation of the doctrine of self-determination, the Minority Treaties were insisted on by the Great Powers at the Peace Conference. They were a condition of the transfer of territory to the Succession States. In the case of the territories detached from Hungary the racial "minorities" included not only Magyars but also Saxons and Swabians. All these races are today united in protesting that the Minority Treaties have failed to secure for them elementary justice.

I do not think any fair-minded person who has gone at all into the merits of the question will today deny that some revision of the Trianon Treaty is imperative, not only in the interest of peace and justice but also for the safety of Europe.

Viscount Bryce, House of Lords,

December 16th, 1919:

The Paris Conference has been unfortunate in endeavouring to keep secret its proceedings from the peoples of the Allied countries. Had they been known, protests would have been heard from the peoples of at least some of the Allied countries, because some of the decisions which have been arrived at by the Paris Conference are likely to have unfortunate results.

There is a district in Eastern Transylvania, which I visited many years ago, inhabited by a branch of the Hungarian nation who have been established there more than a thousand years. They are very simple, honest, mountain folk, living all by themselves, and having no Rumanian mixture. To take these people and subject them to the Rumanians, who are alien in religion, language and race, would be a grave injustice. I desire and hope that whenever the boundaries come to be limited the case of these particular Magyars will be carefully provided for, and that they will not be put under the Rumanian dominion. I have already observed that the Magyar population has reached a higher level than that of the Rumanian. The civilization of the Rumane people and of Rumania is on a distinctly lower level than that of the civilization of the Magyars in Hungary, and therefore it would be a "come-down" for the population of Hungary to be ruled by those who would come as officials from a less educated and less advanced country such as Rumania.

I do not believe that if a large population is taken away from Hungary and placed under the Rumanian Government that the Hungarians would tamely acquiesce in it. ...

Lord Newton, House of Lords,

February 25th, 1920:

I cannot refrain from pointing out that in some respects Hungary seems to have suffered more than any other country that participated in the War. It is proposed by the Treaty to diminish her territory by two-thirds; it is proposed to take away most of the big towns; the population will be reduced from something between 17 millions and 18 millions to little more than 7 millions. Hungary will lose nearly all its minerals and its ores, more than half its corn and maize-producing districts; it will lose a great portion of the horse and cattle-breeding districts; and worse than all, between 3 millions and 4 millions genuine Hungarian Magyars will be transferred to alien countries without having any chance whatever of pronouncing an opinion on the subject. I venture to think that of all the belligerents against whom we contended, Hungary is the one which should make the greatest appeal to our sympathy. Hungary never wanted war. ...

Captain Elliot, House of Commons,

March 25th, 1920:

These new boundaries which are being set up cannot stand, and in many cases they should not be allowed to stand. The only hope is that in this Treaty we have set up what no Treaty has had before -- a permanent court of revision by which these things can be discussed in prudence and not in passion, in the cold light of reason and not in the light of burning roofs and burning stack-yards. The mere boundaries of Hungary are impossible. They are ridiculous. No such boundary has ever been seen in the world. ...

The Rumanian frontier includes a Magyar community which is planted right in the frontier of Hungary, a sort of Hungarian Ulster, and if you realise what would happen if you put Ulster under the rest of Ireland just now you would have a faint conception of what is happening in this community where you have a similar number of people put under a rule alien in religion and in culture. ...

Lord Newton, House of Lords

March 30th, 1920:

What has become of the question of so-called self-deter-mination? Why should millions of civilised human beings be handed over like so many sheep or cattle without being allowed to express any opinion at all. Why should these people not be allowed a plebiscite as has been allowed in other cases?... But what makes the position almost intolerable for these unfortunate people is that they are surrounded by a ring of hostile States.

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu,

House of Lords, March 30th, 1920:

It was brought home to me very much that the old Austria-Hungary was a state of mixed and sometimes antagonistic races, but it had at any rate an economic unity. Now the four countries into which it has been divided have their own national flags and a new autonomy, whereas under the old system they were all one.

There was a saying at the beginning of the War that it was a war to end war. I think so far as the Central Empires are concerned, if I may parody that saying, that this is a peace to end peace. ...

Lord Sydenham, House of Lords,

March 7th, 1921:

My Lords, I agree with every word which has been uttered by the noble Lord (Newton). I regard the case of Hungary as one of several great tragedies of the Peace, the effects of which will endure when the War tragedies have passed away. After a territorial unity of, I think, nearly a thousand years Hungary has been suddenly deprived of two-thirds of her area, and out-side that new Hungary is some of the best blood of Hungary, distributed arbitrarily among one new State and two States newly enlarged. I am certain that this people will never perma-nently submit to the alien rule under which they have been placed. It was stated, I think, by the Government that there would be a Commission of Inquiry which would delimitate finally the frontiers, and which would take into consideration racial distinctions. I do not know whether that has been done, but I feel certain that the map of Europe cannot possibly re-main permanently as it now stands.

The Peace Conference seems only to have taken into account the economic necessities of the countries which it carved out of the map of Europe. Hungary is not only cut off from many of her finest sons, but deprived of territory necessary to her existence, and of some great railway centres which I believe to be her right. But that is not all that Hungary has suffered. As the noble Lord has pointed out, from March 21st to August 1st, 1919, Hungary was subjected to a most appal-ling Red Terror carried out by Bela Kun and his brother alikes. The outrages they committed, faithfully imitating their confederates in Russia, were shocking to the last degree; and the curious thing is, that we heard nothing of the Red Terror. But as soon as there was a revolt of Hungarians against these shocking atrocities, Europe and America were treated to a strong propaganda directed against the so-called White Terror. And that is why Hungary is friendless. I trace it entirely to the very powerful and very expensive propaganda which was carried on. ...

Then followed the irruption of the Rumanians into Hungary. When they retired they carried off pretty nearly everything upon which they could lay their hands, and left a great many Hungarian farms absolutely devastated. ...

Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy,

House of Commons, April 20th, 1921:

If the framers of this Peace Treaty are so satisfied with its boundaries, it seems to me to be a very great mistake that they did not agree to adopt the plebiscite for its determination. If it is right to hold a plebiscite for Schleswig-Holstein or for the determination of the frontiers of Upper Silesia, it is equally right to hold one for the frontiers of Hungary.

I wish to point out to the House that this Peace Treaty which we are asked to pass this afternoon creates some half-dozen Alsace-Lorraines on the frontiers of Hungary, if the information we get is correct. If it is incorrect it could have been proved by a plebiscite, and I say one should have been held.

I wish particularly to draw the attention of hon. Members to one or two of the areas where real injustice has been done, and may I in doing so say that I share my hon. and gallant Friend's indignation at the action of the present Hungarian Govern-ment? All my sympathies are with the subject races emancipa-ted from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. But in drawing the frontiers we must not allow our prejudices and our sentiments, our likes for this people, our sympathy for that people or our dislike of other people to in any way mould our actions in laying down these new frontiers. I will first draw the attention of hon. Members to the case of the district of Pressbourg (as Bratislava became capital of Slovakia) on the Danube and of Érsekújvár. This, as hon. Members may be aware, is territory predominantly inhabited by Magyars. It has been handed over to the new Czecho-Slovak State in order that it should have a riparian frontier on the Danube... I trust, too, that this historic State of Pressburg, with its normal Magyar population and old associations with Hungary, will not be handed over to alien rule. ...

There is another very bad irredenta in the Kassa -- part of the northern frontier, partly composed of Magyars and partially of Slovaks. There is a solid block of 300,000 or 400,000 Magyars with a little interspersion of other races, who are mostly German. I think the Slovak frontier has been drawn too much in favour of the Czecho-Slovakian States, and I contend that a plebiscite should have been taken there. ...

The hon. Gentleman did admit that there seemed to be hardship to the Szeklers (Transylvanian Hungarians) in this matter. There you have an island with a Magyar population which has been incorporated in Rumania. I admit that the difficulties there are very great. There seem to me, however, to have been two alternatives which might have been followed. One was to run a corridor from Kolozsvár area and the other was to allow the Szeklers to remain in the Hungarian Kingdom. I admit there would have been great economic difficult-ies in doing that, but I think it would have been better if these unfortunate Szeklers could have been given autonomy. As my hon. and gallant Friend said, these unfortunate people have been most harshly treated by the Rumanians. The University of Kolozsvár has been closed up, the professors driven away, and the students dispersed. ...

I think that a much larger measure of autonomy might have been given to the Magyar-inhabited regions in Transylvania. The district of Szatmár has been handed over, although I believe it is predominantly Hungarian.

I do not want to spend any more time on these irredentas, except that I think a real case has been made out for a plebiscite. If a plebiscite is not taken, the Magyar people will always be discontented, and many thousands of people --I have seen the figure put at 3 million Magyars-- will be groaning under the sense of injustice at being bartered away like so many cattle to alien rulers. ...

There is one further objection which I must take to the Treaty in justifying my vote against it. To realise these facts fully it is necessary to take a map of Hungary showing the railways, and to put on it a tracing showing the new bounda-ries; and also to take other maps showing the waterways and the roads and other communications, and put similar tracings on them, and, if possible, on other maps showing the physical features of the country -- the mountains and so on. It will then be seen that the new frontiers completely cut across the whole economic life of the former Hungary... At these new frontiers there is all the paraphernalia of customs, prohibitions, anti-dumping regulations, and fiscal measures of all sorts, and trade is absolutely stopped. It was not sufficient to allow these people in their new territories complete fiscal freedom and to give them carte blanche to cut off the trade of their neigh-bours. They are injuring themselves and each other. I feel that those who drew up this Treaty paid too much attention to the political aspect and too little to the economic aspect: and this is not the only Treaty in which that difficulty is visible. ...

Endre Csapó : Peace to end Peace