Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

"Our thousand-year-old marriage with the Magyars has not been successful. We must part," proclaimed Father Hlinka, one of the best known Slovak leaders, in the beat of an anti-Magyar campaign toward the end of World War I.

A thousand years is a long time to discover the incompatibility of a marriage between nations; to sever the relationship at that point is similar to a couple filing for divorce after having just celebrated a diamond jubilee.

Actually, Magyar-Slovak relations were relatively smooth until the upsurge of nationalism and, more importantly, Panslavism, in the 19th century. These relations were described in 1861 with restraint and dignity in the so-called St. Martin (Túrócszentmárton) Memorandum which stands as a milestone in Slovak history:

Our history and national traditions tell us that we are the oldest inhabitants of this land which is encircled by the Carpathian Mountains. Long before the advent of the Magyars, our fathers called this land their homeland, long before that time, our forefathers fought long and bloody battles for their national independence...

With the advent of the Magyars... common material and spiritual interests united the various races of this land, like sons of a common mother, into one family with a common task: to defend Western culture against the barbarian nations of the East...

Both in military array and also in common counsels, the men of these races understood each other very well, despite complete disparity of tongues. Love for their common homeland and mutual fraternal trust were their best interpreters...

The Memorandum went on to demand the creation of a Slovak Region in Upper Hungary where Slovak would be the official language for matters of administration, justice and education, and where Slovaks would control Slovakia's schools. At the same time, the Slovak leaders were careful to note that these dreams of Slovakia were envisioned as "an integral part of Hungary."

These demands seemed just and reasonable; however despite the initial support of Count Kálmán Tisza, the Memorandum was never officially submitted to the Diet.

The Specter of Panslavism

The Magyar politicians viewed the Memorandum as a subtle move toward Panslavism coming at a time when they were already alarmed by Panslavic agitation. and especially concerned about the impact of Ljudovit Stur (1815-1856). To this day, Stur is revered by Slovaks as the reformer of the Slovak literary language. Stur was a Slovak nationalist, philosopher, linguist and revolutionary leader who, in his final years, advocated the union of all Slavs into the Russian Empire. Stur asked:

Was it not Russia who enlivened our hopes, raised our sunken courage, lifted our dying desire for life? Was it not Russia who alone warded off the intolerable yoke of our peoples with positive help?

Not only did Stur recommend that all Slavs form a political union within the Russian Empire, but he also advocated that all Slavs return to the Orthodox Church and accept Russian as the common literary language.

It is with Stur that Hungaro-Slovakian relations began to sour, although they never deteriorated to the degree of Rumanian-Hungarian animosity. The Magyars never raised their full ire against the Slovaks, called tótok in Magyar; they were always treated in a mildly condescending manner as "simple, guileless and pious little brothers" compared to the dynamic and crafty Rumanians, the fierce Serbs or the restless, proud and ever complaining Croats. Sympathy for the Tót atyafiak ("our Tót kinsmen") was further strengthened by the writings of Kálmán Mikszáth, a Magyar novelist whose popularity was second only to that of Jókai.

Whatever quarrel the Magyars may have had with the Slovaks was limited to a thin segment of the Slovak intelligentsia who, in the Magyar view, were infected by the virus of Panslavism. The main cultural-political instrument of Slovak awakening was the Matica Slovenska, an institute founded in 1863. During the following years the Matica published historical plays, essays, several biographies and large quantities of textbooks, compiled a Slovak dictionary, and granted scholarships to needy Slovak students.

Although the Compromise of 1867 dashed the hopes of all the nationalities for autonomy, the liberal Nationalities Act in 1868 temporarily created a mood of goodwill. Deák expressed the intentions of this act when he said, "Indeed, if we wish to win over the nationalities, we must not seek to Magyarize them at any cost; we can succeed only by winning their love and respect for the Hungarian establishment."

Those who succeeded Deák and Eötvös failed to follow this credo and began a Magyarization policy which, to varying degrees, stirred up anti-Magyar feelings among the nationalities. However, many non-Magyars embraced Magyarization as the road to almost limitless progress in Hungarian society. As Professor Macartney points out in Hungary and Her Successors:

Magyarization was in no way resented by the great majority of the Slovaks... To the dwellers in the poverty-stricken uplands, the life of the smiling plains and the rich cities which dotted them, and above all Budapest, offered attractions which were both strong and natural. There were few who resisted when the chance was offered.

The Czech authors of a book published in Prague in 1969, write:

It is certain that during the 150 years before 1921, the borderline between the Hungarian and Slovak languages shifted, despite all political pressure, in favor of the Slovaks. Among the 319 communities along the border, 73 changed their nationality, with 49 choosing the Slovak side. (Haufler-Korcak-Kral: Zemepis Ceskoslovenska, Prague, 1969, p.326)

This statement flatly contradicts the widely held misbelief that the Magyarization policy of successive Hungarian governments was ruthless.

Although the Slovak masses - most of them peasants - seemed docile enough, the Slovak nationalists' drive went unabated until 1875 when the Matica was liquidated and Slovakian high schools were closed on tenuous charges of Panslavism. Preceding these measures, a strong anti-Magyar agitation had been started by the Slovak journalist Vajansky in his newspaper Narodnie Noviny (National News) in which he wrote on October 1, 1874:

We are persecuted here, but we are not despondent... Before long your tyranny will lay in a heap and you shall wallow in the mass of your lies and foul deeds.

Although Slovakian institutions were closed down, the Slovakian press remained mostly unaffected and Vajansky's journal became the shrill voice of Slovak chauvinism. To the detriment of Slovakian interests, this voice was frighteningly Russophile-Panslavist, a tone which seemed to vindicate Magyar fears and counteractions against the Slovak awakening. In a letter to a Russian friend, an embittered Vajansky wrote:

If there is no chance for the Slovaks to live under Russian hegemony, then it would he better for us to vanish altogether.

The Pull of Czech Temptation

But the Slovaks did not vanish, of course. Deprived of their cultural institutions they just lapsed into passive resistance. In fact, in 1896, their ambitions received an ideological boost when a society called Ceskoslovenska Jednota was founded in Prague under the spiritual auspices of T.G. Masaryk. By that time, Professor Masaryk was indoctrinating Slovak and other Slavic students in the spirit of Slavic solidarity and liberal "realism." This society distributed Czechophile literature and helped Slovak students attend Czech universities.

The emergence of Czecho-Slovak solidarity was, however, limited, since strong religious differences prevented the creation of a wide Czecho-Slovak front. The Czechophile Slovaks were largely Protestants or free-thinkers, while the overwhelming majority of Slovaks were faithful Catholics and members of Father Hlinka's People's Party. In 1906, this party sent seven representatives to the Hungarian Parliament, among them Dr. Milan Hodza, who was to play a prominent role in Czecho-Slovak politics in the coming decades.

Andrew Hlinka did not enjoy his political success for long; his bishop soon suspended him from his pastoral duties and the Magyar authorities sentenced him to two years in prison for sedition. In 1908, his parish, Cernova, became the scene of a bloody riot in which nine stone-throwing peasants were killed and sixteen wounded by the gendarmes who opened fire. This incident, more than anything else, contributed to the strengthening of the Slovak movement; it created not only political martyrs, but it triggered an infinitely more damaging fusillade by the Slavic and European press aimed at Hungary. Internationally known writers, including the Norwegian Björnsön, the Russian Tolstoj, and the French politician Clemenceau, joined the outcry. More importantly, in the following years R.W. Seton-Watson, the British historian, Henry Wickham Steed, the English journalist, and the French scholar, Ernest Denis, were to orchestrate a prolonged campaign for the "liberation" of the small, suppressed peoples "languishing" within the Monarchy, later dubbed "the prison of nations."

The noted English historian, Prof. Macartney, observing the events in Hungary, reveals some interesting figures:

The active nationalist movement was confined to an almost infinitesimal fraction of the Slovak population and even of the Slovak intelligentsia. The Hungarian Ministry of the Interior itself, in a secret list it kept for police purposes, had only marked down 526 names as dangerous.

Estimates given me in 1935 by Slovak leaders of all parties have not varied very greatly from this figure; indeed, they have usually been below it. And of the 250, 500, 750, or even 1000 Slovak nationalists, certainly not all desired union with the Czechs, or would even have preferred the Czechs to the Magyars, given equal political conditions... (Hungary and her Successors).

This assessment of Magyar-Slovak relations was valid at the outbreak of World War I when the commonly shared goal of the Slovak nationalists was not an independent Slovakia or Czecho-Slovakia, but broad Slovak autonomy within Hungary. But at that time, the Czechoslovak movement, to be orchestrated in the coming years by Thomas G. Masaryk and Eduard Benes, was still only warming up to what would become the greatest political propaganda feat the world has ever seen.

The "Mafia"

Actually, the idea of a Czechoslovakia was the brainchild of these two men. The fact that it was realized within a few years of its conception was due to their political "magic."

Less than a decade before, Eduard Benes had professed to be an advocate of Austria-Hungary in his French doctoral thesis written at Dijon in 1908:

People have often spoken of the dismemberment of Austria. I do not believe in it at all. The historical and political bonds between the different nations of the Empire are too powerful to make such dismemberment possible... One cannot seriously think of the establishment of a Czech State if one third of the inhabitants of the country (the Sudeten-Germans) are determined to resist and will never accept it legally.

Benes echoed the opinion of Frantisek Palacky, the most famous of Czech historians, who, in 1848, wrote of the Austrian Empire with prophetic foresight:

If it did not exist, we would have to invent it. The disintegration of the Austrian state into small republics would be an invitation to German and Russian imperialism.

Also in 1908, and in the same spirit, the other founding father of Czechoslovakia, Thomas G. Masaryk, wrote in his book, The Czech Question:

If Austria were defeated in a European conflagration and should break up, we would be integrated into Germany, alongside which we have lived for a thousand years.

And yet. in spite of the recognition by these Czech leaders of the importance of a strong Austria, Czechoslovak propaganda during World War I used the war cry, coined by Eduard Benes: "Destroy Austria-Hungary!" Benes and Masaryk negotiated the yawning gulf of contradiction between the two positions through a somersault in logic shown in Benes' first book published in English, Bohemia's Case for Independence. which vehemently demanded the destruction of the Monarchy. The author complains bitterly:

...Such is approximately the state of affairs in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. The people, deprived of their most elementary rights and victuals, impoverished by a devastating war, martyred by brutal and cruel persecutions on the part of the police, military, and government, deprived of their leaders, their newspapers, books, and national songs, are given over to an ever-increasing and shameless Germanization...¹

Shortly after however Benes says:

We have succeeded by assiduous labor in building our Czech house; we have succeeded in making our country one of the richest territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,. inasmuch as we practically feed and provide for all other provinces.

We have established a perfect system of primary and secondary instruction, and we have built up a flourishing university. We have in Bohemia succeeded in what no other nation except one has succeeded...

The comparison between these passages lends itself to certain conclusions rendering any comment needless, except to point out the fact, known worldwide, that it was Hungary, "the granary of Europe," that fed the peoples of the Monarchy - including the Czechs - and not the other way around.

At the beginning of the Wan few Czechs and Slovaks considered forming a national state independent from Austria-Hungary. As related in the memoirs of both Benes and Masaryk, however, this outlook was changed by a group that called itself the Mafia. The first formal meeting of the Mafia took place in Prague in the middle of March, 1915. Benes recalls, "There was some discussion of certain funds from Russia, of which I had no clear knowledge, and which were supposed to have been deposited at the Bohemia Bank in Prague."

After Dr. Kramar and other members of the Mafia were arrested in Prague, Benes slipped away to Paris. Masaryk had already moved to London. Both continued to work with the Mafia from exile, receiving intelligence information on the political, economic and military affairs of the Monarchy through

couriers. The first important achievement or the Czech exiles led by these men was the formation of a Czechoslovak Foreign Committee. On November 14, 1915, this Committee officially declared war on the Habsburg Empire in a manifesto, the first to mention the "Czechoslovak" nation.

A few months later Masaryk scored a great success for the movement in a meeting with French Premier Aristide Briand on February 3, 1916. Masaryk described this meeting in his book, The Making of a State:

...I laid before him a small map of Europe and my view of the war that the division of Austria into her historical and natural elements was a condition of the reconstruction of Europe and of the real enfeeblement of Germany, that is to say, French security...

Masaryk won Briand over by playing on France's fear of Germany. The official communiqué of the meeting, first published in the Paris Matin, made a great impression on European capitals and enhanced the Czechoslovakists' position. But this was only the beginning, as Masaryk points out in his book:

The decisive battle... was still before us. The strength of pro-Austrians in Europe and America lay in the belief of Allied politicians that Austria was the safeguard against the "Balkanization" of Europe. "Now we have to deal with one power, it would be impossible to deal with ten!" they were wont to exclaim.

The Subtle Art of Propaganda

The Czechoslovakists continued their skillful diplomatic and political footwork and succeeded in enlisting the support of important writers, scholars and diplomats and the leading organs or the press in France as well as in England. When they cleverly joined the Freemasons, many additional doors opened to them.

As they frankly described in their books, both Benes and Masaryk attached great importance to propaganda, and carried the "art of propaganda" - as they called it - to new heights of success. The memoirs of these two men should be required reading for exiled politicians.

As Benes remembers:

From October, 1915 onwards... I gradually succeeded in penetrating into official circles and also into the world of journalism in France. My connection with a number of influential journalists... enabled us bit by bit to bring our case before the public... (My War Memoirs)

When the Slovak Stefanik, a lieutenant in the French Air Force, arrived in Paris to join the movement, he helped Benes establish contact with influential persons in French society. Through Stefanik, Benes sent persuasive, confidential memoranda to many people:

...Such people became the propagators of ideas and reports which they regarded as having been reserved solely for them. For whole months at a time I would compile daily memoranda and informative articles in various guises, which Stefanik then placed in various quarters...

The arrival of the Slovak Osusky to Paris added new intensity to this propaganda activity; this astute diplomat's command of Magyar greatly facilitated the collection of information from Hungary. In promoting the Czechoslovak cause by propaganda. Benes, Masaryk and their associates preferred to stay in the background, letting their friends do the work for them. As Benes writes in his memoirs:

...A part of the success of our propaganda work was due to the fact that we prepared whole articles for our journalistic and political friends, but we remained in the background, allowing them to be the advocates of our claims... If our demands were championed in England, France and Italy by natives of those countries, this carried much more weight under certain circumstances than if we ourselves had taken such action.

Hence, the political importance of what was done on our behalf by such people as Ernest Denis and Gauvain. Wickham Steed and R.W. Seton-Watson, was considerable. One of the effective devices in politics is to know how to be at the right place in a discreet and unobtrusive manner...

While Benes was busy directing propaganda in Paris. Masaryk was engaged in disseminating material from the Czech Press Bureau in London. An ingenious device in this work was a well-appointed shop whose windows looked out onto Piccadilly Circus. This window was plastered with maps, diagrams and pictures, providing the thousands of passers-by with day-by-day reports or general information regarding the Czechoslovak movement. In October, 1916, after consulting with Masaryk and Steed, R.W. Seton-Watson founded a monthly review called New Europe to aid in the struggle for the destruction of Austria-Hungary, thereby "liberating all the oppressed nations" of Central Europe.

In an embarrassing intermezzo during this campaign, 102 Czech members of the Austrian Parliament disavowed the idea of Czechoslovakia, and affirmed Czech attachment to the Monarchy in a manifesto issued on November 19, 1916. However, by that time Czechoslovak influence in the foreign press was so strong that the whole affair was given scant notice and was soon forgotten.

The "Danger" of an Early Peace is Averted

Czechoslovak propaganda faced its greatest trial when the Central Powers, seemingly victorious after defeating Rumania, stopped the Russians and occupied the whole of the Balkans as far as Salonika, a great part of Rumania, Russian Poland, nearly all of Belgium and nine French departments, and embarked on a peace offensive at the end of 1916. The Entente received the peace proposal on December l8 through representatives of President Wilson (the United States at that time was still neutral). Two days later, the President called upon both parties to get information of their war aims. This move greatly alarmed both Masaryk and Benes, who regarded it as a step toward establishing peace negotiations.

Such an intervention would have saved Austria-Hungary from destruction and could have frustrated the plans for creating a Czechoslovakia on the ruins of the Monarchy.

For this reason, the Czechoslovakists proceeded to foil the peace offensive and to prolong the war. In his memoirs, Benes describes their tactics:

My tactics and, indeed, our tactics in general in Paris under such critical circumstances, were of a simple character. It was impossible for us to frustrate negotiations of such a kind and such a magnitude in any direct manner... We were therefore left with indirect methods.

At such moments we had recourse to a very energetic type of public agitations. We sounded the alarm among all our friends - politicians, writers, journalists - seeking to exercise an influence on the negotiating statesmen by stirring up public opinion... We therefore exerted all our efforts in Paris, London. and Rome towards starting a keen press campaign...

The aim of the Benes-Masaryk campaign was to derail the peace moves by persuading the Entente to include in their terms the establishment of a Czechoslovak state, a demand clearly unacceptable to the Monarchy.

After feverish negotiations and several meetings between French Foreign Minister Berthelot and Benes, the issue was decided in favor of the Czechoslovakists, but not before André Tardieu and August Gauvain, at the urging of Benes, had conducted a media 'blitz" supporting the Czechoslovak cause on the pages of the influential Temps and Le Matin and the Journal des Debats.

So it happened that in its reply to Wilson, the Entente incorporated into its conditions for peace "the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanes and Czechoslovaks from foreign rule."

Propaganda is Extended to America

Until then, Czechoslovak propaganda in the United States had been modest compared to the campaign to win over the Entente to the Czechoslovak cause. The Entente was all but convinced, America, however, was a harder nut to crack. In the United States, Austria-Hungary, unlike Germany, was not an object of immediate political enmity, and the Magyar immigrants in America managed to convince other immigrant groups from the Monarchy that Austria-Hungary had been compelled to make war against her will. Moreover, President Wilson had some sympathy toward the Monarchy, and for seven months delayed declaring war on it after joining the Allies against Germany. On December 4, 1917, explaining to Congress the significance of the American declaration of war on the Monarchy, Wilson said:

We owe it to ourselves to declare that we do not wish to weaken or to transform the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. How it may wish to live politically or industrially is not our concern. We neither intend nor desire to dictate to it in anything. We wish only that the affairs of its peoples, in great things and small, may remain in their own hands.

Masaryk perceived this American sympathy toward Austria-Hungary, and decided to counter it personally. In The Making of a State, he wrote:

Memories of the revolution of l848 and of the exile Kossuth in allied countries also stood the Magyars in good stead, while the Habsburg Monarchy in general enjoyed the support of Catholic propaganda. Counter propaganda had to be organized accordingly.

Within a year, Czechoslovak propaganda in the United States was to achieve astonishing success. Wilson's attitude, as we shall see, underwent a complete reversal, a change manipulated by Masaryk, who came to America via Siberia at the end of April, 1918. The next month he gained the cooperation of the American Slovaks by offering them equality and self-government should the bid for a Czechoslovak state succeed. On May 30, 1918, the American Slovaks, still politically innocent, signed the so-called Pittsburgh Pact, consenting to the annexation of Upper Hungary (Slovakia) to a single Czechoslovak state in which Slovakia would enjoy full autonomy. At about the same time, Father Hlinka made the following statement in a meeting at St. Martin in Upper Hungary:

This is a time for deeds... Let us speak openly that we are for Czech-Slovak orientation; our thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not been successful, We must part.

In one year he was to recant these words in a dramatic way, as we shall see in the chapter on Trianon.

The Pittsburgh Pact diverged from an earlier

memorandum made when the United States entered the war. In that memorandum the Slovak League of America demanded autonomy for Slovakia within the Hungarian state.

But Masaryk's magic was producing wonders - and this was only the beginning. Masaryk had this to say about the propaganda tactics he used:

Our task was to win over the public, and in this we succeeded. Before long I was able to place interviews and articles in the largest and most influential daily papers weeklies and reviews, and to establish personal relations with prominent writers of all opinions.

Masaryk's road to influence in the United States was paved primarily by the French Ambassador M. Jusserand, who introduced the Czech politician to important persons, including Charles R. Cane and his son, who in turn brought Masaryk into contact with Colonel House, the President's aide, who then invited Masaryk into the White House. The famous judge, Louis Brandeis, was also one of Masaryk's prominent American acquaintances. Masaryk skillfully exploited the sympathy of Jews who remembered his defense of a Jewish woman in a ritual murder trial in Austria in 1899.

By weaving a web of influence through such personal, diplomatic and journalistic connections, Masaryk was able to help change President Wilson's mind.

An Unexpected Windfall: the Czech "Anabasis"

But it was an event which took place on the other side of the world - the Czech "Anabasis" - that. perhaps more than anything else, turned American opinion in Czechoslovakia's favor.

The ancient Greek historian Xenophon originally used the term "Anabasis" when recounting the epic march of Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes II, a march carried out with l0,000 Greek auxiliaries from the Euphrates to the Black Sea.

In retrospect, the "Czech Anabasis" was a rather confused affair that took place in Siberia and involved 50,000 Czech Legionnaries who had been recruited by Russia from Austrian prisoners of war.

Many Czech units from Bohemia in the Monarchy's army sympathized with, as Benes put it, "our brother Slavs, the Russians." This sympathy prompted many Czech units to surrender or defect to the Russians. The most publicized of such defections was that of the 28th regiment of Prague, whose 2000 men went over to the Russians with all their arms and baggage, including their military band, on April 3,.1915. A force called the Druzina was formed within the Russian army, which became the nucleus of the Czech Legion established as an independent unit at Masaryk's initiative when, due to the Bolshevik revolution, the Russian army disintegrated. The majority of the Czech legionnaires, however, were recruited from Russian POW camps. As the Czech Lt. Colonel F.O. Miksche points out in his work Danubian Federation:

The so-called Czech Legions were recruited from Austrian prisoners of war of Czech nationality. Most or the legionnaires did not join up until 1918, when the victory of the Allies was already assured, and their main reason for joining was a desire to escape by any means from the cruel Russian prison camps where, during the revolution. they died by the thousands from hunger and typhoid...

Actually, of the 350,000 Czech captive soldiers only 50,000 volunteered for the Czech Legion, the only organized armed force amidst the chaos and anarchy reigning in Russia at the time. The Entente sought to enlist the Legion to fight the Bolsheviks, but the Legion, at Masaryk's advice, remained neutral. What was even more surprising, when these Czech troops were asked to join the Allies in Western Europe, instead of leaving Russia via the short route through Murmansk and Archangelsk, as recommended by the French Military Mission in Russia, they took a way that was ten times longer. They marched eastward to Vladivostok through Siberia. Some cynics said they did this hoping that the war would already be over by the time they arrived in Western Europe.

Unlike the original Anabasis of the Greeks, the long "march" through Siberia was done not on foot but by rail. Amidst the chaos of revolution the Legion took possession of many thousands of rail-wagons with locomotives, and occupied the Trans-Siberian Railroad to secure their eastward trek to Vladivostok. Along the way they lived off the population, and filled their wagons with the loot of war.

Toward the end of their eastward trek in 1918, however an unexpected and unwelcome event occurred: the Legion was called to turn back westward by the Allies to join the anti-Bolshevik uprising begun by Admiral Koltchak. Reluctantly, the Legion obliged, and engaged smaller Bolshevik forces whose ranks had been swelled by Austrian and Hungarian prisoners of war who would join anything to get out of the Russian prison camps. When the fighting became heavy and the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand. the Legion helped them capture Admiral Koltchak, in exchange for the right to withdraw to Vladivostok.

Of the Legion's accomplishments Masaryk himself admitted:

Our campaign in Siberia was not all anti-Bolshevist undertaking nor was it inspired by any interventionist policy...

My plan had been to get the army to France in 1918, and to bring it into action there in 1919. It never reached France. but we had an army, and it made itself felt. That was the main thing. (The Making of a State).

The Czech Lt. Colonel F.O. Miksche was more blunt: "The Legions never took part in any great battle, but their mere existence was fully exploited by propaganda." (Danubian Federation)

And what propaganda! The exploits of the Czech Legion in Siberia, colored with journalistic imagination, hit the Western World with a tremendous impact. In a letter to the President of the Czechoslovak Council in Paris, Lloyd George of Great Britain said:

On behalf of the British War Cabinet, I send you our heartiest congratulations on the striking successes won by the Czechoslovak forces against German and Austrian troops in Siberia. The story of the adventures and triumphs of this small army is, indeed, one of the greatest epics of history. It has filled us all with admiration for the courage, persistence and self-control of your countrymen and shows what can be done to triumph over time, distance and lack of material sources by those holding the spirit of freedom in their hearts.

Strangely. neither Benes nor Masaryk ever mentioned in their memoirs a single example of the "heroic feats" of the Czech Legion that Lloyd George so extolled. But belief in that heroism spread to America, where even Masaryk was astonished by its effects:

The effect in America was astonishing and almost incredible - all at once the Czechs and Czechoslovaks were known to everybody. Interest in our army in Russia and Siberia became general and its advance aroused enthusiasm...

Political circles, too, were affected by it. Our control of the railway and our occupation of Vladivostok had the glamor of a fairy-tale. Even sober-minded political and military men ascribed great military importance to our command of the railway... The "Anabasis" was making a similar impression in Europe. Certainly it influenced the political decisions of the American Government...

Masaryk adds, significantly. "As often happens in such cases, the less the knowledge, the greater the enthusiasm."

What few knew at the time was the darker side of the "Anabasis." In stark contrast to Lloyd George's eulogy delivered in September, 1918, was the suicide note to his troops left behind by Colonel Svetz, the commandant of the first brigade of the Czech Legion, dated just one month later:

You have refused to obey my commands, disregarding all laws of order and manly honor; you have debased the character of the Czech soldier. I cannot survive the shame which has infected our army through the crimes of those innumerable unruly fanatics, who have killed in themselves and in us the most important virtue: honor.

Masaryk in his book passes over the suicide of Colonel Svetz with only a few words, calling it "a tragedy that had a wholesome effect."

The true condition of the Czech Legion became known only later, after Allied officers returning from Russia spoke of the decline of military discipline in the Legion. Referring to these belated critics Masaryk wrote in his memoirs: "Little publicity was given to these stories, but, of course, they did us harm, though by far the greater part of public opinion and official circles continued to support us."

And they did. Interior Secretary of President Wilson, F.K. Lane wrote about the "Anabasis" in these words:

"Isn't this a great world? And its biggest romance is not even the fact that Woodrow Wilson rules it, but the March of the Czechoslovaks across 5000 miles of Russian Asia..."

After all this publicity, changing President Wilson's mind was easy. On October 24, 1918, Wilson informed Austria-Hungary that the United States had recognized the Czechoslovak Provisional Government, and on December 4, 1918, the Allies recognized the Czechoslovak State. They authorized its troops to occupy Slovakia and supervise the administration in the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Did Truth Prevail?

The motto of the Czechoslovaks during the War was: "Truth Will Prevail."

Did it?

From the point of view of the Magyars who had become the primary victims of Czechoslovak propaganda, it certainly did not. It goes without saying that the three and a half million Sudeten Germans who fell under Czech rule against their will did not accept the creation of Czechoslovakia as the triumph of truth, either.

But what about the Slovaks without whom Czechoslovakia could not have been created at all? How did the "bride" feel after her honeymoon with the Czechs was over?

As we shall see in a later chapter, Father Hlinka replied devastatingly to this question soon enough. However, as the years of the new "marriage" went by, Slovak resentment toward their new partner only grew in intensity. Witness what the President of the Slovak League of America, the same organization with which Masaryk had concluded the famous Pittsburgh Agreement in 1918, wrote forty years later:

One of the greatest concerns of the Benes Czechs was to have the world believe that all Czechs and all Slovaks were solidly behind them. The world wanted to be deceived, hence deceived it was...

For those of us who really knew the regime of Masaryk and Benes, and for the Czechs and Slovaks who were misled by it or suffered under it, let it be said that the world would be by far the better for it had the Czecho-Slovak business, the political monstrosity that was Czecho-Slovakia, never been born.

We know that Benes resigned on October 5. 1938, after he betrayed not only the Slovaks, hut also his own Czech nation to Hitler. We also know that the same Benes five years later betrayed the nations of Czecho-Slovakia the second time, this time to Stalin, when he formally sold them out with the Czech-Soviet Treaty of December 12, 1943, so that he might return as "president" of Czecho-Slovakia and smite all those who opposed his anti-Christian and pro-Soviet policies. To Benes, revenge was sweet in 1945. Three years later. before he died, Benes wailed again that he was betrayed, this lime not by the Slovaks, Poles. Germans, Magyars, Catholics and all anti-Marxist Socialists, but by Moscow and the Czech communists under Gottwald. No honor among thieves?²

A quite recent statement on the alleged "thousand year long suppression" of the Slovaks in Hungary also deserves to be quoted here.

In the June, 1981, issue of the Bulletin of the Slovak World Congress (Svetovy Kongres Slovákov) the Slovak Professor Milan S. Durica deals with the practices of Czechoslovak propaganda this way:

In the schools of the Czechoslovak Republic (1920-1938) our teachers (most of them Czechs) colorfully depicted the "thousand year long suppression" of Slovaks under Magyar rule up to the time when we have been liberated by our Czech brothers... Such liberation was prompted - so to speak - by their love toward us, Slovaks, to enable us to return to the bosom of the "Czechoslovak national unity," something that was destroyed by human wickedness and overwhelming Magyar force that broke off the Slovak branch from the Czechoslovak trunk.

As children we believed all these. But when we had a chance to deal with this complexity of problems with open eyes, then we had to come to the conclusion that we had been fed with fairy tales which have little to do with historical truth.

If such process of Magyarization had lasted for a thousand years we quite certainly would have been ethnically annihilated through assimilation. That such a thing did not occur was due to the basically equal treatment the Hungarian Kingdom granted to all of its citizens, enabling them to absorb Latin culture and preserve ethnic traditions in the middle ages and after until the end of the 18th century.

It is quite evident that in our case the souls of young Slovaks have been filled with a myth that aimed to generate hatred toward the Magyar suppressors and love toward the Czech liberators...

If we can speak of suppression of the Slovaks in historic Hungary - or more precisely - about illegal efforts of Magyarization later sanctioned by the state, then such efforts occurred only in the second half of the last century...

More important than any personal condemnation is the judgement of history.

In retrospect, the questions now legitimately may be asked: Was it sound statesmanship to replace one mixed state (Austria-Hungary) with three no less mixed ones, including Czechoslovakia, in which the Czechs were actually a minority? Did the new state really play the role of a bulwark against inroads by great powers into Central Europe, as promised by Masaryk and Benes?

Unfortunately - we know now-the answer is no. Czechoslovakia, rather than becoming a bulwark, was turned into a Soviet bridgehead as early as 1935 through the Soviet-Czechoslovak Alliance, the Communists being the second largest party in Parliament. This then served as a pretext for the Germans to bring about Czechoslovakia's dissolution in 1938-39 without a single shot being fired. After Czechoslovakia was restored following World War II, Benes stuck to his pro-Soviet views even more strongly:

"Russia is for the liberation of Czechoslovakia... Russia is the strongest Slav brother and must be regarded as such... Russia is the source of the true democracy and freedom that our people are expecting."³

In the spirit of this "liberation" Benes - in collusion with Moscow - ordered the expulsion of millions Germans and hundreds of thousands of Magyars from their ancestral lands. In addition, Prague voluntarily ceded Carpatho-Ruthenia to the Soviet Union, allowing a non-Carpathian power to set foot de jure inside the Basin for the first time in more than a thousand years.

But fate soon caught up with Prague and Czechoslovakia succumbed again - this time to the Soviet Union - without the firing of a shot.

Thus, history proved Benes fatally wrong twice within a generation, raising a key question: Did the creation of Czechoslovakia do a service or disservice to the peoples concerned?

The answer is obvious. The condemnation of foes and critics may be disputed. but the judgement of history is irrefutable.

In this regard, an observation in the December 21, 1980 issue of the New York Times hit upon the truth: "Czechoslovakia's history has been tragic since it received its independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I."

Among the many tragic happenings there was one, however, which is little known in the West despite its enormity. It was an attempted "final solution" of the Magyar problem in Czechoslovakia.

The Program of Kosice/Kassa

A plan for the elimination of all minorities in Czechoslovakia was laid down by Eduard Benes during World War II in collusion with Stalin. After the expulsion of three million Sudeten Germans from their native land, Benes wanted to do the same with the Magyars in Slovakia after the war. This plan was announced and detailed in the so-called Kosice Program in April, 1946, a program which was to be carried out with the co-operation of Slovaks. The Slovak National Council explained such expulsions in its official paper, Národna Obroda, this way:

We have the right to assimilate the Magyars, and use every available means to create a national state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks only. Here is our last chance to disperse the Hungarians in disparate regions of our beautiful Czechoslovakia." (13 November, 1946)

Outlawed...

The Kosice Program in effect outlawed the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. Its almost incredible provisions included these:

* Presidential Constitutional Decree No.33-19456 (August 2, 1945) revoked the Czechoslovakian citizenship of all Hungarians (then about 800,000) on the basis that they were enemies of the newly founded state.

* The Slovak National Council's Decrees Nos. 4-1946 (February 27, 1945), 104-1945 (August 23, 1945), 64-1945 (May 14, 1946), and 89-1947 (December 9, 1947) proclaimed the confiscation of any Hungarian landowner's agricultural and forest property with all its appurtenances, including livestock, farm implements and buildings, without compensation.

* Presidential Decree No. 108-1945 (October 25, 1945) confiscated all properties of all Hungarians with the exception of their personal belongings.

* Decree No.44-1945 (May 25, 1945) and No.99-1945 (August 23, 1945) dismissed all Hungarian public servants from office without any claims or compensation, depriving them even of retirement rights.

* Persons eligible for any relief including disabled war veterans, war widows and war orphans, had to be Czechoslovak citizens according to Law No.164-1946 (June 18,. 1946). Because all Hungarians were deprived of their citizenship, they became ineligible for relief. Prisoners of war of Hungarian origin after their release by the Russians were declared stateless and returned by Czechoslovak authorities to the Russian POW camps.

* Decree No. 54-1946 (April 23, 1946) of the Slovak National Council barred stateless persons from enjoying the protection of law. All Hungarians fell under this category.

* Decree No. 51-1945 (May 25, 1945) by the Slovak National Council and Presidential Decree No. 81-1945 (September 25, 1945) dissolved all Hungarian clubs and cultural, social and sport associations in Czechoslovakia. Their confiscated properties were turned over to the state.

* Administrative organs, on the ground of Decree No.6-1944 (September 6, 1944) issued by the Slovak National Council, closed all Hungarian-language schools in /945.

Such was the situation until about 1949, and in many places Catholic and Protestant religious services in the Hungarian language were banned. Between 1945-1949 the Hungarian youth in Czechoslovakia could attend hardly any school, a situation similar to that in World War II, when Nazi-German authorities closed all Czech-language courses in higher education.

In postwar Czechoslovakia (1945-49) only two Hungarian publications were permitted to appear. In Komárom (Komarno) the Order of St. Benedict issued a prayer book and a calendar at the end of 1947, but all copies of this calendar were confiscated.

* Confidential Decree No. 117-14. dov. 1946-III (September 21, 1946) ordered the large scale deportation of Hungarians from Slovakia. The deportation would be to Sudeten German districts emptied by the expulsion of millions of Sudeten Germans.

(The foregoing passages from the Kosice Program are quoted from the book Hungarians in Czechoslovakia, pp. 15-3/. Published by the Research Institute for Minority Studies, New York, 1959)

The dispersal began on November 17, 1946. Thousands of Magyar families were given only 24 hours to pack whatever they could carry in hand. Meanwhile Slovak settlers were already waiting to move into the properties the Hungarian deportees would vacate with no compensation given to them. The evicted families, including the aged, the sick, the handicapped and small children were herded into unheated box cars in temperatures reaching below zero, and carried off to Central Bohemia and Moravia.

Mental shock, the extreme cold, sickness and police brutality claimed many victims. There were numerous suicides.

Upon arrival families were settled sparsely over wide areas, to enforce isolation. In an atmosphere reminiscent of slave-markets, the deportees were picked up by Czech farmers for agricultural labor. Those who were lucky were given two rooms without amenities; the not so lucky were housed in shacks or earthen lodges. The deportees worked from sunrise to sunset for servants' wages, and were treated as prisoners of war, deprived of freedom and basic human rights. They could not move elsewhere, and had to request permission for personal visits.

Hungarian teachers and pastors were not allowed altogether. The practice of religion, schooling or any sort of cultural life was almost non-existent. Mail was monitored by the police. The few Magyar children who did attend Czech schools soon became subjects of their classmates' ridicule.

An estimated 45,000 Magyars suffered deportation before the protests of the Hungarian government and ensuing international outrage finally brought the practice to a halt on February 27, 1947.

Meanwhile those Magyars who remained in Slovakia became the targets of an odd scheme called Re-Slovakization. In a tragi-comic procedure members of the Magyar minority were pressured to solemnly declare themselves Slovaks. Persons who woke up in the morning as Magyars were "reborn" before the Re-Slovakization Commission and went to bed as "Slovaks" in the evening. The system served statistical purposes, and, indeed, in the next census the number of Magyars suddenly fell to 393,000, about the half of their original number.

Again, international uproar finally brought this practice to an end also. Beginning in 1949 the fate of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia improved for a time. A mutual assistance and non-aggression pact concluded between the two countries in April, 1949. stabilized the situation.

Hungarian Minority Out in the Cold Again

Twenty years of relative calm ensued, broken by the aborted Prague Spring of 1968. The Slovakian Stalinist, Gustav Husak, who then became the new head of the Czechoslovak government, introduced an era of renewed intolerance and forced assimilation. A main objective was the gradual strangulation of the surviving Hungarian educational network. Over the following decades this new trend became so alarming that a Committee for the Defense of Hungarian Nationality Rights in Slovakia was formed. In 1984 the Committee smuggled to the West three documents grievances and demands.

Amidst resurging Slovak chauvinism, new resistance leaders emerged, the most prominent being among them Miklós Duray,. 46, a geologist in Pozsony (Bratislava). He was arrested in November, 1982 for "subversion." Duray's jailing became an international cause célčbre, and after much legal haggling he was finally released in May, 1985.

Attacks of arson and vandalism against Hungarian property multiplied, and the slogan "Death to the Hungarians" appeared on walls in Slovakia.

Disturbed by these events, the Charta 77 organization in Czechoslovakia called upon the government to investigate:

We view the said acts of violence as alarming...They are the culmination of regrettable expressions of nationalist intolerance... We demand that you devote to the investigation of these terrorist acts the maximum effort. We further request that you direct the Czechoslovak media - and especially the Slovak media - to make public detailed information about these violent acts...

Such incidents must be attributed to the anti-Hungarian cast of mind of a small but vocal segment of the younger Slovak generations who were indoctrinated with the misbelief of a "thousand year suppression" of the Slovaks within the Kingdom of Hungary. A new national myth which claims that the Slovaks are rightful successors of a "Great Moravian Empire" has also gained ground.

It is noteworthy that Slovak authorities have only suspended the Kosice Program. but never repudiated it.

The Magyars still have lost most of their schools in Slovakia, where 451 localities have a Hungarian majority. In 1990, elementary schools numbered 246, down from 609 in 1950. High schools number only 22, with 9 of these already under Slovak administration. Most importantly, the Hungarian Teachers' College at Nyitra University has been closed, thereby cutting off the training of new Magyar teachers entirely. This would result in the slow motion strangulation of whatever Hungarian school system still exists.

This trend of intolerance and suppression was put on hold in the fall of 1989 by the downfall of Czechoslovakia's communist regime. The "velvet revolution" put into power Vaclav Havel, who in the past had shown sympathy for the plight of the Magyar minority.

This turnabout was nothing short of a deliverance. The Magyars were now free to use their own language, to hold mass meetings, to start their own publications without censorship, and to form their own political movements.

Still, in the first half of 1990, 110 meaningful measures were taken to secure the future of the Magyar minority.

Dropped was the plan to establish a Ministry of Minority Affairs; Havel's promise to allow the establishment of a Hungarian University in Komárom (Komarno) for the training of teachers met heavy opposition from nationalist Czechs and Slovaks. Magyars worried that Czechoslovakia's multi-party system would not lead to a truly democratic society unless the minorities were granted cultural autonomy. A democracy restricting minority rights is not a true democracy - they maintained.

On June 8-9 free general elections resulted in the predictable victory of Vaclav Havel's Civic Forum which, allied with the Public Against Violence in

Slovakia, obtained an absolute majority in the Czechoslovakian parliament. Surprisingly, the Communists drew more than 13 per cent, while in Slovakia the Slovak Christian Democrats lost ground to the newly emerged Slovak National Party of strongly nationalistic character.

The Magyar vote was divided among several parties, with the most votes (cca 300,000) going to a Hungarian-based coalition founded by Miklós Duray. About 100,000 Magyar votes went to various parties which had secured seats for their Magyar candidates in pre-election pacts. Altogether, the Magyars won 10 seats in the Federal Parliament and 18 seats in the National Council of Slovakia. The unexpectedly high number of registered Magyar voters revealed the falsity of the Czechoslovak census, which showed only 560,.000 Hungarians. Based on election figures, the total number of Magyars should be at least 700,000.

However, a problem of greater significance than election figures loomed over Czechoslovakia's political horizon: the increasing intolerance of Slovak nationalism against both the Czechs and Hungarians.

"Burst of Freedom in Czechoslovakia May Split Czechs from the Slovaks" warned a headline in the June 3, 1990 issue of the New York Times. In Pozsony (Bratislava) hoots and catcalls greeted Vaclav Havel for addressing his audiences in Czech rather than Slovak.

Soon afterward, a warning directed at the Slovaks appeared in the prestigious Prague newspaper, Lidové Noviny.⁴ It reminded Slovaks that the Treaty of Trianon would lose its validity if Slovakia decided to go its separate way. If they claimed self-determination for themselves, they could not legally deny the same rights to the 700,000 Hungarians, who live in the most fertile region of Slovakia, the area adjacent to Hungary. The present borders, the paper pointed out, had been determined between Czechoslovakia and Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 when Slovakia was not a legal entity. Therefore, the editor of Lidové Noviny warned, his paper would support Hungary's claim for the Hungarian-inhabited territories if an independent Slovakia were established. From a moral point of view, it would be hard for a future independent Slovak state to justify its territorial integrity, Lidové Noviny stated.

It must be pointed out here that Slovakia never existed as such before Trianon. The land that was to comprise the Slovakian part of Czechoslovakia had been carved out from the territory of Hungary. Both the Treaty of Trianon and the Helsinki Accords of 1975 guaranteed the rights of minorities, including the rights of Hungarians to use their mother tongue in educational institutions. This the newly emerging Slovak Nationalist Party and its allies seemed unwilling to respect.

Given the Slovaks' attitude toward both the Magyars and Czechs, prudence would dictate a constructive understanding between them to secure, in one way or another, the existence of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. On their part, the Slovaks should realize that their best policy would be to follow the legacy of the greatest Slovak statesman, Milan Hodza, who had advocated peaceful coexistence with the Magyars.

_ . _

1. Eduard Benes; Bohemia's Case for Independence George Allen and Unwin Ltd. London, 1917, pp. 74-75.

2. Philip A. Hrobak: Czechoslovakia - History Made to Order. Published by the Slovak League of America. 1958, pp. 40-41.

3. Ludovy Dennik, Chicago, April 21, 1939.

4. As reported in the June 16 issue of Népszabadság.

"Velvet divorce" with Hard Consequences

An aftershock of the geopolitical earthquake in 1989 was the collapse of Czechoslovakia, once touted as the most successful creation of Trianon. The end came in an almost elegant way, through a "velvet divorce" of the sober Czechs from the Slovaks who, both politically and economically, had been troublesome partners since Czechoslovakia's birth in 1920.

After an electoral victory in May, 1992 Slovak prime minister Vladimir Meciar threatened the Czechs with divorce should Prague fail to grant Slovakia equal economic status. Vaclav Kraus, the Czech prime minister, took Meciar at his word, and said "no" to the Slovak demand. Thus, the divorce of the two nations became inevitable.

In September, 1992 while the terms of the divorce were being hammered out, the Meciar government pushed through a new Slovak Constitution over the protest of 14 Hungarian deputies in the parliament. The latter argued that the new constitution can be used to ban national minority parties; it fails to secure education for minorities in their mother tongue; and it excludes their right to cultural autonomy. Furthermore, the constitution's words, "We the Slovak nation", establishes the principle of a Slovak national state, putting the minorities in a subordinate status. In addition, it fails to secure the right of minorities to take part in the activities of the government, and it fails to secure their right to maintain relations with Hungary and Hungarians in other parts of the world. The constitution also contains a restrictive provision that suggests that minorities threaten the state's sovereignty and the country's territorial integrity. All these, the deputies argued, could open the way to an eventual "ethnic cleansing" of the minorities who represent 15% of the population.

After these arguments had been pushed aside and the constitution accepted, the Czech parliament in Prague also approved the split-up of Czechoslovakia to occur on January 1st, 1993. Thus, Czechoslovakia died 72 years after her birth in Trianon.

Since the divorce, the Czechs, unimpeded by troublesome Slovakia, have succeeded in making the Czech Republic the most prosperous state among the former Soviet satellites. But for the Slovaks, the split-up has caused an unending "splitting" headache. One purely academic problem is the questionable legality of Slovakia's present borders. There was no Slovakia until March, 1939, when Hitler decided to create one with Msgr. Joseph Tiso as its president. That fascist state never possessed the Hungarian-inhabited territory that was given to Czechoslovakia in Trianon, because it had been returned to Hungary by the internationally recognized Vienna Decision in 1938. Still, the new Slovakia, reborn in 1993, became the owner of that territory which had never belonged to its short-lived predecessor during World War II. Furthermore, Meciar's new Slovakia, which omitted the incorporation into its Constitution the international treaties and obligations Czechoslovakia had assumed, may be regarded as only a de facto state in a vacuum runs.

A more alert and imaginative government in Budapest could have created an interesting international legal dispute about this issue. But the Antall government passed up this historical chance to bring Hungary's dismemberment to international attention.

Such an action might have succeeded, because Slovakia's obscure legal existence is burdened by the Slovaks' inglorious record during World War II. This record shows that Slovakia was Hitler's first satellite, and had allowed Nazi divisions, assisted by Slovak military units, to pass through Slovakia to attack Poland. Slovakia was also the first state to liquidate its Jewish citizens as early as 1940, except those who managed to flee to Hungary, a sanctuary for Jews at the time.

The country's present burdens consist mainly of economic difficulties created by its separation from Czechoslovakia, and problems with Hungarians within and beyond her borders. Even when Czechoslovakia was whole, Slovakia's share in that country's industrial capacity was only 28.5%, in domestic products 26.3%, and foreign investment 21.5%. Its unemployment rate was 11.3% in contrast with the Czechs' 2.9%. Since then Slovakia's economic situation has deteriorated so much that Meciar once quipped: "We have one major advantage in our position: things couldn't be worse."

Slovakia needs a charismatic leader in such desperate circumstances, and she has one in Vladimir Meciar. A former prizefighter, he is a clever political wheeler-dealer, an effective orator and a dynamic debater. Having a communist background with dictatorial tendencies, he has a penchant for demagoguery. Known as a "flexible" politician, he can change his attitude and views overnight. Although Meciar went out his way to assuage the fears of minorities in a New Year's Day speech in 1993, the Magyars in Slovakia have remained uncertain about their role, largely because of the shortcomings of the new constitution. Their demands for linguistic and cultural freedom, connected with a reasonable autonomy, are interpreted as parts of a separatist scheme for rejoining Hungary.

To counteract this allegation, Slovakia's Hungarians, at a mass meeting held in Komárom (Komarno) in March of 1993, launched a surprising idea for Magyar-Slovak coexistence: the concept of a partner-nation (társnemzet). This concept, also called "helvetization," would grant the Magyars equal rights with the Slovaks, and thereby eliminate troublesome quarreling over minority problems. A shining example of such a solution is Switzerland with its cantonal system, where different nationalities enjoy equal status and live in peaceful harmony and prosperity. Such a "helvetization" in Slovakia would eliminate the need for eventual border changes, thus enabling the country to use her geographical position as a key element in the Carpathian Basin.

This idea so far has been ignored. Instead, Slovakia - in collusion with Romania - started a campaign to reach a "basic contract" with Hungary, where each nation would recognize the inviolability of the other's borders for now and for the future, in exchange for guaranteed improvements to be given to the Hungarian minority. On March 19, 1995 such a treaty was concluded and signed in Paris. However, giving the Magyar minority in Slovakia autonomy was not explicitly addressed. In fact, when Budapest interpreted the treaty's reference to recommendation No.1201 of the Council of Europe as obliging Slovakia to open the road to the Magyars' autonomy, Slovakia's government issued a statement contesting the interpretation.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary