various times influenced individuals or families to leave the old minority areas. First, the fear of physical violence by the occupation armies, or of retribution by the local population for past grievances, real or imagined; second, an ardent Hungarian nationalism which led many people to reject a life under foreign domination; third, loss of economic security; and finally, the inability of many to accept a loss of social status.

For some of the Hungarian officials the terror began with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The disintegration of the armies on the front paralleled the lost of control of population within Hungary. By September 1918 an estimated 400,000 men deserted from the Army¹² and during the last month of the war the pace of desertions accelerated. From the approximately 2.1 million Austro-Hungarian soldiers taken prisoners of war in Russia by the fall of 1918, about 725,000 soldiers were allowed to return. Of these about 152,000 were Hungarian, 94,000 Romanian, 80,000 Croatian, 44,000 Slovakian and 4,000 Serbian.¹³ From the fronts soldiers streamed home in great disarray, often in rags and without food supplies. By the end of November 1918 about 700,000 soldiers from Hungary were demobilized and by the end of December their number grew to 1,200,000.¹⁴ Upon hearing the news of the end of the war, the "Green Companies," made up of thousands of army deserters, emerged from their mountain hiding places and joined hands with the returning soldiers, unemployed former prisoners of war and rebellious peasants and plundered the countryside. Count Tivadar Batthyany, the Hungarian Minister of Interior wrote. "A veritable flood of complaints poured in from every direction that armed groups, small and large, as well as bands of returning soldiers were causing havoc, seizing property, robbing, using force, and even committing murders."¹⁵ In Transylvania returning soldiers, peasants and the hastily formed Romanian National Guards seized entire districts. In every region of the country peasants, both Hungarian and non-Hungarian, attacked, looted and in some cases, burnt down the chateaus and manor houses of the nobility, in the process killing or severely beating some of the overseers who tried in vain to protect their masters' properties. Occasionally landless peasants, fired by the news of an impending land reform, began to divide the nobles' estates among themselves.¹⁶ Great estates were assaulted in northern Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania, Trans-Danubia and on the Hungarian

Plain. For example, some of the Transylvanian estates of the Teleki, Haller, Zichy, Kemeny, Hirsch and Bethlen families were attacked and ransacked.¹⁷ The same fate befell the Andrassy chateau at Tiszadob.¹⁸ Not even Mihaly Karolyi's estate at Paradfurdo escaped the rage of the peasants.¹⁹ Though peasant attacks were random and disorganized, their pattern was fairly uniform. Disturbances were begun mostly by radicalized and armed peasant soldiers who won over the local population for attacks on the estates.²⁰ Many of the peasant soldiers arrived in their native villages ready to settle old scores, or to take revenge upon local officials for abusing their families during their absence. Also, because the landlords were absent or were the first to flee, the hatred of the peasants, especially in the minority areas, was vented upon the remaining lesser officials: village notaries, teachers, gendarmes, and even priests, men, that is, who symbolized to them the authority of the old Hungarian state. Since in the minority areas most of the landlords and officials were Hungarian, the social revolution of the peasants in those regions acquired a national character. The notaries and gendarmes were especially harshly treated. According to Oscar Jaszi, during the first few days of the revolution alone, one third of the notaries were forced to flee.²¹ According to another estimate, about one third of notaries fled from Hungarian villages-one half from Slovak populated areas and about nine-tenths from Romanian regions.²² In many villages the notaries were beaten to death or shot; in one instance the deceased notary's body was disinterned and dumped into a ditch.²³ In vain did the notaries protest at their December 5th congress that they were "robbed of their property, vilified," and became the "persecuted martyrs" of the revolution.²⁴ A main goal of the government was restoration of order, though it was powerless to protect its isolated officials in the villages. Most of the rural gendarmerie stations had to be abandoned and the personnel concentrated in larger towns. On a number of occasions regular military units were called out to restore order. At time aristocrats organized independent military detachments to recapture their estates and to take bloody revenge on the offending peasants.²⁵ But repressive measures could not permanently reinstate local officials.

Peasant attacks on estates and officials, as well as reactions to them, were part of a social revolution. This is born out by the fact that Romanian and Serbian national guard units were also active in

repressing rebellious peasants. What turned the social revolution into a national one, and at the same time sealed the fate of the Hungarian officials and that of the Hungarian middle classes, was the invasion of the country by the Serbian, Czech and Romanian armies. Following the arrival of occupying forces, arrests, murders, and taking of hostages were frequent. News of these incidents spread rapidly and became amplified as they were passed on. Rumors of planned bloody revenges that were to follow the arrival of the Serbian, Romanian or Czech armies were often sufficient to cause many officials, landowners, estate managers, and police officials to seek safety in central Hungary. Some of the desperate officials tried to organize the local population into a military force to resist the invaders, but all such attempts in northern Hungary and most in Transylvania ended in failure. The Hungarian peasantry looked upon these efforts with suspicion and remained passive, while in the urban areas workers and some of the intellectuals were openly hostile to the noble officer recruiters, suspecting, not without justification, that such a force would quickly become a counterrevolutionary army. Moreover, the Hungarian government of Mihaly Karolyi, more clearly appreciating the hopeless military position of the country and still clinging to a hope of peaceful, negotiated settlement, discouraged active resistance by the population.²⁶

The upper classes and the most exposed champions of Hungarian nationalism left mostly during the chaotic first few months after the armistice. With the establishment of military control by the Successor States, overt acts of violence against the Hungarian population subsided, though they by no means ceased completely. Pressure on the remaining Hungarian minority changed in character; persecution and discrimination became more subtle, systematic and selective, and more a consequence of government policies than of popular hatred. The governments of the Successor States welcomed, actively encouraged, and at times forced the departure of Hungarian families or individuals, partly to reduce the overall size of the Hungarian minority and thereby to strengthen their claims to the seized territories, and, more importantly, to bring about a change in the social composition of the population in the newly acquired territories. Most of the cities in these areas had Hungarian and German majorities, with the Hungarian element dominating. To fully control the new provinces the political influence and economic role of the Hungarian middle classes had to be broken and if possible, Hungarians

had to be replaced with newly transplanted, loyal Serbians, Romanians, or Czechs. In each of the Successor States the prime target of continued persecutions was the gentry-dominated middle class, which was the backbone of authority in the old Hungarian state. It was the politically most conscious, best organized, and therefore most dangerous group from whose ranks the potential leaders of a national resistance movement could emerge. This class, however, was particularly vulnerable to attacks because of the excessive dependence of its members upon the old Hungarian state.²⁷ A continued domination of the administrative hierarchy was inconceivable to the leaders of the new states. Technically, according to the terms of the Belgrade Armistice Agreement of 13 November 1918, the contested areas were to remain an integral part of the Hungarian state until the signing of a peace treaty, even though these areas were under a military occupation. Accordingly, at first, Hungary was ordered to evacuate only its military forces beyond the line of demarcation, but "Civil Administration" was to "remain in the hands of the [Hungarian] Government." Naturally, the laws of Hungary were to continue to be in force. Similarly, "being indispensable to the maintenance of order ..." the Hungarian police and gendarmerie were to be "retained in the evacuated zone."²⁸

The Successor States ignored these provisions and severed the occupied regions' ties with Budapest. Elimination of the Hungarian administrative structure and reform of the educational system was completed even before the signing of the Treaty of Trianon. Serbia acted with the greatest efficiency. The first task of most military commanders was to oust the old Hungarian administration. Often this was not necessary, because many of the old officials fled or were already replaced by the spontaneously formed South Slav Councils even before the arrival of the Serbian Army.²⁹ The purges conducted in Slovakia and Transylvania were less thorough and more drawn out. In Slovakia, a desperate shortage of qualified replacements slowed down the transition. Then too, the greater concentration of Hungarian population, especially in Transylvania where entire counties were solidly Hungarian, made a complete de-magyarization of the administration impractical. Thus, while the higher posts were taken away from Hungarians, some lower officials were retained. But during various screening procedures many were weeded out as security risks. Others were dismissed on the pretext of reorganization of the administrative structure, or as a result of alleged

failure to meet some new standard required of all officials.³⁰ Such was the language requirement. which made it mandatory for all state officials to learn within a year the new, official Czechoslovak, Serbian, or Romanian language.³¹ Another device was to demand a loyalty oath from all officials, which confronted every Hungarian employee with a difficult choice of conscience as well as with a practical problem.³² As Hungarian patriots they could not renounce their loyalty to Hungary and as employees of the old Hungarian state many feared the loss of their pensions if such oath was taken. The Karolyi government. recognizing the dilemma of the Hungarian officials, gave its permission to those in the zone of occupation to take, under compulsion, such oaths, and extended a guarantee of a continued payment of salaries to those who refused.³³ This guarantee tended to encourage the flight of the state employees.

One of the most bitter blows to the Hungarian minorities was the de-magyarization of the educational system in the lost areas. On the other hand, few institutions of old Hungary were as much in need of reform as its school system. To the old subject nationalities of Hungary the most visible sign of their second class status and of their oppression was the disparity between the numbers and quality of the Hungarian and non-Hungarian schools.³⁴ The reform of the educational system, therefore, was high on the agenda of every one of the Successor States. In practice. however, the Hungarian population's loss of schools did not always represent a gain for the old minorities. In Yugoslavia. the Hungarian educational system was abolished during 1919, and over two-thirds of the more than 1,800 Hungarian teachers were dismissed; the Hungarian schools were reduced to one-sixth of their former capacity.³⁵ In Czechoslovakia the number of Hungarian schools was reduced from nearly 4,000 to less than 700, and nearly three-fourths of the Hungarian teachers lost their jobs.³⁶ Out of about 1,600 state-operated schools of Transylvania only 562 were allowed to retain Hungarian as language of instruction.³⁷ One result of this de-magyarization of the educational institutions in the Successor States was that over two-thirds of the dismissed teachers, some 8,870 left or were expelled from their homelands by 1920.³⁸ Deprived of educational opportunities for their children, many Hungarian families, especially those of middle class origins, fled or at least sent their children to Hungary to be educated.

Thus, even before the decision of the Western Powers sealed the fate of Hungary and of the Hungarian population of the occupied

areas, the Successor States, through forced de-magyarization of the administrative and educational institutions, through seizures of Hungarian, mostly noble, estates, as well as through outright expulsions, achieved a dramatic reduction in the size of the remaining Hungarian minorities. Moreover, the political and economic power of the Hungarian minorities was broken and their social and cultural leadership destroyed. The Hungarian minorities became a socially more homogeneous, overwhelmingly agricultural group, which could be more easily controlled and managed.

The last illusory hope of the Hungarians was a reprieve by the Great Powers during the long delayed peace negotiations. But the ratification of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 merely sanctioned the dismemberment of Hungary and the discriminatory and repressive policies of the Successor States. At the Peace Conference the Western Powers rejected every request of the Hungarian delegation for substantive change in the draft treaty.³⁹ Hungary had to accept the position that in her case, because she was a defeated state, historical rights, economic needs, or ethnic principles did not apply. The collective right to national self-determination of the Hungarian majorities in some of the disputed areas, the right to determine the fate of their region, was denied. The only concession to the transferred Hungarian population was extended to them as individuals, and this concession involved the right to depart. Article 63 of the Treaty of Trianon, the so-called optant clause, stated: "Persons ... losing their Hungarian nationality . . . shall be entitled within a period of one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty to opt for the nationality of the State in which they possessed rights of citizenship before acquiring such rights in the territory transferred. ..."⁴⁰ This clause triggered the last major wave of refugees. Those who up to this point still clung to illusions about the future of their homelands, were forced to face reality. Over 100,000 individuals chose to exercise their right to depart.

From the very beginning, the reception of the refugees in Hungary was mixed. As suffering human beings and as the visible symbols of the nation's tragedy, many of the refugees became beneficiaries of the personal generosity of the more affluent classes. At the same time, the country was in the midst of a social revolution, and refugees as a group were often viewed with suspicion and hostility as representatives of the old ruling and official classes, and as champions of bankrupt conservative politics. The massive influx of

refugees also created an intolerable economic burden for Hungary and intensified internal social tensions. With its economy at a standstill, beset by widespread unemployment and shortages of every kind, including food, fuel, and clothing, and without hope of relief from the West due to a continuation of the Allied economic blockade, the government was incapable of satisfying even the minimum needs of the refugees. Moreover, for the Left aid to the refugees was an ideological issue. They could not justify the squandering of the meager resources of the state on their former class enemies when their own long deprived supporters, the workers and the lower classes, were equally destitute. The same view was taken when the few vacated bureaucratic posts were to be filled or when the even rarer apartments were to be assigned.⁴² As a result, refugees had to struggle for even a single room apartment, and thousands were forced to live, often for years, in the same railroad cattle cars (now shunted to the side tracks of the main railroad stations) in which they arrived.⁴³ The misery of the population was greatest in Budapest. Yet, the demobilized refugee soldiers and officers, the refugee students and officials, naturally flocked to the capital, either to continue their education there or to press the ministries, usually without success, with their demands for aid or jobs.

The refugees left a deep imprint on the post-war history of Hungary; they were heavily involved in the counterrevolution, helped to consolidate the Horthy regime, participated in the establishment of the first fascist groups, and markedly influenced the formulation of the ideology of Hungarian fascism. The reasons for their deep political involvement is not hard to see. The experiences of the refugees-their desperate economic situation and their destroyed political and social roles-primed them for radical action. In an increasingly polarized society the refugees were the most traumatized group who eagerly joined, and often led, the many newly-formed Right wing organizations. Even more than the defeated aristocracy and gentry of inner Hungary, they were prepared to counter the nation's social revolution, and the national revolutions of the former minorities, with a revolution of the Right.

Notes

1. Heinrich Boll, "Hymn to a New Homeland," Saturday Review (May 3, 1975).

2. Even the eleventh-hour attempt to grant political equality to all citizens of Hungary was rejected by the conservative leaders. During the February 1918 parliamentary debates on voting rights Count Istvan Tisza declared: "From 1848 until recent times everyone agreed that radical electoral right is the doom of the Hungarian nation, the Hungarian nation-state. ... It is the enemies of the nation-state who want, desire, demand universal franchise. ..." Budapest Hirlap, 26 February 1918. On the same subject the leader of the Transylvanian Hungarians Count Istvan Bethlen said: "In Transylvania electoral right is not a question of democracy, nor of conservatism; it is not even a question of class, but a question of survival." Ibid., 2 March 1918.

3. The massive disruption of civilian lives can be illustrated by the size of the military mobilization. Of the 7,264,861 men who were made available for military service in the Monarchy by July 31, 1917, 3,243,323 came from Hungary, representing 72.88 percent of the 18 to 50-year-old male population of the country registered in the 1910 census. Antal Jozsa, Haboru, hadifogsag, forradalom. Magyar Internacionalista hadifoglyok az 1917-es oroszorszagi forradalmakban (Budapest, 1970), p. 36. Proportionately, the contribution of the Hungarians was the highest. The Rumanians and Germans were also declared fit for military service at a rate higher (and the Slavs at a rate lower) than their proportion out of the total population. Wilhelm Winkler, Der Anteil der nichtdeutschen Volksstamme an der ost.-ung. Wehrmacht (Vienna, 1919), pp. 1-2; cited in ibid., p. 34.

4. The policy of the Hungarian government towards the national minorities during the war needs clarification. The selective harsh treatment of the minorities was not racially motivated, but grew out of the security requirements of the state, and out of attempts to arrest separatist tendencies among some of the nationalities. Accordingly, repressive measures were not uniformly applied, and paralleled the military fortunes of the country. At the outset of the war the policy towards the Slovaks and Croatians, who were considered to be trustworthy, changed but little. However, in areas which came under military jurisdiction as zones of operations, military authorities, at times independently of the government, resorted to bloody repressing. Such was the case particularly along the Serbian frontier, in Serbia itself, as well as in the Ukrainian-populated regions at the time of the Russian invasion of Hungary. Treatment of Rumanians changed only after the 1916 Romanian invasion of Transylvania. Though the Romanian population remained generally passive, many Romanians, especially members of the intelligentsia, compromised themselves with the result that tens of thousands fled with the retreating Romanian Army. Thousands of those who remained were subsequently interned and hundreds were charged with treason. For a detailed account of Hungarian policy towards the minorities during the war see Jozsef Galantai, Magyarorszag az Elso vilaghaboruban, 1914-1918 (Budapest, 1974), especially pp. 175-182, 190-195, 224-225, and 351-352. See also, Zoltan Szasz, "Az erdelyi roman

polgarsag szereperol 1918 oszen," Szazadok no. 2 (1972), pp. 309-310; Miron Constantinescu et. al., Unification of the Romanian National State: The Union of Transylvania with Old Romania (Bucharest, 1971), pp. 100-101.

5. Not until 1918 did the Allies abandon their plans for reorganizing the Austro-Hungarian Empire, allowing "the freest opportunity for autonomous development" among the minorities, in favor of the complete dismemberment of the Empire. But the dissolution of the Empire was already implied in the earlier secret agreements with Serbia and Romania. Alfred D. Low, The Soviet Hungarian Republic and the Paris Peace Conference (Philadelphia, 1963), pp. 8-9. For the changing attitudes of the Western Powers towards the future of Austria-Hungary, see Wilfred Fest, Peace or Partition: The Habsburg Monarchy and British Policy, 1914-1918 (New York, 1978). See also, Kenneth J. Calder, Britain and the Origins of the New Europe, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, 1976); W. H. Rothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy, 1914-1918 (Oxford, 1971).

6. For the text of the minority treaties, see H.W,V. Temperley, ed., A History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. 5: Economic Reconstruction and Protection of Minorities (London, 1924), pp. 446-470.

7. See essays by Tihanyi, Pastor and Kalvoda.

8. Baron Emil Petrichevich-Horvath, ed., Jelentes az Orszagos Menekultugyi Hivatal negy evi mukodeserol (Budapest, 1924), p. 37. Hereinafter cited as OMH Report. In estimating the number of refugees, the various post-war censuses and the 1910 Hungarian census were used.

9. As compared to the 1910 census figures.

10. OMH Report, p. 37. It seems that most of the estimated 76,000 individuals who escaped registration by the OMH reached inner Hungary during the last months of 1918 or during early 1919. Many of these individuals were already in central Hungary at the time of the occupation of their homelands and simply chose to remain. Others were soldiers and officers returning from the front or released or escaping prisoners of war.

11. Ibid.

12. Galantai, Magyarorszag az Elso vilaghaboruban. p. 397.

13. Antal Jozsa, Haboru, hadifogsag, forradalom: Magyar Internacionalista hadifoglyok az 1917-es oroszorszagi forradalmakban (Budapest, 1970), pp. 101-103.

14. Jozsef Breit. A Magyarorszagi 1918/19 evi forradalmi mozgalom es a voros haboru tortenete Vol. 1 (Budapest, 1929), p. 37. See also Ervin Liptai, Voroskatonak EIore! A magyar Voros Hadsereg harcai, 1919. (Budapest, 1969), p. 12.

15. Tivadar Batthyany, Beszamolom Vol. 1 (Budapest, e. n.), p. 294.

16. Zoltan Szasz, "Az erdelyi roman polgarsag, p. 317.

17. Ibid., p. 316.

18. Voros Ujsag, February 15, 1919. Article reproduced in Laszlo Remete, "Rengj csak, Fold!" (Budapest, 1968), pp. 272-275.

19. Tibor Hajdu, Karolyi Mihaly (Budapest, 1978), p. 285.

20. Szasz, "Az erdelyi roman polgarsag," p. 317.

21. Oscar Jaszi, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary (New York, 1969), p. 61. (Originally published in 1924.)

22. Tibor Hajdu, Az 1918-as magyarorszagi polgari demokratikus forradalom (Budapest, 1968), p. 98.

23. Miklos Kozma, Az osszeomlas: 1918-19 (Budapest, 1934[?]), Journal entries for December 2 and 5, 1918, pp. 51 and 63. See also, Liptai, Voroskatonak, p. 13.

24. Janos Kende, Forradalomrol forradalomra (Budapest, 1979), p. 88. See also, Batthyany, Beszamolom Vol. 1., pp. 294, 303. Indeed no other class was treated as harshly during the revolution as notaries. Though some abused their greatly increased powers during the war, most simply carried out state policies. Handling military draft exemptions, forced food requisitions and similar measures inevitably made them many enemies.

25. Szasz, "Az erdelyi roman polgarsag," p. 319. See also Constantinescu et. al., Unification of the Romanian National State, p. 248. Voros Ujsag, February 15, 1919. Gyorgy Ranki et. al., Magyarorszag tortenete Vol. 8: 1919-1945 (Budapest, 1976), p. 81. Also, Laszlo Kovago, A magyarorszagi delszlavok 1918-1919-ben (Budapest, 1964), p. 103. Kende, Forradalomrol forradalomra, p. 63.

26. Only the formation of the Szekely Division received official sanction. Its function was to guard the official line of demarcation between the Romanian occupied territories and Hungary, though it also conducted unofficial raids and rescue missions across that line. After the dissolution of the Division in April 1919, a large number of the soldiers became refugees and joined the counterrevolutionary army of Admiral Horthy.

27. The reason for that dependence lies in the decline of the gentry. After 1867 the smaller, less efficient noble estates lost their economic viability and the bankrupt owners joined the ranks of the already sizable class of landless nobles. The state compensated them for their losses by offering them posts befitting their station in a greatly expanded bureaucracy.

28. For the text of the Agreement see Temperley, History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. 4, pp. 509-511.

29. Kovago, A magyarorszagi delszlavok, pp. 95-96. See also, C. A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences, 1919-1937 (Oxford, 1937), p. 409.

30. In Slovakia, for example, three conditions were set for continued employment of Hungarian officials: first, the taking of a loyalty oath to the new Czechoslovak constitution; second, passing of Czechoslovak language examinations within one year; and, finally, meeting unstated qualifications

for holding a specific office. R. W. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, Then and Now (London, 1931), pp. 217, 221.

31. Zsombor Szasz, Erdely Romaniaban, Nepkisebbsegi Tanulmany (Budapest, 1927), pp. 83-84

32. In vain did the Hungarian government protest to the Western Powers that "the Czecho-Slovak and the Romanian Governments compel the Hungarian officials, professors and teachers-under charge of instant dismissal and expulsion-to take the oath of allegiance to the Czecho-Slovak and Roumanian State[s]" and that this was "a manifest infraction of Article 45 of the Hague Convention." Peace Conference Delegation, Atrocities Committed by Roumanians and Czechs, Memorandum to the mandatories of the Associated Powers at Budapest regarding the abuses perpetrated by the Powers of occupation in the territories subjected to Czecho-Slovak and Roumanian administration (n. p., n. d. [1920?]), p. 1. See also, Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors, p. 413 and Szasz, Erdely Romaniaban, p. 55.

33. According to Batthyany, Karolyi's Minister of Interior, around 8-10 November 1918 he personally issued an order to all state officials authorizing them to take the loyalty oath, but only as a last resort and under duress. Batthyany, Beszamolom Vol. 1, pp. 298-299. See also, Tibor Hajdu, Az 1918-as magyarorszagi polgari demokratikus forradalom, p. 163. Subsequently, the counterrevolutionary government of Szeged gave similar assurances, though, at the same time, urged the officials to take the oath and remain at their posts. Bela Kelemen, ed., Adatok a szegedi ellenforradalom es a szegedi kormany tortenetehez. (1919). (Naplojegyzetek es okiratok) (Szeged, 1923), pp. 243, 269.

34. As a negative result of the educational reform of 1907 the number of schools where instruction was offered in the languages of the minorities declined from about 6,000 in 1899 to a little over 3,300 by 1914, representing about 20 percent of the approximately 16,600 schools of the country. These schools offered education in their native tongues to about 35 percent of the minority students. Peter Hanak, ed., Magyarorszag tortenete, 1890-1918 Vol. 7/2 (Budapest, 1978), p. 64l. Differences in literacy rates between the different ethnic groups are another indication of the inequities of the educational opportunities. In 1910, while 79 percent of the Hungarian and 82 percent of the German population of Hungary were literate, only 65 percent of the Slovaks, 48.5 percent of the Serbs and 36 percent of the Romanians could read and write. Though it should be noted that national discrimination was far from being the only cause of the higher rate of illiteracy among the minorities. Also, low as the literacy rate was for the Romanian population, it was still higher than in the Kingdom of Romania.

35. A jugoszlaviai magyarsag helyzete (Budapest, 1941), p. 14.

36. Jozeph Mikus, Slovakia; A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee, 1963), p. 29. Also R. W. Seton-Watson, ed., Slovakia; Then and Now; A Political Survey (London, 1931), p. 125.

37. Szasz, Erdely Romaniaban, pp. 232-233.

38. Laszlo Buday, Megcsonkitott Magyarorszag (Budapest, 1921), p. 260,

39. The unbending attitudes of the Western Powers may be understandable in the case of the original Hungarian proposal for a complete restoration of Hungary's former territories. Less justifiable was the refusal of the Great Powers to consider any modifications in the proposed borders whose aim was to achieve a greater correspondence between the prevailing ethnic and the new political boundaries.

40. Fred L. Israel, ed., Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, 1648-1967 Vol. III (New York, 1967), p. 1888, The optant clause already appeared in the minority treaties signed by all three of the Successor States in 1919.

41. Article 63 of the Treaty of Trianon also guaranteed a right to the optant "to retain their immovable property in the territory of the other State where they had their place of residence before exercising their right to opt." Ibid., p. 1889. This clause became the subject of a major international controversy after the Successor States, and specifically Romania, expropriated Hungarian refugee estates for the purpose of land reform. Hungary sued and won her case, but without a satisfactory compensation for the refugees.

42. Not surprisingly, when the Hungarian Soviet, in a fit of egalitarianism, declared the palaces and townhouses of the aristocracy as well as the spacious apartments of the upper and middle classes underutilized, it was not the refugees but the lower classes of the slums who were allowed to move in.

43. OMH Report, p. 38.

A Case Study on Trianon