From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

Petitions to the League of Nations

The ever increasing misuse of political power by the Prague go- vernment forced the representatives of the Hungarian parties to submit petitions on behalf of their constituents, and question the government in Parliament for the causes of ignoring their assumed responsibilities towards the national minorities, including the Hungarians. Due to insufficient, unsatisfactory or evasive replies from Prague, the major grievances were submitted for remedy to the League of Nations, the international organization which was commissioned with the supervision of the enforcement of the minority treaties. It was the duty of the League of Nations to seek redress of the accused governments for the complaints of the national minorities. The representatives of the Czechoslovak government, Karel Kramar, the Prime Minister, and Edvard Benes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, signed the treaty of Saint-Germain; however, the international obligations were never fulfilled by their government. Article seven of the Minorities treaty of 1919 guaranteed to all Czechoslovak nationals equal rights before the law, the enjoyment of the same civil and political rights without distinction of race, language or religion.(l) The Czechs were acutely aware of the methods and intricacies of handling the national minorities from their own experience in the Austrian Empire.

The pressing problems of minorities menaced the peace. It was one of the functions of the League of Nations to promote and preserve good international relations and understanding. This was a complex task since, during the 26-year existence (1920-1946) of the League, its policy depended not only on the attitude of its member states (between 63 and 44), but also on the behavior of its former members and non-members as well as on the domestic policies of different governments. The functions of the League were performed through its distinct organs: the Council, the Assembly, the Secretariat, several permanent and ad hoc committees. The Council

was the main guarantor of the fair application of the stipulations of treaties concluded for the protection of linguistic, racial and religious minorities. The Minorities Section of the Secretariat was authorized by the Council to judge the receivability of petitions, subject to revision by the Council or by the Committee of Three to which the petitions of minority groups were referred. An annual report had to be sent by the Committee of Three to the Council on the number of examined petitions every year.(2) The assembly of the League discussed questions of principle related to the problems of the rights of the minority groups. Any member of the League could bring a dispute on minority questions before the Permanent Court of International Justice for advisory opinion.

Among the charges against the Czechoslovak government brought before the Committee of Three were: the declaration of martial law in the first year of the republic which curtailed every form of movement; censorship which forbade the Magyar language press to publish the minority grievances; the cases of dismissal of Hungarian civil servants on a large scale, deprivation of pensions and allowances to orphans and widows; removal by force of the Hungarian religious leaders; expulsion from Czechoslovakia of the politically non-desirable persons for the Prague government; expropriation of the estates of Hungarian landowners without adequate compensation; machinations with the results of each census that re- sulted in decreasing the number of Hungarians for statistical reasons, under 20% in many judicial districts; taking into preventive cus- tody leading personalities of the Magyar minority; arresting per- sons wearmg the Hungarian national tricolour, listening to the Hungarian national anthem on the radio, reading journals for- bidden to import in Slovakia or Ruthenia, the heavy taxation and intimidation of the Hungarian population and not granting the promised autonomy to Slovakia and Ruthenia.(3) These serious grievances were presented to the Committee of Three of the Council of the League of Nations. Similar petitions were handed to the Committee of Three by all national minorities of the Czechoslovak republic. This committee examined the petitions. If it decided to act upon them, they were first sent in the case of the CSR to the government of Prague for comments, evaluation and reply. Thus the accused government became the judge in a case levied against it. Some petitions were forwarded to the Council for action. The Council acknowledged their receipt, or recommended them to the special attention of the government involved and asked it to draw the necessary conclusions from them. Sometimes the Council requested the governments to conform with the stipulations of the minority treaties. In practice it meant that the petitions did not lead to any changes in the treatment of the minorities in the CSR. Furthermore, it was known that Benes with his interventions at the Committee of Three (4) prevented, on numerous occasions, the forwarding of petitions for discussion, thus to give them publicity.(5) The Minorities Section of the League consisted of employees from

the following countries: Spain (President), Denmark, Columbia, Norway, Persia, Yugoslavia, Australia and Ireland.(6) The fate of millions, and a just

settlement of their grievances, depended on conscientious examinations and acting upon them by this international forum. The director of the Minorities Section of the General Secretariat, Erik Colban, was the most important figure for the protection of the minorities and for the method of handling some petitions. Owing to the good relations between Colban and Benes, the petitions of the minorities from Czechoslovakia were slipping with a great art into oblivion. Benes was considered by Colban as a moderate politician and an expert on minority questions. Business was done secretly and in private conversations.(7) The minorities of the CSR had to find other means for exposing their problems. The peace treaties made it possible for Benes and the Czech minority to tyrannize the majority in the CSR.(8) Statistics of the CSR: 1) area: 142,375 km2, 2) population: Czechs 42%, Germans 22%, Slovaks 21.87%, Magyars 6.25%, Ruthenians 2%, Poles 1.87%.(9) In 1921, at the meeting of the League of Nations, the delegate of the CSR expounded the situation of their national minorities, and presented it as a model for the just treatment of minorities. He discussed the Czechoslovak democratic system of elections but remained silent on the flagrant injustices concerning the required number of votes for the election of deputies and senators in the Czech and non-Czech constituencies.(l0) In December 1930 outside help arrived in the difficult struggle for the Magyars in the CSR when the American- Hungarians in Cleveland, Ohio sent a petition to the League of Nations demanding the peaceful revision of the Trianon borders of Hungary. Five hundred signatures supported the petition (Appen- dix No. 4).

The concern of the League of Nations was only the preservation of the status quo reached in the suburbs of Paris in 1919, not the rendering of justice to those who went there with confidence in their hardships seeking the prevention of the violation of their rights. In fact, the minority problem was a very serious heritage of the dangerously imprudent settlements after World War I. In thirteen states of Europe with a total population of 106,280,000, there lived 26,780,000 people under the legal protection guaranteed to--but not adhered to--the minorities.(ll) The League of Nations proved to be incompetent and inefficient in dealing with these problems. There was no mechanism for the enforcement of international agreements.

In the CSR the legislative power in 1919-1920 was exercised by an appointed revolutionary National Assembly, an enlarged national council consisting of 216 Czechs (80%) and 54 Slovaks (20%). Other nationalities were left out although the Sudeten German Social Democrats demanded the participation of all nationalities in the deliberations. The systematic and purposeful oppression of the ethnic minorities in the CSR began with the imposed constitution on them

The legal source of the minority rights in the CSR was the peace treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1919. It contained the obliga- tions of the Czechoslovak government for granting equality before the law to all nationals of the state. The Minorities treaty constituted international obligations and were placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. However, the League formed an ideological group and was not devoted to the service of justice and equity.(l2) Principles laid down in the treaty were subsequently changed in the formulation of the laws by the provisional National Assembly in Prague, where the national minorities had no representation. It was not a liberally debated constitution. The minority rights were not identical with the rights of the majority, i.e. with the rights and privileges of the Czechs. In the so-called democratic CSR, the legislation, government decrees and instructions for the enforce- ment of laws, created a double standard for different segments of the populations. Ethnic groups, subjugated to the Czechs, did not become full-fledged citizens of the new republic but rather were diddled out of equal rights. The application of the laws and the decisions of the constitutional court slowly, but purposefully, took away the rights from the minorities assured for them in the peace treaty and the constitution. A comparaison, for instance, of article seven, paragraph three of the peace treaty with the Csl. law No. 121/1920, paragraph 218, illustrates the evasion of international obligations accepted by the Prague government. The above paragraph of the peace treaty states that no Czechoslovak citizen could be limited in the free use of any language in private or business transactions, in religious or any other publications or in public meetings. The law, contrary to this, states that the citizens of the republic could use any language in private or commercial life, in religious matters, in the press and in any notices or public meetings within the limits of the general laws. Later the use of the language was limited by the language law to communities where a minority was represented by at least 20% of the population. In 1926 the cities of Pressburg, Kassa and Ungvar were annexed to the counties in their vicinity and the Hungarian population in them was artificially diminished for statistical purposes under 20%, consequently losing the use of their mother tongue in the offices of public administration and in the courts.(l3) Similar examples could be quoted from different segments of life such as schooling, cultural institutions and state subsidies to chartered organizations. Granting autonomy to Slovakia, Ruthenia and Sudetenland and the recognition of minority rights would have strengthened the new state. Instead of introducing a democratic rule, the Czechs had chosen political oppression, and with that fatal step they helped to destroy their republic in twenty years. The Czechs were democrats among themselves in their customs and political views but they did not recognize the basic tenets of democracy for others such as equality before the law and the right of self-determination.

The Czechoslovak Alliance System and Hungary's Desire for the Peaceful Revision of the Borders

In 1919 the victorious allies believed that they had introduced a fair, even a superior, international political system. In the successor states, in fact, the contrary happened. There were continuously, year after year, many acts of injustices committed against innocent people who were persecuted in the CSR because they were not Czechs. The latter were suddenly tossed unexpectedly into a situation of an ethnic minority and degraded into a discriminatory social and legal status on their own land. With a great deal of cynicism, the Czechs expected loyalty from those unfortunate millions. Czechoslovakia was a successor state thrown together in a make-shift way by mendacious statements and untrue statistics. The captive nations and nationalities in the CSR wanted to escape from their sufferings and return to their mother countries surrounding the new republic. The Czechoslovak government could maintain its existence only with the financial and military help of the Western European governments, mainly France. "Our treaty with France is for us a real guarantee for the future, it covers us in our vital questions, leaving for us sufficient liberty for carrying out an independent policy with Germany, England and Russia,"(14) Benes asserted in his political instructions to the Czechoslovak embassies. Masaryk and Benes misled not only the Czechs but also their allies, first of all France, because they did not uphold the promised democratic principles of their government. This complete dependence on France became catastrophic in the pre-Munich days of 1938.15 The Prague government and the executor of its foreign policy, Benes, did not base the security of the newly born state solely on the maintenance of friendly political relations between France, England and the CSR, but he surrounded his fragile state with a number of treaties. France, the mightiest and wealthiest country of the post-war years in Europe, was sufficient to keep the Weimar republic at bay. There was no immediate danger from Germany, exhausted and defeated. Benes turned his attention to the encirclement of Hungary. All four of the Magyars' neighbours, even Austria, the former partner in the monarchy, received part of the territory and population of Hungary in the Trianon treaty. A plebiscite was allowed only in the city of Sopron and fourteen villages which voted 75% for Hungary after the delimitation of the border. The Czechs, Serbs and Rumanians had a common goal: to prevent the repossession of territories by Hungary taken away from her in the peace treaties. Benes, already on 30 December, 1919, before the signing of the Trianon treaty, entered into negotiations with the Yugoslav government in Belgrade and on 5 January, 1920, with the Rumanian government in Bucharest, proposing the encirclement of Hungary to prevent her claims for the revisions of the borderlines. These

preliminary talks paved the way for a treaty of defence and mutual aid alliance with Yugoslavia, signed on 14

August, 1920, and a similar treaty with Rumania was signed on 23 April, 1921. The encirclement of Hungary from three sides was completed on 7 July, 1921, with the Rumanian and Yugoslav treaty of alliance.l6 This triple alliance, called the Little Entente, with its army of 830,000 men was aimed against the 35,000 man army of Hungary, and the restoration of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria or in Hungary. The Little Entente, especially the Czechs, were so afraid of the return of Charles IV of Hungary to his throne that the three members of the newly formed military alliance forced Hungary to declare the Habsburgs dethroned as was voted by the Parliament of Budapest after the second apparition of the ex-king in Hungary from his exile in Switzerland.(l7) Disarmed by the peace treaty, encircled by hostile neighbours, economically crippled by the peace makers, the Magyar race separated into four states from the fatherland, was completely at the mercy of the new political factor, the Little Entente, and its chief sponsor, France. The policies of the Hungarian government were closely monitored by Czechoslovakia, for the Czechs knew that the Magyars even in their desperate situation could not accept the territorial mutilation of their country and the political persecution of their blood-brothers on the other side of the frontiers of Hungary. In spite of their frustration and hopeless circumstances, the government of Budapest could not write off the losses in population and territory because changed political conditions could bring back what misfortune took away from the nation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was kept informed about the cracks in the Versailles system in order to escape from the death sentence pronounced over the nation at Trianon. The Magyar minorities could not expect any intervention on their behalf from the government of Hungary because the fatherland was econo- mically destroyed, militarily disarmed, condemned to pay war reparations and was put under permanent military control of the entente powers from the summer of 1921 until the end of March 1927. A Control Commission of 52 members kept a strict surveillance on the disarming of the Hungarian army and the production of arms and ammunitions. The presence of this Commission hindered even the secret rearmaments when the well-equipped neighbours strengthened their armies. Britain supported the Hungarian request in the League of Nations, and after three years of deliberations on 31 March, 1927 the entente control was replaced with a less strict control of the League of Nations. Earlier the membership on the Commission was reduced to 11 in 1922. Interdiction of rearmaments was dissolved only in August 1938 when the balance of power changed drastically in Europe, and the League of Nations, France and the Little Entente lost their predominance in Central European affairs. It was clear before the Hungarian government that the peaceful revision of the borderlines and the reacquisition of the dispossessed territories could be done only with the assistance of powerful and friendly states.(l8) The Little Entente was aware of the Hungarian efforts, and on the initiative of

the CSR they protested in Budapest against the revisionist endeavours of the Hungarian government.(l9) In Budapest the nationality section of the Prime Minister's office dealt with the problems of the Hungarians living abroad, and was supported in this rescuing operation with a scant budget of 2 to 3 million pengo ($1 = Pengo 5) per year.(0 ) Hungary was mutilated and put under the financial control of the League of Nations which had to approve all loans or bonds the government negotiated on foreign money markets, mostly in London, Paris, Vienna and Rome. Britain and Italy wanted to break the monopoly of France controlling Central Europe. They took a great interest in granting loans to Hungary. In 1926, a balanced budget was produced; the Control Commission was disbanded in April 1927.(2l) This financial control, while it existed, extended its sphere of authority to the examination of the fiscal and monetary policy, population statistics, industrial and agricultural production, external trade, commercial policy, and the system of taxation and budget. A sound economic policy helped to extract Hungary from her complete political isolation in which she was placed after World War I. For a long period, France was not able to maintain her dominant role in the League of Nations, nor among the members of the Little Entente. Britain and the United States of America, with their financial power, were breaking up the sole hegemony of France. Italy, the unsatisfied victor of the war, turned against the Versailles system together with crippled Germany. Hungary found understanding and financial backing in Britain, and political support in Italy. The nascent Czechoslovak state was afraid of the Italo-Hungarian rapprochement, and did everything to support the political and economic independence of Austria, signing a treaty of neutrality in case of conflict with Italy on 16 May, 1924. This treaty was not renewed when it expired five years later because of Italian opposition. Italy tried to replace the French influence in the Danubian basin, and this orientation in foreigh policy led to the conclusion of the Italian-Hungarian treaty of friendship, coopera- tion and arbitration on 5 April, 1927 on the occasion of the visit of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Bethlen, to Rome. The goal of both countries was to change the Versailles and Trianon settlements, and satisfy their territorial claims. This treaty signified the end of Hungary's political isolation, and obtained for her valuable support in the League of Nations. At the same time the injustices of the Trianon treaty were brought up and debated in the British Parliament. This activity in foreign policy was backed on the home front with the foundation of the Revisionist League in Budapest which became the propaganda tool and moving force behind this movement. Under the auspices of an active foreign policy the Revisionist League was founded on 11 August, 1927 for developing the

revisionist propaganda within and outside of Hungary. Thirty- four clubs took part in the establishment of this organization.(22) On 5 May, 1928 Mussolini supported Hungary's revisionist demands by stating that conditions of Hungary with half of the nations territory

and nearly half of the Magyar inhabitants wrested from her, constituted a running sore, poisoning the whole atmosphere of Central Europe.(23) Prime Minister Gombos, the successor of Bethlen, advocated the rights of the Hungarian minorities in the successor states.(24) Lord Rothermere's proclamtion of 15 March, 1931, on the national day of independence of Hungary, remembered the mil- lions of Hungarians who were suffering under implacable foreign oppression. It was his firm conviction that the world's public opinion began to recognize the great injustices inflicted on Hungary in the peace treaty of Trianon, and that the revision of borders would develop into an international problem.(25) On 14 February, 1929, the Hungarian Upper House asked the Foreign Minister to take the necessary steps in an opportune moment at the League of Nations in the matter of the Trianon treaty(.2)6 Gombos continued the cultiva- tion of the Italian friendship, but for the realization of the revisionist goals his concept of foreign policy required collaboration with Germany, another antagonist of the 1919 treaties, and Italy. These two governments had diametrically opposing views on the Austrian independence. Gombos successfully established closer links of political consultation and economic cooporation with Italy and Austria. His efforts culminated in the signature of the protocols of Rome on 17 March, 1934. They defined the political and economic ties among Austria, Hungary and Italy. In the framework of these agreements, Gombos suggested the extension of closer relations with Germany. Mussolini was willing to cooperate with the Ger- mans on the basis of the protocols of Rome for the solution of the problems of the Danubian basin.(27) The German support of Italy during the Abyssinian crisis was transformed into a military alliance between Rome and Berlin. The violation of the Versailles treaty by Hitler initiated the diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia by various governments, and led to a military alliance between France and the Soviet Union on 2 May, 1935, and between the CSR and the USSR on 16 May, 1935. Hungary's revisionist claims were swupported by Italy and Germany, and they were counteracted by the CSR and her French and Russian allies. With the growing military power of the axis states, the question of the border revision of the successor states emerged to an international level.

The peace treaties were also condemned by non-interested parties. The American Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, had declared that "the Versailles treaty menaces the existence of civilization," and two Popes had stigmatized that instrument. Benedict XV had condem- ned it for "the lack of an elevated sense of justice, the absence of dignity, morality or Christian nobility,,, and Pius XI in his encyclical Ubi arcam Dei (26 December, 1922) deplored an artificial peace set down on paper, "which instead of arousing noble sentiments increases and legitimizes the spirit of vengeance and rancor." (28)

Foreign Endorsements for the Territorial Aspirations of Hungary

The positive result of the official Italian support of the rightful demands of Hungary before world opinion encouraged the Bethlen government to announce publicly, in Parliament, two months later, the defence of the Magyar minorities living in the Little Entente states. At the beginning of the period of international backing of Hungary's revisionist claims, a segment of the British press upheld the Hungarian case. Germany, even in 1933, only partially endorsed the Hungarian claims for the restoration of the Magyar-speaking minorities to the mother country. It was emphasized in Berlin that this aim should be concentrated on the CSR because Germany had certain interests in Rumania and Yugoslavia(.2)9

On 21 June, 1927, the London Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere's paper, published an article "Hungary's Place under the Sun." This brave approval of the necessity to revise the treaty of Trianon by changing the borders in favour of Hungary was enthusiastically welcomed in Hungarian circles. The minority problems were included on the agenda of the March 1929 meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva at the request of the German Foreign Minister. Hungary's representative also submitted a memorandum asking for the enlargement of the existing authority of the Council of the League which should have protected the rights of minorities in accordance with the peace treaties. The enforcement of those articles did not prove to be satisfactory. The members of the Council were not willing to take upon themselves an additional task in disciplining the member states which violated their international obligations. It was decided, rather, to create a commission, the Committee of Three, for filing and processing the complaints of minorities demanding the amelioration of their fate under foreign rule. The Committee of Three did not live up to the expectations of the movers of that amendment. The attitude of Hungary was sober- minded, tactful but at the same time determined. The small, poor and defeated country, encircled by enemies, used the available legal means on the international stage for presenting its request. Article XIX of the Covenant of the League of Nations envisaged the peaceful reconsideration of the peace treaties by the Assembly of the League which have become inapplicable and whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.(30) The authors of the Versailles and Trianon treaties did not want to consider any negotiations for peaceful alterations of the existing state of affairs. Possibilities for rapprochement among the states of the Danubian basin were improved by the change in world politics. In the new constellation of

power, the most elementary human and national rights could not be denied any longer to the Hungarian minorities. Hungary was forced to break her isolation, and established commercial and political ties with friendly states. This ended the political monopoly of the Little Entente in the Danubian basin.

More weight was carried by voices raised abroad, depicting the tragic conditions that the peace treaties caused in post-war Hungary. The keepers of the spoils grabbed at Trianon, the Little Entente, tried to maintain the dogma of the inviolability of the peace treaties which they violated over and over again.

Italy's strengthened international position provided significant support to the revision of the Trianon treaty. On 5 June, 1928 in the Senate, Mussolini deplored the detachment of the territory and population from Hungary.(31) The main purpose of the Italian action was the enforcement of her position in continental Europe. This public pronouncement of Mussolini aided Hungary and the Magyar minorities more than the occasional references to the same problem by prominent Britons or certain French newspapers receiving grants from Budapest for propaganda purposes. Mussolini spoke out repeatedly on behalf of Hungary during the following ten years, demanding the alteration of the post-war status quo and suggesting the separation of the League of Nations from the treaty of Versailles. The balance of political forces was modified with the signature of the protocols of Rome on 17 March, 1934 by Musso1ini, Dollfuss and Gombos. The fir9t protocol called for the maintenance of peace and the economic restoration of Europe respecting the independence of every state. The three governments decided to hold common consultation for considering the opportune course. Economic relations among the three countries were provided for in the second protocol. The third protocol announced the conclusion of a new commercial treaty between Italy and Austria within two months.(32) For a long period of time before this agreement, the Italians emphasized the necessity of examining the economic problems in the Danubian basin.(33) Prime Minister Bethlen welcomed the friendly inclination of Italy as a first step toward political cooperation. The Budapest government was deeply concerned with the problems of Magyar minorities in the neighbour- ing states. Benes voiced the opinion that they had been definitively solved in the CSR.(34) The Little Entente was solidly guarding the heritage of Trianon, and none of the three countries was willing to start individually a new political orientation in the question of territorial revision without consulting the other two members of the alliance. In February 1933, immediately after the acquisition of power by Hitler, Benes propelled by his fear, asked the Little Entente to conclude an organizational pact against Hitler, and put it under the direct authority of the Permanent Council of the alliance.(35)

Hungary had to live in a dismembered condition until further changes in the military power structure of Europe offered an opportunity to free herself from the entanglements of the Trianon system. Meanwhile, the detached members of the nation were not forgotten or given up by the Budapest government in spite of the constant threat against revisionism by the Little Entente. The defiance of the Versailles treaty by Germany, the reoccupation of

the demilitarized Rhineland, the unilateral declaration of rear- mament, the annexation of Austria basically placed the CSR in an untenable situation. In 1933 the Gombos government started to develop contacts with Germany, also a revisionist power, and that line of policy was pursued by Prime Minister Daranyi. Among others, the new Prime Minister said that Hungary was willing to regulate the pending questions with her neighbours on the basis of reciprocal agreements. The first step was to secure the rights of the minorities and to protect them by international law. Without a satisfactory settlement of the minorities problem normal relations could not develop between Hungary and the Little Entente.(36) Hungary could not continue to tolerate her mutilation and the constant threat by Little Entente around her. Daranyi proclaimed the Hungarian standpoint in his speech at Gyor. The CSR reacted to those pronouncements. The great powers were silent when in 1935 Germany introduced obligatory conscription, violating the articles of the peace treaty. Nothing happened when Austria started to arm herself. A relatively large number of people were aware that Hungary had been arming herself for a long time. However, the situation of Hungary was different because it was in the interest of the Little Entente to check Hungarian revisionism. Daranyi an- nounced that Hungary is not willing to wait any longer. Afther this statement--in the opinion of Prague--the Little Entente could violate openly the articles of the peace treaties concerning Hungary. The CSR could reject the protection of the Magyar minority by the peace treaties (37), it was stated in Prague.

Prague felt the pressure from Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland and the majority of the Slovaks who were supposed to be a state-maintaining nation in the republic of the Czechs and Slovaks. With that political constellation a favourable moment arrived for the dissatisfied minorities to demand the abandonment of the oppressive policy practised by Prague toward them. The govern- ment of Prague was adamantly opposed to the revision of borders. Benes, in his expose on the international situation, declared in the Chamber of Deputies on 25 April, 1935 that "History shows that detachment of territories always started the most bloody wars, and I have no doubts that it would be again the situation according to today's international thinking and tension... It was possible to dispose of territories at the peace conference. From that moment when it is in the legal possession of this or that nation, it is simply absurd to want to require again the right of disposition. It is our standpoint and from that we do not give up anything." (38) Benes' speech mirrored Bohemia's territorial expansion. To

maintain this kind of a conglomeration of nationalities, the Czechs fortified themselves with treaties of alliances and lived in a false sense of security. During the peace negotiations in 1919, the Czech agents worked on secret deals behind the scenes. Nineteen years later, they entrenched themselves behind military alliances with the hope that international agreements would be sufficient to save the inflated

Bohemia which was called the CSR. The Czechs prepared their own misfortune. They simply did not know how to govern a multi-ethnic mosaic state. They took cover under the CSR-France and the CSR- USSR military agreements. They did not know what to do with the golden opportunity to realize a democratic government in the centre of Europe to the satisfaction of the people who were compelled to live in the republic of the Czechs. It was impossible to perpetuate the maltreatment of the nationalities, the Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Poles and the supposedly ruling Slovaks, by using the power of authority against them which manifested itself in passing laws for the defence of the republic, through censorship and military force. All of this was insufficient to prevent an open outburst of discontent of the majority against the Czech minority when favourable circumstances permitted it without the possibility of being molested or punished by the Czech state apparatus.

Footnotes

1. Frey, A., A Danubian Chronicle, The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. IV,

1938, p .181.

2. Aufricht, H., Guide to League of Nations Publications, p. 189.

3. Question a la nationalite sur la base de l 'indigenat, Memoire a la Societe des Nations, p. 33.

4. Szvizsenyi, Z., Hogyan veszett el a Felvidek, p. 22.

5. Truhart, H., Volkerbund and Minderheitenpetitionen, p. 170.

6. Vladar, E., Mi is az a Nepszovetseg?, p. 25.

7. Schmid-Egger, B., Op. cit., p. 64.

8. The Times, Feb. 17, 1938.

9. Czak6, E., Op. cit., p. 22.

10. Schimd-Egger, B., Op. cit., p. 16.

11. Truhart, H., Op. cit., p. 170.

12. Frey, A., Op. cit., p. 181.

13. Sziklay, F., Kisebbsegi magyar sors, Magyar Szemle, No. 3, 1927,

pp. 281-282.

14. Brach, R., Francouzsky aliancni system a Ceskoslovensko na pocatku roku 1924, Cas. Vojenskeho Hist.Ustavu, Rocnik 1968, p. 9.

15. Lvova, M., Mnichov a Edward Benes, p. 11.

16. Werner, A., Eduard Benes der Mensch und der Staatsman, p. 193.

17. Horthy, N., Memoirs, p. 129.

18. Szinai, M.-L. Szucs, Horthy Miklos tithos iratai, pp. 6&69.

19. Ibid., p. 81.

20. Ibid., p. 32.

21. Horthy, M., Op. cit., p. 135.

22. Kis, A., Magyarorszag Kulpolitikaja a masodik vilaghaboru eloestejen,

p. 18.

23. Villari, L., Italian Foreign Policy under Mussolini, p. 54.

24. Gajanova, A., Op. cit., p. 230.

25. Affari Esteri, No. 2433/248.

26. Gajanova, A., Op. cit., p. 244.

27. DGFP., C.I., p. 169.

28. Villari, L., Op. cit., p. 204.

29. Ibid., p. 340.

30. Czernin, F., Versailles, p. 156.

31. Pesti Naplo, June 6, 1928.

32. Villari, L, Op. cit., pp. 116-117.

33. Lavoro Fascista, July 18, 1930.

34. Ibid.

35. Gajanova, A., Op. cit., p. 306. 57

36. Pragai Magyar Hirlap (PMH), March 6, 1938.

37. Narodni Politika, March 7, 1938.

38. Letak, M., V osidlech zrady, p. 94.

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award