From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

Prelude to the Vienna Arbitration

The Komarom negotiations broke down because the Slovak ministers representing Czecho-Slovakia did not bargain according to the conditions agreed upon by the Prague government. They did not have experience in international conferences, and wanted to keep territories for themselves which had been taken away from Hungary by the Czechs. During the conference, the Slovaks wanted to make a special deal with Hitler. In Komarom they presented irrelevant arguments for keeping as many Hungarians in Czecho-Slovakia, perhaps as hostages, as there were Slovaks living in Southern Hungary among the Magyar population. The Slovak settlers in Southern Hungary lived on their freely chosen land and had no desire to live in Czecho-Slovakia. In those perturbed months an expansionist mood dominated the minds of politicians. The German government was thinking of occupying several communities in Slovakia close to the Austrian border, including Pressburg.(1) The Germans also wanted to establish themselves in Ruthenia by placing German sympathizers in the new autonomous government to counteract the Polish-Hungarian drive for a common border by the retrocession of Ruthenia to Hungary.(2) Emphasis was put in Poland and Hungary on the defensive nature of the desired common frontier in the Carpathian mountains. In the French press, the anti-German role of the planned common Polish-Hungarian border was emphasized. It was duly noticed in Germany. After Munich the German government did not need the assistance of the Hungarian government against the CSR, and Berlin hindered the Magyar efforts in Slovakia and Ruthenia. Those provinces were regarded as a German zone of interest. Brody, the Ruthenian minister arrived late at Komarom and could not influence the outcome of the conference with his planned declaration concerning the cession of Ruthenia to Hungary.(3) Parkanyi, the Ruthenian minister in the reorganized Prague government, did not go to Komarom. Brody later was arrested on the order of General Syrovy for his pro-Magyar stand in

the Ruthenian question.(4) Under the impact of events Prague appointed the first Ruthenian government in Ungvarin October 1938.(5) The Hungarian delegation returned to Budapest and presented its report to the government on the Czecho-Slovak offers. Both sides initiated feverish diplomatic activity. Horthy wrote a letter to Hitler on October 13(6) in which he gave a brief account of the happenings in Komarom, and asked him to receive his emissary Daranyi, the former Prime Minister, for an audience. After the fiasco of the state visit in Kiel, because of the agreement at the Bled conference between Hungary and the Little Entente, Imredy and Kanya became personae non gratae in Berlin. The race for Hitler's diplomatic support began. The Czechs and Slovaks were hoping for his protection. Hungary notified the four signatories of the Munich agreement and Poland of the failure of direct negotiations with the CSR. Simultaneously, the new Czecho-Slovak Foreign Minister, Chvalkovsky, visited Hitler in Munich, and promised him a German orientation in Prague's external and internal policies.(7) The members of the Slovak autonomist government continued to visit Hitler, and serve the German interests in a servile manner. Five months later they obtained their reward, the expulsion of the Czechs from Slovakia, and the creation of the short-lived Slovak republic which lasted until the end of World War II. After Chvalkovsky, the Slovak and Ruthenian ministers begged Hitler to give less to Hungary than she was entitled to on the basis of the Magyar settlements and the wish of the involved population. Already in April 1937, the GermanHungarian friendship became estranged because Berlin's propaganda developed among the Volksdeutsche in Hungary.(8) Daranyi was dispatched to Munich to repair the damage done in the eyes of Hitler and Ribbentrop in August by Imredy, Kanya and Horthy during their visit to Germany by defending Hungary's independent position taken at the Bled conference of the Little Entente. Daranyi had to counterbalance Chvalkovsky's cooperation with Berlin. He eased the tension when in the name of the Hungarian government a closer coordination of the foreign policy was offered to the BerlinRome axis, and the possibility of joining the Anti-Comintern Pact, and leaving the League of Nations.(9) Earlier Ribbentrop had promised his visitors from the CSR that five cities: Pressburg, Nyitra, Kassa. Ungvar and Munkacs would remain in the CSR. These cities until Ribbentrop's intervention lay on the Hungarian side of a line of the map. Daranyi also took a map with him delimiting the Hungarian demands. These demands included the retrocession of the pure Hungarian districts to Hungary, and a plebiscite under British control in the mixed areas, divided in the following eight districts: 1) between Ersekujvar and Nyitra, 2) around Jolsva (Jelsava), 3) the district east of Rozsnyo (Roznava, Rosenau), 4) Kassa and the district west of the city, 5) the district east of Kassa up to Toketerebes (Trebisov), 6) Ungrar, 7) Munkacs and its immediate district, 8) the southern edge of Ruthenia north of the Rumanian border. In this last district a railway line became a contested issue.(10 )From Munich

Daranyi spoke with Imredy by telephone, informing him that Ribbentrop already superficially drew a line on the map for Chvalkovsky, leaving the five above-mentioned cities on the northern or would-be Czecho-Slovak side of the "Ribbentrop line."(ll) Daranyi presented the minimal Hungarian claims according to instructions received from Imredy. Tiso and Durcansky for the Slovak autonomous government, and Bacinsky for the Ruthenian autonomous government also visited Ribbentrop and presented their demands.(12) Germany asked Daranyi to drop the idea of a four-power conference, and accept the arbitration of Germany and Italy only. On October 22, the German ambassador in Budapest transmitted the proposed borderline, the "Ribbentrop line", to the Foreign Ministry as the basis for renewed negotiations between the CSR and Hungary. Kanya was forced to look for support from Italy. Csaky, Chief of the cabinet in the Foreign Ministry, flew to Rome, and conferred with Mussolini and Ciano. He explained to them the Magyar territorial claims. He accused Germany of encouraging the CSR against the Hungarian demands. Hungary was determined to test the dispute before a four-power conference, and Ciano notified the other three governments--Britain, France and Germany--to arrange the conference. He did not know that Ribbentrop was opposed to such a conference, and told Daranyi so in Munich. The Germans preferred, once again, direct negotiations between the two countries involved. Ciano had to call off--with great displeasure--the planned conference, and accept the German approach.(13) When the note of the Ribbentrop line became known, the Hungarian ambassador to Rome told Ciano that the Czech proposal, which wanted to keep five cities, Pressburg, Nyitra, Kassa, Ungvar and Munkacs, was unacceptable. The Magyars would be willing to give up Pressburg and Nyitra as a concession but definitely not the three other cities. Hungary would ask for an Italian-German arbitration in the western part of Slovakia, and for an Italian-German-Polish arbitration in the eastern part.(14) It is interesting to note that the Slovaks were also thinking of turning to a third power for mediation. Sidor, the Polonophile deputy of the Slovak Populist Party, was sent to Warsaw most likely for that purpose. A few weeks later, the sympathy of the Slovaks changed into a Polonophobia when the Poles wrested three small Polish speaking districts from Slovakia in the Tatra mountains.(15) The population in the disputed territory became impatient, and it was reported that on October 22, Ajka, a community on the left bank of the Danube asked Mussolini for retrocession of Pressburg to Hungary.(l6) In Cleveland, Ohio the Hungarian-Americans asked Mussolini to use his good offices in exerting every effort to restore Northern Hungary to the motherland.(l7)

Ciano urged Prague, at the request of Hungary, to make a concrete offer to Budapest. If the two governments could not agree, the two axis powers could function as arbitrators.(l8) Ciano was briefed on the "Ribbentrop line" on the map of the Hungarian-inhabited strip in Southern Slovakia, and of the German Foreign Minister's wish to

strike five cities from the Hungarian claims. All those five cities were earmarked by Ribbentrop for the CSR. He did not apply the idea of national self-determination for the Magyars. Before Munich he wanted to persuade Hungary to join Germany against Czechoslovakia. After Munich he defended the Czechs and Slovaks with the same zeal as he had attacked them earlier. Hungary was willing to make some concessions around Pressburg and Nyitra, but was not ready to sacrifice the other three cities with Magyar majority.(19) Hungary did not trust Germany, for that reason Budapest wanted to include Poland among the arbitrators at least for the eastern part of Slovakia and for Ruthenia. The Germans, feeling a strong Italian support for Hungary, hinted a four-power conference which they had rejected eight days earlier.(20)

The British government also preferred a direct agreement between the two states in the frontier problem to avoid another fourpower conference.(21) The Soviet Union showed understanding towards the idea of a plebiscite but still considered the Magyar procedure forcible because it was the outcome of the Munich agreement.(22) The Poles were still pressing for the realization of the common border with Hungary, on one section of the old common border, in Ruthenia. There was no hope for joining Hungary on the full length of the former common border because of the German support of Slovakia.(23) In order to obtain the approval of Rumania for its plan, the Polish government promised a railway line to Bucharest via Ruthenia. The immediate aim of the Polish Foreign Minister's trip to Rumania in the second half of October 1938 was to solicit the consent of the Rumanian government for the occupation of Ruthenia by Hungary. However, Germany blocked the realization of the restoration of the natural and former common border between Poland and Hungary in Ruthenia. The Rumanians did not want to hear of the repossession of Ruthenia by Hungary since the Rumanians had the largest Magyar minority among the successor states, and, in that case, they would have lost the common border with their Czech allies. Germany also wanted to weaken Polish prestige by opposing the common border with Hungary which lay as an obstacle in the path of German eastward expansion; furthermore, the two friendly neighbours were potential enemies of the Reich. The German counter-demand was the connection of Danzig and Prussia with Germany by extraterritorial railway and autoroute. Germany wanted to have unperturbed influence in the region. The Rumanians, however, had their own plans for the occupation of more Hungarian territory westward from the existing Hungaro-Rumanian border to the Csap-Kassa railway line.

The Polish view of the Slovak question was logical. The Poles were of the opinion that in order to prevent territorial disputes between the Magyars and the Slovaks, Slovakia should be given full autonomy, guaranteed by Poland, in the framework of the Hungarian state. That solution would eliminate all border disputes between the two neighbouring nations. Italy appeared favourable to the realization

of the Polish-Hungarian border. The Italian government wanted to increase its influence in the Danubian basin but, after the Anschluss, Mussolini did not conduct an anti-German policy in Central Europe.(24)

The French press openly wrote of the Polish plan as an anti-German project. It was not wise on the part of Germany's enemies to extend wide publicity on the efforts of the Polish diplomacy which in reality was directed against German imperialism. It elicited a German reaction, and consequently, Italy also became opposed to the idea. Five months later, in March 1939~ with the consent of Germany- Hungary occupied Ruthenia and restored the common historical border with Poland on the ridge of the Carpathian mountains. In 1938 Germany's condition for a consent to a common PolishHungarian border was a demand of a mile-wide extraterritorial road and railway link between Prussia and Danzig, a kind of crosscorridor across the Polish corridor to the sea which was refused by Poland.(25) In March 1939 Germany occupied the rest of Bohemia and Moravia which was left after the Munich conference for the Czechs. Berlin could not oppose the reoccupation of Ruthenia by Hungary in such an atmosphere.

The danger and threat of German expansion occupied the minds of the Hungarian statesmen who tried to restrain it through Italian friendship. The Hungarians could not renounce their claims based on the ethnic principle, and on the wish of the Hungarian minority in the CSR to accomodate Slovak economic interests and German territorial expansion. After the Austrian Anschluss, the German government did not rectify one of the injustices committed against Hungary, and did not consider the restoration of the Magyar population in the province of Burgenland to Hungary as a friendly, antiTrianon gesture.

In 1918 the borders were not delimited with experts holding precise documents, statistics and maps as at the Munich and Vienna conferences in 1938. Hungary expressed in Berlin her wish for the repossession of Pressburg.(26) Pressburg was a special case because in 1910 not a single nationality enjoyed an absolute majority there. According to the 1910 census, Pressburg had 78,223 inhabitants, broken down as follows: Germans 41.90%, Magyars 40.60%, Slovaks 14.90%, others 2.70%.(27) Pressburg was the seat of a Hungarian county (comitat) already during the reign of the first Hungarian royal dynasty, the Arpads (1000-1301). It became an administrative, cultural and economic centre. The city flourished in the fifteenth century under the patronage of the Renaissance king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, who in 1467, with the consent of Pope Paul II, and under his own royal patronage founded a university at Pressburg, the Academia Istropolitana.* Pressburg thereby joined the small group of new university towns in Central Europe. In 1526, after the death of Louis II on the battlefield fighting the Turks, the

(* Istros for Danube in Greek)

Hungarian estates elected at Pres6sburg, in the church of the Franciscans, Ferdinand of Habsburg to be king of Hungary. When the Turks occupied Buda, the capital city, in 1541 and held it for 145 years, the seat of government was transferred to Pressburg, and remained there until 1848. The Hungarian Diet held its meetings in Pressburg for three hundred years. It became the coronation town. From that time well into the nineteenth century Pressburg was the centre of intellectual, spiritual, political and commercial life in Hungary. Many great poets and writers of Magyar literature lived in this capital, and many cultural movements originated within its limits. In 1825 at the meeting of the Hungarian Diet, Count Stephen Szechenyi offered one year's income to the foundation of the Hungarian Academy. When the capital was transferred to its old place, today's Budapest, the importance of Pressburg as a cultural centre remained. In 1914 the city again housed a university. At the meeting point of three languages and three cultures, Magyar, German and Slovak, close to Vienna, the former imperial city, Pressburg and its vicinity formed a much envied trilingual belt. It provided a good example for a peaceful and prosperous lifestyle to its residents. The ancestors of the Germans who immigrated to Hungary centuries before, and became assimilated to the Hungarian style of life, however, had preserved their customs, and were allowed to keep their schools and ancestral language. Pressburg was taken away from Hungary in 1918 because Benes wanted to have an access to the Danube for the newly created CSR. There were other options for granting privileges in the port of an international waterway or to a railway station than to donate cities to foreigners. On the basis of ethnic statistics Pressburg should not have been given to Czechoslovakia.

In 1938, after twenty years of Czecho-Slovak rule and persecution of the autochthon Magyar and German population, the vital statistics were changed but the twenty-year injustice could not serve for the sanction and prolongation of a foreign occupation of Pressburg. Hitler applied other principles for the Sudetenland where he demanded the recognition of the 1910 statistics. A plebiscite was not allowed in Pressburg in 1938 because the Germans of the city were considered "good Hungarians." Many centuries formed the traditions and spirit of the old Hungarian capital, and they survived the Czecho-Slovak period. There existed German and Slovak fears that the city in a free plebiscite would vote for Hungary. The Nazi government complicated the question of Pressburg by its aspirations for the city. A Slovak government delegation went to Vienna, and wanted to profit from the Hungarian-German controversy concerning the future of the city.(28) The Germans did not occupy Pressburg but the bridgehead of the city, on the right bank of the Danube, Ligetfalu (Petrzalka, Engerau) was taken away from the CSR by Germany on October 10, 1938 without any previous notification. It was a great shock for the four-day old autonomous Slovak government, but the Germanophile Slovaks did not dare to disagree with

Hitler. The Hungarian government expressed its disapproval of the German occupation of Ligetfalu which before 1918 belonged to Hungary. The protest, indeed, had to be withdrawn on German request. Hitler, accompanied by Marshall Goring, visited Engerau(29) on October 25. This was not the only community which the Germans took away from the Slovak part of the CSR in 1938. On November 24 the German troops occupied, without incident and among the ovation of the predominantly German population, the zone of Devin (Theben, Deveny) on the left bank of the Danube at the estuary of the Morava River. It was considered a rectification of the borderline. (The Danube was the border at that point with Austria on the right bank.) As a consequence of this action, the waterworks of Pressburg fell in German hands 2 or 3 km from the city limits. The City of Pressburg requested that the government of the Reich rectify the borderline by several hundred meters to regain their aqueduct.(30) This was the same friendly German government which two weeks earlier had occupied Ligetfalu.

Another dispute arose between Hungary and the autonomous Slovak government of the CSR for the possession of Kassa (Kosice), the capital of Eastern Slovakia, formerly eastern Upper Hungary. Goring secretly promised Kassa to the Slovaks. Kassa is an old Hungarian cultural centre. In 1910 it had 44,211 inhabitants of whom 78% were Magyars. By 1930 the population grew to 70,000 as a result of immigration from Bohemia and Moravia, and from the surrounding Slovak districts of about 16,000 people(3l) The percentage of the Magyar population was artificially decreased in the falsified official Czechoslovak statistics. However, the secret ballots at the communal elections in May 1937 revealed the true ethnic character of the city in spite of the nineteen-year old Czechoslovak rule. The Italian consul in Pressburg sent the following report to the Foreign Ministry in Rome on May 25, 1937:

At the communal elections in Kassa (Kosice) the United Hungarian Party received one third of the votes. It should be noted that the voters' registration was controlled by the Slovak minority of the city. In the 1930 census, Kassa, the largest city besides Pressburg, officially had only 18% Hungarians and consequently was deprived of the official use of the Hungarian language. (It was doctored under 20%). Besides the United Hungarian Party the Hungarian Socialists and Communists also received votes, and there was a Jewish Party which also received about 3,000 votes from the Hungarianspeaking Jews. The small German population also contributed to the victory of the United Hungarian Party. Kassa was inhabited in fact by a population with a Hungarian representation of fifty percent. The political importance of such a finding was that the Czechoslovak census policy was formulated to deny the minority rights to ethnic groups wherever the government wanted to reflect artificial population size in official statistics. The Czech government press ignored the whole affair in silence. The Slovak, an autonomist paper, denounced the scandalous difference between the official statistics

and the results of the elections which revealed the Hungarian character of the city, and protested against the government which in a criminal way failed to slovakize the city. The Czech parties did not receive a single mandate.(32) The communal elections provided the Magyar population with free use of ballots to express their preference for the United Hungarian Party or for the Hungarian Socialists or Communists to represent their interests. The Slovak minority and the few Czechs in the city of Kassa did not vote for any of the Hungarian parties.

So, despite of two decades of Czechoslovak rule, the Hungarian character of Pressburg and Kassa could no longer be denied.

The conduct of the supposedly friendly German government during the preliminary discussions leading to the Vienna arbitration caused bitterness in Hungary. There were several exchanges of notes between Budapest and Berlin regarding the fate of the disputed cities, and Ciano approached Ribbentrop on behalf of the minimal Hungarian demands: Kassa, Ungvar, Munkacs.(33) In case of an impasse, the Hungarian government was ready to accept the verdict of the arbitration of Germany and Italy with the participation of Poland for the eastern section of the republic. Ribbentrop was against the participation of Poland, but he himself wanted to avoid arbitration in order not to reveal his anti-Hungarian attitude.(34) Therefore, on October 22, 1938 the Foreign Minister in Prague transmitted to the Hungarian ambassador a proposal of his governement accompanied by a map. Hungary in her reply proposed the occupation of the non-disputable territories by her troops in three days starting from October 27; a plebiscite for the eight districts in question, except Pressburg, for which negotiations were proposed; and the realization of the right to self-determination for the Slovaks and Ruthenians under international control. If the note was refused, arbitration of Italy and Germany for the western, plus Poland for the eastern territories would be demanded.(35) Prague expressed its opposition to a Polish presence on the committee of arbiters. The Czecho-Slovak government remained silent on the Hungarian proposal for a plebiscite. In Prague there was no confidence in the loyalty of its own subjects. Prague was afraid of the results a genuine plebiscite would offer. Tiso even wrote a letter to Ribbentrop on October 25, saying he could agree to a plebiscite only if the Jews were to be excluded from voting(36) The answer from Prague the following day stated if the October 22 proposal did not satisfy the Hungarian government, the Czecho-Slovak government would agree to submit the question to the arbitration of the two Munich signatories, Germany and Italy. If the two powers proceeded with the Hungarian proposal concerning Poland, the Czecho-Slovak government proposed likewise the inclusion of Rumania. The arbitration decision should fix the modalities and the time extension of the evacuation of the territories by the Czecho-Slovak troops, their transfer to Hungary, and their occupation by Hungarian troops.(37) Rumania, as member of the Little Entente, did not seem a natural partner for

Hungary. England and France regarded East-Central Europe as the zone of interest of the axis powers, and the British message was conveyed to Rome that London would be glad to see the settling of differences between the CSR and Hungary by the Italian and German governments.(38) The behaviour of Germany was viewed with suspicion in Hungary.(39) The Germans not only conspired with the Slovaks but also started Ukranian propaganda in Ruthenia with the aim of realizing a Great Ukraine under German leadership from the territories of Ruthenia, the Ukranian district of Poland and the Ukraine. This was part of the German plans for penetration in Russia, therefore, the intervening states had to be under firm German control.

On October 24, 1938, at its meeting in Ungvar, the Ruthenian National Council demanded self-determination for the Ruthenians, and the delimitation of the Ruthenian-Slovak border. Ruthenia was still under Czech rule, and such demands put their movers in personal danger. Brody, the Ruthenian deputy in the Prague Parliament, was put on trial by the Prague government, based on the Defence of the Republic Act, for his participation in pro-Hungarian movements.(40) After the Vienna award, Brody was extradited to Hungary during the exchange of political prisoners. Under the energetic protest from Prague, Hungary revoked her demand for a plebiscite in Ruthenia.(41)

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award