From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

THE UNITED 9TATES OF AMERICA, THE BRITISH EMPIRE, FRANCE, ITALY,

AND JAPAN,

the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, on the one hand

And CZECHO-SLOVAKIA, on the other hand (...)

Excerpts from the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye: The Minorities Treaty.

Czecho-Slovakis undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabitanbts of Czecho-Slovakia without distinction of birth, nationality, lan guage, race or religion.

All inhabitanb of Czecho-Slovakia shall be entitled to the free exercise, whether public or private, of any creed, religion or belief, whose practices are not inconsistent with public order or public morals.

ARTICLE 3

Subject to the special provisions of the Treaties mentioned below Czecho Slovakia admits and declares to be Czecho-Slovak nationals ipso facto and without the requirement of any formality German, Austrian or Hungarian nationals habitually resident or possessing righs of citizenship (pertinenza-Heimatsrecht) as the case may be at the date of the coming into force of

the present Treaty in territory which is or may be recognised as forming part of Czecho-Slovakia under the Treaties with Germany, Austria or Hungary respectively, or under any Treaties which may be concluded for the purpose of completing the present settlement.

Nevertheless, the persons referred to above who are over eighteen years of age will be entitled under the conditions contained in the said Treaties to opt for any other nationality which m&y be open to them. Option by a husband will cover his wife, and option by parents will cover their children under eighteen years of age.

Persons who have exercised the above right to opt must within the succeeding twelve months transfer their place of residence to the State for which they have opted. They will be entitled to retain their immovable property in Czecho-Slovak territory. They may carry with them their movable property of every description. No exportdutiesmaybeimposeduponthemin con nection with the removal of such property.

ARTICLE 4

Czecho-Slovakia admits and declares to be Czecho-Slovak nation als ipso facto and without the requirement of any formality persons of German, Austrian or Hungarian nationality who were born in the territory referred to above of parents habitually resident or possessing rights of citizenship (poertinenza-Heimatsrecht) as the case may be there, even if at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty they are not themselves habitually resident or did not possess rights of citizenship there. Nevertheless, within two years after the coming into force of the present Treaty, these persons may make a declaration before the competent Czecho-Slovak authorities in the coun try in which they are resident, stating that they abandon Czecho-Slovak nationality, and they will then cease to be considered as Czecho-Slovak nationals. In this connection a declaration by a husband will cover his wife, and a declaration by parents will cover their children under eigh teen years of age.

ARTICLE 5

Czecho-Slovakia undertakes to put no hindrance in the way of the exercise of the right which the persons concerned have under the Treaties concluded or to be concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers with Germany, Austria or Hungary to choose whether or not they will acquire Czecho-Slovak nationality.

ARTICLE 6

All persons born in Czecho-Slovak territory who are not born nationals of another State shall ipso facto become Czecho-Slovak nationals.

ARTICLE 7

All Czecho-Slovak nationals shall be equal before the law and shall enjoy the same civil and political righb without distinction as to race, language or religion.

Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Czecho-Slovak national in matters relating to the enjoyment of dvil or political rights, as for instance admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and in dustries.

No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by any Czecho-Slovak national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the press or publications of any kind, or at public meetings.

Notwithstanding any establishment by the Czecho-Slovak Government of an official language, adequate facilities shall be given to Czecho-Slovak nationals of non-Czech speech for the use of their language, either orally or in writing, before the courts.

ARTICLE 8

Czecho-Slovak nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Czecho-Slovsk na tionals. In particular they shall have an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational e stabbshmenb, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their religion freely t herein.

ARTICLE 9

Czecho-Slovakia will provide in the public educational system in towns and districts in which a considerable proportion of Czecho-Slovak nationals of other than Czech speech are residents adequate facilities for ensuring that the instruction shall be given to the chil dren of such CzechoSlovak nationals through the medium of their own language. This provision shall not prevent the Czecho-Slovak Government from making the teaching of the Czech language obligatory.

In towns and districts where there is a considerable proportion of Czecho-Slovak nationals belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, these minorities shall be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application ofthe sums which may b eprovided outof public funds under the State, municipal or other budget, for educational, religious or charitable purposes.

CHAPTER II

ARTICLE 10

Czecho-Slovakia undertakes to constitute the Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians within frontiers delimited by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers as an autonomous unit within the Czecho-Slovak State, and to accord to it the fullest degree of self-government compatible with the unity of the Czecho-Slovak State.

ARTICLE 11

The Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians shall possess a special Diet. This Diet shall have powers of legislation in all linguistic, scholastic and religious ques tions, in matters of local administration, and in other questions which the laws of the Czecho-Slovak State may assign to it. The Governor ofthe Ruthene territory shall be appointed by the President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and shall be responsible to the Ruthene Diet.

ARTICLE 12

Czecho-Slovakia agrees that of ficials in the Ruthene territory will be chosen as far as possible from the inhabitants of this territory.

ARTICLE 13

Czecho-Slovakia guarantees to the Ruthene territory equitable representation in the legislative assembly of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, to which Assembly it will send deputies elected according to the constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. These deputies will not, however, have the right of voting in the Czecho-Slovak Diet upon legislative ques tions of the same kind as those assigned to the Ruthene Diet.

ARTICLE 14

CzehoSlovakia agrees that the stipulations of Chapters I and II so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not be modified without the assent of a majority of the Council of the League of Na- tions. The United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan hereby agree not to withheld their assent from any modification in these Articles which ig in due form assented to by a majority of the Coundl of the League of Nations.

Czecho-Slovakia agrees that any Member of the Council of the League of Nations shall have the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or any danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, and that the Council may thereupon take such action and give such direction as it may deem proper and effective in the drcumstances.

Czecho-Slovakia further agrees that any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of these Articles between the Czecho-Slovak Government and any one ofthe Prindpal Allied and Associated Powers, or any other Power a Member of the Coundl of the League of Nations, shall be held to be a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the

Covenant of the League of Nations. The Czecho-Slovak Government hereby consents that any such dispute shall, if the other party hereto demands, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. Tbe decision ofthe Permanent Court shall be final and shall have the same force and effect as an award under Article 13 of the Covenant.

Treaty between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Czecho-Slovakia, Signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919 London, H.M.S.O., 1919

APPENDIX 2

Memorandum No. 111

Paris, 20th May, 1919

1. The Czechoslovak Government intends to organise its State by taking as the bases of the rights of the nationalities the principles applied in the constitution of the Swiss Republic, that is to say, the Government designs to make of the Czechoslovak Republic a sort of Switzerland, while paying regard, of course, to the special conditions in Bohemia.

2. Universlll franchise coupled with the system of proportional representation will be introduced--which will ensure to the various nationalities in the Republic a proportional representation in all elected organs (institutions).

3. The schools throughout the whole territory of the State will in general be maintained out of public funds, and they will be established for the individual nationalities in the parishes as soon as the necessity arises, on the basis of the number of children in the parish as fixced by law, to inaugurate a school.

4. All public professions (functions) will be accessible to the individual nationalities living in the Republic.

5. The courts of justice will be mixed courts in respect of the language employed, and the Germans will be able to bring their causes before the highest courts in their own language.

6. The local administration (local affairs of the parishes and districts) will be carried on in the language of the majority of the popu]ation.

7. The question of a person's religion will not be posed in the Czechoslovak Republic--there will be no difficulties in this connection.

8. The official language vill be the Czech language, and the State for external purposes will be a CzechoslovEIk State. In practice, however, the German language will be the sec ond language of the country, and will be employed on a basis of equality in the current administration, before the courts, and in the central Parliament. It is the intention of the Czechoslovak Govemment in practice and daily usage to satisfy the population in this connection, but at the same time, of course, a special position will be reserued for the Czechoslovak language and the Czechoslovak element.

9. Expressed in another way we can say that the present position (the Germans had a huge preponderance) in its broad outline will remain unchanged: only the privileges which the Germans prouiously enjoyed will be reduced to their due proportions (for example, the number of German scheols will be reduced where these schools shall oe found superfluous).

In general it will be a very liberal regime approaching considerably to the Swiss regime.

Miller, David Hunter, My Diary at the Conference of Paris, New York, Appeal Printing Co., 1924, XIII, 69-70

Hungarians should have received: 463,611.06 acres instead of 42,320.01 *

Source: Magyar Statisztikai Hioatal Allamtudomanyi Intezete, Budapest, M. Kir. Egyetemi Nyomda, 1938.

The League of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States of America, respectfully petition for the revision of the Treaty of Trianon. In calling the attention of the League of Nations to the urgent necessity of peaceful reorganization among the nations of the Danube-Valley, we wish to emphasize, that we do not desire to jeopardize the interest of any nation, by we are guided by an idealistic intention, namely:

to prevent a new conflict among the peoples of Europe and avert the outbreak of a new debacle threatening the possible annihilation of civilization.

Because of our favorable situation, we are able to descry the danger more clearly than those, who are living within the gloom of the events. For we perceive that the past world war means not only the dismemberment of a thousand-year-old country of Hungary, the bastion of the western civilization, the country of scientists, authors, artists and many millions of industrious people, of whom three-and-a half million of pure Magyar souls and two third of the coun try's territory were handed over to unfriendly neighboring states; we discern that the world war meant not only the sacrificing of those many millions of people, who perished in same and uncounted generations to come, but it means also, that:

the victorious states paid in blood and suffering the same amount and lost financially almost as much as the vanquished states,besides bearing the expenses of slow recovery in vain, because the new Europe is much more unsettled than the old one has been.

The last decade since the signing ofthe Treaty of Trianon demonstrates a terrifying experience. It indisputably discloses, that unbridled greediness created a number of succession-states with oppressed minorities, without having considered geographical, ethnical and economical entities thereby harboring the possibility of a new world-catastrophe.

It proved be impossibility of keeping within the boundaries of the newly created states, people of different language, culture and national character tied by natural, human and inseparable spiritual ties to their mother-country. These minorities broken off from their old mother-country, do not entertain any sympathy and loyalty for their new country, because of it being forced upon them and not only these minorities, but also the respective countries, whose unwilling subjects they are, are unhappy. The past ten years also prove, that the Treaty of Trianon was dictated so unfortunately, that though the tears of widows, orphans and war victims are s carcely dried:

the people of Europe are divided into two groups, one consisting of nations enforcing the Treaty, the other favoring revision. These two opposing camps are bent on a new war and are ready to fly at each others throat at the least provocation.

Conditions indicate that the world is waiting in vain for the fulfillment of the promises as expressed in the preamble to the Treaty of Trianon. The Treaty of Trianon im- poses on Hungary terms, causing indescribable misery and poverty, from which Hungary hardly, if ever will be able to recuperate, and the apparently victorious states are compelled to maintain immense armies for enfordng this Treaty of Trianon, thereby placing such a burden of taxation on its citizens that it borders on national disaster. It is an indisputable fact, that nations preparing for war, are likely

to plunge into hostilities on the slightest pretext. It is the responsibility of the League of Nations to avert such fatal possibility, by creating an atmosphere of good-will based on the spirit of true democracy and self-determination for all people of this danger-spot of Europe. The hurriedly created succession-states should be reconstructed on the pre-war status-quo, thereby preparing the way for the unification of that Hungary, which for a thousand years was a geographical entity, acknowledged by the great Reclus and others, claiming that:

Hungary is not a "made,' country, but a "born" country, created by the profound wisdom of mother-nature. There should be a full equality between all nations and the security of one nation should not mean the permanent subjugation of a score of other na tions. The stubborn denial of the rights, and systematic oppression of certain nations leads automatically to the most disastrous and deplorable outburst of the human energies now, as ever.

We gave the Wilsonian principles of self-determination to the world, which led to the termination of the war. It is our duty therefore to be the sentinels of the idealistic, but not applied principles in the case of Hungary. At the framing of the Treaty of Trianon people were not asked if they would consent to be torn off from their race and native country where they were born and raised; they were not asked if they wish to become a minority of a foreign country, not sympathetic to them. Therefore we earnestly pray, that:

for sake of the most sacred ideals of mankind and for the sake of justice, the Treaty of Trianon be revised in such manner, that territories with compact Magyar population shall be returned to the mother-country, while territories with mised population shall decide by plebiscite what disposition should be made of their territories.

In this manner only will it be possible to reconcile the small nations living in the Valley of Danube and in the region of the Carpathian mountains. This in turn would bring about an economic entente, that would serve mutually their and the world,s best interest and would lead them on the road of progress, which at present is retarded by unnatural conditions.

The Senate of the United States of America did not ratify the Treaty of Trianon and we, the undersigned citizens of the United States, voicing the sincere desire of mil lions of our compatriots.

appeal respectfully to the League of Nations, for the sake of the best interest of mankind, to render justice for Hungary and peace for the world!

In faith of this, we attach our signatures on the following pages, numbered from l--510.

Chicago, III. Christmas, 1930.

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award