Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944

The Hungarian Press commented in the same vein. The Pester Lloyd wrote that Hungary was the poorer by an illusion, but the richer by an experience. She would preserve her dignity and "perhaps our example will teach the English what being a gentleman means".⁽²²⁾

On the very day that the Hungarian public learned of the British declaration of war there came also the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and four days after that Germany's declaration of war on the United States. Bardossy convoked an extraordinary Minister Council to discuss the situation arising out of Germany's declaration of war. He said that Hungary was under strong German pressure, but there were still two possibilities: the one, to break off diplomatic relations with the United States, the other to register the fact that Hungary was in a state of war with the United States.⁽²³⁾

None of the ministers was keen on war. The Minister of Defense, Charles Bartha, said that in view of the disparity between the strengths of the two countries, war might look ridiculous. Francis Keresztes-Fischer, Minister of Interior, argued that Japan had undoubtedly been the aggressor. The Council accepted the first formula, expressing the hope that the rupture of diplomatic relations would prove sufficient for Germany. That evening Bardossy informed Minister Pell of the rupture of relations and when asked "Does it mean war?" answered categorically, "No!" But on the same night Rumania and Bulgaria declared war on the United States and the two Axis Powers informed Budapest that the Hungarian rupture of diplomatic relations was not enough: the German and Italian Governments wanted a state of war declared. Bardossy told them what his Government had decided: they could not be expected in practice to give military support

against the United States; Hungary could gain nothing, even if the United States was defeated. Moreover, further action would seriously endanger the interests of the millions of Hungarians of the United States.

Italy and Germany, however, did not accept Bardossy's arguments. They insisted on declaring war on the United States, pointing out that all the others (Rumania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia) already had declared the state of war, and "higher political interests necessitated an unanimous attitude of the European states. Hungary can either choose solidarity or be treated as an enemy." In such a situation, Bardossy could not but choose to ring up Minister Pell and inform him that his formula of the previous day had after all meant that a state of war now existed between Hungary and the United States of America. Minister Pell showed the greatest possible patience and understanding and said: "I know that you are doing this under heavy pressure from Germany, and that the declaration reflects no hostility on the part of the Hungarian people towards the people of the United States".⁽²⁴⁾

Indeed, the Hungarians had no hostility towards America. When the first secretary of the American Legation, Howard Travers, made his goodby call on the Regent, the latter said to him: "Remember that this so-called declaration of war is not legal; not approved by parliament, not signed by me" . ⁽²⁵⁾ Before the American diplomats left Hungary, they were the objects of stormy proofs of friendship. One of them was invited to dinner by a friend who belonged to one of the leading families of Hungary. When he arrived he was astonished to find a large number of prominent people assembled there: members of parliament, members of the cabinet, and so forth. When they sat down, he was seated on his hostess' right. During the course of the din ner, the hostess arose and said:

I am not accustomed to making speeches, but since our guest of honor tonight is an enemy, I feel that I must explain this. I am not pro-German; I am not pro-English; I am not pro-American; I am just pro-Hungarian and as a pro Hungarian, I ask that you all rise and drink a toast to a speedy American victory. ⁽²⁶⁾

The reluctance of Hungary to declare war on the United States reflected the fact that the free will of small nations was very limited in a world conflagration. Bardossy well described the tragic dilemma of Hungarian statesmen when he told Mussolini's representative in Budapest, Filippo Anfuso that "God confronted us with Hitler. If the Germans demand something, I al ways give a quarter of it. If I refused categorically, they would take everything, which would be worse." Bardossy expressed the same idea even more strongly before the people's court in 1945 when in his last speech he explained that half of his audience would not have been present for his trial but would have perished on the battlefield had he refused to declare war on Russia and on the United States in 1941. In that case, said Bardossy, the German occupation of Hungary would have taken place three years earlier and a government installed by Hitler would have carried out a total mobilization of Hungary.⁽²⁷⁾

President Roosevelt evaluated this situation correctly. He knew that war declarations coming from the small countries of Central Europe were forced by Hitler; and he was, therefore, inclined to ignore them. On June 2, 1942, that is, after six months of Soviet insistence, the President sent a message to Congress stating that Rumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria had declared war on the United States, but he added: "I realize that those three

governments took that action not upon their own iniative or in response to the wishes of their peoples, but as instruments of Hitler.⁽²⁸⁾ Not before July 18, 1942, after a strong Russian request, did Congress declare that there was a state of war between the United States and these nations.

When America entered the war, Hungarian public opinion began seriously to envisage the possibility of defeat for Hungary and her allies, and logical conclusions were that Germany's defeat could mean that Russia would be let into Central Europe. They argued that there was no changing Hungary's course now The fall of Germany and Italy would mean the tragic fall of Hungary; a defeat more fatal from the national point of view than that of Trianon. The Magyarorszag (Hungary), a Budapest conservative daily, gave utterance to the opinion of many in writing:

We know Benes' and Stalin's ideas, we know what awaits us . . If we are defeated, there are only two possibilities: either a resurrection of Little Entente aggression, much greater, much more frightful than before, or Bolshevism. . . England and America are bound, as things stand, to back Benes against us and to help Bolshevism. There is no changing this - no recriminations, false optimism or self-deception can help... If Germany does not win, we fall with her, and perhaps deeper than she, as we are weaker than she is . . . There is no changing the fact that if Germany is defeated, we too shall finish on the list of defeated enemies. That was decided in the first World War and at Trianon.⁽²⁹⁾

Regent Horthy, and many others, saw the situation differently. Horthy was quite convinced that the war would end in an Allied victory, but he also believed that the West did not want the Bolshevisation of Europe. He also could not bring himself to believe that Britain and America would sacrifice Hungary to

Bolshevism unless she herself absolutely forced them to do so. In March, 1942, he therefore dismissed Bardossy in favor of Nicholas Kallay, who shared these hopes, and one more attempt was made to recover the good will of the Western democracies. For two years Kallay conducted a remarkable policy. He afforded to Hungary's Jews a protection then unparalleled on the Continent; ⁽³⁰⁾ allowed almost complete freedom to all anti-Nazi and non Communist elements, whom he allowed to build up an "Independence Front" which openly speculated on an Allied victory, and opened secret conversations with the Western Powers, with whom, in August, 1943, he actually concluded a secret agreement to surrender to them when their troops should reach the frontiers of Hungary.

So once again Hungary had an "Anglophile" premier who set his hopes on the victory of the Western Powers and refused to believe that they would not somehow come to see the justice of Hungary's case and the force of the argument that a big and strong Hungary would be a factor of order in Europe and a bulwark against both tyrannies. An absolute postulate of this policy was that Hungary must be defended from Bolshevism, buying the protection of the West at the price of dissociation of Hungary from Germany.

To appreciate this Hungarian policy it is necessary, first of all, to consider the military and political situation of that time. Early in 1942, there was only one power on the European Continent: Germany. The whole Continent from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caucasus lay within the German sphere of power.

Switzerland was the only Continental state that had preserved its complete independence. Sweden had made a great many concessions and was wavering between neutrality and nonbelligerency; the same held true for Spain and Portugal. Russia was still fighting for her life. The German and Italian troops were advancing victoriously in North Africa, and Allied naval casualties in the Mediterranean were severe. Considerable portions of the American and British fleets had been destroyed in the Pacific. American and British soldiers were surrendering one position after another. Nearly all the Western strongholds in Asia had fallen into Japanese hands.

In such a situation, Hungary could not even hope for any kind of military assistance from any quarter whatsoever. This fact determined whether any resistance was possible, useful, or sensible. Germany would occupy Hungary if she made a false step and the fate of Poland and Yugoslavia clearly showed what a German occupation could mean. The Germans would eliminate the patriotic government and set their Quisling in its place. Hungary's military, political, and administrative system would crumble away. A condition of chaos would exist at the end of the war; and then, when the German army was beaten and the Russian troops entered, there would be no organized force in the country to take over the power except the Communist movement. Moreover, it would not be only the Germans who occupied Hungary, but the Rumanians, the Slovaks, and even the Croats would join them, and it was sufficient for Hungarians to recall the few months of Rumanian occupation in 1919 to realize what would happen in such a case.

It seemed that there was only one possible way out of this dilemma: at all costs to defend, preserve, and restore the complete independence of Hungary. That is, as regards Germany, to develop the highest measure of moral resistance and to confine concessions to the minimum short of provoking an occupation. At the same time, as to the West, to seek contact, diverting Germany's attention by emphasizing an anti-Russian policy. This

policy could show to the West that the anti-Bolshevik peoples of East-Central Europe were its natural allies and perhaps the West would therefore not revenge Hungary for having participated in the war against Russia. The Hungarian army, too, was to be kept as intact as possible, so that when the Allies won the war, they would not be tempted to treat Hungary as a satellite of Germany's and might even enlist her help as a factor of order in Southeastern Europe. ⁽³¹⁾

This Hungarian policy was founded on the supposition that British and American forces would reach Hungary's frontiers by the beginning of 1944, possibly at an earlier date. Such a development would have opened the way for Hungary to join the Allies against Germany. With the intent of making contacts with the British, Hungary made her first overtures to the Poles. The Polish Government in London was recognized secretly in early 1942, and the Hungarian minister in Lisbon tried to send information to London through Polish channels. Consequently Hungary succeeded in establishing direct contacts with the British in the summer of 1942. The Stockholm, Berne, and Constantinople Hungarian legation staffs were recognized to facilitate strictly confidential parlays. In the course of these contacts with Great Britain Hungary obtained little positive encouragement as to her future position in Danubian Europe but instead was threatened with a variety of unattractive possibilities in case she failed to turn in time against Germany. While the leading Hungarian diplomats were willing to take all risks and were eager to make all possible preparatory steps for an Anglo-American occupation (which was the basis of their policy), for the British, talks with Hungarian emissaries were only part of the Allied psychological warfare. Their interest was mostly concentrated on matters of military intelligence and sabotage.

One of the fundamental and catastrophic anomalies of the situation was that Hungary was seeking the protection of the British, not only against Germany but also against their allies, against Russia. Allied unity, however, seemed to be so perfect that the British could hardly recognize that the anti-Nazi resistance in Hungary could be an official operation undertaken by an anti-Communist government. Consequently, the only circles which British policy was willing to regard as representative of the true Hungary were the Left emigrees of 1919, Count Michael Karolyi, and his friends. As a result of this, the B.B.C. (and the Voice of America too) ceaselessly and abusively denounced the Hungarian Government as Quisling and left all Hungary under the impression that the only element in the country which the West was not determined to destroy was the extreme Left. The strange thing, as it turned out, was that the two minorities in Hungary, the pro-German and the pro-Russian, could always be assured of the support of their patrons, while the pro-Anglo-Americans, who were the great majority of population and were headed by their legal government, could not be assured of support.

In spite of these facts, on August 17, 1943, Hungary was ready to accept the Casablanca formula for unconditional surrender, should the forces of the Allies reach the frontiers of Hungary. The only Hungarian request was that Czechoslovak, Rumanian, and Yugoslav troops should not take part in the occupation of Hungary. The capitulation of Hungary was to be kept secret and regarded as practicable only if the military situation made it possible. The Allied forces were still at a great distance from the boundaries of Hungary.⁽³²⁾ Secret radio connections had been established between Budapest and the Allies. A shortwave transmitter and receiver had been placed in the basement of the Budapest police headquarters building and at certain hours of the day regular and direct

communication was maintained with an Allied agency. Allied flying units, in passing over Hungary, were not fired upon or chased by Hungarian fighter planes. On the contrary, their flights were facilitated by information about air defense. The important practical result of this attitude was that, until German troops occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, Hungarian territory was not bombed by the British and Americans.

Simultaneously with the British negotiations, parlays started with the United States and after a while Hungarians were forced to realize that the Americans handled matters with more courage behind their convictions and with less prejudice than the British. The United States did not feel bound to pay so much regard to the 1919 Treaties, or to the Little Entente. The Americans were easier to deal with. This was principally because of the work of Archduke Otto, the Hungarian crown prince, who succeeded in awakening the interest of President Roosevelt, with whom he had several conversations and who showed distinct good will towards the Hungarian question. Furthermore, while the British agents usually were Hungarian Left radical emigrees of 1919, like Wilhelm Bohm in Stockholm, the ex-Commissary of Bela Kun, and George Paloczy-Horvath in Constantinopole, a left wing Socialist and a spy of Moscow, the American agents were diplomats who had served in Hungary before and knew the Hungarian problems well. In spite of the opinion of many historians, the United States planned ahead for peace. The White House, the State and War Departments bristled with plans, committees, and experts' papers Within the State Department a "special sub-committee on problems of European Organization" examined regional federation plans, a European customs' union, a Balkan federation, and a Habsburg restoration. The functioning of multi-national states such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia was examined in connection with the foreseeable problems. The sub committee also appraised possible Soviet programs and attitudes with respect to Eastern Europe so far as they were then known

or could be conjectured.⁽³³⁾ All of these facts led to a better understanding on the part of Americans and the good will of President Roosevelt. On the other hand in England the Hungarians, apart from the matters mentioned above, had to fight the antipathy of Eden (at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs) towards Hungary.

The Hungarians did their best to capture America's good will and understanding. In 1940, during the Teleki regime, it was decided that the opposition leader, Tibor Eckhardt, would go to the United States and start a Hungarian emigre movement there. Eckhardt arrived in New York in 1941. Before his suicide, Count Teleki also sent a number of young Hungarian scholars to the United States.

Contacts were now established between Hungary and the United States through Eckhardt in New York via Lisbon, which was an active center for the intelligence work of America. At first Eckhardt met with success in America, but soon the combined forces of the Czechoslovak emigration and the Hungarian-born Left in New York opened a concentric and coordinated attack on Eckhardt's mission and his person. ⁽³⁴⁾ Following this, the representative leaders of Hungarian Jewry addressed a memorandum to influential Jews in the United States defending the attitude of the Hungarian Government and the Hungarian people

towards the Jews and pleading strongly that it was a vital interest of the 800,000 Jews of Hungary that there should be nothing done which might provoke a German occupation of Hungary.

Another important fact of the American Hungarian relations was the activity of Archduke Otto von Habsburg, who lived at that time in the United States as the personal guest of the President and as his advisor in Central European affairs. As early as 1940, President Roosevelt had remarked that he favored the Archduke's ideas and could help the plans for a Habsburg restoration. Furthermore, a plan of a Central European block was considered, including South Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary under Otto von Habsburg. Archduke Otto made his headquarters in Washington, where he was in touch with many of the most influential members of the Administration and of the Senate.

In January, 1942, the Archduke set out his ideas on the future cooperation of the nations of the Danubian Basin in an article published by him in Foreign Affairs under the title "Danubian Reconstruction". Many people in Hungary considered the article as the suggestions of President Roosevelt for the solutions of East-Central European problems after the war and the ideas, written in the article, were acceptable to them. So the Hungarian Minister President sent a message to the Archduke Otto in America asking him if he would establish contact between the Hungarian Government and the Government of the United States and authorized the Archduke to act in the name of the Hungarian Government.⁽³⁵⁾

From that time Archduke Otto and Eckhardt were in close cooperation and they made perceptible progress. Otto had several conversations with President Roosevelt, who showed distinct good will towards the Hungarian question and offered the Archduke and Eckhardt the use of the American Navy code to facilitate

the sending of their messages to Lisbon.⁽³⁶⁾ The Archduke's and Eckhardt's reports raised great hopes in Hungary. Otto von Habsburg sent his younger brother, Archduke Louis Charles, to talk to the Hungarians in Lisbon, and soon after Colonel Fracis Deak, an American citizen of Hungarian origin, was sent to Lisbon and attached to the American Legation with a special mission to talk to the Hungarians officially. Deak had a dual commission from the State Department and the High Command and his mission was a direct link between tlhe Roosevelt-Otto Conversations and the Hungarian Government.

Deak's messages were very satisfactory to Hungary. According to these messages, the Americans wanted to save Hungary from being occupied by Russia or assigned to the Russian sphere of interest. They wanted to avoid revolutions in the Danube basin and hoped that a Hungary which had not been disarmed would be the central focus of consolidation They hoped also to find a territorial settlement satisfactory to Hungary; most likely they could get her Transylvania, and they were not committed to the Trianon frontiers to the north or south. Nor did they want Hungary to commit sabotage or provoke a German occupation as the interests of Hungary would be better served if this did not happen. ⁽³⁷⁾ Archduke Otto had seen Roosevelt and Churchill together at the time of the First Quebec Conference in August, 1943. Both men had said that they believed in a conservative solution for Central Europe and had advised Hungary to reach agreement with the Allies in good time. Then, on October 1, 1943, Roosevelt had received Otto alone and had gone much further Roosevelt said at that meeting that if Hungary would now settle her relationship with the Allies, they would be prepared to accept her as a cobelligerent and not insist on her unconditional surrender. Moreover, said the President, if Hungary changed hands

while Rumania remained with the Axis and Hungary then occupied South Transylvania, he was willing to support her claim to that area, since the present proposals were that Rumania and Bulgaria were to be left to the Russian sphere of influence, but not Hungary. To give Transylvania to Hungary would thus be to save it from Russia. ⁽³⁸⁾

The Hungarian answer reached Lisbon on November 28, 1943. The Hungarian Government ordered its minister to Portugal to get into contact with Archduke Otto at once if contact with Budapest were to be interrupted or broken. A further document authorized Otto von Habsburg to act as Head of the Hungarian State if the Germans invaded Hungary and the Regent abdicated or was deposed. The Hungarian memorandum again reiterated willingness to surrender to the Allies and said that the occupation of Hungary by Russian armies should be avoided, while American, British, and Polish troops would be most welcomed. The Hungarian Government also asked that Benes must not be allowed to learn about the negotiations, or he would betray everything to the Russians. News from America showed that Benes and his circle were violently anti-Hungarian, ready to sabotage any secret Hungarian secession efforts. This indicated that the Czechs might inform the Russians and the Russians might let the Germans know indirectly.⁽³⁹⁾

Preparations were made now both on the political and military fields to Hungary's leaving the Axis camp. The Hungarian diplomats who had been contacts with the Allies formed an organization of "dissident diplomats". A group of some thirty ex Ministers and Consuls-General took form, with the purpose of providing some sort of machinery for the continuation of the diplomatic contacts with the Western Powers if Hungary was occupied by the Germans. Furthermore, if the Regent could be persuaded to take refuge abroad, a Government in exile might be formed. It also proved possible to secure the consent of the Hungarian Government and the National Bank for transfer to Switzer land of substantial sums in gold to cover expenses. At the end of February, 1944. 35 kg. of gold was deposited in the Swiss National Bank.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic preparations were transferred from Lisbon to Berne, Switzerland. An important consideration of this was the presence in Berne of Royall Tyler, in an important position with the American Legation. Tyler spent many years in Hungary as a commissioner of the League of Nations reconstruction loan, and he had learned to speak Hungarian fluently. He had made numerous friends in Hungary, with many of whom he had kept in touch. He knew Hungary's conditions thoroughly. and there was no doubt of his sympathies and his desire to help Hungary . Royall Tyler and Allen W. Dulles, head of the American intelligence service in Berne, had received from Washington full powers to negotiate with Hungary.

These discussions led to the sending of an American military mission to Hungary, headed by an American colonel, and an American diplomat was scheduled to accompany them. This officer was Howard K. Travers, who served as counselor in the American Legation in Budapest from 1936 to 1941. He could not leave Washington at the appointed time, however, and the mission was dispatched without him and dropped by parachute in western Hungary on March 15, 1944. When the mission arrived a proposal was laid before them that at a given moment Regent

Horthy was to go to Transylvania and proclaim Hungary's surrender. The Western Allies were begged to support this action with a parachute landing in West Hungary of 20,000 troops; they would be accompanied by the Hungarian troops turning against the Germans and a full-scale military operation would be started

At about the same time, in the first days of March, 1944, Bresident Roosevelt had another conversation with Archduke Otto and told him that if Hungary would give a binding assurance of her willingness to support the Allies at the decisive moment he would be willing to support Hungary's claim to the 1940 line in Northern Transylvania (he was not willing now to support Hungary's claim to all Transylvania probably because of Russian pressure), and to a reasonable and amicable settlement of her frontier with Czechoslovakia on the basis of the principle of self-determination. A Hungarian courier was en route towards Budapest with this communication on March 19, 1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary. The courier, who knew what was in the communication, destroyed it before reaching occupied Budapest.

The Germans could break the code used between Budapest and Berne. They knew all the details of the American enterprise, including the nationality of both the airplane and the mission, and the time and place of the landing. On March 16, 1944, Dietrich von Jagow, the German envoy in Budapest, was instructed to request that Regent Horthy go to meet Hitler at once. Next day, Horthy conferred with Kallay: he had to go, but he told the Premier to be extremely careful and not to obey any orders or do anything without hearing from Horthy personally. Shortly afterwards the Regent left for Klessheim, Germany. There, on March 18 Hitler thoroughly abused the old Horthy. He was insulted, accused, and threatened by Hitler, who told him that orders had already been given to the German Army to enter Hungary. He put a paper before Horthy, requesting his signature: a common communique agreeing to the arrival of the German forces

in Hungary. Horthy refused to sign. Hitler accused him again of preparing a Leftist putsch and of making a deal with the Anglo-Saxons, and whether the Regent wanted it or not, German forces had already crossed the frontiers of Hungary.

At evening, Horthy's train left Klessheim; then it was halted somewhere in eastern Austria. Meanwhile, German troops marched toward Budapest and German parachute troops descended onto the Hungarian airfields, and when Horthy's train pulled into the capital the next day, the coup d'etat was over. Many Hungarian Conservatives and opposition leaders were arrested. Kallay fled to the Turkish Legation, where he was offered sanctuary. A complete black-out of news and radio messages was imposed upon the country. German police closed in on all possible resist ance centers and took measures for the deportation of the Hungarian Jews.

All of this changed Hungary's internal situation. The advancing Russians reached the crest of the Carpathians, and the Anglo-Americans knew that the secret air agreements with Hungary were now worthless; on April 3, 1944, the first American and British air raids on Budapest and other Hungarian centers began. Hungary lost the game. A small country, in the center of gigantic, global events can hardly make history: it suffers it.

22 Ibid.

23 According to the Hungarian Constitutional Law, a declaration or war had to be approved by the Parliament and signed by the Regent. A declaration of the Minister President that a state of war excisted meant a little more than to break of diplomatic relations, but not actual war between two nations at all.

24 Macartney, October Fifteenth, II, 63.

25 Montgomery, Hungary The Unwilling Satellite, p. 153.

28 Ibid., p. 154.

27 Quoted by Kertesz, Diplomacy in a Whirlpool, p. 56. After the war the American authorities extradited Bardossy to the new Hungarian regime. He was sentenced to death by the people's court In Budapest and was executed.

28 Montgomery, Hungary the Unwilling Satellite, p. 153.

29 The Christmas number of 1941.

30 A Jewish writer dealing with the fate of Hungarian Jewry and with the annihilation of Jews in adjacent countries wrote: "While the Germans had practically annihilated Central European Jewry, roughly one million Jews lived in Hungary. They all had to thank the protection afforded them by Regent Horthy and the Kallay Government for their physical existence in what the Nazis called the "Central European Jewish Island." Eugene Levai, Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry (Zurich and Vienna: n.p., 1948), p. 73.

31 In 1942, Hungary possessed almost 1,000,000 trained soldiers and a fully equipped army of about 300,000. Kallay, Hungarian Premier, p. 322.

32 For the full text of the surrender, see Kertesz, Diplomacy in a Whirlpool, p. 68.

33 John A, Lukacs, The Great Powers and Eastern Europe (New York: American Book Company, 1953), p. 425.

34 The Czechoslovak emigration was split into two groups: pro-Benes and anti-Benes. Benes was anti-Habsburg and wished to restore the Little Entente system, leaning rather on Russta. Benes envisaged Czechoslovakia as playing the role of a great European power after The war, a great "bridge" between the East, Soviet Russia, and the Western world, the Anglo-Saxon Powers. Many Czechoslovak patriots rallied, however, around Milan Hodza, the former Premier ot Czechoslovakia, and Dr. Stefan Osusky, the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris. These two statesmen regarded Benes as one of the authors of the Czechoslovak catastrope. Osusky and Hodza put their faith in plans for a great Austrian-Hungarian-Polish-Czechoslovak federation and maintained contacts with various emigre leaders of these countries. Lukacs, The Great Powers, pp. 392- 94.

35 Archduke Otto Habsburg received the credentials on January 15, 1944, and took them to Presldent Roosevelt. Macartney, October Fifteenth, II, 205.

36 Lukacs, The Great Powers, p. 803.

37 Macartney, October Fifteenth, II, 204.

38 Ibid., II, 192. For more details on the political activity of Archduke Otto in the United States during World War II see also Emil Csonka, Habsburg Otto (Munich: Uj Europa, 1972) pp. 316 - 390.

39 Benes' journey to Moscow and the signature of the Soviet-Czechoslovak Treaty on December 12, 1943, seemed to the Hungarians to prove that the Soviets had assigned to Czechoslovakia the role in which Hungarians had always seen their northern neighbor, the outpost of Slav expansion and Bolshevik thought. Benes always denied this. However, he confessed later: "Since 1922 our effort has been oriented towards the Slav East (Russia) . . . We never changed our ideas or our plans . . . We worked methodical1y. Our endeavors to maintain this 'Eastern' and 'Slav' line were conscious and premeditated; they were based on a new conception of Europe's future." Eduard Benes, Ou vont les Slaves? (Paris: Edition Notre Temps, 1946), p. 18.

Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944