The Phoenix Land (34 page)

Of course, this was merely a matter of form to justify our delaying the evacuation. But for a small and unarmed country
such as ours, form was highly important if we were to be able to justify opposing the will not of just one but of three Great Powers.

However, it was even more important to our plans that the inhabitants of the territories to be handed over should be
provided
with an opportunity to demonstrate their patriotic feelings towards Hungary. We were fairly sure that not only Sopro, which was mainly German-speaking, but also those other parts of
traditionally
Hungarian territory – with their Hungarian, Croatian and even Austrian peoples – really wanted to remain with us. Only the Germanic folk from the Pinka Valley and along the river Lafnitz were drawn to Vienna; and that was because it was there and at Graz that they found a market for their vegetable produce.

The marshalling of the inhabitants was not my responsibility, and so I know little about how it was organized. I believe that much use was made of the youth organizations and of the younger government officials who came originally from those regions. Some of these had already returned to their homelands, and many others were also hoping to go. It was soon clear that it was no secret that an important demonstration of public feeling was being planned, and that all Hungarians were waiting with baited breath to see what would happen in the Burgenland. No one, however, knew exactly what it was that the government was going to do. Ráday, the minister of the interior at the time, most ably shrouded his plans with secrecy so that all that was known for certain was that something was in the wind.

The only real evidence was that István Friedrich went to Sopron before the date set for the evacuation and settled himself in one of the spa hotels.

Friedrich had had a colourful past. He had been a member of Károlyi’s party at the time of the October Revolution. He had led the mob to confront the armed police on the Chain Bridge, when the police had fired into the crowd.

Friedrich had not been harmed, but three people had died – some said seven – and many more had been wounded. In 1919 he had led a band of desperate men against the Peidl government and had himself briefly held the reins of power. Having thus
made himself prime minister, he had then started the ‘White Terror’ as a means of staying in office. Later he was removed by Sir George Clark, the envoy of the League of Nations
86
.

Friedrich evidently had no idea that the government was behind the Burgenland plan. He had obviously worked it out that if he himself were to lead a popular demonstration there, this would do much to restore his tarnished reputation. So he decided to play the people’s leader. He travelled all over the
territory
and held meetings in Szombathely, where he imagined, as did others who were not in the secret, that he would appear as a leader of the resistance. However, the government would never tolerate interference by anyone thinking only of their own
personal
interest. The venture was risky enough and would succeed only if the game was played with one man holding all the cards; and that man had to be the prime minister, whose responsibility was to the country as a whole. As a consequence, Mr Friedrich was given a ‘friendly’ warning to make himself scarce without delay. He did so, but he ever afterwards harboured a deadly hatred for Bethlen, joining forces with all the prime minister’s political enemies, even with the Legitimist Party that, from someone who had been a leader of the October Revolution and one of those who proclaimed Hungary to be a republic,
represented
an astonishing switch of allegiances.

And so we come to the return of Baranya. To supervise the reoccupation by Hungary we appointed Field Marshal Soós as governor of the province.

Soós rode into the territory at the head of his troops in a
veritable
storm of flowers. It was lucky that he had a calm mount who did not bolt when surrounded by bevies of young girls all dressed in their brightest colours clustering around him and
accompanying
him all the way – and who remained unaffected by the
thunderous
cheers ringing in its ears, by the garlands of flowers which the girls threw and which soon covered Soós, as well as his horse, from head to tail. Soon so little could be seen of the field marshal that from a distance it seemed that a gigantic bouquet of flowers was moving slowly through a crowd of thousands.

The reintegration of Baranya as part of Hungary was achieved everywhere with the same festivities and left little for
me to do except compose the government’s official declaration, which task fell to me because on such occasions every word
carries
an important political message.

What I had to do as regards the Burgenland was much more difficult.

To be sure that we remained in full control, the government ordered in every available gendarme and reinforced them with extra volunteers, mostly members of the Special Forces, which were later disbanded. These were largely made up of veterans of the war who were therefore well used to discipline. That we needed so large and experienced a force was due to the extreme length of the Burgenland strip. Any disturbances or signs of unrest would have been fatal to our hopes, and discipline had to be strictly maintained. The gendarmerie numbered between two and three thousand men, and they were commanded by Colonel Lehár, the composer’s younger brother. The governor, Antal Sigray
87
, knew and understood the local people well, as he owned land near Sopron. The Great Powers’ military observers were already in Sopron, although I personally only had dealings with one of them. This was Colonel Ferrario, who seemed most sympathetic to us.

The handing over of the second zone of Baranya and the evacuation of the first zone of the Burgenland went smoothly enough.

That afternoon we held a cabinet meeting the only subject of which was the text of the Hungarian government’s message to Austria, which I have already outlined. All the other members of the government agreed the motion; I was the only minister to vote against it. It was clear to me that as the minister who had originally agreed to the simultaneous exchange of the two
southern
and western provinces, it was morally impossible for me now to vote for a motion I had not previously discussed with Hohler, who would have been justified in considering such an action as perfidious. As the Chinese say, I would ‘lose face’. I therefore had no alternative but to offer my resignation.

In doing so I explained that Hungary would be at a great disadvantage in the crisis that was bound to follow our action if we were to be represented by a foreign minister in whom the
representatives of the Great Powers no longer had any confidence.

This came as a surprise to the other members of the cabinet, all of them, that is, except Bethlen, whom I had told in advance and who, after some demur, had accepted my point of view. He and I had already agreed that after my resignation, and until my successor should be appointed, I would continue to be in charge of the daily conduct of foreign affairs, but that Bethlen should sign all documents presented to him on my advice.

It was important that the foreign ambassadors should hear about all this firstly from myself, and at once. Therefore as soon as our meeting had ended I went straight over to the Ritz, where Foucher was then living. I had thought it best to tell him first and to test his reactions. He was very surprised and, as regards my departure at least, sincerely distressed. He at once called up Hohler and asked him to come round and did the same with Vinci, who was acting as Italian chargé d’affaires while Castagnetto was on leave.

It seemed to me that there was a strange gleam in Hohler’s eyes as he came in. I then again recounted everything that had taken place at the cabinet meeting and explained that, in
consequence
, I had resigned my office and would be leaving the
government
. As I announced this, Hohler said that what I had done was right and I saw the glitter of suspicion fade from his eyes. He, as I saw at once, was not surprised by the government’s
attitude
and seemed to take the whole matter quite calmly. It was not the first storm he had weathered in his diplomatic career, and it is possible that he had always had some notion that the
Burgenland
problem would not be settled smoothly. I am not sure of this, for we never afterwards discussed the matter, but it has always seemed probable to me.

In the days following I went to my office as usual and, as they always had, the ambassadors would come in to consult me. In vain I would tell them that I was not really there, but no matter what my excuses they would still insist upon telling me what they wanted the Hungarian government to know. I accepted these messages
ad referendum
;
and this went on for a week. Finally, Hohler said that it was time to end this playacting and that I
should withdraw my resignation as they would rather have to deal with me, in whom they had confidence, than with someone new to them: ‘We prefer to have here a gentleman like you.
88
’ I replied that I was flattered by such a request coming from him as a friend, but that I would only be able to accept the foreign
minister’s
portfolio again if I was called upon officially to do so by all three ambassadors. They did this the following day.

This was a great satisfaction for me as it only proved how right I had been to resign and risk leaving the Foreign Ministry just when I was about to be faced with an interesting problem. If I had not acted in this way, Hohler and his two colleagues would have believed me to be a most unreliable person whose word could not be believed. It is true that I would have remained
foreign
minister for some time, but it would have been in the most disagreeable circumstances, which in turn would have made it impossible for me to cope with the weighty task of finding a
solution
to the Burgenland situation. As it was my own position was now stronger than ever, which proved of immense value to the country, since throughout the trials to come I could always remind these colleagues that I had remained in office at their request and that consequently I had the right to appeal to their goodwill. This proved its value in all those many petty details whose solution ultimately depended on the ambassadors’ approval. Moreover, I very much doubt if otherwise we could have arrived at the agreement over the Burgenland, which was afterwards to be signed at Venice.

I do not intend to write here a full chronicle of the Burgenland negotiations, merely to put down enough so that what happened can be fully understood.

Along the line of evacuation a band of armed freedom
fighters
stepped in. Today we would call them partisans. On the evening of the first day they attacked the Austrians already established in the first zone. These Hungarian partisans were all tough young men. There were not many of them. One group numbered about a hundred, another only some thirty or forty. The entire force did not exceed two to three thousand; and yet, as I recall it, within a week all the territory already handed over was back in their hands.

The Austrians never took the offensive. It seems that they believed that we had a formidable army in readiness to back up the irregulars. I do not know this for certain, but it is what I have been led to believe; and it was confirmed by what I was told by an English journalist who had at that time visited first the General Staff in Vienna and afterwards came on to Budapest. The Austrian Chief of General Staff had shown him a map of their military dispositions. All along the Austrian side of the border there were small and large circles and squares marked in red, and it had been explained that here was a division of twelve thousand men, here a brigade numbering six thousand and so on and so on. This one represented infantry, and so did this. All along the line of the Danube to the new Yugoslav frontier the map blossomed with red marks. The journalist then asked where were the enemy. ‘The enemy? They are circled in blue. We don’t know exactly, but we guess that on the river Lafnitz there are some three or four hundred men. These dots represent groups of perhaps thirty-five or forty, while this larger dot denotes about six hundred.’

‘Why do you not attack if you have such an overpowering force?’ asked the Englishman. The Chief of Staff just shrugged ‘We couldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘It would be too risky!’

Coming straight from Vienna, my English journalist friend told his story in high good humour.

It was also possible that the government in Vienna was afraid that their entire army might refuse orders and just go home, for it was quite certain that the Austrians had no warlike spirit left in them at that time. This was, of course, one of the reasons why there were so few casualties on either side. It was at this time that we began to hear all sorts of humorous anecdotes about the
guerrillas
on the border, like the
‘kuruc’
stories of long ago. Here are three of those that we heard then.

A group of partisans, said to be about eight or ten men,
encircled
about thirty Austrian soldiers and disarmed them. No harm was done to the prisoners, but they did not only have their weapons removed but also their warm army trousers. The weather turned cooler so the lightly clad partisans pulled on the thick Austrian breeches and turned the Austrian soldiers
loose to find their way home clad only in their dark-green army tunics with the gold braid that none of them liked. And so the Austrians went free, with helmets on their heads and their upper parts glorious in the
Waffenrock
89
but otherwise only their
underpants
.

Here is another story, this time from a little further south.

In spite of being strictly forbidden to cross the border into Austria proper, an overeager partisan leader, with a band of some fifty men, attacked a Styrian village where a battalion of Austrians had been stationed. He was a shrewd man and led his little attacking force down the valley that led to the village. On both sides the hills were covered in forest, and only a narrow strip of meadow on each side of the stream was open country. He ordered some forty of his soldiers to advance along the meadow, keeping up heavy fire. The rest of his men he sent through the forest, blowing trumpets and making as much noise as possible. Indeed they made so much noise that the Austrian battalion commander assumed some immense force was approaching. He thought it prudent to evacuate the village and retreat, whereupon the villagers lost heart and fled. That is, all the men fled, but the women and girls refused to budge, saying that
they
were not afraid of the Hungarians; and indeed they were not. By the time news of this reached us and the group were ordered to withdraw, our soldiers had spent three days riding on the crest of the wave, and the band of partisans marched away to the Hungarian border escorted by weeping women.