The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  This was a rare virtue in those days and much appreciated.

  The Speaker of the House of Representatives took another line. It must be admitted that his situation was trickier. The mandate of the House as then composed rested on the 1910 elections and had later been extended by the emergency powers voted because of the war. This was probably the reason why the Speaker now suggested that the House of Deputies should at once declare its own dissolution, and that this action should be voluntary and not imposed by force.28

  Thinking about all this, as the train rumbled on, I recalled how the Fehérváry government29 had dismissed the House of Deputies in 1906. The Fehérváry government was lawful in form, although the fact that its members were in the minority made it unconstitutional – and what indignation had broken out then! What a commotion was then heard from all those members, whether on the right wing or the left, who were offended by a proposal to bypass the law! To carry it off, the chamber had to be occupied by the military, and all opposition stamped out by the resounding clatter of soldiers’ boots as they formed up in lines, blocking all the corridors and exits. This is what had been needed then to flout the law.

  Now, in 1918, not even a show of force was needed. Everywhere the mood was fatalistic, almost suicidal, as if hara-kiri were inevitable. Let us surrender our country’s most treasured traditions; we must be resigned to our own destruction! And that act of national suicide could not have been more complete.

  There is a legend of Gül Baba that at the end of his life, impelled by desperation, he destroyed the rose garden that had been his life’s work and upon which, since early youth, he had worked with loving care. Some such desperation must have worked its spell upon the Speaker, Károly Szász, on that fatal day in Budapest when he not only declared himself for voluntary dissolution but also failed to mention the recently assassinated István Tisza, the former Minister-President, who had set the precedent (although against the will of many), which had enabled Károly Szász to find himself in his present post. Not only that; he also tried to prevent anyone else from speaking a few reverent words in memory of Tisza.

  It may be that he was afraid that if he did not mention the former Minister-President then others would shame him by doing so themselves.

  I had it directly from Kunó Klebelsberg that before the meeting he had asked Szász if he was going to mention Tisza, and that the reply had been that it would not be ‘timely’.

  ‘Then I will do so. I shall ask to be heard before the minutes are read.’

  ‘Then I will refuse my permission!’

  And so it happened. Klebelsberg rose to his feet, but Szász appeared not to notice and quickly adjourned the session.

  Even in Japan there is no more perfect act of hara-kiri: the only difference is that there they die of it.

  In the last resort the only reasonable explanation can be found in the general neurasthenia that was then so prevalent.

  While all this was going on some men of the ‘new order’ gathered in the House. Some female friends of mine had got tickets for reserved places in the public gallery and, as my post at the opera did not come to an end until 18 November and I had been obliged to stay on in Budapest, I arranged to go with them so as to see what was going on with my own eyes. The members of the Károlyi government, together with the representatives of the National Council and the trade unions, sat on the long dais that backed onto the Danube side of the Chamber. The session was presided by János Hock, that notorious priest, who sat in the middle of them. At that moment he was the effective head of the government of Hungary, and so presided over a meeting that, with no legal mandate, could speak on behalf of, and decide the fate for, the whole country.

  The Chamber, which is much bigger than the great cupola above makes it seem, was by no means full. The seats in the centre were sparsely occupied, while in the wide corridors behind the pillars, we, the spectators who had come to gape at the proceedings, were able to move about at will.

  Hock spoke first. He, who on most occasions had proved himself a most accomplished demagogue, speaking with a wit and brilliance that could even make his political opponents vote as he wished, now spoke with surprising ineffectiveness as he tried to be majestic, gloating and unctuous all at the same time. And as he spoke he lifted his hands as if giving a blessing, those same hands that had grubbed about in so many kinds of dirty work.

  As I watched him the chief impression I had was of a cheap unshaven comedian trying to play the Archbishop of Canterbury in a Shakespeare play. Sitting there in the centre, with the face of a Lombroso, he brought to mind some events of many years before.

  After that memorable day in 1904 – it was 18 November – when Tisza tried to use force to overcome the obstructionism that was holding up all parliamentary business, the House met again on 13 December. Then the opposition stormed the Speaker’s podium, beat off the armed guards, and once alone in the chamber started to wreck everything in sight like a horde of unruly children. They destroyed everything they could lay their hands on and started to make a pile of all the broken furniture – desks, armchairs, shelves, the Thonet chairs of the stenographers and the wooden rails of the parapets – in the semicircle in the centre of the floor. When there was nothing left to break up, they stopped and just stood about laughing. Then Hock came forward and climbed onto the pile of wrecked furniture with a triumphant smile on his face. He sat there like a ravenous scavenging crow. There was something infinitely foreboding about him, as he sat there in his black clothes, back straight and head held high. One or two people called out ‘Bravo, Hock!’ and some even clapped him30.

  I was reminded of all this when I saw the same man once again sitting at the centre of an unhappy scene. But the corpse-hungry crow was now triumphing over more than broken furniture.

  After Hock, there were others who would now speak at length, although they were addressing an audience that showed little signs of interest. When the establishment of the republic was announced it was presented as ‘the will of the people’ but only greeted by a few half-hearted cheers. Then there were more speeches, all repeating the familiar slogans in the same tired phrases with not a single original thought amongst them – and all this time the public in the corridors behind the pillars were chatting among themselves, while in some discreet embrasures some of the women were happily flirting and no doubt arranging amorous rendezvous, for Budapest, no matter what, is always Budapest.

  At long last it was all over, and we could comfortably go home. Outside the square was deserted31.

  This was the last comedy to be mounted by the Károlyi government, but one could already sense that we had only reached a way-stop on the slippery slope in front of us. It was clear that there was no longer any unity among those who had at first welcomed the revolution. This was clear from the way in which one speaker would be applauded only by those on their own side of the House, while the next seemed to please only those on the other. The following weeks were to confirm this impression.

  Day by day the radical socialists gained more and more ground while the middle-class ministers resigned their offices one after the other, only to be replaced by nonentities even feebler and less effective than themselves. All that carefully planned poisoning of people’s opinions that the government had worked so hard to achieve was finally to bear fruit, and on that day the real revolution broke out.

  It was on 12 December that the army revolted, this time against Károlyi. The soldiers of the Budapest garrison, armed with rifles and hand grenades, stormed the Royal Palace. There were thousands of them. They also brought up some cannon, which were pointed directly at the ministry of defence32 and surrounded the Minister-President’s office. No one could enter or leave either building. From one of the windows of the Royal Palace, a man called Pogány addressed the crowd ‘in the name of the Military Council’ and sent an ultimatum to the ‘People’s Republic’. Aiming at taking over Albert Bartha’s post as minister of defence, he demanded Bartha’s head on the pretext that Ba
rtha was planning to organize groups of officers which, although it is true they might have helped to restore order, were anathema to the ‘People’s Army’. The whole of Szent György Square was full of soldiers, all shouting at once; and not only Bartha but also Károlyi found themselves prisoners in their offices nearby. Some government officials tried to parley with the soldiery from the balcony of the Minister-President’s office – and I believe that Károlyi himself tried to speak to the crowd more than once – while others also tried from the ministry of defence. Despite the deafening noise everyone was doing their best to cajole the armed mob into starting negotiations or at least to listen to what was being said to them. Only one Hungarian officer had the courage to try to tell the men where their duty as soldiers lay. He was a broad-shouldered young infantry captain from the General Staff. He stepped out onto a balcony, climbed onto the parapet and, in a voice that could be heard right across the square, yelled: ‘Go stop our enemies from invading our country!’

  Others on the balcony pulled him back and dragged him into the building. Then, with much explanation and no little demagogic apologia, they went on trying to calm the soldiers down.

  All this I heard later that same afternoon from eyewitnesses I trusted. The news put me at once in mind of a scene in Ferenc Herczeg’s play Byzantium. When the news is brought that the invading Turks are streaming into the imperial palace, one Leonides turns to the doomed assembly of nobles and says, ‘Let us pray!’ whereupon the Patriarch at once replies: ‘Let us not do anything which might offend them.’ Indeed Byzantium was a most prophetic play.

  Noon was long past, and still the cannons were pointed at the ministry of defence, and the besieging soldiery were still shouting and uttering fearsome menaces. Envoys from both sides were coming and going with new points for negotiation and exchanges between Károlyi and Mr Pogány. Finally, after a long delay, the government yielded and promised Bartha’s dismissal and Pogány’s appointment as minister of defence. Then those excellent soldiers of the Budapest garrison went triumphantly home to be praised by some of the following day’s papers for having won their battle by shouting at unarmed civilians.

  All this happened on 12 December. Two days later the metal workers declared for Communism.

  ***

  Leaning back in my seat, motionless and with eyes closed, my thoughts wandered back to another incident that had occurred in the last week or two, this time more comical than tragic. On the day following the army’s revolt news of a dreadful conspiracy raced through the city. The horror of it! It seemed that one of the Queen-Empress Zita’s brothers, Prince René of Bourbon-Parma was in hiding in Budapest and had been there secretly for at least ten days. Ten whole days? What could he be doing? Surely nothing less than planning a counter-revolution? What could he be cooking up except a dreadful bloodbath in which all the leaders of the Revolution, along with their principal aides, would at once be slaughtered? People were running about, pale-faced with horror, distributing the awful news. The first man had only heard about it, the second knew for certain, while the third had seen with his own eyes that secret agents and hangmen were hidden everywhere, only waiting for the signal to start massacring innocent citizens. Then Parma was found and subjected to a daylong interrogation. Suddenly all the terror was blown away in a storm of laughter. It turned out that his was a purely private visit to pursue an amorous adventure, and that for its entire duration he had hardly left the bed of his beautiful singing star. Great joy broke out, and peals of laughter were heard from one end of the town to the other. There was not a single tavern where it was not the only subject of conversation, told and retold with gales of laughter, laughter that had its genesis in universal relief and joy. Thank God that even in this bleak world there was still some fun to be had! In a few days Prince René had become so popular that if he had been seen and recognized anywhere he would have been cheered to the echo.

  ***

  The train stopped many times on that dark wintry night, even at small stations and sometimes at no station at all. The whistle seemed to blow continuously with long lamenting cries into the black night. We never knew where we were as none of the stations had any light.

  Once again my thoughts took another direction.

  In the second part of November, in an attempt to bring some sort of order to the people’s lives, meetings were held to find a way to induce a feeling of unity, and this is when, in some secrecy, the organization called MOVE was founded. At the same time, those Transylvanians who happened to find themselves in Budapest, either for private reasons or official, formed the Szekler National Council.

  Professor Benedek Jancsó was appointed chairman, but the real leader was Count István Bethlen. Men from all walks of life were to join the Council, and what bound them together was firstly that they were all Transylvanians and secondly their shared patriotic worries over the recent train of events. The radical wing of the government did not look upon the Szekler Council with favour but, since ‘national councils’ were then everywhere the rage, they felt unable to ban it. I had joined, since I knew I would be with many men of a similar mind to my own. And it was here that the idea started that we should send a delegate abroad representing only the Council, and who, being independent, could relate frankly what had really been happening in Hungary, who could tell the unvarnished truth to the victorious powers without being constrained by the official government line. Such a man’s mission would be to explain why, from the people’s growing desperation, the Communist movement was spreading, taking hold more and more every day, so much so that it was certain, if the victorious powers did not change the way they were treating our bankrupt country and give some help to those patriots of good faith, a Bolshevik triumph was inevitable. The immediate result of this would not only be a general breakdown that would make signing a peace treaty almost impossible but also that from our flames half the world would catch fire.

  At that time we still believed that someone abroad would be interested in what we had to tell.

  To realize such a project it would be necessary to obtain a passport and also sufficient money in foreign currency, which was not available to ordinary citizens. I was delegated to get this through Károlyi. If I remember rightly it was the afternoon of the military revolt that I went to see him. He was still shaken by that day’s events and deeply shocked by them. It may be because of this that he received the Szekler National Council’s plan sympathetically and agreed at once to provide that whoever was sent should travel as a private person. We talked for a long time of the dangers that threatened from all sides, dangers which would reduce him to being an empty puppet, deprived of all power, and how the whole political aesthetic of his plans for the nation, on which he had placed all his hopes, would be destroyed. It was with these fears in mind that he agreed to authorize the necessary foreign currency. I took this news back to the Council.

  Now, however, an unexpected difficulty arose. None of the names we put to him proved to be to his liking, even though the first names we suggested had all been diplomats. He did not like any of them, saying that they would all make propaganda against him and he would be mad to send any of them abroad.

  I went several times between the Minister-President’s office and the Council, always proposing new names – but Károlyi would have none of them. His answer was always the same: he would not give passports to his enemies! This went on so long that I began to wonder if perhaps he had only pretended to agree to something that in reality he did not want. Therefore, only thinking to put him to the test, I asked, ‘Well, would you give me a passport?’

  He thought for a moment and then said, ‘To you, yes! But I tell you, to no one else!’

  That was when it was decided that if anyone was to go, it had to be me. And the decision had been taken because of a single, unpremeditated question.

  For me this unforeseen turn of events was most disagreeable because, even though my friends urged me to accept the mission, I explained that I really wanted to go ba
ck to my home in Transylvania and had only remained in the capital to help settle this matter, as I knew that I was the only one who could handle Károlyi due to our connections in the past. And now it seemed that I had landed myself in it and would have to accept it. Nevertheless, I did make some conditions. One was that I should contribute from my own pocket one fifth of the money I was going to take with me – it would be in Swedish crowns – as I did not want the Szekler National Council to pay my personal expenses. The other was that before starting I should have time to go home to say goodbye to my father. Both conditions were accepted.

  Since the negotiations with Károlyi had taken over ten days, my visit to Kolozsvár had to be very short. I was not able to leave until 23 December. The French Colonel Vix gave me permission to travel, provided I was escorted by one of his officers. I only had permission to remain there from morning to evening so, on Christmas Eve, I found myself on the night train to Kolozvár.

  I only had a week before starting my journey to the west.

  (This is the true story of how and why I went abroad on the last day of 1918. Count Tivadar Batthyány has written in his memoirs, which are suspiciously redolent of self-justification, that I left as Károlyi’s envoy. That was a mistake. I was sent by the Szekler National Council and not by Károlyi from whom I did not accept any mission or any instructions. It is not surprising that Batthyány should be misinformed because by then he was no longer a member of Károlyi’s cabinet. At the time of my departure Károlyi had no need of someone who was setting off into an unknown vacuum. A man such as myself, who had only the most uncertain connections with whom to negotiate, would hardly have been useful to him when Count Antal Sigray had been in Paris since 5 December. Sigray, whose son-in-law was the American ambassador in Paris, had far better connections than I did.)