The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  Knowing all this, I hoped for an important revision of the border, not quite as much as Hungary was to receive from the first Vienna Award of 1939 but close to it.

  Benes did not go quite so far as to envisage the return to Hungary of Losonc or Komárom, but it was made clear that a prerequisite to revision was that Hungary should sign a mutually agreed document accepting the award to Czechoslovakia of those other parts of the Slovensko that were not now under discussion.

  This, of course, was self-evident, for it was on this assumption that our talks were based; and if we wanted to maintain normal, indeed friendly, relations with any neighbour it could never be on the basis of an intransigent refusal on our part to accept established fact.

  Accordingly, my position was simply that we Hungarians would accept the major distribution of territory and renounce our claims, provided always that in return we would receive back enough of our former lands that Hungarian public opinion would consider the talks to have been a success. Without this we would have achieved nothing; and the essential truth of this statement was at once accepted by Benes.

  We also spoke of the region’s economy, but this was of minor importance compared with the revision of the frontier.

  All of these discussions were held in a most friendly atmosphere, and when we parted I felt that we had at least come closer to solving the major problems. This was confirmed to me by Tahy, our ambassador in Prague, who assured us, after being in contact with Masaryk, that the president was prepared to go even further than his more cautious foreign minister.

  I therefore went home satisfied, not bothered by the fact that we were still a long way from actually revising the frontier. It was always so, at the beginning of any diplomatic discussions, for one must not imagine that the practice of diplomacy in any way resembled working in some mysterious Devil’s Kitchen. In fact, it is far more like the cattle market: the seller demands a high price, the buyer offers something lower: the seller praises his livestock, and the buyer makes unflattering comments on its quality. After much discussion and argument both sides agree to a price midway between their first positions. That Benes had accepted the principle of frontier revision was, in the circumstances, a decisive step towards solving the problem.

  We had to change trains in Prague, and before the evening express left I had time to buy a most beautiful ham in one of the fine butcher’s shops. It was good Bohemian ham – real ham at last – and I was so happy because such a thing had long been unobtainable in Budapest. I wrapped it carefully and pondered with whom I would share this delicacy.

  Alas, it was very warm in the sleeper and it was not long before the ham began to smell. It had to be thrown out as soon as I reached home.

  It was like an omen, prophesying that everything I thought I had achieved in Marienbad was to suffer the same fate as my cherished ham.

  And so it turned out: although not at once.

  Notes

  64. Where Bánffy owned some farmland.

  65. The ancestral palace of the Esterházys at Galanta seems to be one of the models for the fictional castle of ‘Jablanka’, which figures extensively in the second and third volumes of The Writing on the Wall. One of Miklós Bánffy’s great-grandmothers was Agnes Esterházy.

  66. The 1848 Party was formed by supporters of the 1848 uprising in Hungary that fought against the absolute rule of the Habsburgs and domination by Austria.

  67. Meaning ‘Sooty’ in Hungarian.

  68. The shooting at Surány was famous and has been described by Bánffy in an important scene set at ‘Jablanka’ in the trilogy.

  69. Miklós Bánffy had cousins in almost every part of the country just north of the Great Hungarian Plain.

  70. There is an echo of this sad memory in the closing pages of They Were Divided, the third volume of The Writing on the Wall, when Balint Abády watches a batch of enthusiastic young recruits singing happily as they march off to their own destruction.

  Chapter Three

  As soon as I returned I made my report to the prime minister. We had not taken any minutes of the Marienbad meetings as this was only done when some tangible results might be expected, which was not the case with preliminary talks. However, as is the usual diplomatic practice, after each phase of the discussions I would immediately dictate to my chef de cabinet, Lajos Rudnay, a word-by-word account of what had just been said between myself and Benes; and this account was used to give a clear picture of our talks in my report.

  I also gave my account to Admiral Horthy even though at that time he did not intervene in the handling of foreign affairs in the way he was to do in later years. He trusted our judgement, particularly that of Bethlen.

  Bethlen heard my report with pleasure. It was, he said, an encouraging start and we should carry on in the same fashion. However, we would have to proceed with great caution and take trouble to prepare Hungarian public opinion slowly. It was certain that Hungarian political circles would not take kindly to the realization that the country should give up of its own free will as much of her ancient possessions as the Treaty of Trianon would wrest from us, even if we were to receive in return some territory populated by Hungarians. So legalistic was Hungarian thinking that few people would give any thought to practical gain but would blame us instead for failing to press for our just rights. Such a reaction could bring down the government, although this would not be the worst result for our country, which would in fact be the stopping of that political process we believed to be the best for the nation’s future.

  He was quite right, and indeed when I talked to various political leaders, for the first time in my experience of foreign affairs, I found myself faced with that legalistic approach and that unreal and impractical way of thinking that I had only known previously from the debates in parliament under the Dual Monarchy. Even at that time, as I have written elsewhere, this attitude had poisoned public opinion and caused much trouble for us.

  Then, of course, we had still been an integral part of a great power, and most people believed – myself included – that, even if the peace of Europe were to be threatened by such issues as difficulties in the Balkans or the French desire for revenge, the world would be saved from war by the careful balance preserved by the Great Powers and by the wisdom of their cabinets. This is what had happened at the time of the Agadir crisis, of the annexation of Bosnia, and when the Balkan war broke out. Hungarians always imagined themselves to be in this reassuring position and so were never really interested in foreign affairs. As regards military matters, only those that affected our relations with Austria and with the ruler were real to them. No one stopped to think of our army as a defensive wall against countries beyond our borders, or that the Dual Monarchy’s surest power lay in the strength and readiness of its forces in Europe and that it was because of this power that Hungarians remained masters in their own country. Again no one remembered that, numerically speaking, Hungary was a small nation and that, since the understanding with Austria brought about in 1867, Hungary’s ancient liberties had only been maintained in so far as she remained a part of the greater Austro-Hungarian empire. Were this bastion to fall then it was inevitable that Hungary would stand defenceless in the event of world conflict.

  Hungarian public opinion never thought about such matters and certainly did not trouble itself to try to understand them. The only ‘foreign’ country for most people was Austria, but even here no one was much interested in what was going on or what political factions were at war with one another. No one considered the real power structure in Austrian society, for the only matters considered worthy of interest were legalistic aspects of relations with, and opposition to, the King-Emperor. This was the Hungarians’ supreme preoccupation.

  It was a strange way of thinking. For the entire middle classes the only real problems were those of internal politics. Only these would rouse them, and these alone could provoke riots. In the coffee-houses perhaps some sales clerks or junior tax-collectors would sit discussing the finer points of
international law and commerce, and would quarrel bitterly, as in other countries, about abstruse issues of interest only to legal specialists, but no one else bothered with such matters.

  All this was characteristic of the years before the war, and I only mention it now because this legal hair-splitting found its way into the public’s conception of foreign politics and was to bedevil the handling of our foreign affairs.

  This attitude must be discussed, because it is central to understanding how such a feeling was born and therefore why the Hungarians chose a road that would lead to their country’s undoing.

  I shall have to approach the subject in a wide circle, even if it seems to lead me somewhat to stray from the main purpose of this book. I feel, however, that it were best to do it here because in what follows we shall meet this strange legalistic approach again and again; and I shall start by tracing first its historical origins and then its later development.

  I am convinced that, just as Freud has attributed many of our adult emotions and actions to some long-forgotten happenings in our childhood, so the reactions and passions of nations today have their origins in their history. The manner in which nations react to world movements is determined by the historic past which long ago established their ruling habits of thought. The childhood of nations lies in the experiences of previous generations, and it is these experiences that have gradually and slowly over many years, shaped and formed the national spirit. Great men of their day – Gábor Bethlen, Ferenc Rákóczi, Lajos Kossuth71 – had a profound influence on the development of national ways of thinking, and our attitudes today would be incomprehensible if we did not take this into consideration, just as Napoleon, Bismarck and Lenin have left their indelible stamp on the characters and attitudes of the Frenchmen, Germans and Russians who have come after them.

  These influences work both ways. The leader is never quite immune from the attitudes of his day even though it is his personality that leaves a stamp upon his times and those that follow and which defines the direction and ideals which, for many years to come will guide the aspirations, the emotions and, if you will, the spirit of the people. This is so important that it should only be with the deepest sense of responsibility that anyone should venture upon trying to be a nation’s leader. Such a man’s virtues and faults can have their effects for centuries to come.

  I believe that the tragedy of Hungary’s present situation cannot be understood if we do not look carefully at our history. The key to today lies in the struggles and torments, battles, sins and omissions of the past.

  I would like to present a short survey of the last few centuries of Hungarian history to show how the political attitudes of today have developed.

  Mohács

  The story of Hungary’s troubles really began at Mohács72. This disaster and the following Turkish conquest divided the country into three parts. In the conquered territory all Hungarian political life came to a stop and the land was ruled by pashas, begues and spahoglans. The nobles fled to the north, to the west or eastwards to Transylvania. The country people and the serfs mostly stayed where they were, for they had no part to play and nothing to do except try to stay alive.

  The western and northern parts of the country came under Habsburg rule, and this part of the land kept the name and constitution of the kingdom of Hungary. On paper, it still figured as a country independent in its own right and owing allegiance only to its king. In reality, Hungary was little different from the other provinces owned by the Austrian monarchy. These too had their own constitutions from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The rights and powers of the Czech, Austrian, and the Tyrolean peoples differed only slightly from those of the Hungarians. Each had the power to raise taxes and make laws, and the Czechs even had their own king73. Nevertheless, they had in reality only the character of provinces under a common ruler, since the direction of nearly all affairs remained in the hands of that ruler and all important decisions regarding the economy or the army were made by him.

  In those days the relationship between king and country was much the same in many other countries of Europe. The difference was that in countries like France and Spain the ruling monarch identified himself only with the interests of his own country, whereas the Habsburg emperor, having so many diverse countries under his sway, was bound to have as many diverse interests. The Habsburg hegemony had largely been acquired through inheritance and was only held together by the dynasty to which these multifarious territories owed their allegiance.

  In countries where there was a national monarch, the fact that the subjects’ powers were limited to a having a hand in lawmaking and tax-raising was not necessarily a disadvantage, since a national monarch, like a benevolent father providing for his family, would work to make his country prosper and so deepen the nation’s pride in itself. It was also in the monarch’s own interest to do so, since his power and prestige depended on that of the country he ruled. With it he rose or sank. The unity of the French and Spanish kingdoms was cemented because their ruling monarchs were truly national, whereas parliamentary government had been known to be the opponent rather than the promoter of such unity.

  But the sway of the Austrian Habsburgs was very different. Since the thirteenth century the rulers of Austria had also been emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. This title had been invented so as to postulate a single ruler of the whole world, as it was then known, and its holder was the greatest feudal lord in Europe and also the worldly leader of the Roman Catholic Church, just as the pope was its spiritual leader. It was the Habsburgs’ ambition truly to realize this intention, although only the Ottos and, for a short time, Charles V, attained it. Nevertheless, the dream floated continually before the eyes of successive Habsburg monarchs; and the many different countries over which they ruled were expected to serve the same goal, each according to its geographical position and capacity to contribute to the common ideal. Moravia, the Czech people and the two Austrias – Styria and Carinthia – furnished recruits to the army, silver and iron. The Tyrol was the gateway to Italy, while the lands in Alsace and Flanders formed a defensive rampart against the French, much as the narrow strip of the kingdom of Hungary did against the Turks. Although gold from Hungarian mines was an important asset, the real value of Hungary to the emperor was that the country was like the outworks of a castle stronghold from which the main walls and the gates could be defended, where the enemy could be held at bay, where forces gathered before a sortie and where they re-grouped after a defeat. It was where defensive skirmishes took place, and if men were killed there it did not greatly matter, for it was more important to hold the inner castle. For the Habsburgs the inner castle was Vienna and the hereditary lands. Hungary was used by the emperor to defend this stronghold and, from the beginning of the sixteenth century until well into the eighteenth century, this was Hungary’s only value for the dynasty.

  It was for this reason that the growth, development and well-being of little Hungary was of small interest to the man who was Hungary’s king; for between the ruler and the ruled there did not, and could not, exist that paternal relationship which tied a native monarch to his people. The Hungarian gentry felt this strongly when, after Mohács, they chose a Hungarian king, and unfortunately it was with him that Hungary’s tragic future was to start; for King John I (János Szápolyai) was too weak in every respect to achieve what was expected of him.

  And then there was Transylvania. To contemporary eyes the peculiar situation of that province was not yet clear, except that in the fifteen years of ineffective struggle against the Turks that followed the defeat of Mohács it was accepted that for the time being Transylvania could not be rescued from the Turks.

  The reality of the situation was finally expressed by Friar George in 1542 in the Agreement of Gyalu which postulated, in effect, that direct rule by the king of Hungary would only be accorded when that king should prove stronger than the Turks, but not before.

  This decision showed sound political judgment. The Turkish Empi
re was all-powerful to the east and south, in the Havasaföld and Moldavia, while to the west were the newly conquered lands. Transylvania was thus poised as if between the jaws of a giant pair of pincers, ready to be crushed. Between the kingdom of Hungary and the province there was only a narrow strip of unconquered land along the Erdös Kárpátok (the Carpathian forests), and the only road followed the Upper Tisza and the Lower Szamos rivers. Therefore there was no alternative to autonomy for the province, both for political and geographic reasons. The fact that, despite geographical position and political necessity, it was still possible to build up, however modestly, a flourishing Hungarian way of life, was due to other and deeper reasons.

  At the time of the Arpád kings74 Transylvania had been a separately governed province. More important, however, was the fact that in the hundred years after 1437 a spiritual fusion between the three ethnic groups that constituted the people had grown and developed into a real sense of mutual dependence and self-protection. That this sense of mutual interest and help for each other was only rarely manifested in the first fifty years of Transylvania’s autonomy – and even on occasion briefly deteriorated into mutual hostility – proved nothing, for brothers often have their disagreements. What was important was that the feeling of solidarity – the Zeitgeist, in Freudian terms – was at the very core of Transylvania’s survival as an entity of its own. At this time that part of Hungary under Habsburg rule had no national cohesion at all. The part beyond the Danube was merely a string of border fortresses. In the north it was much the same, while other parts of the country remained under Turkish domination. Only in Transylvania did a living form of national consciousness develop under the sway of a truly national ruler.