The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  Castagnetto’s eyes glinted, and I could see at once that he knew very well that I had mentioned this so as to flatter the vanity of his family. Then he laughed.

  ‘Oh yes, it is true,’ he said. ‘But my family has a memory even more illustrious than that. Another of my forebears was raped by Cesare Borgia!’

  And in this way he showed me that he was not to be influenced by an appeal to family pride. In the matter of the date for evacuating the Burgenland I turned first to Hohler. Even if he had not then been the ambassador with most influence and if I had not been so impressed by his strength of character, I would still have turned first to the English.

  Italy did not normally have much to say in the Council of the Ambassadors, while France usually took the side of Yugoslavia. Not, however, the English who had never had much sympathy for the Serbs.

  The only argument I could use in trying to prevent the simultaneous evacuation of the Burgenland and the handing back of Baranya was what I knew about the way the Serbs had already made use of their occupation of our territory. As I have previously mentioned, the Serbs had done everything they could to have the whole of Baranya proclaimed an independent republic. Lindner, who had been Károlyi’s defence minister, was then in Pécs for this very reason, doing his best to stir up support for this project principally among the miners of the region. Whether he would have any success we did not at this time have any idea, because who can tell what effect propaganda posters will have? One can find desperate men who can be persuaded to treason everywhere. Another important factor was that all around Szabadka had been stationed an entire Serb battalion, thus giving rise to the suspicion that the Serbs were again planning to use the army to gain their ends, and that Lindner’s republic would be proclaimed and then defended by force of arms. This idea was strengthened by confidential reports from the region telling us that some Serbian officials had let it be known that they did not intend to move from where they were.

  This all added up to a most convincing picture; and this is what I used in my approach to Hohler.

  I explained what dangers lay in simultaneous evacuation: namely that if, when we had evacuated the first or even the second zone of the Burgenland, the Serbs raised some objections and did not quit our part of Baranya, we would be faced by a fait accompli, for by the time telegrams could arrive it would be too late to do anything about it. Hungarian public opinion would never stand for our having given away the Burgenland and gained nothing in return. This would be a national catastrophe, and the government would inevitably fall. There would then be endless diplomatic protests and, taking into account the warlike disposition of the Serbs, it was likely that they would resort to arms before giving up Baranya. And as they were already be in possession of that southern province, who would come forward to drive them out by force? The Great Powers? Could one really imagine that any one of the Great Powers would mobilize against Serbia when peace had only so recently been restored, especially on such a trivial matter as who controlled tiny Baranya?

  As I am sure my readers will understand, everything I said was true and in no way exaggerated. It is always a mistake to think one must lie in diplomacy. It is one of the diplomat’s fundamental rules that, although there may be things than can remain unsaid, what is said must be the truth. Always tell the truth. Lies are stupid and often harmful, for sooner or later one is found out and then one has lost all credibility forever. Lying is also bad because it can only be convincing if he who does it is himself convinced he is telling the truth. That we also had other reasons for wishing to do away with the simultaneous evacuations I did not say; but what I did say was utterly truthful and backed up by fact.

  After presenting my point of view I asked the British ambassador if he would be able to get the Council of Ambassadors to arrange that the Serbian withdrawal would start at least one day earlier than ours. This would mean that we would already be in possession of the first zone in the south when we handed over the first zone in the west. In this way we would be sure, when we left the second zone of the Burgenland that we would also get the second zone of Baranya.

  I shall never know if Hohler read carefully through the whole bundle of data which I had had translated into French for him, but I am sure that he had also had similar information from British Intelligence which was always remarkably well-informed and seemed to have observers everywhere.

  At any rate he promised to put forward what we asked.

  If I remember correctly, it was at the end of July that we heard from Paris that the Council of Ambassadors had accepted our point of view. This gladdened my heart, and I thanked Hohler most warmly. This at least saved us from the worst we might have feared if the Serbs were to prove unreliable, while it left the way open for the Hungarian government perhaps to rescue something of the Burgenland.

  It had been arranged that the Burgenland was to be evacuated in three phases, while Baranya was to be completed only in two, so that if the Serbs started to move out a day earlier than we did, we should be in full possession of our part of Baranya when we had only just started our first phase of withdrawal. This decision gave us the opportunity to plan how we might be able to save Sopron at least and with it the old natural Austro-Hungarian border, which the Trianon terms had so cruelly and senselessly wrenched from us.

  In the succeeding weeks it gradually became clear that there would not after all be any difficulty in the return of Baranya. The Serbian army was still armed to the teeth in the country round Pécs and Szabadka; but Lindner’s propaganda had failed, and the inhabitants of Baranya awaited their return to Hungarian jurisdiction with such evident joy that we no longer had any qualms about the matter.

  This meant that we could concentrate all our efforts on the Burgenland.

  We had several different ideas as how best to proceed. The most realistic seemed to be that we should take up one of the other points of the Trianon agreement, namely that as a consequence of the dissolution of the monarchy Austria and Hungary should divide the Habsburg properties between the two states. Amongst other things this meant that Vienna should send back to us that part of the imperial collection of art treasures that had originally come from Hungary. We had already asked the Austrian government to honour these treaty terms, but had met only with delays and evasions, both as regards the general property and also the imperial art treasures. One possibility therefore was to declare that the second and third zones of the Burgenland would be retained by us until such times as we received a satisfactory answer to our just demands concerning the Habsburg properties.

  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 Nations86.

  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 Sigray87, 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.’