The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  It was also obvious that Sigray and Lehár knew all about the king’s plans from the start, which is why they had spoken in so equivocal a manner on 16 October, when we had been discussing the Venice agreement. This would explain why Sigray had been so reluctant to give his word to carry out what he had just accepted to do.

  This also explained why Gustáv Gratz had tried to get out of representing Hungary at Portorosa, and why he had lingered in Vienna for no apparent reason.

  It was therefore futile for them to argue that everything that had happened was mere chance. Such perfect collusion and coordination are never by chance. These men all acted to a preconceived plan in which their roles had already been determined. The only thing they never considered was that this plan could be the ruin of their country.

  That this did not happen was no thanks to them.

  On Saturday morning we held a council meeting at Horthy’s residence. We decided we must resist. At midday the ambassadors of the Great Powers came to see me and handed over an ultimatum that declared they would never tolerate the return of King Karl and that, if we allowed him to remain on Hungarian soil, this would mean armed intervention and the occupation of our country.

  I told them at once of our government’s determination to stand firm and let them know that we would do everything in our power to make the king leave. I told them all that we then knew about the situation.

  We had learned that Karl had left Sopron bound for Budapest that morning. He was accompanied not only by his new ministers and his court, but also by an armed force of two to three thousand and some artillerymen. This therefore became a case of open armed revolt on the part of the newly recruited troops who had given their oath of allegiance to the new constitution, and we had decided to treat it as such. If necessary, we would meet force with force, but first we had decided to try to ward off the danger by persuasion. Accordingly, we despatched József Vass, the minister of education, to meet the advancing king. He seemed an appropriate choice since, as he was a Catholic priest, we hoped he would have some influence upon Karl, and especially upon Queen Zita. According to the news we had received, the railway trains carrying the rebellion towards Budapest were travelling remarkably slowly. We hoped, therefore, that Vass would meet them somewhere near Györ. We did not then know that we had sent our envoy in vain, for Karl refused to receive him, and instead Vass found himself locked into a small compartment on the train.

  Soon after midday consuls of the three neighbouring states – Czechoslovakia, Serbia and Romania – arrived. This was their first collective action, the first symptom of what, after the king’s putsch and because of it, came to be called the ‘Little Entente’.

  They were also full of menaces and gave us an ultimatum to get rid of the king. I told them that I had already given our reply to the representatives of the Great Powers – which pleased them – but that we considered the problem of the king to be an internal affair which we were disinclined to discuss with anyone except the Council of the Great Powers which, as guarantors of the peace treaty, was the only body qualified to deal with the matter.

  I do not want to go into the details of everything that passed that day – indeed, I don’t think I could – but I will try to convey its essence and that of which I still have vivid recollection.

  That afternoon I went to see the prime minister and asked what he had heard, where were the insurgents, and was there any news of Vass?

  Bethlen replied that the king had left Sopron in three trains, in the front two of which were the armed troops and in the last he himself and the entourage. They were still somewhere between Györ and Komárom, travelling very slowly because they stopped at every station and made addresses to the people. They had started late from Sopron because the king had attended an open-air mass on the platform and had then inspected a guard of honour and went through every little trick of royal protocol due to a Habsburg. This delay was obviously to our advantage as it gave us more time to organize our resistance. General Koós102 was called back from Pécs by Horthy because there were hardly any troops in Budapest itself. Pál Nagy, the army chief, had collected every soldier he could find, but they were very few. There was talk of enlisting the university students, and it was possible that by the following day we might have enough men to offer some resistance but certainly not before then. Consequently, we sent Siménfalvy with a team of railway workers to take up the line at several places so as to slow the insurgents’ advance. ‘I do not want to agree to any further damage to the railway system, any blasting of tunnels or blowing up of bridges, as that would do enormous harm and would be far too expensive to repair later,’ said Bethlen. Now it was already getting dark. The direct line on his desk started to ring, and Bethlen walked over and picked up the receiver. He only spoke for a minute or two, and all I heard were the words ‘I will do whatever is my duty to the country!’ Then the caller evidently said something more, and Bethlen replaced the receiver. He was smiling.

  ‘Do you know who that was? Rakovszky. And do you know what he said? He said that he will not negotiate with us, and that if we do not resign at once he’ll hang the lot of us!’

  We did not, of course, take much notice of the hanging threat, although knowing him we knew he was quite capable of stringing us all up. Still the threat was timely, for it reminded us of what would happen to us if our resistance failed. We two, the head of the government and his minister for foreign affairs, would most surely be arrested and flung into prison: Bethlen because he had ordered the resistance and myself because I had agreed to the ultimatum of the Great Powers. Bethlen said he would remain in the prime minister’s office, and we agreed that I should go over to the French Embassy, which was just across the road from my apartment, as it was vital that at least one of us should stay free so as to be able to act if confusion were to overcome the country. It seemed that this should be me who might be most effective since I was on good terms with the Allied ambassadors.

  This is how we parted that evening.

  I called upon Ambassador Foucher, who declared himself most flattered and said that he would cover me with the Tricolour to make sure I was well protected. He at once gave the necessary orders, and that evening I brought over a change of clothes and linen, some few personal objects … and, of course, quantities of cigarettes.

  Early the next morning I was woken by my old valet, András Szabó, with the news that the people in the market were saying that there had been some fighting at Budaörs103. I dressed hurriedly and went at once up to the Royal Palace.

  The prime minister was with Horthy, so I went to join them. I found them in one of the halls on the first floor sitting at a long table was covered with maps. Pál Nagy, who commanded the army, was with them, as were one or two officers of the General Staff. Near the entrance on the other side of the hall stood Horthy’s chef de cabinet, Albert Bartha, leaning against the wall. He was a pitiful sight, very pale with eyes almost closed, and his expression was one not of fear but of bottomless misery and despair.

  I stepped up to the table. Pál Nagy was making his report. He said that we now had enough troops at Budaörs, but that the soldiers were reluctant to use their weapons. The infantry had fired a few shots, but our defence would crumble at once if the other side opened fire. Having said this, he left to return to the silent firing line.

  Horthy was very calm and resolute. I never saw him as calm as he was then. He was a good soldier: there was no doubt about it. This is how he must have been at the battle of Otranto when, already wounded, he drew the fire of the entire Italian and English fleets on his flagship, the Navarra, so as to give time for his own weaker fleet to get away. Bethlen was the same as he always was: cool and matter-of-fact. They were now discussing which general to send over to talk to the rebellious troops and explain to them that by acting as they did they were forswearing their given oaths. They were all volunteers, recently recruited, and they had made their oath of allegiance to Horthy. The officer to be chosen should also try to conta
ct the king and offer him a ceasefire so as to put a stop to this fratricidal struggle while negotiations took place.

  It took a long time to decide upon a name, a long time even to think of someone suitable. What was his name? I can no longer remember, but it does not matter. Considering the wretched part he played it is better it should not be remembered. He was a strutting military type, with tremendous moustaches and swelling chest, who stamped his feet and walked about with much sword clattering, as if he thought this necessary in a soldier. He agreed to everything, everything! Many times he swore eternal fidelity to Horthy, and then he left, stamping his feet as before. For continuity’s sake, I must mention here that he betrayed everyone. What happened to him on the other side I do not know, neither am I sure that he was not all the time secretly in touch with the royalist group.

  All I know for certain is that he came back that afternoon to report that his mission had been a failure and that he was now a captive, a prisoner of war, and that he had been allowed to return on his word of honour merely give us King Karl’s message that anyone who took up arms against him would be executed. This message he delivered and then drove away, with the lie upon his lips that he was returning to captivity. However, not only was he not a prisoner but, as the highest ranking officer present, had been put in command of the rebellious troops, and it was he who ordered them to scale the heights of the Budaörs Hills where our defences had been posted.

  We only learned about this man’s falsity sometime that evening, and the details on the following day. About noon I went over to the British Embassy in Tárnok utca. Loud cannon fire could be heard. Hohler received me in his bedroom, I do not now remember why: perhaps he had a cold. As a dressing gown, he wore a long brown kimono he had brought from Japan. We sat in the corner near the window in two small armchairs, a coffee table between us. I told him all I knew about this deeply worrying situation, and how we had tried to bring about a ceasefire. Hohler offered the protection of England, and suggested I should move in with him, but of course I could not accept this as I had already had the same offer from Foucher. We talked for a long time about what promised to be a most dismal future.

  Then a most strange thing happened. In the middle of the rather dark room I saw a grey cat. It looked at us. ‘Is that your cat?’ I asked Hohler. ‘I don’t have a cat. No one in this house has a cat. I can’t understand how it got here,’ he said; for he too had seen it when I had. We both got up. The cat had disappeared the moment we started talking about it. I had seen it dart under the bed, so we looked there for it. It was not there. Hohler, like many Englishmen, was superstitious and was determined that it should be found at once. I too became caught up in the excitement of the search. Passionately we looked everywhere, behind sofas and chests of drawers; we crouched down and even lay on the floor; we pulled the bed from the wall and soon the room was in chaos; but the cat was nowhere to be seen. The door had been closed, and so had the windows. It could not have left the room, and yet it was not there: just not there. We had to abandon the search.

  If I had been superstitious I might have taken this for a fatal omen, coming just after I had just been threatened with hanging. As it was, although I did not believe in such things, all sorts of similar stories came to mind. It is true that in these cases the cats are usually black, as messengers of death should be, whereas ours had been grey. I could see that Hohler was thinking the same thing and was convinced it was for me. The shade of the ghostly cat hung over us, as we parted for, when Hohler pressed my hand with unusual vigour, it was as if he never again expected to see me alive.

  Luckily, I was never harmed: then or later. If I had been the story of the cat would have been repeated everywhere, and a superstitious world would have discussed it for decades to come; all the more so as Hohler, as soon as I had left, called his staff together and searched the whole place in vain. The grey cat was never seen again, just as it had never been seen before.

  That afternoon there were renewed sounds of artillery fire – and then silence. At any moment we expected Lehár’s attacking troops to appear from somewhere by the Farkasrét104 or from under the Gellert Hill and – behind them, of course – King Karl, wreathed as always in smiles.

  So, obviously, did others, as was proved by the presence along the Hunyadi János Road and at the corner of Disz Square of numerous small groups of giggling girls and swaggering young men, all dressed in their best. They were hoping to see King Karl’s victorious soldiers marching into the city, and they wanted to be the first to do so, as if to symbolize the cheering crowds to come. There were two or three more little groups at the turn in the road and higher up at the Lonyai Villa and at the beginning of Várszinház Street (named after the Palace Theatre). In fact, they were everywhere, which we took as a sign that everything would be settled quickly and not in our favour.

  However, nothing happened until nightfall.

  When I had finished my work at the Foreign Ministry I went home. I was just about to go to bed when, at eleven o’clock, the telephone rang and I was summoned to go immediately to see the Regent. I had already sent away my official car and so had to find a taxi, which took some time, before I could hurry away up to the Royal Palace.

  Horthy and Bethlen were there, waiting for me. They quickly told me what had happened.

  During the afternoon Lehár’s troops had started their attack. Ours, mostly newly recruited young university students, faced them boldly. Some were in uniform but the majority, poor fellows, were still in civilian clothes with tricolour armbands on their sleeves. Unfortunately eleven of them were killed. Then a most unexpected thing happened. From the armbands, and from what several of our boys had said, Lehár’s gendarmes discovered that they had been ordered to fight with a lie. Their superiors had told them that a Bolshevist revolution had broken out in Budapest, and that it was this they had to fight. When they learned from their prisoners that this was not true and that they had been used without their knowledge to attack Horthy, they were dismayed, refused all further obedience to Lehár and melted away.

  The result was that King Karl sent us a message saying that he was ready to surrender and asking that we should send envoys to him with our conditions and inform him what we would do to ensure his safety.

  This was one of those extraordinary turnarounds, of which those stormy days were to prove so rich.

  And here too, as so often in life, the drama had its comic moments.

  At the palace we decided to send Kálmán Kánya as our principal envoy, accompanied, as we might well need a legal specialist, by Térfy105 who was not only our minister of food but also a most eminent jurist.

  Khuen-Héderváry and I went to rouse Kánya from his bed. This was a not unamusing incident, although it went off smoothly enough. We took him up to the palace and went in search of Térfy. He lived in a little two-storey house in Kaszino Street between Uri Street and the Bastion. A small door leading to the courtyard was open, so without more ado we went in and up to the flat where Térfy lived. We rang the bell. After ringing several times, which did not surprise us, as by now it was after midnight and everybody was no doubt already asleep, a maidservant came to the door. Then she opened a barred window just a crack and asked what we wanted. We told her we were looking for her master, that we wanted him to come with us at once and that it was urgent. We also gave her our names, but by this time she had slammed the window shut and run away, leaving us outside in the dark.

  In a few moments we could see through the bars of the window that a light had gone on inside. With faint rays of light streaming towards us through the keyhole and under the door we imagined it would not now be long before they let us in. But no! No one came, and we had to go on waiting. Inside there seemed to be much activity. Sometimes the wench would race across the room and then disappear through some internal door before again coming into view, carrying some sort of small trunk or large parcel. She came and she went, and now there was more light – still not in the entrance hall but elsewhere
in the apartment. We could see more activity through the open doors of adjoining rooms – but still no one came to the door even though we rang and rang with increasing energy.

  Finally, after about twenty minutes’ wait the entrance hall light went on again and Térfy himself opened the door.

  ‘What?’ he cried out in astonishment, as we went in. ‘You? What a surprise! What a wonderful surprise!’ Then we learned why he had kept us waiting so long. He had been arrested twice before, once at the time of the Communists and then again by the Romanians in Debrecen. Both times it had been at night, and both times he had been caught unprepared and so could take nothing with him to the prison. He had then decided that from that time on he would never go without a bag containing a change of clothes, food and some books to read; also that before leaving he would have a wash and a shave. Accordingly, as it seemed all too probable that he would again be arrested, he had instructed the maid that she was not to open the door if someone came for him in the night. The girl had received a nasty fright when we appeared but had not heard our names as she had rushed off to her master crying: ‘They’re here! They’re here!’