The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  Facta and the other Italians did not appear to regard this news in the same tragic light as their foreign minister; but Schanzer was a broken man. In vain did they ply him with champagne and the finest red wine. In vain did his nice wife smile at him and send encouraging signals telling him with her eyes and with waving hands that he should not worry, for this was nothing to fret about! Poor Schanzer just sat in his chair, hair and beard all in disarray, staring in front of him and touching nothing, while his pince-nez kept falling off his nose. He was a pitiful sight. I have never seen a man as broken as he.

  By the time we returned the whole of Genoa was ringing with the news of the Russo-German agreement. Everyone knew it. The agreement had been made with great cunning. While everyone knew that the English, the French and the Americans were all competing for an economic agreement with the Soviets, no one, despite the presence in Genoa of some two thousand eager reporters who watched every move made by all those delegates, had the slightest idea of any discussions between the Russians and the Germans. Neither Wirth nor Rathenau were involved in the negotiations but a certain Baron Maltzan, whom no one had ever seen. The agreement was signed at Santa Margherita; and the reason the Russians rented the Hotel Ferrari in the centre of Genoa may well have been so as to divert everyone’s attention there. According to this agreement, Germany would supply Russia not only with quantities of agricultural and industrial machinery but would also send her engineers and supervisors to build the factories and modernize the mines. It was a tremendous undertaking for Germany, since it was tantamount to taking in hand Russia’s entire economy. It would help to end unemployment in Germany and bring infinite opportunities for German industry. The Soviets would pay in cereals, manufactured goods and raw materials. All the advantages that the English and American capitalists had hoped for now fell into the lap of the Germans with one stroke of a pen.

  The Victorious Powers were deeply shocked.

  Schanzer had been right. The conference broke up.

  Now at last it became clear to everyone that all those slogans about bringing us together to work for peace were little more than a smokescreen to cover the Great Powers’ desire to meet the Russians and find a new market for their wares. And now all that treasure Chicherin had dangled so temptingly was to go towards rebuilding defeated Germany’s industry! The disappointment was shattering.

  It was the end of the conference: and the end too of the Declaration we wanted so much but which was now just another piece of unfinished business. There was no longer any reason to stay on; and everyone left soon after the departure of the Great Powers.

  Almost the only tangible legacy of this first pan-European conference was the album of caricatures I was to publish a year and a half later: nothing else remained.

  When we left Italy every delegate to the conference was accompanied to the frontier by a detective – for our security, they said!

  Mine was a most sympathetic little Italian who hailed from somewhere in the Veneto. When he first presented himself to me he asked how I was going to travel, when, and where? I told him I would stop in Milan so as to go to a performance at La Scala. The following day I would go over to Novara to call on my old friend the Marchese Ferrario. From there I would travel to Venice and so would find myself at the frontier in three days’ time. My detective was filled with joy when he heard my plan, for this meant five days’ special pay for him. He asked if I would expect him to act as my guard all the time. ‘Of course not!’ I replied. Then he revealed what he would like to do. He proposed something beloved of all Italians – ‘Una piccola combinazione’ – ‘a little conspiracy’, by which instead of keeping me under surveillance he would go back to his own part of the country and spend those few free days with his fiancée. ‘Una bella ragazza’ – ‘a beautiful girl’ he said as he produced her photograph. At the frontier he would be there well on time to sign the certificate swearing he had never left my side for an instant.

  And so it was.

  We said our farewells at the frontier. I pressed a generous tip into his palm as we shook hands, and I stepped into my compartment. As the train started my little Italian friend cheered me on my way with a hearty cry of ‘Evviva!’ He was a very nice young man.

  Notes

  112. The translators have a copy of one of these photographs found among the Bánffy papers deposited at the Ráday Institute in Budapest.

  113. This was László Bárdossy, who declared war on the USA on 13 December 1941.

  114. The old imperial Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry in Vienna.

  115. The double sovereignty of the head of the Habsburg house as king of Hungary and emperor of Austria.

  116. Shortly after Bánffy’s return from the Genoa this series of twenty-one coloured caricatures was published in Leipzig under the title Fresques et Frasques. The originals were hung in a special room in Bánffy’s house in Budapest and are now preserved in the Radáy Institute along with what remain of Bánffy’s papers.

  117. He was later given a peerage.

  118. One of Bánffy’s principal tasks had been to obtain the Great Powers’ approval for negotiating a revision of Hungary’s new frontiers as soon after the conference as possible.

  119. In 1848.

  120. As a landowner in Transylvania, Bánffy was able to obtain dual Hungarian and Romanian nationality. This dual nationality was to be of much use to Bánffy when, in 1943, he went to Romania to try and persuade that country to join with Hungary in signing a separate peace with the Allies. These negotiations were to fail because of disagreement over the future of Transylvania.

  121. Bernini’s St Theresa is actually in the left transept and has always been an object of controversy. Even Baedeker referred to it as ‘notorious’. There are altar-pieces by Domenichino, Guercino and Guido Reni, but if Bánffy was near the Bernini it is not surprising that he noticed nothing else.

  Chapter Eight

  It was the beginning of summer when I returned home from Genoa.

  As soon as I was back in the office Kánya, who had deputized for me while I was away, made his reports of what had happened during my absence and what decisions had been taken. I was not able to take charge immediately as I had to spend a week at the Városmajor sanatorium for an urgent but minor operation, and then Professor Manninger only let me go home on condition I did not go out for five or six days afterwards.

  On the morning of my return to my own house there occurred the incident that spoilt forever my relationship with Kánya.

  It was the day when the Serbian ambassador was to have his first audience with Horthy. This was due to take place at eleven o’clock in the morning with all traditional pomp and ceremony. Kánya mentioned this, along with a number of other matters, but failed even to hint that he had decided to waive some of the traditional customs that had always been observed on such occasions. The accepted order of ceremony was that the newly appointed ambassador, in the presence of the foreign minister or his representative, hands over his Letters of Credence to the head of state and pays his respects with a suitable speech to which the head of state replies. After this the ambassador, now fully accredited, presents his suite. According to centuries-old custom, the foreign minister of the host country provides the transport to and from the ambassador’s residence and the palace, and etiquette prescribes that as many cars or carriages needed to seat the entire ambassadorial party comfortably and in a manner suitable to their number and rank will be available. The embassy will previously have let the ministry know what will be needed. The procession takes place with much festivity and ceremony. At one time gilded carriages would have been used, but now cars were sent with a high state dignitary called the ‘Introducteur des Ambassadeurs’ whose presence symbolized the invitation of the ruler and whose duty it also was to escort the ambassador and his suite on the return trip after the audience. We used to entrust this office to István Bárczy, secretary of the prime minister’s office.

  All this would be preceded by an exchange o
f letters between the two countries’ foreign ministries in which the name of the new ambassador was submitted for approval by the host government. This is called the ‘Agrément’ – whether it is asking or receiving approval. The government to which the ambassador is being sent has the right to object when the name is submitted, and, if one is not accepted, another name must be put forward. Agrément is not required for any other members of the embassy staff, such as attachés or secretaries. It is neither expected nor requested; and foreign ministries are expected to send whom they wish without limitation. All junior members of an embassy staff can be changed whenever the ambassador wishes without any formalities. On the other hand, when the ambassador is changed the whole process has to be gone through all over again in all its stages. This is the unwritten rule of diplomatic practice.

  In the case of Yugoslavia, Belgrade acted strictly according to the rules. The name of Mihailovic, who had been Serbian chargé d’affaires in Budapest before the ratification of the peace treaty, was put forward. We gave him the Agrément. They also told us all the names of the junior members of the embassy staff, most of whom had already been some time at their posts.

  In this case, the situation was somewhat unusual in that neither the ambassador nor his staff arrived after the Agrément for the simple reason that they were all there already. This was, of course, one of the effects of our having lost the war, for the Victorious Powers had sent in commissioners without asking for our approval. In this capacity had come in Hohler, Foucher, Castagnetto, and their staffs – and these were all later automatically transformed into diplomatic missions.

  The credentials of the Yugoslav Embassy, as I have already mentioned, were dealt with by Kánya, while I was still in Genoa; but when he made his report he did not reveal that there had been a difference of opinion between himself and the newly appointed ambassador. Instead he let me understand that everything would take place according to the established procedure.

  It was Kánya’s plain duty to inform me that he was planning to depart from the usual practice in such a matter as the presentation of an ambassador’s credentials, because any such deviation was not a simple matter of form but a political act for which the ministry would be held responsible. What Kánya had done was markedly unusual. He had decided that those junior members of the new embassy – secretaries and the younger attachés – who had been Hungarian citizens before 1918 would not now be acceptable as staff members of a foreign embassy in Budapest. He had therefore demanded that any such persons – there were two of them – should be changed. The ambassador objected, arguing that such a demand was contrary to all accepted diplomatic practice. Apparently this disagreement had gone on for some time without a solution being found – but I had been told nothing about it.

  Then arrived the day for the presentation of credentials. The ceremony was due to begin at eleven o’clock. Horthy, my deputy Ambrózy and the standard-bearer, all in full ceremonial dress, were waiting in the palace for the ambassador’s arrival. István Bárczy had left for Pest to collect the ambassador, but Kánya had sent only one car in which there was room only for himself, the ambassador and two members of his staff. Earlier he had sent a message saying that he did not consider former Hungarian citizens, whether of Serbian origin or not, to be acceptable as members of the embassy, and so any such persons should remain at home. Kánya must have imagined that the ambassador, out of respect for the head of state, would find himself obliged to present himself with a reduced suite, and so, by the exercise of this ruse, the question of the disputed attachés would find itself solved. However, the new ambassador told Bárczy that as the Foreign Ministry had not sent the number of cars he had said would be necessary for his staff to be transported to the royal fortress in Buda, he would not be able to present himself to the head of state. He put the whole responsibility for his action on the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and remained adamant, no matter what arguments Bárczy used to persuade him otherwise. One hour after he had been supposed to appear with the ambassador, Bárczy returned empty-handed. The general frustration can only be imagined.

  Lajos Rudnay, my cabinet chief, brought news of this to me at lunchtime. Obviously something had to be done at once to prevent our relations with Yugoslavia becoming poisoned by what had just occurred. The ambassador might well take the insult as directed not against himself but against his country, and unless I was going to be able somehow to put matters right at once, endless complications would ensue which could only end in humiliating apologies from our government. There was no question that Kánya’s action had no lawful justification. We had ratified the Treaty of Trianon, which had specifically stipulated that all ethnic Serbs living in Banat or Bácksa (both former Hungarian provinces) would now become fully-fledged Yugoslav citizens. Given enough ill-will Kánya’s action could easily be interpreted as denial of the treaty’s validity by the Hungarian foreign office. It was therefore vitally important that I should speak to the ambassador as quickly as possible so as to make sure that when he made his report to Belgrade he could truthfully say that this delicate affair had been settled to his entire satisfaction.

  Accordingly, although I was still convalescent, I sent Rudnay to the ambassador saying I would like to see him at once.

  Early that afternoon he arrived. We settled the matter without delay, as soon as I had explained that I had had absolutely no knowledge of Kánya’s action and that I deeply regretted that my illness had prevented my handling the matter myself.

  My proposal was as follows:

  As soon as I was on my feet again I would myself arrange the presentation of credentials to Horthy, to whom I would have already made suitable excuses to prevent his taking offence at the failure to accept his first invitation. As to the question of those attachés who were formerly Hungarian subjects, I too agreed that their appointment was undesirable as it might create the sort of resentment which could be harmful to the amicable relations we were all striving to achieve. I proposed therefore that the gentlemen in question should indeed be presented to the head of state as members of the ambassador’s staff, but that immediately afterwards they should return to Yugoslavia and be replaced by others who hailed from the old kingdom of Serbia. As to the future, it was agreed that Belgrade would only send us persons to whose antecedents we could take no possible objection.

  The ambassador accepted these proposals, and so this trivial but potentially inflammatory matter was resolved.

  About a week later I did indeed direct the ceremony of presenting the ambassador’s credentials. One of the two attachés left Budapest at once, and the other shortly afterwards.

  This incident shows how even such a personal matter can be smoothed over with goodwill and good manners, despite the lack of an internationally recognized precedent. Of course Kánya could perfectly well have dealt with the matter by telling Mihailovic that he could not give the Agrément until the two attachés we considered undesirable had been withdrawn from Budapest. But to give the Agrément and then make conditions when it was too late and only to send one car as if the conditions had been agreed and imagine the ambassador would swallow the insult made no sense to me and is hard to understand.

  It can only be explained if one is familiar with the ingrained arrogance of those who served the Ballplatz. Their noses were rubbed in it from the day they started as junior clerks. Maybe it was foolish, when a diplomat’s job must surely always be to smooth things over, but then in earlier days, when the monarchy was still a great power, she could afford the luxury of being rude to those she considered beneath her. It may have been unreasonable and certainly was expensive, but this was the Ballplatz in the old days. For us to maintain this arrogant tone was, to say the least, harmful. Kánya, of course, had become accustomed to acting in his way when, as a young employee of the Austrian consular service, he had found himself lording it over some small town in the Balkans when the Austro-Hungarian consul stood sky-high on the social scale. Kánya never lost this Viennese arrogance, which had re
mained unchanged since the days of Metternich; and, following the Ballplatz tradition, never lost his disdain not only for all inhabitants of the Balkans but also for the Italians. He loathed the northern Germans, held the French to be unreliable and reckless (as many had thought after Sedan); and his contempt was not affected by the fact that Italy had become accepted as a Great Power, that since the Balkan war and, later, the Versailles treaty, both the Greek and Serb kingdoms were no longer mere pawns on the board; while through their own efforts Romania and the new Yugoslavia, which included Serbia, were even now emerging as powers in their own right. Even France, after years of hard struggle, was only now educating her sons with a realistic ideology. Of course, Kánya could not have failed to see all this, but he was too emotionally involved in the old attitudes to understand what it all meant. He was firmly, if perhaps unconsciously, stuck in the belief that all this was temporary and should not be taken seriously as it would not last. As a result he was apt to overestimate the difficulties now being encountered by the new states, to exaggerate the dissatisfaction of the Croats, the Slovaks, of the Ruthenians and, as a result, to take pleasure in personally being in contact with frequently dubious and shady unofficial envoys from our new neighbours.

  All this formed one aspect of his odd mentality. However, since there is usually more than one reason for our actions, it cannot explain everything. Kánya’s character was such that he took pleasure in annoying or humiliating people. I will mention just one example as proof of what I have said. I once went to see him many years later, and he then told me in a fit of uncontrollable pleasure how he had so enraged the German ambassador that the poor man had almost broken down in his office – and this was in peacetime, when Germany had once more become a power to be feared! His reason for doing such a thing can only be understood or explained if one takes it as a form of mental sadism. It was significant that he could never tolerate anyone near him whom he could not bully or kick around like a court jester.