The Fate of Western Hungary 1918-1921 - Corvinus Library ...

justifiably cite the old saying: “Only lions have friends, not crawling bugs.” 405
As a matter of fact, the Prónay rebels operating in the central and southern part
of the Borderland regularly checked the identity papers of the Entente officers,
mostly French and British, passing through areas controlled by them. No
special complications arose from them.
With the raid on Pándorfalu, the clashes began in Moson County, too, that
ended on September 29, between the Héjjas rebels and the Austrian units
attempting to take possession of the Lake Fertő area. During this time, Lt.Gen.
Hegedűs, accompanied by an Italian and a French officer, called on Héjjas in
Pándorfalu to convince him to leave the area, which he refused to do. Gyula
Gömbös telegraphed Héjjas to withdraw immediately from Moson County, also
without results. In fact, the rebel commander kept getting newer and newer
reinforcements, even having the Magyaróvár rebels join him under the
command of Col. István Inzelt [in some sources Inselt-J.B.]. 406 Thus was the 4 th
Rebel Army born, under the command of Iván Héjjas.
In the dawn hours of September 24, units of the Héjjas brigade attacked the
guards of the bridges over the Lajta River [the traditional boundary between
Hungary and Austria-ed.] at Királyhida, as well as the Austrian battalion
stationed in the village’s military encampment. The soldiers fled to the other
side of the river and Lajta Canal in panic, to Austrian territory. The routed
occupation force was reinforced in the afternoon with a bicycle-mounted
battalion and an infantry company and were able to retake only the railway
station and the park around the castle from the rebels, who retreated to
Pándorfalu with a significant amount of arms and ammunition. The surrounding
high-ground was continued to be held by the Héjjas rebels. In fact, on the
“march home” that afternoon, they took the center of Nezsider district. After
the clash in Királyhida, the Austrians blockaded the railway at #159 watchstation
and arrested 60 railway workers, including the station master, on the
charge of having provided armed aid during the night to the rebels. They were
taken to an internment camp north of Vienna, to Niederhollabrunn, and only
released after the signing of the Venice Protocol on October 13.
The units of the 4 th Rebel Army, led by Iván Héjjas, completed successful
engagements against the Austrian occupiers in the closing days of September,
who were substantially halted and forced back, capturing village after village
from them. Thus, a sector of the historical Hungarian-Austrian border, formed
by the chain of the Lajta Mountains, came under the control of the Héjjas force,
along with the area northwest of Lake Fertő. They carried out raids from their
headquarters in Pándorfalu to far flung settlements in Moson County, to
Mosonújfalu, Nemesvölgy, Köpcsény, even as far as Pozsonyligetfalu. In this
last village, they attacked a Czechoslovak patrol and forced it to turn tail. As
405 Héjjas, 1929, op. cit., pp. 63, 71-73.
406 Fogarassy, László: A nyugat-magyarországi kérdés katonai története. III. rész. 1921.
szeptember–november [The military history of the western Hungarian question. Part III,
1921 September-November]. In: Soproni Szemle, 1972, issue 2, p. 123.
154