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

expected. Thus, he asked Bethlen to issue instruction regarding their situation
and have jobs found for them. The military command group led by him, he
went on, “having completed its special mission,” will be transferred to Group
III of the Defense Ministry beginning November 7, 1921 and “will no longer be
able to influence the remedy of the rebels’ requests.” 444
Smaller groups still lingered in the former Lajta-Banate. The free-troop unit
recruited from around Sárvár, based in the villages of Királyfalva and Ercsenye
in the Szentgotthárd district, only marched out of the area ceded to Austria on
November 6. In fact, a squad of Hungarian gendarmes from Szombathely were
ordered to Felsőőr and Szentelek on the 16 th to expel a 1 st Lt. Sala and a few of
his rebels. Rebel units were disarmed by units of the regular Hungarian army.
Collection camps were set up for those disarmed and held 525 in Magyaróvár,
600 in Kapuvár, 800 in Szombathely and 200 in Körmend, for a total of 2,125.
However, only 1,400 weapons were collected from them. The rest, according to
the rebels, were left with Hungarian-friendly locals in Burgenland for
safekeeping for a possible second insurrection. In his diary, Prónay admitted
that most of the missing weapons were hidden in Szombathely by an Oszkár
Renner on his secret instruction. 445 (At the time of the insurrection, Renner was
the director of the Lajta-Banate Railways. Later, Prónay awarder him the silver
Lajta-Banate Commemorative Medal – number 18, as listed in his diary.)
The report quoted above clearly illustrates that the Hungarian government
made strenuous efforts to look after the demobilized Western Hungary rebels
who were without a livelihood. The director of the State Employment Agency
in Budapest informed the PM’s office on December 24 that, of the 72 former
rebels sent to it, jobs were found for 32, 38 cases were closed due to the
applicant not showing up in the office and were searching for jobs for 2. The
work found for the 32 consisted of: 25 factory jobs or casual labor, 2 servants, 2
horse grooms and 3 coachmen. 446
Although the Venice Agreement decided in favor of Hungary, more could
have been achieved with a little cleverer diplomacy. Among the Hungarian
delegates – according to the rebels – several made criminal omissions. 447
According to the rebels, if not the entire annexed territory of Western Hungary
but much more of it could have been retained. Their view is supported, in large
part, by the speech made by former Chief Commissioner Sigray on “The
Western Hungary resistance” in front the National Assembly on January 19,
1922. We quote: “We lost Western Hungary when the Foreign Ministry, after
the exit of the Teleki government [April 13, 1921-J.B.], took a position of
territorial concession and, having begun to make concessions, began to
negotiate downwards, point by point. (…) While the [Bethlen] government bid
downwards in the matter of the handover of Western Hungary areas, the people,
444 MOL K 26. 1264. csomó. 1921–XLII–9394. szám, p. 3.
445 Prónay, 1986, op. cit., p. 320.
446 MOL. K 26. 1921–XLII–9394. sz., p. 2.
447 Ádám T., 1939, op. cit., p. 76.
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