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

accompanied by an Austrian military escort, was sent to the border crossing
railway station of Wiener Neustadt, from there on to Lajtaújfalu and the county
seat, Nagymarton. At the same time, it tried to fulfill another goal: to acquire
(rob) foodstuffs for the starving capital, Vienna, and its surrounding Austrian
population. The reason for this was that the people of Vienna and of the
surrounding industrial zone have, for decades past, took it as natural that
Hungarian agricultural produce would be available to them. They “visited the
weekly farmers markets in Sopron and took home whatever struck their fancy.
This now [due to the declaration of an independent Hungary] ceased, the
[Hungarian] border guards ruthlessly confiscated all foods, contributing to the
spread of anti-Hungarian hatred among Austrians, but especially among
Hungarian citizens living in Vienna and their relatives in Hungary. Thus, the
agitation found fertile soil on both sides of the border. They voiced nationalistic
slogans but thought of their stomachs. Official circles viewed with dismay that
the feeding of Austria was impossible without Hungary and, as an independent
country – no longer an Austrian dependency – they tried to appropriate a
portion [of western Hungary] to feed Vienna. 33
On the morning of December 5, an Austrian military truck pulled into the
Hungarian border settlement of Lajtaújfalu, beside the Sopron-Vienna railway
tracks. On it were eight non-coms under the command of Lt. Franz Temmer,
formerly a schoolteacher in Wiener Neustadt. The intruders cut the telephone
wires, disarmed the border guards and surrounded the barracks of the
gendarmerie. However, the Hungarian railway security detail attacked them
and, after a short firefight, captured the Austrian unit and their equipment. This
prevented them from handing out the 300 Mannlicher (5-shot) repeating rifles
and large amount of ammunition on the truck earmarked for the Austrian
workers who were hurrying on foot to Lajtaújfalu. 34 The lieutenant and his
followers were arrested. At the Sopron police station, Temmer made a
statement that Captain Mühlhofer, commander of the Wiener Neustadt Home
Guard, ordered the occupation of Lajtaújfalu. The event stirred up a lot of dust.
The Austrian authorities offered in their defense that the illegal incursion into
Hungarian territory was the act of an overzealous army officer.
However, the fact is that, on the same December 5, messengers appeared in
the German-speaking settlements of Sopron County, handing out the pamphlets
of the Viennese Westungarische Kanzlei. The flyers informed the residents that
on the same afternoon, the independent Heanzenland Republic will be
proclaimed in Sopron to unite all the German populated areas of Westungarn.
Although such an event did not occur, the evening editions of Viennese
newspapers carried the official announcement of the Westungarische Kanzlei. It
stated that the representatives of the German settlements of Western Hungary
33 Ibid.
34 Fogarassy, László: A nyugat-magyarországi kérdés katonai története [The military
history of the Western Hungary question]. Part I. 1918, December – 1921, August. In:
Soproni Szemle, Year XXV, 1971, issue 4, p. 291.
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