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

Schober stated that “We are not in a position to relinquish Sopron.” 489
The agreements for handover of the annexed Western Hungary region –
with the exception of Sopron and vicinity – were signed in the borough centers
on December 2 by the Austrian military commanders and the Entente
representatives. According to their summary, the Entente generals deemed the
Hungarian area awarded to Austria to have been vacated on December 3 and
called on the Austrian delegates to sign the memorandum of handover. With
that, every obstacle was removed from the holding of the plebiscite.
Afterwards, the military administration handed the occupied area over to Robert
Davy, the first governor of Austria’s newly-conquered territory. In Paris, the
Council of Ambassadors decided – fulfilling a request by Vienna – to send
Entente military units to the affected area. They arrived on December 8 and
Hungarian military units withdrew from there on the 12 th . The Entente generals
in Sopron posted December 14 as the referendum date in Sopron, December 16
for the eight villages in the vicinity: Ágfalva, Balf, Fertőboz, Fertőrákos, Harka,
Kópháza, Nagycenk, and Sopronbánfalva. 490
What were Hungary’s chances? Before the Venice talks, Frigyes Villani and
Mihály Thurner, mayor of Sopron, responded to the query of the Hungarian
government: the referendum will be a success for Hungary if the voting areas
will be narrowly defined so that in them Hungarians, and Hungarian educated
German middle class, will hold the majority of the votes. According to Villani,
working with the Entente Mission in Sopron as the Hungarian government’s
representative, because of the atmosphere of the affected population, the
expected outcome of the voting raised “the most serious unease.” He felt that
the reasons for it were: certain Hungarian directives restricted trade and border
traffic, and curbed the use of the German language. The ‘excesses’ of the rebels
exacerbated the general sense of the people, the troublesome military and
public administrative acts. And not the least that the masses blamed the
Hungarian government for the responsibility of the post-war troubles and
privations. 491
Before the referendum, the Entente generals officially forbade all acts of
opinion influencing but the Austrians ignored it. Shortly after the signing of the
Venice Protocol, the Oedenburger Heimatdienst (Sopron Home Service)
organization was created in the middle of October, which had as its main goal
the mobilization in the city on the side of Austria. Among its founders was Dr.
Alfred Wallheim, university professor in Vienna, according to tradition, the
inventor of the Burgenland name and its fourth governor. Some others were
Josef Rauhofer, court councilor and living in Nagymarton, Pál Eitler, teacher in
489 Vasvármegye, 1921, December 1, p. 1.
490 Népszavazási Emlékalbum (1934): Gévay-Wolff Lajos, Sopron vármegye alispánja,
pp. 13–16, Thurner Mihály, Sopron polgármestere, pp. 17–25, Traeger (sic!) Ernő, pp.
26–30, Parragi, György, pp 59–65, Schulz Ferenc, pp. 66–70. Also, Sopron and …,
1934, op. cit.: Sopronyi-Thurner Mihály, pp. 38–43, 71–74; Krug, 1930, op. cit., pp.
31–58, Missuray-Krúg Lajos, op. cit., pp. 43–52.
491 Villani, 1923, op. cit., pp. 14–15.
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