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

the voting stations, while attempting to prevent Austrian-friendly persons from
reaching the ballot boxes. 502 The veracity of his assertions can be realistically
questioned since, on the day of the voting, Miltschinsky was not in the city; the
Austrian government, as noted earlier, had ordered its scrutineers home from
Sopron two days earlier.
With regard to the previous assertions, we must add: “Those of the “great
fraud” opinion forget to mention that an international committee, comprised of
British, French and Italians, worked out the rules and organization of the
plebiscite. It was accepted by both Austria and Hungary prior to the voting. The
international committee reviewed every question and report, making necessary
corrections. During the plebiscite, international troops occupied and supervised
the area. Both sides were able to propagandize in a controlled manner. The
international committee expelled from the area Austrian propagandists in the
last days before the referendum for impermissible, harsh propaganda. Austria
only began to debate the previously accepted rules when the expected plebiscite
results began to take shape against their expectation. (…) The decisive factor in
the plebiscite was that, amidst the crises of the day, the Austrian population was
faced with an uncertain future at the time, while Hungary’s change in
government direction took place earlier, liberalization had begun and with it
economic growth. (…) The population of annexed Western Hungary did not
wish to live in an independent province. Due to the Austrian situation of
political and economic crisis, a portion of them wanted union with Lower
Austria or Styria, while another portion wanted to return to Hungary.” 503
The withdrawal of Austria from the plebiscite process “could not have
altered the outcome at the last minute, since there was no presence of
Hungarian power in the territory and order was entirely upheld by the units of
the Entente (…) in all likelihood, a greater significance can be attached to the
fact that the German-speaking or German–origin population of Sopron had no
intrinsic ties to Austria. As with most city dwellers today, strong linguistic and
cultural assimilation was the norm. The villages surrounding Sopron had
sizable Hungarian blocs, also, partly, it was not in their interest to be separated
from the city with which they were affiliated. (…) The foreign observers saw
that, during the days of the referendum, total calm prevailed in Sopron and the
surrounding villages. No disturbances took place and the Entente generals acted
with complete meticulous strictness and impartiality. We can assume that their
instructions did not transgress the bounds of objective practices and their
reports bear evidence that, deep in their hearts, they all felt certain sympathy for
the Hungarians in this difficult question. By then, they were very cognizant of
the difficult circumstances that the Peace Treaty had dealt to the country. They
were also aware that the former world war ‘accomplice,’ Austria, still received
502 Miltschinsky, 1922, op. cit., pp. 97–100.
503 Szeberényi, András: Előszó [Prologue]. In: Zsiga, Tibor: Burgenland, vagy Nyugat-
Magyarország? [Burgenland or Western Hungary] Published by: Burgenlandi Magyar
Kultúregyesület, Oberwart / Felsőőr, 1991, p. 5.
195