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

easonably assumed that the military command in Bucharest added to the
occupying forces the numbers of Transylvanian and local Romanian free forces
and irregulars. As an aside, the arming of the latter was done from the supplies
of the Hungarian army, by permission of the Károlyi government. Samuel
Barabás, dean in Kolozsvár, noted in his diary for December 5, 1918: “The
Hungarian National Council supplies the Romanians with weapons, gives them
ammunition and money from the state coffers. Perhaps it is also stipulated that
they can only shoot at Hungarians with those rifles.” 53 The dean took part in the
Dec. 5 session of the Szekler National Council, where he publicly disclosed the
previous to the present István Apáthy, still president at the time of the
Transylvanian Hungarian National Council, who “listened with a pale face.”
Serbia: After being dealt a defeat by the armies of the Monarchy, the
Serbian army withdrew to the island of Corfu. Between Nov. 7 and 19, the
partly reorganized Serb force occupied – by simply marching in – huge
Hungarian territories North of the border of the Kingdom of Hungary, up to the
line of demarcation agreed upon on November 7 in the armistice document in
Belgrade. Serbia, however, also laid claims to the Banate, portions of the
Muraköz (Medimurje) and the Vend region – a total of about 45,000 km 2 of
Hungarian territory. When Béla Linder, minister without portfolio, signed the
Belgrade Convention on November 13 in the name of the Károlyi government 54
– with which Hungary negated the favorable truce negotiated in Padua, which
did not disturb the historical borders of Hungary, leaving them unaltered(!) –
Serb forces, with occupied Újvidék (Novi Sad) behind them, reached the line of
Antalfalva – Pancsova – Versec in the Banate county of Torontál. The Belgrade
agreement granted free hand to the achievement of the majority of Serbian
military objectives, since one of the signatories was Vojvod Misic, chief of staff
of the army. Szabadka (Subotica) was occupied on Nov. 13 by Serb forces. The
armistice pact detailed a line starting at Varasd along the Drava River, then
along a line 5-20 km. North of the of the railway line of Barcs – Szigetvár –
Pécs – Bátaszék – Baja – Szabadka (Subotica) – Szeged, then from the
confluence of the Tisza and Maros Rivers, ending at the city of Arad, which
was occupied on November 21. This realized two-thirds of Serbian territorial
aims vis-à-vis Hungary because south of this line represented a successful
occupation of approx. 30,000 km 2 of Hungarian territory. With this operation,
the units of the Kingdom of Serbia took control of the entirety of Torontál
County, almost the entirety of Temes, Bács-Bodrog and Baranya counties and
the southeast corner of Somogy County.
The Serb armed forces advancing unopposed into southern Hungary in 1918
53 Mikes, op. cit., p. 139.
54 The full title of the Belgrade Convention, signed on November 13: Military
Convention Regulating the Conditions under which the Armistice, Signed between the
Allies and Austria-Hungary, is to be applied in Hungary. See Nyékhegyi, 1922, op. cit.,
pp. 58–61. Original in Hungarian National Archives (Hereafter MOL), K 28, bundle 1,
item 2, 1918–II, number 103, pp. 1–4.
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