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

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district that, it is likely, there was not enough left for the district’s needs. <strong>The</strong><br />

preceding facts can be verified locally, or in the local food distribution <strong>of</strong>fices,<br />

noted the memorandum. 129 Finally, the memorandum asked for a plebiscite in<br />

the areas intended for annexation by Austria, under the supervision <strong>of</strong> a neutral<br />

power.<br />

<strong>The</strong> fate <strong>of</strong> <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Hungary</strong>, or Westungarn, was soon decided. Austria<br />

was awarded the swath <strong>of</strong> the Borderland – if not to the extent it wished – on<br />

the July 11, 1919 session <strong>of</strong> the Paris Peace Conference. <strong>The</strong> reason was that<br />

the Entente Powers had, in the meantime, fulfilled the request <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Czechoslovak government. <strong>The</strong>re were two railway lines running to the<br />

Adriatic, to the port <strong>of</strong> Fiume. One <strong>of</strong> them (Pozsony – Zagreb – Fiume), the<br />

section running through Trans-Danubia (from the new Hungarian-Austrian-<br />

Czechoslovak border) from Hegyeshalom – Mosonszentjános – Csorna –<br />

Szombathely – Nagykanizsa – Zákány was to be retained by <strong>Hungary</strong>, 130 from<br />

where it continued along Kapronca – Körös– Zagreb – Karlovac to Fiume.<br />

About half <strong>of</strong> the other railway track to Fiume (Pozsony – Vienna – Semmering<br />

– Graz – (Marburg/Maribor – Laibach/Ljubljana – Fiume) ran through Austria.<br />

Thus, Eduard Beneš urged at the Peace Conference not to allow the majority <strong>of</strong><br />

the two railway lines in the possession <strong>of</strong> one country. In the event <strong>of</strong> the<br />

closing <strong>of</strong> one line (due to economic or military reasons), Czechoslovakia<br />

should be allowed free access for trans-shipment to the South Slav country<br />

using the railway line through the other country. Paris, <strong>of</strong> course, satisfied this<br />

wish to the detriment <strong>of</strong> <strong>Hungary</strong>: an American initiative with tacit – later<br />

effective – French support and loud Italian opposition. 131 In the end, the Peace<br />

Conference awarded <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Hungary</strong> to Austria mainly for the loss <strong>of</strong> South<br />

Tyrol and a smaller area along the Austrian-Czech border – Gmünd, or<br />

Feldberg district – handed to Czechoslovakia.<br />

<strong>The</strong> Austrian-Czech border districts were awarded to Czechoslovakia,<br />

instead <strong>of</strong> the bridgehead demanded by Eduard Beneš on the right bank <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Danube across from Pozsony, which Prague did not get from the Moson<br />

County areas given to Austria. This also meant that the Entente Powers<br />

completely dropped idea <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Hungary</strong> corridor, the so-called Slav<br />

corridor, advocated from the beginning by the Czechoslovak delegation. With<br />

the materialization <strong>of</strong> the Austrian peace treaty, the previously marshaled facts<br />

fundamentally refutes the arguments <strong>of</strong> those Austria-friendly Hungarian<br />

historians, ethnographers and other researchers who claimed that ethnic<br />

boundaries were taken into consideration when the new boundary was drawn in<br />

the annexation <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Hungary</strong>. Two examples <strong>of</strong> them are: László<br />

Fogarassy, “In truth, it must be stated that the Peace Conference, with regard to<br />

the Hungarian peace treaty, was most respectful <strong>of</strong> ethnic boundaries relating to<br />

129 A magyar béketárgyalások, op. cit., vol. I, p. 472.<br />

130 Soós, Katalin. Burgenland az európai politikában (<strong>1918</strong>–<strong>1921</strong>) [Burgenland in<br />

European politics (<strong>1918</strong>-<strong>1921</strong>)]. Budapest, 1971, pp. 24–25.<br />

131 Ormos, 1983, op. cit., p. 288.<br />

56

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