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

amount).” 210
French Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Alexandre Millerand rejected
the reexamination of the Hungarian borders. Yet, the Ambassadors and Foreign
Ministers meeting in London on March 8, 1920 returned to the question of
Hungary’s borders. In the discussions, the Italians suggested investigation of
the Hungarians’ counter-arguments, while the French deemed reconsideration
as superfluous and out-of-date. The British diplomats – among them Foreign
Minister George Curzon – tipped the scales by not lining up behind their own
prime minister, Lloyd George, but behind the French position. In Curzon’s
proposal, they finally reached a symbolic agreement: the reopening of the
Hungarian border question was rejected before the signing of the peace treaty
but made it possible for the border settlement committees to make suggestions
for minor alterations if local visits to certain sectors find actual unfairness. It
was also decided here that the possibility of later modifications would not be
included in the text of the peace treaty but would be made known to the
Hungarians through a separate accompanying letter. This became the so-called
lettre d’envoi of Millerand, which was later attached to the Trianon decree. The
attached letter was, thus, not of French but of British origin but signed by the
French President as president of the Peace Conference. 211 It was also he who
handed the final text of the Trianon Treaty to the Hungarian delegation on May
6, 1920.
The so-called Millerand letter 212 affixed that: Hungary’s wishes could not be
taken into consideration but – as it soon became cynically evident – that the
League of Nations would ‘discuss’ minor border adjustment requests. But only,
naturally, if the determined border “perhaps does is not completely adequate for
the ethnographic or economic requirements.” The failings will be remedied by
the border committees. The Supreme Council sent its reply to the comments of
the Hungarian peace delegation on May 20, 1920, along with the final text of
the peace treaty. The Entente Powers deemed as irrelevant the Hungarian
suggestions regarding territorial solutions and plebiscites.
The border adjustment promises of the Entente Powers remained just that,
high-sounding promises, because the Council of Ambassadors sent secret
instructions to the border adjustment committees on July 22, 1920 to ignore the
Millerand letter and to post the borders according to the terms of the peace
treaty. In the meanwhile, the letter raised unfounded optimism in official
Hungarian circles, which was further fed by the non-ratification of the peace
treaties by the United States, although for reasons independent of the Hungarian
question, and even signing a separate peace with Hungary on August 29, 1921.
210
Archivio Storico [Roma], AP, B. 1740 (Ungheria), Cerruti, Feb. 3, 1920. Cited by
Ormos, 1990. op. cit., p. 43.
211
Romsics, 1999, op. cit., p. 141.
212
A magyar béketárgyalások. II. köt. 479–480. old.
89