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

Chapter 5: Austrian efforts and the failure of territorial transfer
June 1920 – August 1921
The obligatory signing of the Trianon peace decree – as already noted – took
place on June 4, 1920 in Paris. The decision – in harmony with the Austrian
treaty of Saint-Germain signed on September 10, 1919 – cut off 4,364 km 2 of
western Hungarian territory. The last census, in 1910, enumerated a population
of 345,082, of which 245,714 were of German mother-tongue, 49,374 of
Croatian and 44,191 of Hungarian. Of the total population, including the ethnic
Hungarians, 80,632 (23.4%) spoke Hungarian. 213 It is important to point out
once again that, the majority of the population given to Austria were of German
extraction and mother-tongue and not of Austrian extraction and mothertongue,
as the latter did not yet exist! [In fact, the majority of the German
speaking population traced their ancestry not to what was to become Austria
but to other German provinces or states-ed.]
Hungarian public opinion could not come to grips with and accept the
obviously unjust and cynical decision that gave Austria, an equally defeated
country in the war, territory from its also defeated ally, Hungary. “It is doubly
painful – wrote Foreign Minister Miklós Bánffy (1873–1950) in his memoirs –
that we had to hand over Sopron and its surrounding area not to one of the
victorious countries but to Austria. There was something terribly humiliating in
it, and hellishly ironic. Hungarians fought for centuries to protect their country
against Austria. And now that the Entente breaks up the Austrian empire, they
wish us to hand over lands, to what remains of Austria, that have always been
ours; wishes it at a time when Austria is as much a defeated country as we are.
What is more, our affiliation with Austria is what drew us into the war, into a
war that nobody in Hungary wanted. A war started over the assassination of an
Austrian archduke.” 214
Due to the ongoing humbling of Hungary, some nationalist radical circles
began to organize. It is a unspoken fact that, beginning in early 1920, large
amounts of arms and ammunition were shipped from Austria to Hungary for the
Hungarian National Army. It was partly official, partly as smuggled supplies
but of which the Viennese Ministry of War was aware, as were some officials
of the Austrian disarmament committee. The country had a burning need for
this materiel since it was totally vulnerable and unprotected at this time.
Romanian forces had only withdrawn from Trans-Danubia between October 4
and November 15, 1919, from Budapest on the latter date, from the areas
between the Danube and Tisza Rivers on November 23, retreating to the left
bank of the Tisza River by November 23, which they vacated only on March
213 Lőkkös, 143, op. cit., pp. 288–289, 292.
214 Major, Zoltán: Bánffy Miklós: Huszonöt év (1945) [Miklós Bánffy: Twenty-five
years (1945)]. Budapest, 1993, pp. 65-66. Bánffy was Foreign Minister during this most
active period (April 14, 1921 – December 29, 1922). The pinnacle of his ministerial
career was as a participant at the Venice talks (October 11-13, 1921).
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