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

supported by the Styrian government. The Reds of Austria intended to occupy
the southern part of Western Hungary, making use of the contents of this
armory.
Previous to that, Héjjas – according to a report handed by the Austrian
embassy in Budapest to the Hungarian Defense Ministry – crossed the border
on the night of July 30, 1920 220 with an independent force 63 men (other
sources 117) in 8 trucks and trailers and carried out a raid on the Fürstenfeld
armory. They disarmed the guards and kept the village’s 400-500 Austrian
garrison in check. In the meantime, they loaded 3,000 rifles, 30 machine guns
and a vast amount of ammunition on the vehicles. They headed out with the
spoils and crossed the Austrian-Hungarian border without incident. Prónay hid
the munitions and used it later during the Western Hungary insurrection. The
raid on Fürstenfeld lasted barely an hour and was accomplished with no loss of
life. 221
During these weeks, the constant and resolute Austrian propaganda became
more intense in Western Hungary, especially in Sopron County. The main
organizers were the delegates of the Austrian government to the Inter-Allied
Military Mission in Sopron. The Austrian representatives – whose presence was
sanctioned by the Hungarian government – were met at the Sopron train station
on March 4, 1920 by a crowd of several thousand who noisily protested and
pelted them with rotten eggs and vegetables. Only police intervention saved
them from physical harm. The Austrian delegates did not understand, or
misunderstood, the behavior of the Sopron population because, at their urging,
the Austrian government again petitioned the Council of Ambassadors at the
end of March 1920 for the handing over of Sopron and the territories marked
and the Social-Democratic Party. Some units held Austro-Fascist views. The influence
of the Heimwehr grew in the second half of the ‘20s, some of its leaders holding
government posts. Heimwehr detachments took part in the putting down of the armed
revolt of the Republikanischer Schutzbund [Republican Defense Alliance, the military
arm of the Social-Democratic Party] of February 1934. The Heimwehr was dissolved in
October of 1936 by the Schuschnigg government.
220
The date of the raid in other sources: in Jenő Héjjas as June 20, in István T. Ádám as
August 5. Both are incorrect.
221
Ádám, T. István: Soprontól Munkácsig [From Sopron to Munkács]. Budapest, 1939,
pp. 15–16; Héjjas, Jenő: A nyugatmagyarországi felkelés [The Western Hungary
insurrection]. Kecskemétiek az 1921. évi nyugatmagyarországi harcokban. Kecskemét,
1929, pp. 7–10. Jenő Héjjas took part in the Western Hungary fighting as a highschool
student. His work only recounts those actions in which his brother, Iván, and members
of his IV. Rebel Army took part. For that, critics of his book accuse him of bias. The
book ‘A Rongyos Gárda harcai 1919–1939’ [The battles of the Ragged Guard 1919-
1939], published in 1940 and written by ‘one of the Ragged’ is almost certainly the
work of Héjjas as part 2 is essentially identical to his book. Part 1 covers the guerilla
fighting, led by Iván Héjjas against the Romanian occupiers around Kecskemét in 1919.
Part 3 covers the fighting against the Czech-Slovak forces in Sub-Carpathia (1938-
1939) by the independent detachments.
93