Regicide
at Marseille
New York, N.Y.
(c) 1964
The American Hungarian Library and Historical Society
New York
Printed by
The College Press, So. Lancaster, Mass.
"I am weary of seeing the shore in each successive mirage, and I often ask myself whether the terra firma we are seeking does really exist, and whether we are not doomed to rove upon the seas for ever."
Alexis de Tocqueville
FOREWORD
The Civil War of Europe which, since 1914, has been the main factor in shaping the course of human history is, presumably, coming soon to an end with the achievement of a "United Europe." Between the first and second acts of that Cruel Drama, there was an intermission prolonged for twenty years and misused for the planting of evil seeds. This book deals with that interval.
The facts Concenning the two World Wars are generally known. The motive forces behind them, however, which distorted the efforts aimed at lasting peace, which undermined the League of Nations and never allowed the Old Continent to come to rest, still need to be exposed. For even educated judgments are being misled by narrow - minded and noxious indoctrination sprouting from one - sided national aspirations, from the memory of past alliances and from emotional wartime reactions. To get to the kernel of unvarnished history, this propaganda - shell must be cracked. Particularly, regarding the nations in the Danube Valley, the influences responsible for their decay, have to be brought to light.
This book undertakes to throw a ray of light on that blurred picture by presenting the murder - case of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the incongruous political repercussions of that crime. In the course of the ensuing international crisis, all the forces tearing up the physical and moral fiber of Europe were brought to focus in Geneva. I got to know them, for, as Hungary's Chief Delegate to the League of Nations, I had to bear much of the oppressive weight of their attacks. While recording the true story, I also relate the hidden motives and camouflaged policies of the Contesting powers. In the suffocating atmosphere of Europe at that time, vitiated by the monstrous designs of the totalitarian dictators, the mistakes committed in the Paris Peace Treaties grew menacingly in their consequences and peace became increasingly elusive. In the very heart of Europe, dismembered Hungary had to endure the worst tribulations. Disarmed and encircled by hostile forces she had to survive:
"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea."
TIBOR ECKHARDT
1 February, 1964
PART I
TERRORISM IN YUGOSLAVIA
"The most fervent longing of modern nationalists is not for freedom but for mastery."
JOHN F. MONTGOMERY, "Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite"
THE DUCE SPEAKS
The Piazza del Duomo in Milano is packed with an intently listening crowd. The white marble turrets of the Gothic cathedral are sparkling in the early autumn sunshine. Stepping on the rostrum from a forest of green - white - red flags and Fascist standards, the dynamic Leader keeps the crowd spellbound. Both hero and bajazzo in the people's imagination, Mussolini stirs up their fervent, romantic instincts and also provides popular enjoyment with his big words and good acting. The Duce's magnetic, somber eyes burn with indignation, as he stigmatizes the failure of Italy's wartime Allies to concede to Italy her rightful place in the sun. Yet, he warns, the time is near "when Italy will obtain a treatment inspired by justice: then we will adorn our rifles with the olive branch of peace. But should this not come about: we will adorn our rifles with the laurels of victory!" Trusting that the Duce will achieve both a better life and bloodless glory for his people, the crowd explodes in patriotic cheers.
On my way back from the rally, I pondered over a short passage in Mussolini's carefully worded speech. It had an edge against Yugoslavia: "We cannot maintain a passive attitude toward neighboring countries. Our attitude is either friendly or hostile toward them." There was much realism in that statement. The Italians had ample opportunity to experience - first with the Austrians and then, after 1918, with their new Yugoslav neighbors - the need for solving through co-operation their problems of mutual interest, if the use of force was to be avoided. For no one - sided national solution has ever brought about satisfactory results in the Northern corner of the Adriatic Sea where, living in economically interdependent areas, mixed populations converge to find an outlet to the open sea. The one-time prosperous ports of Trieste, Pola and Fiume have suffered a steady decline since separation from their "Hinterlands." What a fine task a more viable League of Nations could accomplish by establishing at least economic co-operation among these interdependent areas with free ports to further multilateral trade in the Southern half of Europe!
Beyond these considerations, however, I also sensed an ominous meaning in Mussolini's warning. Only three months earlier, while
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vacationing on the lovely island of Arbe on the Dalmatian coast, I witnessed the hostile attitude of Yugoslavia against Italy. It was then, on July 25, 1934, that the Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss, was murdered; whereupon Mussolini took a determined stand coupled with military measures on the Brenner Pass to dissuade Hitler from invading little Austria, which had placed herself under Mussolini's protection. The Duce won much praise in France and Britain for his energetic intervention and also raised the hope that Italy would prefer a Western orientation to an alliance with Hitler. On the other band, at the same time, Yugoslavia, an ally of France, bad ordered an all - out mobilization of her armed forces and was preparing to fight on Hitler's side to prevent the expansion of Italian influence North of the Yugoslav border. This violent Yugoslav reaction may seem paradoxical today, in view of all the suffering which only a few years later those brave people had to endure under Hitler's heel. An armed clash was avoided however in 1934, for the Nazi take - over of Austria was postponed for a few years. But Yugoslavia had harshly revealed her hostile intentions against Italy.
The same day, October 9, 1934, when Mussolini made that speech, a double murder was committed in Marseille: King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Jean Louis Barthou, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, were killed by fanatic assassins.
"These were the first shots of the Second World War" writes Anthony Eden.1
**
1 Sir Anthony Eden, Facing the Dictators; the Memoirs of Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin co., 1962), p. 119.
REGICIDE
The murder of the "Cavalier King," Alexander I, on October 9, 1934, shocked me, for under the impact of the growing Nazi menace, I had been consistently working for an improvement of Hungary's hitherto strained relations with Yugoslavia. The internal order of that young state was now threatened by a violent crisis which might expand far beyond its borders.
Alexander's tragic end, however, did not come as a surprise. The desperate struggle against the Pan-Serbian royal dictatorship, fiercely carried on for some five years by the oppressed nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia, had repeatedly produced plots and attempts against the life of the King. There had been trouble on the Hungarian border also. Political refugees from neighboring Croatia who were escaping day by day to Hungary - some swimming at night over the river Drava - were causing incidents with the Yugoslav border guards. Most of the destitute Croat refugees were revolutionaries deserving of the sympathy which was shown to them by the freedom loving Hungarian population. But, unquestionably, undesirable elements had slipped in among them. If possible, the bitterness of the Macedonian and Montenegrin escapees was even more violent than the Croats' hatred. In the eyes of the oppressed, King Alexander personified the brutally virile and dominating mood of the Serbs who break rather than bend. Even before the background of the regicide was revealed, I had a fairly correct idea of the motives which had inspired the regicide at Marseille.
It was impossible not to recognize the implacable hand of Fate serving retribution to a dynasty whose ascent to the throne had been precipitated by a sinister regicide. Marseille also recalled Sarajevo and that fateful day, August 4, 1914, when after tense waiting, we learned that Serbia had refused to comply with the ultimatum of Austria-Hungary, which, among other points, demanded that the secret terrorist organizations in Serbia, responsible for the murder of the Crown Prince Francis Ferdinand, be dissolved. That evening, in the midst of a tempest, with lightning striking and thunder roaring, the deadly news hit us about the outbreak of the first World War. In the one-time happy valley of the Danube, many cherished values were shattered
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------during the years of fighting. The secret organizations in Yugoslavia however, continued their terroristic activities, provoking bloody reactions. The assassination of King Alexander was a result of that unhealthy situation.
To gain an unbiased view of the background and the motives of the regicide at Marseille, it is indispensable to outline briefly the history of terrorism in Vugoslavia - Serbian, Croat and Macedonian - before and following the first World War. As far as facts are concerned, they can be established fairly accurately for Serbs and Croats will tell the truth. They are not hypocrites; they have not yet acquired the repulsive habit of disguising the evil they do with moral motives. On the other hand, the political interpretation of events by Serbian sources would be, as a rule, diametrically opposed to the Croat views. For judgment, therefore, I had to rely mainly on my own experience and knowledge of Danubian and Balkan affairs, as well as personalities, without taking sides or following an established pattern. Rightists and Leftists, authoritarians and Liberals, are increasingly standardising our political thinking, approving or disapproving phenomena, labelling and fitting them into their own preconceived formulas. Yet, nothing is completely black or quite white. I prefer therefore to allow the reader the choice of that shade of gray which in his judgment befits the subject.
RED TERROR
Revolutionary opposition to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes - established in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, was not organized at first by the dissatisfied nationalities crowded uncomfortably into that heterogeneous state. Terrorism was launched by the Communist Party. In the early 20's, the nationalites resenting Serbian domination had not yet given up the hope that through constitutional processes and a continued struggle in the Belgrade Parliament, they might achieve an acceptable degree of autonomy within a Yugoslav confederation. The life-long Leader of the Serb Centralists, the shrewd Nikola Pashitch remained, however, intransigent and rejected the idea of any compromise which would move the Serbs from their dominating position. Sensing the growing danger to the stability of the new state, he was toying, however, with the idea of "amputation," that is of cutting off the Croat limbs from the Yugoslav body - a menace which did not frighten the Croats in the least.
Similarly, the main revolutionary force of our era, the Communist movement, was not directed in the early 20's against the unity of Yugoslavia. Politically, the Communist Party was opposing the forceful rule of King Alexander I, mainly because he was a dedicated anti-Communist. In December, 1920, while still Regent, he had ordered the Communist Party dissolved. Prompted by the traditional sympathies of the Serbs for "Mother Russia," the Communist Party had succeeded after the first World War in obtaining some popular backing, mainly among the Serbs, but was forced after its dissolution, to go underground. There, in complete secrecy, a militant conspiracy sprang into being, its members, mainly young fanatics, who aptly called their association "The Red Terror." A few months after the dissolution of the Party by the King, the first attempt against his life was carried out by this group in retaliation. The perpetrator of the crime, Spasoje Stejitch, whose bomb narrowly missed the King's car, was sentenced to prison for life. In 1941, when Yugoslavia collapsed, he was released, to his misfortune, for his comrades declared him unsound of mind and unceremoniously liquidated him. Another youthful member of Red Terror: Alija Aliagitch, proved more efficient in terrorism but equally
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unfortunate. He was hanged (1921) for having murdered Milorad Draskovitch, the Minister who had strictly enforced the order to disband the Communist Party.
Communist theory does not admit, in general, individual acts of terrorism, for such methods are apt to provoke violent retribution against the Party. But there are exceptions to this rule, as may be gathered from an article in the March 7, 1959 issue of Politika, published in Belgrade, which glorified the almost forgotten crimes of Red Terror as having been indispensable at that time in view of the "opportunistic attitude" of the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party. "Red Terror," wrote the paper, "was the organization of young intellectuals and workers who remained true to the aims of the proletariat and were fighting for socialism without compromise." The leaders of the Communist Party in the early 20's, of whom this paper disapproved, were exclusively Serbs headed by a real egghead, Professor Sima Markovitch, Secretary of the Central Committee. This type of leadership appealed, however, to only a limited circle in the violently realistic Balkans.
In capitalist societies, communism automatically tends in a direction opposite to the existing order, not only in its aims, but also in its methods, and particularly in its spirit. This is how the incredible, nevertheless, happened: in the land of the Serbs, traditionally prone to violence, the genuine homegrown Communist movement was imbued with a humanistic spirit, in reaction against the unmerciful mood of the Serbs. The sophisticated Professor Markovitch unable to combine Marxism with Christian precepts, had embraced Hindu philosophy. He abhorred all bloodshed; replaced class warfare with a theory of peaceful elimination of tensions, as heralded by the inspired Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore. An indignant young painter, the Communist Moshe Pijade, branded the hyper - civilized professor, "an Anarchist." Pijade's Marxist realism, brought him in later years a high position in Tito's hierarchy.
Humanism, the guiding principle of Serbian communism! What deviation from Lenin and Stalin! Writing under the pseudonym of Themistokies Papasissis, an author, who had access to secret German files, describes1 how at the Fourth World Congress of the Komintern, the Leftist faction of the Yugoslav Party was helped into power against
1 Der Konig muss sterben, Heinrich Bar Verlag, Gmbh, Berlin, pp. 19 - 21.
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Professor Markovitch by the Moscow Bolsheviks. Swayed by a wealthy Belgrade lawyer, the renegade Trisha Kaclerovitch, the Yugoslav Party accepted the new goals set by Moscow, not only to eliminate King Alexander, but also to disintegrate the Yugoslav multi-national state. A resolution passed in 1924, at the Fifth Congress of the Komintern declared that "the principle of self-determination of the people, accepted by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, shall find its realization in the separation of Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia from Yugoslavia, and in their transformation into completely independent republics."
Professor Markovitch deplored the catastrophic consequences which that decision would have for the future of the Yugoslav Communist Party, composed mainly of Serbian members. He foresaw their desertion and understood that the Serbs, even if communists like himself, would remain patriots, and would try to serve the cause of their own people, however defectively it might be conceived. Previous to this decision, the Independent Labor Unions of Yugoslavia, strongly influenced by the Communists, had some 30,000 registered members - this figure was shortly reduced to 2,000. Stalin had received his first, but by no means his last, lesson in independent Yugoslav communism.
The decay of the Yugoslav Party was put repeatedly on the agenda of the Komintern. A Special Committee, delegated to deal with the annoying Serb situation, was headed by no lesser man than Stalin himself. At a meeting on March 30, 1925, in Moscow, he assailed harshly the humanitarian Professor Markovitch for his refusal to yield to leftist demands. The Communist Party, however, could not be revitalized, not even under Stalin's prodding, so, finally, in May, 1928, the Komintern's Executive Committee published a letter addressed to the Yugoslav Party, demanding that the discredited intellectuals who formed the leadership at that time be replaced by solid proletarians. A former factory worker, Djura Djakovitch, was smuggled from Moscow to Belgrade to carry out the reorganization of the Party. But the situation of the Yugoslav Party had become so precarious by then, that the Congress could not be convoked in Yugoslavia, but was summoned finally to Dresden, Germany.
In October, 1928, the Dresden Congress brought to an inglorious end home - grown Serb communism. The Party could not be resuscitated on Muscovite lines for the Kominform had lost the confidence of the Serbian element. The handful of Yugoslav communists, fortunate to
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reach Dresden, were greeted there by Stalin's able emissary, Professor Ercole Ercoli2 who provided guidance for the Congress, broke the resistance of the dejected Professor Markovitch, and forced him to exercise self - criticism Thereafter, the kindly professor was lured to Moscow, where as a useless' humanitarian, he was unmercifully liquidated.
Shortly thereafter, (in the beginning of January '29) King Alexander proclaimed his personal dictatorship of Yugoslavia. The new Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, the fiery Montenegrin, Jovan Malishitch,3 launched desperate appeals to incite the people to start a revolution against the royal tyrant, but his pleas, as far as the Communist Party was concerned, fell on deaf ears. Soon Malishitch and his Central Committee had to take refuge abroad, while the bold Djakovitch, loyal to the communist cause to the bitter end, was shot by the police. The party organization, reduced to a skeleton, was ruthlessly stamped out together with its secret ramifications. By 1932, the Party membership, which in 1920 amounted to 60,000, had diminished to something around 200. Defeat in the Second World War and Tito, a talented non - Serbian leader, were needed - and, of course, considerable Allied aid - to make communtsm in Yugoslavia supreme. But Stalin had to experience again the fact that a self - respecting nation, even if subjected to Communism, will live its own life and imbue the Marxist gospel with its own national spirit.
2 It was Palmiro TogIiatti, the present leader of the Italian Communist Party, who was hiding behind this alias.
3 Using the alias: Martinovitch.
THE Pan-Serbian DREAM
While the fires ignited by the Marxist Revolution petered out during the first decade of Yugoslavia's existence, the antagonisms of the diverse national minorities directed against Serbian rule, became more and more intense and changed their heretofore peaceful character. It was particularly the Croats who with increasing vigor demanded respect for their constitutional rights and national independence. What appeared at first as a Parliamentary struggle for Croat national autonomy within the framework of the Yugoslav State, was gradually transformed because of Serbian repression and systematic persecution, into a Croat revolutionary movement aimed at secession. Violence inevitably breeds violence. The law - abiding Croat people, used to government by civilized elements, suffered a severe shock when subjected to imperious treatment by the new Pan-Serbian regime. Equally virile and self - reliant as the Serbs, the Croats concluded that, if they were to avoid servitude, the only road left open for them was active resistance and retaliation in kind.
Hostility between Serbs and Croats leading to the Marseille tragedy was also embittered by a difference of cultures forced to co-exist in a kingdom impatiently driving at unification. Racially close relatives, Serbs and Croats understood each other's language which was rather unfortunate for they did not understand each other's thinking. The Serbs, the strongest race in the Balkans, had conceived after their hard-won victory an overambitious plan of domination; the establishment of a Great - Serbian unified kingdom, which the more advanced Croats could not accept. Therewith, the internal struggle became inevitable in the new kingdom before it was properly organized.
The Serbs are not followers of Tolstoi, the great romanticist of non - resistance. Nor would they take Mr. Nehru for their model. Not being hypocrites, they do not proclaim principles which they themselves are reluctant to observe. When resorting to violence, they do it radically and without dissimulation. The civilized Englishman, Anthony Eden, still shudders at the massacre of the one-time King of Serbia, Alexander Obrenovitch, together with his intriguing wife, the beautiful
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Draga Mashin, in the beginning of our 20th Century (1903) by his subjects, and describes it as an act "of exceptional brutality."1 They "were flung from the windows of their palace to the street below.
When they tried to hold on to a window's edge, their hands were hatched away."
More than thirty Serbian officers had participated in the bestiar murder of their own king, a crime prepared by the "Black Hand," a secret society responsible for acts of terrorism at the service of Serbian and Russian political aims. Some among these officers later achieved high rank in Yugoslavia. One of them was Bozin Simitch, who became the last Grand Master of the notorious Black Hand, and later an instrument of Soviet intrigue when the Black Hand was compromised and he had to flee to Soviet Russia. Another young officer involved in the regicide, was Peter Zhifkovitch, a real villain, who thirty years later, as Minister of War, tried to invade Hungary with Serbian Chetniks in order to provoke war.
Following the massacre of the House of Obrenovitch, a new dynasty, the Karageorgievitch, ascended the throne of Serbia. She therewith passed over from friendship with Austria and Hungary to hostility against her neighbors at the behest of the Tsar. A decade had hardly passed by, when the Black Hand, that conceited conspiracy of killers and kingmakers, again resorted to a fateful act of terrorism. Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria and Hungary, was assassinated in Sarajevo together with Sophia, his Czech wife. The Archduke had become dangerous to Pan-Serbian aspirations, by promoting "trialism," a policy friendly to the Slav populations living within the confines of the Dual Monarchy. He wished to satisfy the Slav's demands for an equal status with that of the Austrians and the Hungarians. Such constitutional change might have fulfilled the reasonable aspirations of the Slavs of Austria-Hungary, it might have restored the viability of her respectable but antiquated system. But that compromise would certainly have ruined the dream of a Great - Serbia, the chance to unite all the Slavs of Central Europe under Serbian rule a tempting policy promoted by the Tsar of Russia - which the Serb Nationalists could not resist.
In the quiet Victorian atmosphere of Francis Joseph's court, the
1 Sir Anthony Eden, Full Circle; the Metnoirs o/ Anthony Eden, Earl ol Avon (Boston: Houghton Mifilin Co., 1962), pp. 471 - 2.
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brutal shots fired at Sarajevo reverberated with a thunderous echo, for their destructive purpose was obvious. The Archduke was destroyed because he was a friend and not a foe of the Slavs. The murderous shots were aimed at the survival of the Danubian Monarchy. The investigation conducted by Vienna established that it was the Black Hand which had carefully prepared the Archduke's murder. Several historians consider Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevitch - Apis, at that time the Grand Master of the Black Hand, as the main culprit. Among the conspirators responsible for the crime, Peter Zhifkovitch figured prominently. Sarajevo established a pattern which was precisely followed by the perpetrators of the regicide at Marseille. The Great Serbian dream however turned into a nightmare for it served as the trigger for the first World War.
Crime, if left unpunished, emboldens the criminal and leads him to self - destruction. During the first World War, the Serbian Crown Prince Alexander, (later murdered at Marseille) showed more independence of mind than was to the liking of the Black Hand. So a plot was arranged to have him killed, as if by accident, while on a tour in Greece. Alexander, however, escaped uninjured. The conspiracy was uncovered and Fate overtook the Grand Master, Colonel Dimitrijevitch - Apis. On June 26, 1917, the Colonel was executed together with two accomplices. The powerful Black Hand, which at one time had numbered 150,000 members, fell into disgrace. But Alexander could not completely rid himself from the influence of the Serbian secret organizations. By the time that the Black Hand disintegrated, a rival organization, the "White Hand" had grown up, which, in March 1941, became instrumental in overthrowing the regency of the moderate Prince Paul and in setting up a new Cabinet under General Simovitch which within a week was crushed by the infuriated Hitler.
"We are all marked, to some extent, by the stamp of our generation," remarks Anthony Eden, "mine is that of the assassination of Sarajevo." Acts of terrorism, committed for political reasons by Serb Nationalists, have deeply impressed the comme it faut Mr. Eden, and will explain his resentment in Geneva against the unmotivated expulsion from Yugoslavia of peaceful Hungarian families under orders of General Peter Zhifkovitch.
As Hungary's Chief Delegate to the League of Nations, thoug
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hard pressed, I resisted during the debate in Geneva the temptation to disclose the somber facts concerning the mistreatment of the Croats and other nations and minorities in Yugoslavia; the true motive of the regicide at Marseille. For mistreatment was the force which drove the Christian - minded Croats into despair which bred terrorism. During centuries of valliant fighting against their Turkish foes, the Serbs had learned how to sacrifice their lives in the defense of home and country, but they did not learn how to solve their problems by peaceful means. The Croats' reaction to their inclusion into the Balkans was at first moderate. It took them an entire decade to reach the conclusion that they would have to resort to violence if they wished to retain their national identity. I never delved in Geneva into my bulky dossier loaded with explosive facts, for, knowing the pride of the Serbs, I was aware that I would bar thereby the possibility of a peaceful solution.
Times have changed now. Serbs, Croats and Hungarians alike are experiencing Communist dictatorship hardly to the liking of these freedom - loving nations. Omitting the gruesome details, it seems to me of some use therefore, to expose frankly those forces of terrorism in the Balkans which, among other misdeeds, have led to the regicide at Marseille.
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Regicide at Marseille
Regicide at Marseille
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THE CROAT REVOLT
The depth and character of the conflict between the two Southern Slav brothers, the Croat and the Serb, is best revealed if viewed along the winding path of history.
From the beginning of the 12th Century up to the end of the first World War, the Croats had been living in political union with the Hungarians. The Tirpimir dynasty of Croatia having become extinct, the widowed Queen invited her brother, Laszlo, King of Hungary, elevated later to sainthood, to extend his rule over Croatia. His able successor, Kalman, "The Book-Lover," established with Croat consent, a lasting association between the two friendly neighbors in 1102. The kings of Hungary, who at the same time were elected by the Croats also as their kings, preserved the separate statehood and the national identity of their Croat domain. Under a representative of the King of Hungary, called the Ban, the Croats retained the freedoms of their hereditary constitution and the respect for their religion, language and traditions. As a result, during the eight centuries of co - existence, the Croats never resorted to revolt against their Hungarian Kings, but lived in good Christian order within the Realm of Saint Stephen. Never did they practice murder of political opponents to promote their national aims. At the end of the first World War, however, Croatia, together with several other territories, was transferred by the Paris Peacemakers to the then established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (SHS). In deference to President Wilson's ethnic principles which Hungary bona fide accepted, she did not ask for the return of the Croats. On December 7, 1934, in the Council of the League of Nations, I have made a categorical declaration proprio motu in this sense.
Up to the middle of the 19th Century, in spite of existing ethnic differences, the association of Hungarians and Croats did prove exceptionally successful. A concept of the French Revolution: that of the centralized national state, however, did cause political friction in the last decades preceding the first World War. In regard to nationality, the Middle Ages were more tolerant than our modern era. From the year 1000, when Saint Stephen founded the Hungarian Kingdom, the
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precept prevailed that "the King's deeds shall be governed by Christian ethics."1 There was no atom bomb and less demoracy in its present interpretation in that much belittled era. Life was less comfortable, but there was honest striving for spiritual achievements, and a fervent longing for the sublime, as expressed in the Gothic cathedral. In those far-away days, faith, chivalry, fortitude and decency, were regarded, though not always cultivated, as virtues becoming a Christian ruler.
Evil fate had placed both the Hungarian and the Croat nations across the highway of the Turkish invasions. From the beginning of the 15th century, they fought hand in hand against that deadly menace. It was in behalf of these nations, living up to the legacy of Saint Stephen, that John Hunyadi, the victorious Hungarian war leader, solemnly pledged: "We will either free Europe from the cruel Turks, or we will fall for Christianity, earning the Crown of Martyrdom."2 During the 15th Century, successful resistance against the Turks was led by the Hunyadis. But then, after centuries of successful resistance, for two hundred years Hungarians and Croats only averted their final subjugation by paying an excessive price in lives and human values in incessant wars fought against the Turkish invasions. The sacrifice and hardships loyally born together, formed a closer comradeship between the two nations than prosperity and easy living could ever have achieved.
South of the Lower Danube, in the Balkans, the Serbs, meanwhile more exposed to Turkish invasions than their neighbors to the North, were crushed definitively at an early date, 1389, in the battle of Kossovo. Henceforth, up to the beginning of the 19th century, much to their dislike, they formed a part of the Ottoman Empire. Previous to the loss of their independence, the Serbs had been attracted by the Greek Orthodox Church and had established religious, cultural and occasionally also political ties with Byzantium. This deep division of the Christian world between Rome and Byzantium separated the Serbs looking to the East from the Roman Catholic Croats who, up to 1918, had never ceased to form an integral part of the West. This historic fact, and most of all, five hundred years of life under Turkish domination, had hardened and Balkanized the Serbs. This cruel turn of
1 Emphasized in Saint Stephen's admonitions to his son - Prince Imre - who also achieved sainthood.
2 Dominic G. Kosary. The History of Hungary (New York, Cleveland. The Benjamin Franklin Bibliophile Society, 1941), p. 62.
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fate accounts for the harsh incongruity of the personalities of these two so-called Southern Slav nations.
Thrust from a civilized Western system at the end of the first World War, into the turbulent semi - Oriental Balkans, the Croats could not help feeling unhappy. They refused to renounce their independent statehood immediately following the proclamation of the new Kingdom: Under the popular leadership of Stephen Raditch, the members of the "Croat Republican Peasant Party" elected to the Constituant Assembly, refused from the first day on to take their seats in the Belgrade Parliament, unless the traditional independent statehood of the Croats and their equal rights with those of the Serbs, were recognized. Never straying from the path of legality, Raditch, a truly democratic leader, devoted his considerable talent to the effective organization of the Croat peasantry against Pan-Serbian centralism.
Intransigent Croat middle - class groups (intellectuals, students, a number of ex - officers of the Austro - Hungarian Army, etc.) rejected even more categorically than did the Croat peasantry the concept of a centralized Yugoslavia which would have incorporated the Western - minded Croat people into the more primitive Balkans. A sizeable Croat military group, loyal to the House of Habsburg, preferred exile in Austria to life in Yugoslavia. They were led by the respected Generals Boroevitch and Sarkotitch. After 1526, the year of the tragic Turkish victory at Mohacs - when the King of Hungary, Louis II, and the flower of the nation lost their lives - Hungary, badly in need of Western aid against continuous Turkish invasions, had decided in favor of the Habsburg Dynasty, which reigned over their subjects, Austrians, Hungarians, Croats and others - from their Court in Vienna, where the loyal Croats were liked and well - received. There were however, Croat exiles who preferred to emigrate to Hungary. Most prominent among them was Ivo Frank, President of the Croat Party of Law.
The Peasant Party, meanwhile, continued its hopeless struggle for proper recognition of Croat nationhood. In 1924, having won a victory at the elections, Raditch suspended his boycott of the Belgrade Parliament and forced the uncompromising Prime Minister Pashitch and his Cabinet to resign. But King Alexander returned Pashitch back to power, and before the year's end he outlawed the Peasant Party representing the majority of the Croat nation, and had Raditch himself
3 0n November 24, 1918, by the Yugoslav National Council.
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imprisoned. Released next year, Raditch tried again and again to obtain a reasonable compromise, but even after the death of Pashitch, December 10, 1962, the Croat demands were arrogantly denied by the Serb Centralists. Finally, a member of the determined Pan-Serbian group, Punisha Ratshitch, resorted to the ultimate argument. On June 28, 1928, he shot Raditch and two members of his Party in open session of Parliament. It became publicly known that Ratshitch had spent several hours in the King's palace in Belgrade on the evening preceding the murder and had there a conference with the Minister of the King's Court. Two months later, on August 28, 1928, Raditch died of his wounds. In Court, his wife named the King and his Court Minister as personally responsible for the murder. The chasm dividing the Croats from the Serbs became unbridgeable.
Events, tragic for all, followed thereafter in rapid succession. Having exhausted all their efforts at reaching an acceptable compromise, the Croat members of the Yugoslav Parliament left Belgrade for good, and set up in August, 1928, their separatist Parliament in Zagreb, the Croat capital. They also intensified their co-operation with other discontented nationalities. A number of these secessionist leaders met in 1928 in Paris, while Raditch was dying, to protest against the moral sanction given in the Pact of Paris to the odious Peace Treaty which had created Yugoslavia. Having lost all hope of a peaceful solution, the non - Serbian nations, forming the majority in Yugoslavia, declared war on the Serbs and their oppressive rule. A few months later, on January 9, 1929, when revolutionary pressures induced King Alexander I to proclaim his personal dictatorship, the piled - up hatreds of the oppressed nationalities obtained a visible target in the person of the King, on whom henceforth they could concentrate all their wrath. Herein lies the origin and the true motive of the Marseille regicide.
J. B. Hoptner, a sincere friend of the Serbs, describes in "Yugoslavia in Crisis"4 the harsh dictatorial measures imposed by King Alexander on his people: the King "retained all power for himself. He could declare war or peace, promulgate laws, appoint all civil officials, including the Premier, the Cabinet, and Army Officers. He held his own person inviolable and declared that he could not be held responsible or impeached for any act. He restricted freedom of press, person, association, and assembly. He abolished Yugoslavia's historic
4 Columbia University Press, 1962, p. 8.
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provinces and reconstructed them into nine administrative units. He dramatized his unitary outlook by transforming the cumbersome title of KINGDOM OF SERBS, CROATS AND SLOVENES into a simpler "KINGDOM OF YUGOSLAVIA." He dissolved all political parties of a regional characters, Serbian, Moslem, or Croatian. He barred not only the formation of new parties but also the activities of those already in existence . . . despite all his efforts, the opposition grew."
The Croats were intransigent and unanimous in demanding separate statehood. But there developed a difference among the political parties regarding the methods to be used in the pursuit of this goal. The Peasant Party, carrying on its political struggle with non - violent means sent three of its prominent members, Krnjevitch, Kossutitch and Kezman abroad to urge France and England, the mainstays of the Yugoslav regime, to withdraw their support of the Serbian dictatorship. Meanwhile, the Peasant Party's new Leader, Dr. Vladko Machek, a loyal successor of the murdered Raditch, was jailed, only to be released when for the sake of democratic appearances, farcical elections were held, which the Peasant Party denounced as such. Utterly disillusioned, Machek published in 1932 a five - point secessionist program of his Party, which demanded a return to the situation that had existed on December 1, 1918, preceding the creation of Yugoslavia. After that, the Croats should freely decide under what form of Government and in association with which nation or nations they wished to live. As the leader of the Hungarian Small Holders Party at that time, I maintained friendly personal relations with the democratic Croat leaders, Dr. Krnjevitch, the Secretary General of the Croat Peasant Party, Mr. Kossutitch, and later also with Dr. Machek, whose common sense and patriotism I held in high regard.
In contrast to the steadfast resistance of the Croat Peasant Party, level - headed and law - abiding, as Peasant movements in Central Europe generally were at that time, the reaction of a sizeable proportion of the Croat middle classes against the royal dictatorship assumed an increasingly radical character.
The period of violence in the struggle for Croat independence started with the royal Putsch of January 6, 1929, which eliminated all hope and the last vestiges of constitutional government in Yugoslavia. The appointment of General Zhifkovitch as Prime Minister, certainly did not mitigate Croat resentment. On January 29, 1929, Ante Pavelitch
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left Zagreb via Fiume for Austria on a self - imposed mission, irreconciliably determined to break up the Pan-Serbian Kingdom. Pavelitcb had been a well known Zagreb lawyer elected from that capital to Parliament and the Vice - President of the "Croatian Right Party" which published a newspaper, the Hrvatsko Pravo. Upon his arrival in Vienna, Pavelitch was received at the station by his friends Dr. Branimir Yelitch, and Ivan von Perchevitch, a former Lt. Colonel in the Austrian - Hungarian General Staff, who enjoyed the friendship of official and social circles in Austria. At about the same time, when Pavelitch found a haven in Vienna, his friend Perchevitch escaped via Hungary to Vienna where he participated at first in Pavelitch's organizational work. Later, he went to Hungary where he assumed the role of Chief of the Croat Refugees, who, in increasing numbers, but without papers of identity, and mostly penniless, were arriving there.
Pavelitch soon found himself in Vienna in congenial society among compatriots ready to support the Croat revolutionary cause. Milichevitch, who at that time conducted his Serbian counter - intelligence work from Vienna, writes that "The Austrian capital was the center of various emigrant movements and of the intelligence services of various powers, both great and small. More than that, it was the center of the Balkan countries' Communist organizations, headed by Bela Kun, former Communist dictator of Hungary, Georgi Dimitroff, head of the Bulgarian Communist emigration, and later head of the Komintern, and Dimitri Vlahov, the head of the Yugoslav Communist Party. In addition to those mentioned above, two terrorist organizations in the Balkans had for a long time maintained their standing representation there. They were the "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" (IMRO), and the "Kossovari," an Albanian irredentist organization. . . . Occasionally, the skirmishes between the groups within this organization, ended in murder or manslaughter. For instance, during the performance at the Vienna Burgtheater, Mencha Karnicheva, fiancee of the Bulgar terrorist, Ivan Mihailoff, shot and killed another Bulgar, Todor Panica, who was competing with her financee for the leadership of IMRO." This was the milieu in which the Croat revolutionary leaders became acquainted with the techniques of clandestine political warfare.
Dr. Branimir Yelitch - in the early thirties a Croat Youth Leader,
5 A King Dies in Marsielle (Hohwacht, Bad Godesberg, 1959) pp. 28 - 30.
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who rose to prominence in the Croat Independence Movement- has related to me how the national policy of the Croat people gradually developed in a revolutionary spirit.6 The Croat Youth Movement was similar to those which had existed in Turkey or in South Korea, and other countries under oppressive rule. It sprang into life with unexpected vigor with its center in the University of Zagreb at about the same time when Raditch, the Croat National Leader, was murdered. This Movement called The Domobrariski Pokret published a paper, the Hrvatski Domobran, which under the impact of Raditch's tragic demise, spread like wild fire among the Croat people. Pavelitch, at the request of the 21 - year old Yelitch, joined the Youth Movement and accepted its leadership. Spurred on by the dynamism of the students, the Croat National Movement assumed from then on a revolutionary character.
There can be no doubt that the proclamation of his personal dictatorship was King Alexander's answer to the success of the Croat Revolutionary Movement. Toni Schlegel, the editor - in - chief of the Zagreb newspaper Novosti, a bitter opponent of Croat independence, had appealed to the King to stamp out that menace. Yelitch tells that Schiegel was a member of the same Masonic Lodge as King Alexander, and that it was there that he met and warned the King that the State would shortly fall apart, unless the King personally held it together. The Croat reaction, however, to the King's bold move was quite alarming. On the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Yugoslav State (January 12, 1929) the Yugoslav Army had to be ordered off the streets of Zagreb, such was the pressure of the mass-demonstrations turning into riots. Shortly thereafter Pavelitch left for Vienna, where with Perchetch and Yelitch, they established the headquarters of the Croat Movement for Independence.
Wholesale Serbian terrorism unleashed against the Croat menace filled the jails in Yugoslavia with Croat patriots. Many of the persecuted Croats fled abroad and, accepting Pavelitch's program of Croat independence, enthusiastically joined his Movement. They looked up to him everywhere, even as far away as in America, in expectation of their homeland's liberation, and accepted him as the Croat National Leader.
6 Yelitch, at present medical doctor in West Berlin, has published his Memoirs in the magazinc "Kroatischer Staat" disclosing these facts. He a!so is now president of the Croatian National Committee, with headquarters in Munich.
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Yelitch truthfully states that during the first two years which Pavelitch spent in exile, he was opposed to all kinds of terrorism. Without saying so, the Serbian Milichevitch confirms this fact, in so far that in his story about the King's assassination there is no mention of any Croat act of violence organized abroad by Pavelitch prior to 1931. In the spring of 1929, the murderers of Toni Schiegel - the editor whom the Croat Nationalists bitterly hated - had not been sent from abroad, but were members of a youth group in Croatia proper. Pavelitch only decided to retaliate when after his visit in Sofia he learned that he had been sentenced to death by Belgrade. His would-be murderer had followed him to Livorno, Italy, and confessed that he was sent with the order to liquidate Pavelitch. It was then (1931) that a hard group was organized within the Croat National Movement charged with terrorist activities. This hard core was given the name of Ustasha, and Pavelitch became its chief, the Poglavnik.
The Ustashis7 were determined to conduct their uneven fight against the Serbs with all available legal and illegal means, somewhat like the Irish Sin Feiners did against the British. Mistreated Croats at home and persecuted refugees abroad, considered the country as being actually at war with their Serbian oppressors. They felt entitled to retaliate in kind. Dr. Branimir Yelitch8 has published a list of prominent Croat patriots murdered or executed at that time by the Pan-Serbian regime for political reasons.
Intellectuals among them, even priests, such as Svetozar Rittig, the parish priest of St. Mark's in Zagreb, and his clique, were hired by the Serbian government to organize demonstrations in favor of the dictatorship; severe beatings of the remonstrant peasants, particularly in the region of Lyka; arrests of Croat patriots all over the country could not intimidate the revolutionary Croat spirit. King Alexander, in the end, had to die, for hundreds of thousands of Croats, Mace-
7 Members of the Ustasha.
8 "Fight for the Croat State," published in the Croat language, in 1960, in Munich. This pamphlet tells that, in 1931, on February 18, two police agents killed in the street, in Zagreb, Milan Shuflay, the editor of Hroatka Pravo. The next day, the Croat freedom fighter Antun Pogorelec, was hanged. On June 11, the Croat revolutionary Ivan Roshitch was hanged in Belgrade; on July 25, the same fate befell Marko Hranilovitch and Matij Soldin, in Belgrade. In 1932, on April 21, Franjo Zrinski was executed in Belgrade; on June 7, an attempt was made against the life of Dr. Mile Budak, who later became the Minister of Propaganda in the Croat Independent Government; on Ju!y 14, the Vice - President of the Croat Independent Party, Josip Predavec, was murdered in Dugo Selo, on September 21, Stipe Devnitch was murdered in Velebit.
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donians, and other exasperated patriots, in and out of Yugoslavia had staked their lives and honor on his destruction. His death sentence was publicly announced by the Ustasha in Belgium, its motivation was explained at a meeting in Pittsburgh, in the United States two days before the King was killed. Did the delegates sitting in Geneva around the Council table need an investigation to determine the responsibility for the regicide of Marseille? They all knew that the King had unleashed furies of vengeance which he could not recall any more. This is the truth, the whole truth about the regicide of Marseille, which was obscured in the autumn of 1934, by intrigue and hypocrisy centered in the League of Nations.
The moral aspect of the Serbo - Croat fratricidal struggle also deserves elucidation, for war-time passions and extremist policies have elevated the Communist Tito in Western eyes and have sullied the reputation of the Serb General Mihajlovitch as well as the Croat Ustashis. The unvarnished truth, however, is - and it has to be restated - that Mihajlovitch and his Serbs were the first guerillas fighting on the Allied side honorably and until death against Hitler and his Croat Allies. It is equally true that the Ustashis have never fought against the Western Allies, and had never invaded Serbian territory. Had the Serbs sided with the Nazis, it is the Croats who would have gone to the other side, that is the Allied. It must also be stated that, in 1941, when, following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the Ustashis installed their regime in Zagreb, they took an inexcusably cruel revenge on their opponents and continued the internecine fight against the Serbs until the cunning Tito knocked out all of them, the Serbs of Mihajlovitch together with the young King Peter II, as well as the Croat Ustashis, whom he exterminated to the last man.
I still feel perplexed while brooding over the Croat tragedy, because of the wanton destruction of the remnants of the Croat Army after the war had come to an end. It is not alone the cruelty of Tito who killed more than half a million Croat soldiers and civilians, but also the inexplicable behavior of the British Army Command. "For it was the refusal of the British Military Command to accept the Croatian Army's surrender - when it was bound by the Geneva Convention, and the moral principles of war to do so - that allowed for the slaughter of the Croatian Army by the partisans" (of Tito).9 On May 16, 1945, near
9 Stephen W. Skertitch, The Massacre of the Croatian Army. ( Cleveland, 1960), pp. 7 - 8
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the Austrian-Yugoslav border, "on the Bleiburg field, an estimated 50,000 Croatian soldiers were slaughtered." ..."other huge contingents of Croatian soldiers and refugees, who also surrendered to the British military authorities on Austrian territory, were shipped back . . for extradition to Tito, despite promises that they would be sent to prisoner of war camps in Italy."10
"Actually, the total post-war Croatian dead numbered close to 600,000."11 That means fifteen per cent of the Croat nation, most of them young men! No worse fate befell any nation during the war on either side.
Shocked by the brutality of the reprisals taken against his people, the Croat Cardinal Stepinac12 asked the question, in a pastoral letter:
"does there exist a moral justification for the persecution of thousands of Croatian officers and hundreds of thousands of Croatian soldiers who in the greatest good faith and with many sacrifices, in order to serve the Croatian people, fuilfilled their duty as soldiers? . . It will not be too much to point out also in defense of these Croatian officers and soldiers the fact that they considered their fight to be a defensive fight against all the injustices that were committed, admitted injustices," by the Yugoslav regime.
It is a tragic fact that in the Yugoslav civil war both sides fought, not only with courage and patriotism, hut also with excessive brutality.
Each act of terrorism committed bred increased terrorism, piling up their victims, many of them innocent, until the entire structure generating such supreme evil was consumed by the fires which they themselves had ignited. During the bloody holocaust, all notion of right and justice was swept away. As a result of Allied victory, the loyal Serbian General Mihajlovitch was ignominiously hanged by the worst offender against Christian morale, the Communist Tito, who was allowed to oppress with armaments and funds supplied by the Allies, both the Serbian and the Croat nations.
10 Skeritch, p. 3.
11 Skertitch, p. 7.
12 Richard Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac. (Milwaukee; the Bruce Publishing Co., 1953), pp. 426 - 442.
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THE CROAT REVOLT
The depth and character of the conflict between the two Southern Slav brothers, the Croat and the Serb, is best revealed if viewed along the winding path of history.
From the beginning of the 12th Century up to the end of the first World War, the Croats had been living in political union with the Hungarians. The Tirpimir dynasty of Croatia having become extinct, the widowed Queen invited her brother, Laszlo, King of Hungary, elevated later to sainthood, to extend his rule over Croatia. His able successor, Kalman, "The Book-Lover," established with Croat consent, a lasting association between the two friendly neighbors in 1102. The kings of Hungary, who at the same time were elected by the Croats also as their kings, preserved the separate statehood and the national identity of their Croat domain. Under a representative of the King of Hungary, called the Ban, the Croats retained the freedoms of their hereditary constitution and the respect for their religion, language and traditions. As a result, during the eight centuries of co - existence, the Croats never resorted to revolt against their Hungarian Kings, but lived in good Christian order within the Realm of Saint Stephen. Never did they practice murder of political opponents to promote their national aims. At the end of the first World War, however, Croatia, together with several other territories, was transferred by the Paris Peacemakers to the then established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (SHS). In deference to President Wilson's ethnic principles which Hungary bona fide accepted, she did not ask for the return of the Croats. On December 7, 1934, in the Council of the League of Nations, I have made a categorical declaration proprio motu in this sense.
Up to the middle of the 19th Century, in spite of existing ethnic differences, the association of Hungarians and Croats did prove exceptionally successful. A concept of the French Revolution: that of the centralized national state, however, did cause political friction in the last decades preceding the first World War. In regard to nationality, the Middle Ages were more tolerant than our modern era. From the year 1000, when Saint Stephen founded the Hungarian Kingdom, the
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------precept prevailed that "the King's deeds shall be governed by Christian ethics."1 There was no atom bomb and less demoracy in its present interpretation in that much belittled era. Life was less comfortable, but there was honest striving for spiritual achievements, and a fervent longing for the sublime, as expressed in the Gothic cathedral. In those far-away days, faith, chivalry, fortitude and decency, were regarded, though not always cultivated, as virtues becoming a Christian ruler.
Evil fate had placed both the Hungarian and the Croat nations across the highway of the Turkish invasions. From the beginning of the 15th century, they fought hand in hand against that deadly menace. It was in behalf of these nations, living up to the legacy of Saint Stephen, that John Hunyadi, the victorious Hungarian war leader, solemnly pledged: "We will either free Europe from the cruel Turks, or we will fall for Christianity, earning the Crown of Martyrdom."2 During the 15th Century, successful resistance against the Turks was led by the Hunyadis. But then, after centuries of successful resistance, for two hundred years Hungarians and Croats only averted their final subjugation by paying an excessive price in lives and human values in incessant wars fought against the Turkish invasions. The sacrifice and hardships loyally born together, formed a closer comradeship between the two nations than prosperity and easy living could ever have achieved.
South of the Lower Danube, in the Balkans, the Serbs, meanwhile more exposed to Turkish invasions than their neighbors to the North, were crushed definitively at an early date, 1389, in the battle of Kossovo. Henceforth, up to the beginning of the 19th century, much to their dislike, they formed a part of the Ottoman Empire. Previous to the loss of their independence, the Serbs had been attracted by the Greek Orthodox Church and had established religious, cultural and occasionally also political ties with Byzantium. This deep division of the Christian world between Rome and Byzantium separated the Serbs looking to the East from the Roman Catholic Croats who, up to 1918, had never ceased to form an integral part of the West. This historic fact, and most of all, five hundred years of life under Turkish domination, had hardened and Balkanized the Serbs. This cruel turn of
1 Emphasized in Saint Stephen's admonitions to his son - Prince Imre - who also achieved sainthood.
2 Dominic G. Kosary. The History of Hungary (New York, Cleveland. The Benjamin Franklin Bibliophile Society, 1941), p. 62.
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THE "USTASHA" CONSPIRACY
The background of the regicide of Marseille, of which only a few details were known in 1934, has been described many years later by the Serbian Viadeta Milichevitch. He spent twelve years in tracking down the Ustashis and their connections all over Europe. His tenacious work brought to light a good many hidden facts, but his narrative is tainted with an obvious anti-Italian and a less pronounced anti-Hungarian bias. I had to balance Milichevitch's proSerbian presentation with statements by Doctor Branimir Velitch,1 the last surviving leader of the original Croat National Movement, present Chairman of the Croat National Committee. The Croat revolutionaries accept the entire responsibility for the murder of King Alexander I, their foremost enemy, killed, in their view, in the Civil War, which was fought by the Croat nation against the Serbs for the restoration of Croat independence.
When did terrorism find its way into the traditionally law - abiding Croat national movement? Milichevitch tells us2 that: "The first ally that Pavelitch found was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), headed by Ivan Mihailoff." A few weeks after laying the foundation of the Ustasha organization in Vienna, Pavelitch "visited the Mihailoff organization headquarters situated in Banka, Bulgaria, a village near Sophia. It was agreed that both organizations should co - operate in a joint fight against Yugoslavia."
IMRO, the above mentioned organization, had developed in the beginning of the 20th century into a most dreaded secret organization. Centrally located in the Balkan peninsula, the Macedonian people, fiercely nationalistic and politically minded, had been divided up among their neighbors (Serbs, Greeks and Bulgars) when the Turks were driven out of the Balkans. The Macedonians were antagonistic to the Greeks, but hated even more fiercely the Serbs whom they considered as their main enemies after the end of the first World War when the major part of Macedonian inhabited territory was adjudged to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
1 "Fight for the Croat State." Published in the Croat languagc in Munich, 1960.
2 lbid., p.32.
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JMRO's leader in the early 20's, Theodore Alexandroff, entrenched in his inaccessible mountain redoubt near the Bulgarian frontier town of Petritch, was conducting savage terrorist raids into Macedonian territory held by Yugoslavia. Partly because many Bulgarians shared in IMRO's ambition to liberate Macedonia from Yugoslav rule and partly because the accepted procedure of IMRO was murder of friend or foe alike if he happened to stand in IMRO's way, that secret organization attained enough power to establish itself in Bulgaria as a state. In 1923, when the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Alexander Stamboliski entered into negotiations with Yugoslavia to work out an understanding concerning the Macedonian problem, IMRO challenged him as "an enemy until death." IMRO did not pronounce idle threats, that same year, the Bulgarian Prime Minister was murdered bestially, in true IMRO fashion.
The sinister role of IMRO in recent Balkan history and the inviolability it seemed to enjoy in Bulgaria, may appear to the Western observer as enigmatic. Centuries of oppression endured under the Turkish yoke; then frustration caused by the dismemberment of Macedonia following liberation; incessant Great Power intrigues preventing unification of the Macedonian people coupled with subversive pressures by the Soviets, in an area which looked up to "Mother Russia" for salvation; these scattered but violent forces were channeled into the secret societies of the Balkans, and account for their murderous dynamism. They also explain why Bulgaria, opposed to the Great Serbian concept extended protection to the IMRO leadership filled with a deep - seated dislike of the Serbs. IMRO enjoyed the sympathies of the simple Bulgarian people and of the patriotic intelligensia. It also enjoyed the friendship of King Boris who extended to several of its members his protection.
In connection with the regicide of Marseille, another Bulgarian association also played a curious role. Peter Danow, the founder of a mystic sect which had connections both with the Soviets and with King Boris, occasionally gave asylum in his temple to notorious criminals also. In the summer of 1934, according to Papasissis,3 Vlada Georgijeff-Kerin, the man who within a few months volunteered to murder King Alexander was residing in the Danowist temple in Sofia with Occultists and Spiritualists, practicing meditation.3
3 Ibid., p.47.
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How was it possible for a professional murderer to join such company in a temple? Asked by Yugoslav journalists, Peter Danow gave the explanation: 4"Why should I not take care of a Tchernoshemsky (the alias of "Vlada, the Chauffeur")? I am here to make good men better and to improve the bad ones. I am here to lift up the downfallen." There never was any doubt about the identity of King Alexander's murderer and every detail of his past, was shortly uncovered. Mistakenly, Mr. Eden writes in his Memoirs, Facing the Dictators (page 121) "The assassin was a Croat refugee who had lived for some years at the Janka Puszta camp in Hungary." This is definitely an error. The murderer, Kerin Tchernoshemsky, was not a Croat but a Macedonian and had never been in Hungary. Such an accusation has never been raised in Geneva or anywhere else.
A number of incidents provoked by IMRO in the Yugoslav and also in the Greek border area, convinced the Kremlin that IMRO was an organization to its liking for it would keep the Balkans in constant tension and irritation. The Encyclopedia Britannica relates5 how, in 1924, the IMRO "split over the question whether Russian help should be acepted. Alexandrov was murdered on August 31, 1924, and an internecine feud commenced, in which many of the leaders lost their lives. Band warfare was replaced, in 1927, by bomb outrages and the State of Macedonia, the most disturbing factor in the Balkans, was as far off peace as ever. . . . In 1928, the principal issue of Macedonian agitation - an autonomist Macedonia or union with Bulgaria - again flared up in new violence. The leader of the pro - Bulgarian Party, General Alexander Nicholoff Protogeroff, was killed." The Chief of the opposition inside IMRO, Ivan Mihailoff, then became its leader. He professed that in the fight for Macedonia's unity and independence, all means were justified, and all allies acceptable. He did not refrain from including the Soviets among his allies, and did not exclude Mussolini either.
I briefly described IMRO, the most savage secret organization in modern times. "Vlada, the Chauffeur," the murderer of King Alexander, was not a leader, but a murderous instrument of IMRO. In 1929, when Pavelitch launched his desperate fight against the royal dictatorship,
4 Politika, (Belgrade, October 21, 1934). Tchernoshemsky's real name was: Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin.
5 London, Chicago, 1947, Vol. 14, p.563.
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he automatically became allied with IMRO, the organization which for years had been fighting against the Serbs, from now on their common enemies. Pavelitch also had contacts with prominent Italians whom - as Yelitch told me - he had met in 1928 at a Congress in Paris. Pavelitch was advised by Mihailoff in Banka "to go to Rome, and he went. Once there, he was received without delay by high functionaries of the Italian Ministry. . . . A house was placed at Ante Pavelitch's disposal in Bologna."6 Funds were also provided for the Ustasha in Italy. Milichevitch writes7 that "the head of the Italian Secret Police, Senator Arturo Bochini, detailed one of his Service's best officials, Inspector General Ercole Conti, to the Leader of the Ustasha movement. Conti simultaneously directed espionage against Yugoslavia." These facts published by Milichevitch have - to my knowledge not been refuted.
Milichevitch further relates that8 Pavelitch set up two Ustashi camps in Italy. One of these was in Fontecchio, near Arezzo,9 while the other was in San Demetrio. In these camps, Croat emigrants were accommodated and trained. The last known total of the occupants was 508 men women and children. In addition to these two camps, Pavelitch set up frontier posts near Trieste, Fiume and Zara, whose mission it was to introduce propaganda material into Yugoslavia. Whilst this was going on, Pavelitch's friend and helper, Gustav Perchetch was setting up, with the aid of funds placed at his disposal by Italian authorities, a terrorist center in Hungary.9a It was situated in Janka Puszta, in the vicinity of the Yugoslav - Hungarian border. It appears from Milichevitch's narrative, that Janka Puszta was mainly a station of transit for the Croat refugees on their way to other parts of the world.
In 1931, Milichevitch, in charge of collecting information on the Ustashi abroad, made contact with the Serbian journalist, Peter Gruber, who intended joining the Ustasha, but was persuaded by Milichevitch to support his native Serbian cause. Gruber became an informer on the Ustasha, a role which he adroitly dissimulated. Jelitch tells about
6 Milichevitch, Ibid., p. 32.
7 Ibid.., p. 33.
8 Ibid., p.33.
9 A picture of Arezzo was submitted to the League of Nations in the Yuguslav complaint as representing Janka Puszta.
9a Concerning the Croat refugee camps in Italy and Hungary, Yelitch has informcd me that the Croat refugees arriving abroad, deprived of all means, had to he housed inexpensively. In Italy old buildings, in Hungary a farm - Janka Puszta was rented not for military training but for collective housing purposes.
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Gruber that he was a well known member of the Serbian opposition to the King, led by the talented S. Pribitchevitch. He also edited a popular magazine which criticized sharply the dictatorship in Yugoslavia. Collaboration with Gruber seemed therefore interesting to the Croat separatists. But, being a Serb, he never was fully trusted. Soon he was found out to be a double agent and was used therefore as such. Milichevitch, understandably, exaggerates the role of Gruber, his master spy. He writes that in Italy, Gruber was met by an enthusiastic Pavelitch, for Gruber was the only Serb who had joined the Ustasha. After their first talks, Gruber was even appointed a member of the Ustasha's Central Committee. [This, Jelitch assured me was not true.] Pavelitch then ordered Gruber to proceed to Bulgaria without delay, and, in the name of the "Serbian Opposition to conclude a treaty with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization on joint action."10
As occasionally happens in the devious practice of secret services, so in Gruber's exploit, the tragic bordered on the ridiculous. "Gruber [a Serbian counter-intelligence agent!] was met and solemnly welcomed at the Sofia railway station by a few hundred Macedonians. Receptions and banquets were given in his honor, and the press ran articles on the so-called renegade Serb. . . . At the same time (Milichevitch) sent to Belgrade the original of the agreement that Gruber and Mihailoff had signed in Bulgaria."11
"That agreement settled the details of co-operation between the two organizations for the liberation of Croatia and Macedonia from the Yugoslav yoke. Through the mediation of IMRO, Gruber was granted a secret audience with King Boris, and subsequently taken to Mihailoff's country house near Banka, in which Pavelitch had also lived. Mihailoff showed Gruber the camps in which the Komitadji12 were given their military training and taught to use pistols and handle infernal machines. Several of Pavelitch's subordinate commanders went through these Bulgarian training camps, including those who later took part in the assassination of King Alexander. In Banka, Gruber made the acquaintance of Mihailoff's chauffeur. . . . His real name was Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin. It was he who fired the fatal shots at King Alexander on October 9, 1934. Even then, be had a number of crimes on his con-
10 Ibid., p. 35.
11 Ibid., p. 35~6.
12 The Bulgarian Komitadji were the same type of professionad freedom fighters as the Croat Ustashis, but they had started that way of life earlier.
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science, especially two delegates of the Bulgarian Agrarian Party whom he had murdered because he considered them to be dangerous opponents of his chief."13
Milichevitch gives information on high level political contacts also which Pavelitch established in Italy, (I have not had any opportunity to check these statements.) He writes about a banquet which Pavelitch gave "in Gruber's honor in Ostia. Several official Italian personalities attended, one of them being Italo Balbo, then Undersecretary of State. Before the banquet, Gruber was introduced by Pavelitch to Count Ciano. The latter was tremendously interested in Gruber's stay in Bulgaria, and he let fall a remark concerning the agreement with Mihailoff, whose organization was receiving financial support from the Italian government. Ciano talked at some length on the question of whether Yugoslavia was ripe for a revolution."
Milichevitch also reveals how terrorism was started by the Croat revolutionaries on Macedonian inspiration. The first large scale terrorist action was planned after Gruber's return from his visit with IMRO in Bulgaria. During the first two years of the Ustasha's existence, the Croat Nationalists abroad did not resort to terrorism and obviously, it was the Macedonian example which had adversely influenced the Croat revolution. According to the first plan, international trains were to be blown up, for propagandistic effect by infernal machines, while travelling in Yugoslav territory. This was terrorism - Soviet style. The first attempt succeeded in a suburb of Belgrade causing the death of an entire family, but the second attempt was detected with the aid of the Vienna Police, and the conspirators fled to Italy.
Meanwhile the Croat refugees in Hungary were becoming restless. Unquestionably, Janka Puszta was located too close to the Yugoslav border for security. Months before the Marseille regicide was committed, I had agreed on this with Mr. Yeftich, the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, at my request, the Hungarian government had expelled the Ustashis not only from the farm but also from Hungary. Nevertheless, Janka Puszta gained notoriety because of gruesome stories fabricated by a Yugoslav spy, Yelka Pogorelec, whose testimony was submitted to the League of Nations. This night club beauty from the Balkans was the only witness to state that Janka Puszta had been a
13 Ibid., p.36.
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Who was this Yelka, the star witness of the prosecution, whose testimony was to disgrace an entire nation? I will not quote from Hungarian police reports on the scandalous life which she led while in Hungary. The reader may form an opinion of her from the story which her boss, Milichevitch, the man for whom she had worked as a spy, relates in his book. Milichevitch writes14 that Perchetch, the chief of the Croat refugees in Hungary, had brought Yelka, "his cousin," to a chateau near the farm where, somewhat later, she gave birth to a daughter of his. She also "frequently met a young man by the name of Josip Zarko and fell earnestly in love with him." Zarko himself was a strange character. He had attempted to murder the Yugoslav Minister to Belgium and was helped by the Ustashis to flee across the border. In Janka Puszta, in a state of mental collapse, Zarko shot himself. His suicide "stretched Yelka's nerves to the utmost." She fell ill and finally, with Ferchetch's permission, she visited her sister Mary, a spy in Vienna. As "an act of personal revenge against Perchetch" whom she suspected of infidelity, Yelka accepted Milichevitch's offer to work for him. At his orders, she returned to Janka Puszta to stir up dissension between Perchetch and the Croat refugees. Seven years later, when Pavelitch established his regime in Croatia, Yelka was arrested by the Ustashis and executed. Years earlier, the same fate bad befallen her unfaithful lover. Perchetch was executed, maybe mistakenly, for it was believed that having been Yelka's lover, he had also become a traitor to the Croat cause.
14 Ibid., pp. 40 - 41.
PREPARATION OF THE CRIME
The first attempt on King Alexander's life by the Ustashis was organized a year before his murder at Marseille, when the King journeyed to Zagreb to celebrate the Slava, his family festival. Two selected assault groups were formed by the Ustashi Command for this purpose. One was led by Peter Oreb, coming via Italy, and the other one by Ivan Herenchitch, sent to Zagreb via Hungary. According to Milichevitch1 it transpired at the trial of the conspirators that the Italian Secret Police had given 500,000 lire to Pavelitch to put up as a reward for the King's assassination. (This Yelitch denies.) The police chief of Zagreb, Doctor Vosip Vragovitch, was informed by Milichevitch about the preparation of the crime, but he thought (or pretended) that this was a joke and the measures he belatedly took were ineffective. Nevertheless, the murder attempt failed for such was the confusion of loyalties in the Croat revolutionaries' mind at that time. Standing in a crowd by the King's car, Oreb's hand shook. He felt incapable of hurling his bomb at the King for it might kill innocent Croat bystanders also. So Oreb, with the bomb in his hand, was apprehended and executed. On the other hand, the second Ustashi group foolishly atttacked a police detachment which withdrew leaving two dead on the pavement. This gave the terrorists sufficient time to escape.
Milichevitch writes the following post-mortem on this pathetic interlude:2 "At the beginning of the war, it was ascertained that the chief of the Zagreb police, Dr. Vragovitch, was a tool of the Italians and the Ustashis. It is possible that he actually prevented the arrest of the terrorists. With the ascension of the Communists to power, Vragovitch who, under the Pavelitch government had held a high post in the police, was sentenced to death and hanged." Yelitch denies that the unfortunate Police Chief had ever collaborated actively with the Ustashis, but believes that as a Croat, he sympathized with the national cause and therefore remained passive.
Where does responsibility lie, when an entire nation, driven by despair, decides to revolt against its oppressors? Facing arrest, torture
1 lbid., p.47.
2 lbid., p. 49.
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and execution, what means are there available for a patriot to defend the cause of his people? Abandoned by the outside world to evil fate, how long can a downtrodden nation continue to observe patience and tolerance? Can legal order be maintained when it is in lasting conflict with moral order?
I ask the reader to answer these questions in his conscience before passing judgment on the Croat nation's fight for freedom. Crime and heroism; streams of uselessly spent blood and self - sacrificing devotion; human greatness and abject treachery appear in an indissoluble mixture in Yugoslavia's tragic history. In the following, I restrict my analysis to the legal aspects of the Marseille regicide. Hungary was malevolently a used of being responsible for it. If that allegation had been true, Hungary's conduct would have been inexcusable, for the element of self - defense would have been missing in her actions.
What has Milichevitch to say about the question of responsibility? He was the chief investigator of the Marseille regicide and of its political background, on behalf of the Vugoslav government. He supplied much of the evidence for the Yugoslav memorandum presented in Geneva in 1934. In his own words,3 Milichevitch is on the part of the Serbs "the sole survivor and witness capable of giving any information on the investigation that the authorities conducted into this tragedy."
In a chapter of his book, under the title "Preparations for Marseille,"
Milichevitch has published the following unconfirmed data on the background of the crime and the persons implicated in the preparations4:
1. The attempt on the King's life was prepared by the Central Committee of the Ustasha in Bologna, Italy, when the news of the impending visit by King Alexander to France was published. (Summer, 1934)
2. "At the same time, Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin, known also as Vlado Makedonski, chauffeur to Ivan Mihailoff, and terrorist instructor, made his appearance in the Ustashi Camp in Italy. Kerin was now in charge of firing practice in the camp, with the target used being a silhouette in perfect replica of King Alexander."
3. "About the end of August, 1934, Ivan Mihailoff, head of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, went to Rome
3 Ibid., p. 17.
4 Ibid., pp. 52 - 57.
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. . . to arrange with Pavelitch the place, day, and hour of the assassination. He was staying at the Hotel Continental, in which most of the Balkan terrorist organizations had their meetings. Inspector General, Ercole Conti, attended the talks between Pavelitch and Mihailoff." "Count Ciano twice received Mihailoff and Pavelitch together."
4. "Pavelitch and Mihailoff agreed to assemble several groups of terrorists for the actual assassination. The first group was to make its attempt immediately upon the King's landing at Marseille. In the event of the first group's failing, another was to make an attempt with a bomb at a prearranged time. A third group was assembled to operate in Paris. In the event of all three groups in France failing, a fourth group was to operate in England."
5. At Mihailoff's suggestion, it was decided "that the first group be headed by his chauffeur, Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin, who," he said, "had experienced such assassinations, and would take the first chance he saw."
6. Pavelitch ordered Mijo Bzik, his secretary in the Ustasha camp in Italy,
to assemble several groups of terrorists. Bzik went to Vienna and then
travelled with Lt. Colonel von Perchevitch to Janka Puszta in Hungary.
Perchetch had just been executed and replaced by Vjekoslav Servatzi as
the Leader of the Ustashis in Hungary. Bzik was "now charged with the
task of selecting, with Servatzi's help, the terrorists required, and fitting
them out with false names and forged passports."
7. Milichevitch notes that "none of the members of the terrorist groups chosen knew either the place or the time of the attempt. Those data were kept so secret that even his (Milichevitch's) agents in Janka Puszta were unable to give any precise information." The explanation of this ignorance was given by the Marseille Police, whose investigation established that while in Hungary, none of the terrorists had any idea of what their mission would be abroad nor that they were selected to murder the King of Yugoslavia.
8. Simultaneously, the Ustashis sent their political emissaries to Western Europe to represent the Croat cause there. Andrea Artukovitch, a Zagreb lawyer, was sent to London, (in 1941, he
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became Minister of the Interior) while Stephan Peritch proceeded to Brussels; he was later appointed Minister to Italy by Pavelitch. At the end of September, Kvaternik (later Pavelitch's Minister of Police) left Italy for Switzerland where he was to instruct the arriving detachment of Ustashis sent from Janka Puszta.
According to Milichevitch, the scene for the King's assassination was thus set. He accuses Hungary of having participated in it. But he does not mention any Hungarian authority or private person as having been responsible in any way for the Marseille regicide.
Milichevitch, "the sole surviving witness" of the Yugoslav investigation, differs widely in his presentation from the candid admissions of Dr. Branimir Yelitch, the one-time Ustashi leader, "the only Croat still alive who knows all the facts" about the Ustashi revolution.5 In his booklet "Fight for the Croation State" published in 1960, in Munich, he certainly does not shrink from accepting Croat responsibility for the "execution" of King Alexander. But he rejects emphatically that Italy or Hungary had anything to do with it.
I do not hesitate to accept the Croat Yelitch's presentation as authentic when he differs from the story of Milichevitch, the Chief of Serbian Counter - Intelligence. For Yelitch, the well informed Croat National Leader, far from sidestepping the charges brought up against his Croat friends in connection with the regicide at Marseille, explicitly accepts these charges and places the entire responsibility on the shoulders of his two prominent colleagues, Pavelitch and Kvaternik the leaders at that time of the Ustasha. Milichevitch, on the other hand, a Serbian archenemy of the Croat Nationalists, has published his story based on investigation during 12 years. His agents and double - agents - some of them admittedly of a questionable character - have been picking up and embellishing pieces of information which Milichevitch then fitted into a preconceived story. Yelitch has called attention to some thirty incorrect statements in Milichevitch's story. Without producing any evidence, Millichevitch, always loyal to his King, has aspersed with some guilt all the opponents of the Pan-Serbian dictatorship in and outside of Yugoslavia without proper evidence or justification.
Against Milichevitch's story, Yelitch in his publication has clearly
5 Statement from his letter to Dr. Tibor Eckhardt 12 - 14 - 1962.
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stated: "There did never exist any Central Committee of the Ustasha in Bologna" (Italy).
The Macedonian Mihailoff did not participate in the discussion or in the decision concerning King Alexander's liquidation. Nor did Mihailoff arrange with Pavelitch in Rome the place, day and hour of the assassination.
Up to 1941, Pavelitch had not been received by Mussolini.
Gruber has never had an audience with King Boris of Bulgaria, and he was not introduced by Pavelitch to Count Ciano, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Count Ciano did not "receive Mihailoff and Pavelitch together" and knew nothing of the preparations for the assassination.
Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin, the murderer, was not an instructor in terrorism of the Ustashis in Italy.
Besides refuting such false statements and allegations, Yelitch refers to the fact that following the murder of the Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss, (July, 1934) it became Mussolini's central problem to save Austria's independence from absorption by Hitler. The Austrian National Socialists, compromised in the Vienna Putsch, fled to Yugoslavia where, wearing their Austrian uniforms, they were housed in army barracks at Varazdin. According to Yelitch, Pavelitch became deeply disturbed by the developing Italian desire to placate the Serbs, eventually even to conclude a compromise with the Royal Dictator of Yugoslavia in order to stop him from promoting the union of Austria with Germany. The Croats had not forgotten what had happened in 1923 to the refugees from Montenegro, when Italy shipped them back in cattle cars to Yugoslavia, although the daughter of King Nikola of Montenegro was at that time the Queen of Italy. The Croats felt that the Italo-Serbian rapprochment might spell the doom of Croat independence.
Radical Croat interference with these Italian plans was decided when the Ustasha Command learned that Milichevitch had been charged by King Alexander - on the advice of the Belgrade Police Chief, Zika Lazitch - with the task of having the Croat Revolutionary Leaders abroad murdered. Dr. Yelitch states that Milichevitch, this dangerous opponent of the Croat cause, was responsible for the attempt on the life of King Zogu of Albania in the Vienna Opera House. Probably aided by the Czech police - Yelitch accused him of the
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murder of the Croat Lt. Colonel Stevo Duitch, found hanged in his hotel room in Karlsbad. According to Yelitch, Milichevitch organized the attempts against the lives of various Ustasha leaders: Pavelitch in Munich, von Perchevitch in Vienna, Servatzi in Fiume and Perchetch in Budapest. We faced the alternative, wrote Dr. Velitch (in 1960): to kill or to be killed. "Our (Ustashi) leadership therefore gave orders to the Chief of Staff of our (Ustashi) revolutionary action, Longin, (the alias of Eugene Dido Kvaternik who died a short while ago in Buenos Aires) for urgent action" in connection with King Alexander's visit in France. Dr. Yelitch had returned to Italy at the end of October, after an eight - month stay in America. This was following the Marseille regicide which took place on October 9. He was jailed in Torino (Italy) together with Pavelitch and Kvaternik, and it was there that the two Ustasha Leaders informed Yelitch of the background of the Marseille assassinations. Quite recently, he assured me6 that he established beyond all doubt that the decision to execute King Alexander I. of Yugoslavia was made by Pavelitch personally and that Kvaternik was put in charge of that action. Pavelitch, however, was not implicated in the planning and the execution of the Marseille regicide.
Dr. Yelitch finally states that "Belgrade has been accusing not only the Croat emigration but also Italy and Hungary with the organization of the entire Marseille affair. Germany was also mentioned as having aided the Croat National emigration. The fact is that these states were completely guiltless, for no political personality in any of these states, had the slightest intimation of the intended attempt at Marseille."
"Nobody in Hungary knew anything about the plans."
"Nobody in Italy had the slightest idea about the Marseille attempt and Mussolini was completely shocked by it.7"
"It is true that our [Croat] people lived in Italy; they travelled to various European countries, where we established our organization, but neither arms, nor initiative originated in Italy, Hungary or Germany."
Emphatically, Dr. Velitch ends "The execution of King Alexander I. was purely an act of Croat - Macedonian collaboration."
6 In November 1962, when we met in New York city.
7 0n the telegram reporting to him King Alexander's assassination in Marseille, Mussolini wrote the instruction: "Ask our Croat friends who could be the murderer and by whom could he have been inspired?'
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RESPONSIBILITY AND RETRIBUTION
It was not my intention to captivate the reader of my recollections with a murder story. This book was conceived as a survey of the political disintegration of Europe in the light shed by the Marseille regicide. This narrative, however, would be incomplete, if the responsibility for the murder of King Alexander I. of Yugoslavia were not properly established.
What conclusions did the French Court arrive at, at the trial of the King's assassins? In February 1936, at Aix - en - Provence, it started with a negative sensation: the widowed Queen Marie did not appear in Court, and her civil plaint was withdrawn by her private representative, the distinguished French statesman, J. Paul-Boncour. The Queen - he writes in his Memoirs1 - "bowed to the political considerations put to her and strengthened, to her painful surprise, by the declaration of agreement on the part of the French Government." Stojadinovitch, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, supported the French stand and "did not make a secret of the fact that this was in conformity with Mussolini's wish," who promised he would have Pavelitch and Kvaternik sentenced by a Special Court. Paul-Boncour, prevented from disclosing the political background of the crime, was disappointed of course, but retained his objectivity.
"It would have been exaggerating matters" - wrote this friend of the Yugoslavs2 - "to ascribe any immediate blame to the Fascist Government, and I (P.B.) should not have gone as far as that in my plea (emphasis mine). But it did seem to be an established fact that the Italian Government had accorded generous hospitality to Croat agitators, who served its purpose inasmuch as they created difficulties for Yugoslavia. The Croats had to a great extent abused that hospitality to prepare for their crime. It is perfectly obvious that this fact must needs have rendered the trial very embarrassing to the Italian Government." In complete knowledge of the relevant facts, I concur with Paul-Boncour's judgement.
Paul-Boncour was helpful in straightening out Hungary's record
1 Milichevitch, Ibid., p. 108 - 9, quotcs thcse "Mernoirs"' publishcd by Plon, Paris, 1946.
2 lbid., p. 107.
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also. Referring in his Memoirs2 to photographs of ranges where the Ustashis conducted firing practice (these were maliciously submitted to the League of Nations as picturing Yanka Puszta in Hungary), he admitted that he "had thought it strange that such ranges should have been sited in Hungary. In any case, interpretations of this kind were advanced, with a view to sparing Italy, in the Council of the League of Nations, when it dealt with the assassination. However, the mountains in the background hardly fitted into the picture of the Hungarian Puszta, cut by the peace treaties." With no other evidence, but these pictures falsely described as Hungary, Milichevitch yielded to his hostile impulses In accusing Hungary of participation in the Marseille regicide3. He named Mussolini, Pavelitch and Mihailoff, but was unable to mention any guilty Hungarian by name.
During the depressing years of the Second World War, in Washington, D.C., I discussed in good comradeship with the straightforward Serb patriot, Konstantin Fotitch, every detail of the Marseille regicide, so badly garbled by international intrigue. He had ably supported his government in Geneva as the permanent Yugoslav Delegate to the League, but he, as well as I, was familiar with the entire background of the Marseille regicide. He admitted frankly that Hungary had been picked by Laval and Benes as the scape - goat in order to avoid a deterioration of French - Little Entente relations with Italy. Inadvertently, even Milichevitch has admitted4 that "the French Government insisted that the only material used in support of the Yugoslav motion at the League of Nations be that concerning Hungary and Janka - Puszta." [emphasis mine] The truth about Hungary's role was simply the following: for three years Hungary had been granting shelter to persecuted Croat political refugees, not exceeding the hospitality which they were enjoying in any other civilized country, (Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, England, etc.). No Hungarian official or private person was involved in, or accused of any hostile act against Yugoslavia in connection with the crime of Marseille.
The plan followed by the Ustashis in carrying out the King's assassination was identical with the terrorist technique previously developed in Macedonia and Serbia. Paul-Boncour cannot help noting5 how retribution followed the same path which the original evil had
3 Ibid., p. 79.
4 Ibid., p. 85.
5 Ibid., p. 106.
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chosen. "Precisely as had been the case in the Sarajevo affair, those charged with the assassination itself were not identical with those who had furnished the weapons. Just as in Sarajevo, two groups had crossed the frontier at different points - before meeting at Aix - en - Provence. In the background, political agitators could be recognized, who, although they played no direct part in the plot, belonged to its spiritual instigators." The ghosts of Sarajevo had revisited Serbia at Marseille.
At the Aix - en - Provence trial, the prosecution raised its accusation purely on legal grounds, characterizing the indicted Ustashis as a gang of hired criminals, and without reference to their political motives. Among the victims killed in Marseille there were four French citizens also and the presiding judge cooled off the protests of the Ustashis by reminding them6 that they "could just as well have used their own country to carry out their revolutionary deed" without coming to France and there claiming innocent victims. "The Croat Association, Pittsburgh, (USA) had briefed Maitre George Desbons of the Paris Chambers for the defense of the accused,"6 and in his role of defending advocate, the fiery Desbons insisted on having the political background of the crime elucidated by the Court. At the demand of the Prosecutor General, Maitre Desbons was ordered out of Court, when he put French justice into doubt. But by provoking his ejection, the shrewd lawyer had bluntly called attention to the political motives of the Marseille regicide which could no more be ignored. When, two months later, the proceedings were reopened, witnesses and the accused themselves brought to light the oppression of the Croats which gave birth to the revolutionary movement of the Ustashis. Dr. Yelitch, in his letter of July 18,1963, called my attention to an important admission by Lava!. He had been a schoolmate of Desbons and, after an estrangement, they renewed their earlier friendship during the Second World War. Laval then confided to Desbons that in the interest of France the truth had to be suppressed at the trial of the Marseille regicide and that injustice had been done to Desbons.6a
In his report on the trial, Alexandre Guibbal, a Commissioner of the French Police Mobile, points to the fact that secret societies in
6 Report by Alexander Guibbal, Commissioner of the Police Mobile, quoted by Milichevitch, p. 129 - 30.
6a According to Yelitch this admission was published in Buenos Aires in the periodical Croat Republic and in Germany in the booklet Croat Republic.
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the Balkans, among them the Ustashis, "do not by any means consist of ex - convicts or dishonourable men or women, but, regarded from a general legal aspect, of honourable people who are convinced that they are genuine patriots and are simply obeying their ideals."7
The Prosecutor General asked for a death sentence, but the Jury granted extenuating circumstances in the case of the three accused. Finally, the Assizes passed a verdict as follows: "The prisoners at the bar, Kralj, Rajitch and Pospishil, were found to be accessories before the fact, and sentenced to hard labour for life. Further proceedings were instituted, and three of the organizers, namely Pavelitch himself, Perchevitch, and Kvaternik, whose extradition the French Government had been unable to obtain, were sentenced to death in absentia."8
In his presentation of the trial, Police Commissioner Guibbal9 proceeds to characterize the accused Ustashis present. Mijo Kralj's mental faculties, according to psychiatrists, had suffered somewhat under the strain caused by the attempt on the royal car in Marseille. "His face constantly bore a happy and almost mocking expression." Ivo Rajitch "looked ill, presented the appearance of a somewhat resigned disciple of a fatalist doctrine." Zvonimir Pospishil's masklike face "registered determination - the eyes were those of an illuminate, a little frightening, perhaps, yet reflecting honesty and courage." According to Milichevitch9 the three condemned Ustashis were released from jail in France, in 1940, by the Nazis, but were put to death during the war by Antun Godine,10 at that time Chief of the Croat Secret Police. The three liberated Ustashis had become dissatisfied with their treatment back home and were talking too much for their own good.
I have known personally two leaders of the Ustashis who were sentenced to death in absentia. Ivan von Perchevitch was married to the sister of a Hungarian diplomat and I met him occasionally in Budapest society. Educated in Vienna, he was soft - spoken and refined. This Croat patriot was highly regarded by his colleagues during their struggle for independence, and in 1941, when it was achieved, he was appointed the Chief of Staff of the Croat Army. At the war's end, as a prisoner of war, he was extradited by the Allies to Tito's hangmen.
7 Mi!ichevitch, Ibid., p. 132.
8 lbid., p. 81.
9 Ibid., p.. 130.
10 Tbe husband of the "Blond Lady."
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I also met Ante Pavelitch once, in Zurich, some time in 1933. He came to see me so that we could discuss relations between Hungary and the future independent Croatia. Dark and robust, with a sharp profile, he had a strong appeal to the masses. Our meeting was quite successful, for we both accepted the prinicple of self-determination as the solution of the existing territorial problems messed up by the Paris Peacemakers. I assured Pavelitch that Hungary would not claim Croatia, or any part of Croat-inhabited territory, and Pavelitch made to me a similar declaration concerning former Hungarian territories transferred to Yugoslavia in 1919. There remained, however, a relatively small enclave near the Austrian border, wedged in between the Drava and Mura rivers, which both nations could claim bona fide. True to principle, we then and there agreed that this problem should be decided by a plebiscite whenever the occasion would present itself. Pavelitch also showed understanding of my request that independent Croatia should grant to Hungarian trade easy access to the Adriatic Sea.
Following Pavelitch's condemnation to death, Italy refused to extradite him to France. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941, he became the "Poglavnik" (Leader) of his tortured homeland. I do not quite see why the regicide of Marseille should be judged more severely than recent identical crimes in Irak or Yemen where the assassins were shortly thereafter ceremoniously recognized by the Great Powers as legally constituted governments. Yet, the cruelty with which Pavelitch took revenge not only on his political opponents, but on the Serbs generally, sets a mark of disgrace upon his "grim and brutal"11 role. The leader of the Croat Peasant Party, the moderate Dr. Vladko Machek had condemned Pavelitch in no uncertain terms; and also the one time Ustasha leader, Dr. Branimir Yelitch, the present Chairman of the Croat National Committee, has expressed his resentment at Pavelitch's misdeeds. In 1945, Pavelitch fled before the advancing Allies, first to Italy and then to Argentina, where in 1957 an attempt was made against his life. Recovered, he moved to Paraguay, and finally to Germany, where he recently reached the end of his tempestuous journey.
There still remains a question of historic interest. To what extent was Mussolini involved in the regicide of Marseille? Let us raise the
11 Mr. Eden's words.
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question asked in such cases in ancient Rome: "Cui prodest"? In whose interest had it been to do away with King Alexander? Following the murder of the Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss, it became an urgent endeavor of Mussolini to steer King Alexander away from Hitler. Mussolini was negotiating with Chambrun, the French Ambassador, a policy of rapprochment which very shortly, in January, 1935, led to the French - Italian Pact of Rome, and in April to the Conference of Stresa. Would Mussolini deliberately upset his own foreign policy by having the King of Yugoslavia, a highly valued ally of France, murdered? Unquestionably, Italy had given shelter, and material and political aid to the Croat refugees; their leaders had been received by leading Fascist functionaries Mussolini maintained an extremely benevolent attitude toward the Ustasha, which he eventually intended to use against Yugoslavia in case of an emergency. The Italian Secret Service established intimate ties with the Ustashis, as almost any Intelligence Agency would have done. That Croat sword may even have been sharpened in Italy - but it was kept there, in its scabbard, It was the Leaders of the Ustasha who decided to strike, when they had become aware of the rapprochment between King Alexander and Mussolini which was being secretly negotiated and which appeared dangerous to Croat national ambitions.
In his judiciously written book, "Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite,"12 John F. Montgomery, Roosevelt's envoy to Hungary for eight years, has published interesting documents on secret negotiations conducted by Guido Malagola, an Italian friend of King Alexander, with Mussolini. "Judging from these documents," comments Montgomery,13 "if the latter did connive in the assassination of Alexander, it would seem to have been one of the most stupid moves possible." Exactly as Francis Ferdinand, the Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, was murdered by Serb extremists because he sought a peaceful solution of the menacing Southern - Slav aspirations, King Alexander of Yugoslavia was murdered by Croat extremists because he betrayed willingness to come to terms with Italy. That compromise might have relegated into the background the Croat demand for independent statehood.
Italian responsibility for the Marseille regicide was on the same level as the complicity of Bulgaria for tolerance of the illegal acts of
12 The Dcvin - Adair Co., New York, 1947
13 Ibid., p. 74.
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Imro. Mihailoff's pro - Soviet policies secured for the Imro, NKVD assistance, when needed. Peter Danov, the founder of the Danovist sect, became an intimate collaborator of the Soviet Embassy in Sofia, while enjoying favors of the Bulgarian Government. Danov provided asylum to political criminals, such as Georgiyeff-Kerin, the murderer of King Alexander, who at one time had been a member of the Communist Party.14 Surviving the Communist takeover of Bulgaria after the war, Danov retained the friendship of the Soviets. Living most dangerously, he seems to have had seven lives, like a cat.
Most responsible among all the factors which contributed to the regicide of Marseille, are, in my mind, the secret organizations in the Balkans which in our century have infested life in Southeastern Europe. They were instrumental also in infiltrating International Communist agents into organizations of the free world. It is not the card - carrying Party members, and not even the spies of the Soviet Intelligence Services, but the third, deeply hidden level, the clandestine network of executioners and saboteurs which is mainly responsible for the criminal acts committed or abetted by International Communism. Terrorism has been on the increase in recent years. At the service of pan - Arab extremism, various secret organizations have sprung into life, soaking the oil - rich soil of the Near East with human blood. And Black Africa, with its Lumumbas is just entering the infamous terrorist circle.
Soon it will be thirty years since the defunct League of Nations decided to conclude an international convention against political crimes. Would it not seem timely for the United Nations to accomplish this task which its predecessor has left undone?
14 Papasissis, Ibid., p.47.
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PART II
STATUS QUO AND REVISION
"There is not one of the peoples or provinces that constituted the Empire of the Habsburgs to whom gaining their independence has not brought the tortures which ancient poets and theologians had reserved for the damned."
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
The Gathering Storm
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE
A survey of the background of the Marseille regicide, a composite of crime and heroism, leaves no doubt as to the inability of the Peace-Makers to create stable conditions in the Balkans, conducive to lasting peace. In the Balkan Peninsula, to strife inherited from the Ottoman Empire, frustration was added by disregard of the insistent demand of the small but dynamic Southern Slav nations for self-determination. The entire European order was debilitated by the reluctance of the war-time Allies to modify the ill-conceived dispositions of the Peace Treaties which prevented the consolidation of the Continent, imperiled by the exorbitant ambitions of the totalitarian dictators. Maintenance of the status quo, as opposed to a growing demand for a revision of the Peace Treaties, became almost from its beginning the leading motive of the era extending between the two World Wars.
Before entering the labryrinth of the League of Nations, I have to elucidate this conflict. For at Geneva, the assassination of King Alexander I. of Yugoslavia, served mainly as a pretext for the achievement of a political goal, the chastisement of Hungary, innocent of the said crime, but guilty of demanding justice through Treaty revision.
A. THE COVENANT
Since the beginning of 1918, when President Wilson proclaimed his fourteen points, there existed a basic difference between him and the European Allies in the interpretation of his peace program. It was the people of the hostile Central Powers, not the Allies, who greeted his principles as a promise of deliverance from evil. Exhausted and mortally sick with the horrors of the long war, they saw in the American proclamation the blueprint of a better world which would bring peace, forgiveness and a just order to all. High up, on the icy slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, I saw the remnants of the gallant Austro - Hungarian Army raise their eyes heavenward, thankful for what was now in sight: "peace without victory." The last point in President Wilson's programme seemed to be of specific interest. It promised "political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike" guaranteed by "a general association of nations."
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The reaction of Allied Europe was vastly different. The fourteen points were regarded and used at first as a brilliant propaganda gimmick for the undermining of the Central Powers' protracted resistance. And when this goal was achieved, irrespective of Wilsonian principles, the victors sought insurance against the recurrence of a new war and tried to reap the profits of their hard-won victory. Mockingly, Clemenceau commented that "the American President has given us four points more than did the good Lord." The League of Nations, the culmination of President Wilson's dream, "could be nothing more or less than the perpetuation of the alliance which had won the victory, the eternal guarantor of that cause of right and justice which, to their mind, was their own."1
It lies outside the field of the present study to describe the often desperate efforts of President Wilson to induce the victors to agree to peace treaties which would satisfy his principles. He failed, mainly, because he adhered to the belief that the people, as contrasted with their leaders, were always generous and enlightened. He probably never realized that the masses were completely unable to comprehend the complex problems of international relations and the unlikeness of other national existences, so different from their own. During the period of the Paris peace-making, the victorious governments proved incapable of moderation because of their vengeful public opinions. Even in levelheaded England, it was public-opinion-gone-wild, which made Lloyd George accept such slogans as "Hang the Kaiser!" and make the Germans pay "their last farthing"! Wilson's influence on the Conference was diminished also by premature demobilization of the American armed forces, carried out before the President left for the Paris peace negotiations. In 1945, this blunder was repeated on a grand scale.
Political leadership is an art, much more than a science. Seemingly incompatible requirements such as freedom and order, or rights and duties, have to be satisfied by the leader at the same time. At the Paris Peace Conference, President Wilson's scientific mind had grasped correctly the inevitable dualism which fornis the knotty problem for every peacemaker: to restore the stability of disturbed international relations while providing for the possibility of peaceful change. President Wilson's brainchild, the Covenant of the League of Nations, rested on
1 Frank H. Simonds, How Europe Made Peace without America (Garden City Doubleday, 1927), p. 26.
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two indispensable pillars: Article X, which undertook the defense of the status quo as defined in the Paris Peace Treaties; and Article XIX which provided the possibility of reconsidering these Treaties. In his concept, these two principles held equal weight and were to keep each other in balance. In fact, in the First Draft of the Covenant, Articles X and XIX were still united and formed Article XX, which contained, according to David Hunter Miller, "the guarantees of Article X, subject, however, to territorial changes."2 The power to revise peace treaties was reserved, by general consent, to the League of Nations.
Yet, from the very beginning of the post - war period, concern for the maintenance of the status quo became the compelling factor in the nolicy of the Allied Powers faced on the Continent with revolutions, chaos and the armed hordes of Lenin and Trotsky. In order to restore stability in Europe, they had to insist that the territorial and all other dispositions of the Peace Treaties be generally respected. To see to this, became the duty of the League of Nations. The first sentence of Article X declared: "The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League."
In the Paris Commission of the League of Nations, prominent delegates,
among them the British Lord Robert Cecil, "did not like" Article X.3 He wished to emphasize that the requirements of security and elasticity were of equal importance and suggested "that there should be a reference in this Article (X) to Article XIX regarding the reconsideration of Treaties."4 Despite such criticism, the rigid Article X remained unchanged, and President Wilson regretfully informed Lord Robert Cecil that this "was the one Article on which the French relied and he did not see how it could be weakened."5 The decline of the League thus started before it was born. Very soon, in the hands of the victorious powers, Article X was to become supreme, while Article XIX was dropped into the ash can. As the hope of peaceful changes waned, in the minds of those wronged by the reace Treaties the recurrence of violent methods gained ground. This inevitable reac -
2 David Hunter Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant (New York and London, 1928), Vol.1., p. 15.
3 Ibid., p.404.
4 1bid., p. 282.
5 Ibid., p. 289.
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tion was to destroy within two decades the entire edifice of peace painstakingly devised by the American President.
Delegates of the English - speaking Great Powers in Paris were aware of injustices committed by the Peace Treaties. On January 19, 1919, Lord Robert Cecil, in submitting the British Draft Convention, went so far in his insistence on providing for territorial revision of the Peace Treaties as to deny the League's obligation to protect a territory from forcible aggression, if the League's recommendation for any modification of its boundaries had been rejected.6 The British Delegation further proposed, on February 11, 1919, that provisions be made for "the periodic revision of Treaties which have become obsolete and of international conditions the continuance of which may endanger the Peace of the World." This sensible recommendation might have served, if accepted, as a safety valve through which pressures caused by justified discontent might have been removed. President Wilson, in a milder wording, proposed the same day that "from time to time" the reconsideration of such Treaties be advised.7 The Canadian Delegate, Sir Robert Borden, in line with Lord Robert Cecil's views, wrote in his Memorandum of March 13, 1919, that "it is impossible to forecast the future. There may be national aspirations to which the provisions of the Peace Treaty will not do justice and which cannot be permanently repressed,"8 It had been foreseen that the world under the Covenant could not be forced into a straight jacket. The "Holy Alliance" had tried to freeze the status quo in Europe after the Napoleonic wars, provoking thereby unrest and revolutions all over the Continent. Were the Peacemakers of the 20th Century going to commit the same mistake by insistence on the immutability of the peace treaties?
The conscientious historian of the Paris Peace Conference, David Hunter Miller, remarks that "it is erroneous to suppose that Article X includes the idea that 'all existing territorial delimitations are just and expedient.' " How did President Wilson bring this uneasy knowledge into harmony with his fierce passion for justice which he regarded as the dominating factor in any democracy?
The President himself has answered this question. It is set forth
6 lbid., Vol. II, p. 107.
7 Ibid., Vol., pp. 202 - 3
8 Ibid.. p. 358.
9 lbid., p. 354.
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in a statement by Dr. Isaiah Bowman.10 "As for the League of Nations, it (Wilson's statement) implied political independence and territorial integrity plus later alteration of terms and alteration of boundaries if it could be shown that injustice had been done or that conditions had changed. (Italics mine.) And such alteration would be the easier to make in time as passion subsided and matters could be viewed in the light of justice, rather than in the light of a peace conference at the close of a protracted war." In this statement, President Wilson could not see "how both elasticity and security could be obtained save under a League of Nations."11 Quasi anticipating Prague's rigid policy, the Czechoslovak Delegate, Kramar, objected that in this event the Assembly would become "the judge of all treaties." (Italics mine) To safeguard these two mainstays of lasting peace, Article XIX was added parallell to Article X in the vain hope that the former would gain in importance, gradually, as peace and forgiveness were rekindled in the hearts of the disturbed nations.
During the Peace Conference there was among the victors, and particularly in France, hardly any political or popular support for the League of Nations. Mostly, it was considered as an American hobby. But President Wilson clung to his belief that the League would develop into an international seat of reason and justice to which the people of all countries would inevitably respond. More teacher than statesman, Wilson proved unable to put his sound theories into practice. Deprived of Wilson's faith, the League became unprincipled and therefore irresolute. It had its ups and downs; it handled over forty political disputes with varying degrees of success; it was conducive to the Pact of Locarno which marked the zenith in the League's career. But it became timorous when called upon to protect the rights of minorities and failed completely in its efforts to resolve any conflict between major powers in accordance with Article XVI of the Covenant.
Yet, the League was cherished up to its demise by naive, good people, mainly in the English - speaking world. In mid - August, 1939, two weeks before the outbreak of the second World War, I tried to impress the honest Lord Robert Cecil with the imminence of that catastrophe. Desperately, he still believed in the ability of the League to order Hitler to desist from aggression. The illusion of security attainable
10 Ibid., p.42.
11 Ibid., p.42.
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through the instrumentality of the existing international organization rather than by increased and concerted national efforts proved quite helpful at that time to the aggressors.
The fate of the world did not depend on the functioning of the League of Nations, for it served mainly as a thermometer between the two World Wars, registering the degrees of fever annoying our sick world. These Paris deliberations of 1919 became significant because the nations of Europe - between the two World Wars - instinctively lined up, as President Wilson had forecast, either in the defense of the status quo, (as established by the Paris Peace Treaties) or against it. The League's handling of the Marseille regicide revealed this basic rift among the Powers. The accusation against Hungary was shifted from the legal to the political level. Due to collusion between Laval and the Little Entente, Hungary was persecuted, not because of the Marseille regicide, of which she was not guilty, but because of her policy - admittedly aimed at the revision of the Trianon Treaty - which policy, according to the Covenant, she was fully entitled to pursue.
B. REACTION TO THE VERSAILLES TREATY
There can be no progress, not even life, unless there exists a possibility of change. Attempts to revise the Versailles Peace Treaty began almost before the ink had dried on that ill - fated document. It was not a spokesman of prostrate Germany, but an unconventional Englishman John Maynard Keynes, who launched the first effective attack against the Treaty's reparation clauses. "Non obstante", the Allied Conference held in Paris in January, 1921, established twenty-one billion dollars as the permanent total of German payments, more than four times the figure regarded as possible by Keynes. Then, in March, Allied troops marched into the Ruhr to break the passive resistance of the German people against impossible demands. Following this Allied action, the amount of German reparations, was not lowered but raised to thirty-three billion dollars.
Placed under irrestistible pressures, threatened by inflation and Communist upheavals, a "policy of fulfillment" was proclaimed by the German Government. Chancellor Wirth, a member of the Catholic Center, aided by Walter Rathenau, a Liberal industrialist, paid and paid but mainly by dumping German goods on Britain's markets. These two Germans also ruined the grandiose plan of Lloyd George for the
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restoration of a European balance of power, when in the spring of 1922, at Rapallo, they turned their backs on Europe and signed a German Treaty of Alliance with the Soviets. Ruined and stigmatized in the so-called "War Guilt Clause" of the Versailles Peace Treaty (Article 231), not only extremists, but moderate Germans also began breaking away from soildarity with Europe placed under French guidance. Secretly, but methodically, the brilliant German organizer, General von Seeckt, went to work in Russia on the rearmament of Germany, which in two decades was to subject the Continent to Hitler's rule.
France consistently misinterpreted the sinister portent of German reactions. In 1923, the uncompromising Poincare' took over the government. He repeated the excursion into the Ruhr on an even larger scale. He drove the German economy into a runaway inflation. French victory and the collapse of Germany became complete. The most vital nation situated in the center of Europe, was deprived of even the hope of an amelioration of its fate by peaceful means. Psychologically, the point was reached when the exasperated German masses would turn toward anybody - to an Adolf Hitler, the product and symbol of German frustration, who promised them redemption from the depths to which they had sunk.
During a stay in Munich in the early spring of 1923, I questioned Hitler about his views concerning the occupation of the Ruhr. He was enraged against Chancellor Kuno, a mild businessman, because he would not go beyond passive resistance. "The only answer to this supreme humiliation is armed resistance against the French invaders" the morbid slogan ranted Hitler. "Nothing will end this disgrace except the rearming and general mobilization of the German youth!" "But you are unarmed and defenseless," I objected. "Tanks would mow down the German youth and your lovely towns would be destroyed from the air." There followed long harangue, but no reasonable argument - a mixture of demagoguery and moralization, as if he were addressing a primitive crowd. "The dead will be replaced, the German mothers will continue to bear children, our towns will be rebuilt from their ruins finer than they had ever been, if only the morale of our people is not broken! We cannot accept a policy of fulfillment," he continued, voicing in this respect the true opinion of the German people, "for the moment that we capitulate, new and ever more burdensome demands are being raised." And it was then that I heard for the first time
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which later was often used by Nazis as an excuse for their abominable
adventures: "Rather a frightful end, than endless fright!"
It is neither decent nor expedient to demand from a people a signed confession of their own collective guilt, as did the Versailles Peace Treaty. For no people will ever believe in the moral depravity of their own race. To treat the Germans internationally as morally inferior, gave rise to Hitler's most absurd reaction: he proclaimed that the Germans were the "Herrenvolk," the master race, entitled to oppress all the non - Aryans and take their lands for "living space" of the German masters. The more miserable a German felt at that time, the louder he cheered this Nazi abnormality. He imagined in his stupor that it would compensate him for his actual disgrace.
Nothing will conciliate the masses once their emotional reactions have been roused. Hatred thereafter, will grow irrationally, often in geometrical proportions, until vengeance is completed or the nation itself destroyed. Following Poincare's abdication, the subtle genius of Aristide Briand combined with Gustav Stresemann s sanity brought about a radical improvement in official relations between France and Germany. The London Conference (1924) alleviated the burden of German reparations; the Pact of Locarno was concluded (1925) and the humiliating moral assumptions of the Versailles Peace Treaty were amended. In 1926, Germany was even admitted to the League of Nations as a Great Power, with a permanent seat in the Council. In 1922, when Briand first launched in Cannes his visionary plan of a United Europe, with inclusion of Germany on equal terms, peace in Europe might perhaps have been saved. This move came in 1926, but, alas, too late.
After the brutal trampling of Germany in 1923, in spite of later relaxation of the European tension, joint leadership of the Continent through sincere Franco - German collaboration remained an illusion. Not only had the resentment and indignation of the German people been roused violently, but also they were now being organized by the Nazis on a pattern copied from the handbook of the Communist Party. Later, Hitler explained to me that he chose "red" as the color of his Party's flag to catch the eye of the down - trodden people, most of whom were then Socialists. "But I have set in the red flag an insignificant white circle and, as a symbol, the Swastika in its middle, to indicate the difference from Communism. By now," said Hitler gloatingly, "the 'red'
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has lost all its meaning, it is only the Swastika that counts." Hitler had long - range plans from the very beginning and, unfortunately, they were effective.
Another reason for the evaporation of the "Spirit of Locarno" was the well - intended agreement between Britain and France to lead the way to German recovery through the League of Nations. Yet, in the minds of the defeated nations, squeezed by the stipulations of the Paris Peace Treaties, the League, whose Covenant formed part of those hated Treaties, remained an agency of the victorious powers for the continuous oppression of the defeated. This feeling was not quite unjustified. The League, at first neglected by the Great Powers, appealed suddenly to France, after Locarno, as the best instrument for the maintenance of the status quo she ardently coveted. Allied with Poland, Belgium and the three states of the Little Entente, France had a safe lead in the League. Even if not assisted by the United Kingdom she could prevent any attempt at revision of the Peace Treaties, the main objective of French foreign policy, however negative that goal may have been.
Legal - minded France never considered the concessions made in the Pact of Locarno as a revision of the Versailles Peace Treaty, nor did the Germans regard them as such. Governments came and went in Paris, but Poincare's dictum remained unaltered: "Treaties have to be applied, not modified." In 1934, when the Marseille case came before the League, Germany, the strongest power in favor of treaty revision, was no longer a Member. So it seemed opportune at that time for France and the Little Entente to debase Hungary so low as to render hopeless her revisionist aspirations. There was no bias in France against Hungary, but France would not tolerate any clause of the sacrosanct Trianon Peace Treaty, concluded with Hungary, being abrogated. No precedent was to be created which the Germans might exploit.
Bruning, the last German Chancellor who might have halted the Nazis' ascent to power, withdrew for lack of support by the West. So Hitler came along in a fury. He broke every political, economic, military and moral stipulation of the Versailles Peace Treaty with impunity - yet always under French protest. But revision, the best way to bring about peaceful changes, remained taboo.
On August 31, 1939, the day the second World War broke out to
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------tear down the entire edifice based on the Versailles Peace Treaty, Count Ciano, Mussolini's Minister of Foreign Affairs, noted in his Diary12 that he proposed to France and Great Britain the holding of a conference "for the purpose of reviewing those clauses of the Treaty of Versailles which disturb European life." Ciano remarked - with tongue in cheek - that the French Ambassador, "Francois - Poncet welcomes the proposal with satisfaction but with some skepticism. Percy Lorain (the British Ambassador) welcomes it with enthusiasm. Halifax receives it favorably. . . ." Problems left unsolved by unimaginative leaders will accompany them obstinately to their graves.
C. THE PACT OF PARIS
The League of Nations failed in its endeavor to maintain peace, because the foundations of a lasting order, justice and adaptability, did not prevail in the making and even less in the application of the Peace Treaties which the League was called upon to defend. Curiously enough, a few years later, a simple pact devoid of all means and power to uphold peace was expected to complete the task which the international organization of the League, vested with authority and prestige, proved unable to achieve. On August 27, 1928, the "Pact of Paris" was signed by delegates of fifteen nations, among them Mr. Frank B. Kellogg, the U.S. Secretary of State, co - author of the Pact, and his colleague, Mr. Aristide Briand, representing France. The Pact of Paris renounced war "as an instrument of national policy," but stipulated no sanctions against offenders. Nor did it refer to any possibility of a peaceful change. In theory, it was nothing more than a moral precept against the use of force, but in practice it lent a prop to the status quo. It was equal to a formal blessing of the Paris Peace Treaties, up to then withheld by America, and was interpreted as such by the jubilant French press.
Why did the U.S. Government favor this half-baked Pact, while deeply immersed in isolationism? A few months later, on a visit to America, I found the clue to it in the Carnegie Endowment. This wealthy Institute for International Peace was sustaining a group of professional peacemakers, headed by the absent - minded, angelic and confused Professor James T. Shotwell. The Senate had failed these Liberal intellectuals when it repudiated President Wilson's League of
12 Count Ciano, Diary (Gardcn City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1946), p. 134.
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Nations, which - to some extent - they had hoped to control. Rendered politically impotent, this group turned messianic and devised a new formula for peace which implied no commitment and therefore could not be rejected by the Senate. This ambitious project, with no roots in reality, was hitched to Briand's genius. From this combine the Pact of Paris, also called the Kellogg - Briand Pact, was born.
President Wilson, though not always immune to illusions, did not believe that war could be completely outlawed. David Hunter Miller reminds us that the provisions of the Covenant "do not go so far as to inhibit war in every case. Legally speaking, war in certain circumstances is permissible under the Covenant (Article XV, paragraph 7)."13 The Pact of Paris, however, strengthened the unfounded belief that from now on violence would be eliminated in the relations among nations. The heyday for exuberant pacifists had arrived, complacency now became fashionable and armaments were badly neglected in the Western Democracies, while the Proletarian Revolution, assuming diverse forms of Leftist and Rightist totalitarian rule, was gathering momentum in anticipation of the coming showdown. In 1929, the so-called Litvinov Protocol, which regulated the relations between Soviet Russia on the one hand and Poland, Rumania, Latvia and Esthonia on the other, provided for the immediate enforcement of the Briand - Kellogg Pact. It did not save these countries from being the first ones to he attacked and overrun by the Soviets.
On the evening of that hot summer day, when the Pact was signed, I was greeted on the terrace of a Paris cafe by Croat members of the Belgrade Parliament. They felt embittered by the Pact of Paris, which would prolong the servitude of their people under Serbian domination. But then, with cruel satisfaction, one of them whipped out the minutes of a meeting held in Paris that day at the same hour the Pact was signed. Leaders of six nationalities in Yugoslavia: Albanians, Bulgars, Croats, Italians, Macedonians and Montenegrins, had agreed to and signed an explicit declaration of war against the Serbs, whose oppressive rule had deprived them of their individual freedom and national independence.
The well - intended but unrealistic Pact of Paris had precipitated in Yugoslavia a development favoring violent action. It marked the start of a bitter revolutionary movement, in which, with the exception
13 Miller, Vol. I, p. 170.
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of the Germans, Hungarians and Slovenes, all the nationalities of Yugoslavia became involved. From that time on, resistance to the centralized Pan-Serbian regime of King Alexander I. became a patriotic duty of the oppressed nationalities. Their outburst was almost instantaneous. Four months later, on January 6, 1929, the King felt compelled to suspend the Constitution, dissolve Parliament and take over the executive power himself. King Alexander I thus started his tragic journey toward Marseille - under the impact of the Pact of Paris.
D. PROTECTION OF MINORITY RIGHTS
The ethnic principle, heralded as supreme, was enforced at the end of the first World War only partially and timidly, and in important cases it was altogether falsified. The faulty application of this basic principle added new antagonisms to the problems of pre-war origin existing among the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe. The Peacemakers themselves were aware of some imperfections in their work. "That the territorial adjustments made by the Peace Conference will not satisfy all claims, is the only thing now certain about them," wrote David Hunter Miller.14 He submitted therefore that "as the drawing of boundaries according to racial or social conditions is in many cases an impossibility, protection of the rights of minorities and acceptance of such protection by the minorities constitute the only basis of enduring peace."
In line with this reasoning, clauses concerning the protection of minorities were included in the Paris Peace Treaties concluded with Poland and the Successor States of the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy. These Treaties declared that the stipulations concerning the rights of the minorities "shall be recognized as fundamental laws," that they "constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guaranty of the League of Nations." Each member of the Council obtained the right to bring to its attention any infraction of these obligations. In 1922, the League accepted in the so-called "Tittoni Resolution" the obligation of being the guardian of the minority rights. In this matter, the League of Nations never lived up to justified expectations. The evasive handling of this pledge contributed greatly to the moral decay of the League.
The position of a government was, of course, always stronger in
14 Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 53.
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the League than that of a mistreated minority, which accounts for the opportunistic handling of their complaints. For more than ten years, Hungary's efforts to assuage the grievances of the Hungarian minorities through the instrumentality of the League had been baffled. It became increasingly difficult even to keep these problems on the agenda of the League in order to alleviate the fate of the Hungarians placed against their will under foreign rule - through publicity afforded by the League and appeals to world opinion. My eminent predecessor in the League, Count Albert Apponyi, had selected as a test case of the League's efficiency the unlawful expropriation - in fact, confiscation - of the properties of Hungarian landowners in the Little Entente States. Stipulations in the Trianon Peace Treaty, concluded with Hungary, made these cases legally watertight. But politically, it was not popular to demand compensation for losses which onetime wealthy persons had suffered, however rightful their claims may have been. The well-versed Secretariat of the League, complying with the views of the interested governments and their experts, always found a loophole in the rules of procedure or a precedent in the records of the League to allow them to put off endlessly a decision on the merit of such Hungarian claims which legally could not be rejected.
In 1934, after the death of Count Apponyi, I took over his work in Geneva and found these cases hopelessly enmeshed in procedural snares. I thereupon decided to seek another approach to the protection of the hard-pressed Hungarian minorities, amounting to one-third of the entire Hungarian nation. A welcome opportunity soon presented itself at the September Assembly meeting of the League, when Count Raczynski, for Poland, submitted a resolution to convoke within six months a conference in order to arrive at a general convention concerning the international protection of the national minorities. On September 21, the first day of the debate in the Sixth Committee (Political) of the League, it became plainly visible how national policies will influence honest opinions in different ways, even a basic human problem, such as that concerning the rights of the minorities.
For the French Delegate, Mr. Massigli, the minority issue was of no importance. France had no minorities of her own to protect. Her Little Entente Allies having too many, France preferred to forget about the problem. Mr. de Valera, representing a homogenous nation still remembered the past sufferings of Catholic Ireland, so he insisted
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------on the prevention of religious persecution and was willing to go as far as to accept the principle of autonomy for the minorities. The Australian Delegate, speaking for a Continent where the rapid amalgamation of immigrants of various nationalities had become a governing principle, frankly told the Committee that the rights of the minorities was exclusively a European problem, which he hoped would not last forever. Mr. Eden, embarrassed by the complexity of the diverse parts of the British Empire, was uncertain whether an international convention would bring better or worse results than the existing treatment of the minorities. Anyway, he shared the Italian Delegate's view that it was the Council, not the Assembly, which was qualified to examine this problem. This dilatory approach obtained general approval at the end of the debate, and during the life-time of the League the improvement of the fate of the minorities was not broached again.
It is a melancholy fact that at the end of the second World War, with no European Power being present at the decisive conferences, the Peace Treaties dropped completely the protection of minority rights. The New World is a "melting pot," while the Old World goes on functioning as a "refrigerator," preserving minorities of all kinds, their separate beliefs, different languages and cultures. It thus adds color, tradition, and variety, but also strife, to the life of Europe.
By proper consideration, regrettable errors could have been corrected by the League in the handling of the minority problems. One error was the requirement that a petition must be submitted by the minority itself to the League; freedom from fear thus became a prerequisite for defensive action by a minority suffering oppression. From Yugoslavia, where harsh reprisals could be expected against a minority, should it dare accuse its Government, no petition had been submitted to the League, but the Hungarian Government was flooded secretly with complaints. On the other hand, Hungarian complaints were publicly expressed in Czechoslovakia, where the fate of the Hungarians was easier, than in the other two states of the Little Entente. It was a big mistake to place a minority in the role of prosecutor, bound to accuse of misdeeds the regime under which it has to live, or else to acquiesce in being wronged. Relations between the Government and the minority were thus envenomed; it became a matter of prestige, even of national honor for an accused government to have the minority petition rejected, and in every case the possibility of a compromise was
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destroyed. A third mistake was to reserve the handling of the minority complaints to the Council where strict rules and intricate procedure rendered the public airing of these matters almost hopeless.
Taking advantage of the interest in the minority problems aroused by the Polish proposal, I submitted to the Political Committee on the first day of the debate (September 21, 1934) a request by the Hungarian Government, asking that the situation of the Hungarian minorities be generally examined by the League. I did not propose any measures. This would be, I told the Political Committee, within the competence of the Great Powers. I only requested that the existing stipulations concerning the protection of the minorities be rendered effective.
I then drew a parallel between religious and national conflicts and brought back to the Delegates' minds the Peace Treaty of Westphalia which ended, in 1648, the Thirty Years War by proclaiming the freedom of conscience concerning religion. I pleaded that the same freedom of conscience be at long last extended by enlightened world opinion to nationality also in order to prevent new conflicts already in the making. I pointed out the opposite tendency, which had developed in the Danube Valley disregarding and even violating the minority rights guaranteed in the Peace Treaties. "The decadence of this protection has caused an extremely grave situation," I said, "particularly in Rumania," where more than half of the Hungarian population separated from their motherland now live. I finally submitted a detailed memorandum for comparison of the discriminatory treatment of the Hungarian minority in Rumania with the stipulations of the Paris Treaty, signed by Rumania on December 9,1919. All I asked was that the moral laws governing relations between men and nations of good will be applied also to the Hungarian minorities.
Was it opportune to raise the problem of the largest Hungarian minority, the one in Rumania, while trying to bring about a general Improvement of Hungary's relations with her neighbors? The menace of Naziism was uppermost in my mind, and I had given much thought to the need for preparing an effective defense in the Danube Valley against its incorporation into Hitler's "living space." But more than three million Hungarians had been adjudged, much against their will, by the Trianon Peace Treaty (signed on June 4,1920), to neighboring countries. About half of them lived in territory contiguous to mutilated
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Hungary; their laments poisoned the atmosphere on both sides of the absurd borders. An impasse had been reached in Geneva with the rights of the minorities sunk deep in the morass of League procedure. I had to pick up these problems and raise them from the legal to the political level by starting a general discussion of the minority issue. If some agreement could be reached to improve the treatment of the Hungarian minorities, only then could a constructive Danubian policy be inaugurated. With that constant irritant removed, better stability would be attainable in all the countries of the Danube Valley.
If you are reasonable, you will only fight one of your opponents at a time. I had selected Rumania for my action in the League, since the greatest number of Hungarians (1,705,000 persons) under foreign rule lived there and discrimination against them had become increasingly severe. Discrimination against Hungarians in the Rumanian school system was much resented, particularly the infractions of Article X of the Paris Treaty, whereby Rumania had agreed to provide non - Rumanian residents with adequate primary schools for the instruction of their children in their own language. I enumerated thirty communities in the memorandum where the number of Hungarians amounted to 90 per cent of the population, but all the schools were exclusively of Rumanian and none of Hungarian language. Also, in violation of Article IX of the Paris Treaty, innumerable difficulties were imposed on the Hungarian private schools maintained by Hungarians at their own expense. Furthermore, collections of the Hungarian Museum in Cluj, Hungarian funds for the maintenance of hospitals, and of Catholic and Protestant Churches, etc., had been confiscated against the law to the amount of at least fifty - three million Swiss francs.
There developed, the next day, an interesting debate in the Political Committee. In answer to my address, the Rumanian Delegate, Mr. Antoniade, tried to minimize the importance of the Hungarian complaints by pointing out how few petitions had been submitted to the League by that minority during the last ten years. Mr. Fotitch, speaking for Yugoslavia, sidestepped the merit of the issue by insisting on observance of the rules of League procedure. He brought up the argument, fully exploited later by the Delegate of France, that questions concerning minorities came exclusively under the competence of the Council of the League or of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On the other hand, Mr. Benes of Czechoslovakia, the third
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speaker for the Little Entente, became quite loquacious; he made, in fact, a real issue of the minority problem. Well prepared for the debate, as was his habit, he cited figures, statistics, and compared tables concerning the treatment of minorities in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary. He concluded that an examination by an international committee would find that the situation of the Hungarians was better in Czechoslovakia than that of the Slovaks in Hungary. He assured the Committee that in the interest of both our countries he wished to collaborate with Hungary.
Intentionally or inadvertently, Mr. Benes had become helpful with his self - exultant speech in creating an opening in the desired direction for a practical discussion of the painful problem of discrimination to the detriment of the Hungarian minorities. If tangible improvement could now be obtained through the League of Nations, Hungarian resentment of past injustices would recede, and confidence in the League would grow.
It was a shock to me, therefore, when Mr. Massigli, the Delegate of France, rose quite incensed at the end of the meeting to protest against "the abuse of discussing minority problems in a Committee of the Assembly." He requested that the Chairman silence in the future such attempts. Sitting in the chair, Mr. Madariaga, the impeccable Delegate of Spain, glossed over this interference, but the road to a rapprochement between Hungary and the other Successor States of the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy had been definitely blocked by the French Delegate. Aware of this, Mr. Benes, before leaving, came up to me apologetically: "You see," he told me, "I am a good man. but France does not want us to come to terms." To keep the Danubian States divided among themselves appeared to France at that time to be a guaranty of the Little Entente's loyalty. British policy to keep the Continent divided increased the destructive effect of French policy. Practically creating a vacuum in the heart of Europe, they paralyzed the self-defense of the Danubian States and kept the gate on the Danube wide open for Hitler.
France has never profited from this negative policy. The Little Entente countries remained subservient to France only as long as they needed her to provide them with loans and diplomatic support. But when France needed them to stand up against Hitler, they turned their backs not only on short-sighted France, but even on one another.
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The Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, writes, not without irony, in his Diary that he received the Rumanian Minister on March 15, 1939, the day the last remnants of disintegrated Czechoslovakia were wiped off the map. The Representative of Rumania accepted "with dignity" the Nazi occupation of Bohemia.15
At the next Committee meeting (September 24), although a good result could no longer be expected, I accepted the idea of Mr. Benes "to seek an agreement fair in every way, concerning the treatment of minorities in our countries." To demonstrate Hungary's willingness to co-operate for a good cause with her neighbors, I proposed to go beyond an expression of mutual good will and to request the Council to appoint a committee which would examine in the Little Entente States, as well as in Hungary, the situation of the minorities and then would submit its findings for further action to the League. I felt strongly that if such automatic control, as already existed regarding the mandated territories, would replace the present system of compulsory litigation, the annoying petitions and vexatious debates on minority problems would become dated and the treatment of the minorities might generally improve. Mr. Benes, aware of my sincere intention to remove an obstacle in the way of Danubian understanding, expressed his appreciation of the good will I had been demonstrating in Geneva as well as in Budapest. But then, in line with Mr. Massigli's demand, he associated himself with the view of his Little Entente colleagues who insisted that minority problems should be discussed only in the Council. He thus invalidated his own proposal of the previous day which I had accepted. One month later, when the Marseille regicide came up in the League, his subservience to French policy made him completely forget the good start we had made toward a better Danubian understanding. That opportunity has never returned.
On the third and last day of the Council debate on minorities, I replied to every Delegate who had participated in the discussion. I countered the evasive approach of the Rumanian and Yugoslav Delegates with the argument that "the systematic violation of an important treaty constitutes a grave political problem deserving of discussion in the Political Committee," as had been stated in 1932 by Lord Robert Cecil, one of the best experts on League affairs. I warmly thanked Baron Aloisi (Italy) and Mr. Eden (Great Britain) for their highly
15 Ibid., p. 43 - 44.
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valued interest in a problem of great importance to the improvement of relations in Eastern Europe. "As to the comments of Mr. Massigli," I ended, "their tone absolves me from any reply." The Representative of the leading Great Power in the League was rebuked by a small, indeed a very small Power. Yet my remark did not provoke adverse criticism. Even Le Temps, the official paper of the French Foreign Office, did not treat Massigli too gently. In an editorial, he was admonished to refrain from provocative statements if he wished to spare the prestige of France.
I have outlined in some detail the protection of the minority rights and the defective handling of this problem by the League of Nations. The arbitrarily drawn frontiers in Eastern and Central Europe caused thirty million people to live as minorities in centralized "national" states. The correct observance of the minority rights had therefore become politically and morally a minimum requirement, if peace was to endure. Even from the point of view of states anxious to retain the status quo, the proper treatment of their minorities would seem to have been in their own interest, for tensions might have been lessened thereby and the loyalty of the minorities improved toward the state in which they had to live.
Although no practical result was achieved by it, Hungary's action for the improvement of the fate of the minorities was commented on with sympathy in League circles and by a considerable segment of the press. The Journal de Geneve (September 26, 1934), in an editorial, praised "Mr. Eckhardt's subtle manoeuvre" in the League and wrote:
"There is something noble in this attitude which will not abandon itself to misfortune. But it also comprises a danger . . . Hungary is not a factor contributing to stability. But, of course, she has an answer: this is so by no fault of hers." In a second editorial on the twenty-eighth, the paper reprimanded Mr. Barthou for trying to subdue Hungary with threats. Mr. Eckhardt was told in the Sixth Committee that Hungary had to submit to French policy and collaborate unconditionally. "It seems, however, that this manoeuvre did not succeed." A post - mortem on minority protection shows in a startling way the sharp decline of respect for basic human rights which continued following the defeat of Hitler. The liberal era of the nineteenth century had assured in the Treaty of' Berlin (July, 1878) the protection of the Jewish minority in Rumania, and during the Paris Peace Conference
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(1919) at the request of the Jews in Poland that principle was again accepted and generally included in the Peace Treaties with the Successor States of the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy.
In the "Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Benes"16 we find a shameless account of how during the second World War he succeeded in persuadmg at first Mr. Eden and then the Soviets and President Roosevelt to drop from the future Peace Treaties the protection of minority rights "because they had not stood the test of practical experience and had been most disappointing." What was the alternative to replace that protection? "There was no other course open," writes Benes "but to try to reduce the number of minorities in foreign states by transfers of population." As an inveterate hypocrite he adds: "As far as possible, universally, decently and humanely." Genocide, a crime practiced by Hitler, was transformed into a virtue, if Benes was committing it. "Such a solution was also and especially suitable for our Hungarians" continues the democratic Mr. Benes, who then recommends that the same treatment be given to the Poles, a nation which had been bravely fighting on the Allied side. Benes notes with satisfaction in his Memoirs17 that this program was carried out in Czecho-Slovakia "in 1945 and 1946, under the leadership and full and permanent control of the United States of America." Obviously, the most important Wilsonian principal has been disgracefully reversed: the revision of boundaries was outlawed and populations were driven like cattle from their homes into foreign lands in order to maintain intact faulty frontiers.
16 Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, p. 222.
l7 Ibid., p. 223.
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PEACEMAKING IN THE DANUBIAN BASIN
From the beginning of our Twentieth Century, the main strategic interest of the Western world was concentrated in Europe on the river Rhine, with intent to contain on that line the evergrowing might of Germany. Yet, the failures of peacemaking at the end of two world wars demonstrate that the river on whose banks the peaceful European order has to be organized is the Danube rather than the Rhine. The Danube is not only the main waterway of the European Continent, but above all, it is the European River in the political sense.
The greatest importance, from the point of view of European equilibrium, is undoubtedly attached to the peaceful and cohesive order in the Middle Danube Valley. Here in the heart of Europe, various, comparatively small nations exposed not only to German but equally to Russian expansion. If either of these major powers penetrates into the natural fortifications of the Carpathians in the East, or the Sudeten Mountains in the West, the balance of the Continent will be dangerously upset and peace in Europe will come to an end. The strategic key position of the Continent, particularly in the era of air superiority, is the triangle: Prague - Vienna - Budapest. Hungary is of specific importance placed as she is on the bend of the Danube, where the expanding forces of two World Powers cut across each other. Peace has to be stabilized on the Danube; once the disturbance reaches the Rhine, war becomes inevitable.
Prior to the outbreak of the first World War, the Middle Danube Valley lived under the unified leadership of the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy. At that time the community of interests and ancient ties provided by historical, political and economic connections converted this geographical region into a unit, self - sufficient for its own economic and military ends. It required no exterior assistance to defend its interests, and formed the cornerstone of European equilibrium, standing between the political aspirations of the Russian and German Empires. In this territory there lived together six nations (Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Croat, Slovak and Slovene) and numerous other racial and national minorities. It was an area in which the peoples could not be well separated from one another by geographical frontiers,
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for whatever divisions were made, they would still, of necessity, leave numerous minorities within the areas of practically all the States, due to the intermingling of the races. For a century following the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy filled the part of a veritable League of Nations in this region, though with the improvement that its organization had been built up gradually in the course of history, so that it possessed an inner stability. This system ensured civilization in the West European sense of the word, comparative freedom, order, peaceand the advantages of its position as a Great Power, to all the peoples, great and small, living within its confines.
With all its undoubted advantages, however, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy suffered from a fundamental weakness; that very "anti-nationalism" by the aid of which she was, during a considerable period, sustained, but which in the end proved the chief cause of her undoing. The outbreak of the first World War found this territory in a state of inner ferment when, after a long period of well- being, its peoples, having advanced in wealth and enlightenment, had for the most part failed to find the means of satisfying their desire for national independence. That is why, as a result of the decomposition that followed defeat in the war, it proved possible to realize their desire for independence on a scale far in excess of what the reasonable interest of the peoples concerned demanded. On top of all this, an unprecedented opportunity was offered by the victors to the nations subjected to the rule of the Dual Monarchy. They were exonerated from the consequences of defeat and accepted as victorious powers associated with the Allies, if they decided to break their former allegiance to the Monarchy. The majority of all these peoples had borne loyally the cruel sacrifices imposed upon them by the World War. But could they refuse to escape disaster and have all their wishes fulfilled, when the victors offered them that opportunity? This chance, however, was denied to the Austrian and to the Hungarian people. What then eventually happened, was not the necessary re-organization of Austria- Hungary, not the creation of independent States within a federation or confederation, but the establishment of feuding States on the ruins of the Monarchy, to the complete abandonment of their traditional co-operation.
The breaking up of unity in the Middle Danube Valley proved to be a major defect in the European structure from which, in the long run, no one profited. Deprived of self - sufficiency, the new States fell
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victim to what Germans call "Klein - Staaterei," the evils of smallness reduced internal markets, the highest custom tariffs, recurrent and protracted financial crises, extreme nationalisms promoted by the lack of self-sufficiency. The Treaty -makers had to realize that by applying the ethnic principle, as pledged by President Wilson, a number of much too small, unviable State-formations would be created in the Danube Valley. It being impossible to call into being a number of Lilliputian States corresponding to the variety of people living within the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Treaty-makers invented as companions to the Austrian and Hungarian nations two new nations first brought to light at the Peace Conference-the fictitious Czechoslovak and Yugoslav nations - and then granted them independent Stateship of their own. These "national States," which suffered from a lack of united national consciousness, inherited the diseases of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy - the national and minority antagonisms - without of course, inheriting the advantages of her position as a Great Power and her settled inner stability.
On top of all this, these synthetic structures broke away from previous, more tolerant traditions and established themselves as centralized national States. The fabric of Czechoslovakia was somewhat more homogenous than that of Yugoslavia. In 1919, the population of the newly formed State amounted to 13.6 million, with 6.8 million Czechs making up one-half of the people; 3.2 million Germans and one million Hungarians were degraded, much against their will, to the level of a minority, while two million Slovaks were merged, in spite of their resentment, with the Czechs in order to form a majority. In the autumn of 1938, when the Slovaks recuperated their freedom of action, they demanded and obtained an autonomous Slovak government of their own. They insisted, above all, that the fiction of a "Czechoslovak" nation be definitely discarded. The artificial edifice of the Czechoslovak national State, in spite of some of its undeniable virtues, particularly in the social field, disintegrated into its component parts. It took four years of the first World War to demolish the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy - a single conference held at Munich sufficed to achieve the same result in Czechoslovakia.
Yugoslavia, still called in the Paris Peace Treaties the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was put together even more precariously. The population of these three nations, plus nine additional national
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minorities, amounted in 1921 to fourteen million, of whom only thirty - six per cent were Serbs.1 Yet, this militant Serb minority was determined to impose its rule on the rest of the population. "We have shed our blood during the war and we have established this Kingdom," a Serb patriot explained to me in the early twenties, pleading that the Serbs had earned the right to be exempted from taxation, for "it is only fair that those who did not sacrifice their blood for the Kingdom sacrifice in peacetime their money and pay all the taxes." There did develop in Yugoslavia, besides political oppression, economic and financial discrimination also, in favor of Serbia, as against the more developed Croatia. Patriotism and fine military virtues by themselves do not suffice to create a spiritual condition conducive to a fair government extending over foreign races.
A year or two preceding the murder of King Alexander I, I lectured on this subject in London, in the Royal Institute for International Affairs. A Mr. Popovitch, onetime Minister of Finance in Montenegro, called on me the next day - just to shake hands with me. "You Hungarians are lucky," he assured me, with fury in his eyes. "You were only dismembered. But we Montenegrins, we, who started the World War, we, who fought it to the bitter end and won it, think, what happened to us Look at the map, where is Montenegro? Nowhere! Montenegro was stolen by the Serbs." This unhealthy irritation of Mr. Popovitch was soon brought to an end - a few days later he was found murdered in his London hotel. His assassin, however, was never apprehended.
One thing has been proved beyond all doubt in the period between the two World Wars: while applying the ethnic principle, it is impossible in theory, as well as in practice, to force different national groups to unite against their will and then to achieve in that State inner consolidation. Czechoslovakia, with a democratic Constitution, ably governed in the lifetime of President Masaryk, became quite incapable of standing the strain of trying times and simply dissolved without armed resistance, owing to the utter lack of internal equilibrium and stability resulting from a lack of unified national consciousness.
The decadence of Europe between the two World Wars teaches another lesson also: territorial increase does not mean a gain for a
1 The latest (1961) official census of Yugoslavia's population shows that of the 18,549,000 inhabitants only 7,806,00 are Serbians, that is 42%.
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nation, if that expansion is effected at the cost of the incorporation of discontented nations, or minorities of other nationalities. Small but homogenous Serbia proved formidable in her four years of war against Austria-Hungary, whilst Yugoslavia, three times larger but saturated with disgruntled, even hostile elements, was a pushover for Hitler and a welcome prey for Tito, the Communist. Gifts of land by the Peacemakers caused misfortune to the recipients whenever granted in conflict with the right of self-determination. Sumner Welles has recorded that in his conferences with Mussolini in the spring of 1940, the only sound remark which the Duce made was that "the minority problems had been the curse of Europe, and . . . until they were solved there could be no hope of any stable peace."2 Welles also admits that in European history the minority questions have been "a frequent incentive to war." It was particularly the nationalism of the young nations, many of which had only been separated after the first Woid War from big Empires - which, as a rule, became intolerant and over-ambitious. Having had, as yet, no disappointments and no experience of their own to guide them, the once oppressed soon turned into oppressors.
Of the more than 100 million people forming twelve independent States in the Eastern half of Europe, at least 30 per cent - i.e. thirty million - were living, between the two World Wars, as minorities under a rule which was alien and resented by most of them as oppressive. Arbitrarily drawn frontiers foolishly increased the number of dissatisfied minorities, whereas it would have been of general interest to reduce the number of the discontented by living up to the solemn pledge of self-determination proclaimed as the basic peace-programme of the victorious Powers. They handled the ethnic principle and the requirement of self-determination cynically and ignorantly. I blame cynicism for most of their gross mistakes, since during the second World War, while in Washington, I became acquainted with the so-called "Black Book," a collection of documents, many of British origin, describing conditions and facts in the Central Valley of the Danube. The "Black Book" had been used at the Paris Peace Conference; it gave information, mostly correct, on a number of problems which the Peacemakers then mishandled.
The totalitarian dictators very soon obtained the chance to subdue
2 Summer Welles, Where Are We Heading? (London, 1947), p. 108.
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these synthetic States with little effort by winning to their side the discontented minorities and using them against the regimes under which they were ordered to live. Particularly in States where a minority could rely for support on its co - nationals living in a neighboring independent State, the discontented minority engaged the governing regime in constant internal struggles, sapped the strength of the State and actually immobilized it. This is what happened in peacetime to Czechoslovakia, in 1938, and to Yugoslavia in 1941, when she became involved in the second World War.
Fatal internal weaknesses of this kind became the factors determining even the foreign policy of these new States. It would have seemed natural that the five, comparatively small Successor States replacing the unified system of Austria-Hungary would restore in some freely chosen form their centuries-old collaboration in order to achieve security and prosperity, the two main concerns of all viable States. Such efforts at continued collaboration were, however, thoughtlessly prevented by the victorious Powers. Article 203 of the Trianon Peace Treaty, imposed on Hungary, is characteristic of this shortsightedness. It orders that "every favor, immunity, or privilege in regard to importation, exportation or transit of goods granted by Hungary to any . . foreign country whatever, shall simultaneously and unconditionally, without request and without compensation, be extended to all the Allied and Associated States." The victors would not tolerate collaboration, not even a preferential tariff system in the Central Valley of the Danube which might restore at least the economic unity disturbed by the new frontiers and eventually lead to a regional organization or a Danubian federation.
To fully understand the reasons why Danubian unity was lastingly destroyed, Franco-British policy has to be surveyed in its relation to the European Continent. It was years before the Balkan wars (1912 - 13) that France and Great Britain became worried about the growing naval, military and economic might of the German Empire. They resented the Triple Afliance of the Central Powers led by Germany, which had become too strong and was threatening the European balance of power successfully maintained throughout the nineteenth century. Unfortunately for all, the British attempts by King Edward VII to induce Francis Joseph, Emperor and King of Austria-Hungary, to break away from the German Alliance were unsuccessful and, as a result, not only
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was the Franco-British "Entente Cordiale" strengthened, but diplomatic collaboration with Tsarist Russia was also started. It was aimed at supporting Slavic influences in Central and Southeastern Europe against the growing power of Germany and her Allies. Simultaneously, the prestige of the highly-regarded Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was being undermined systematically by British propagandists, the champions of Slav interests, to justify the planned disruption of the Danubian Monarchy abused - by Seaton, Watson, Wickham Steed and others as "the jail of nations." Pan-Germanism was to be counteracted by Pan-Slavism in alliance with France and Great Britain. Yet, Pan-Slavism was bound to lead to the imposition of Russian domination over all its weaker Slav partners.
The clash of Slavic and Germanic forces brought about the first World War which ended with the complete destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the centuries-old unified system of the Danubian Basin, an artificial split was then created by the Paris Peacemakers and this rift was perpetuated by the formation of the Slav-dominated Little Entente (1921),3 sponsored by France and backed by Britain. On the Continent, France became the controlling member of a coalition of all the countries interested in the preservation of the status quo. This system was to keep down eventual pro-German influences in the centrally located non - Slavic countries of the Danube Valley. One of them, Austria, was put on a reducing diet whilst the other one, Hungary, was brutally dismembered at Trianon. Yet, no stable order could be established in the Danubian Basin without Hungary, or against Hungary. Not only because of her determination to resist encirclement, but even more so, because of Hungary's central geographical location which reduced the Little Entente to an empty shell bound to break down under any major pressure weighing on the extended periphery of that system. Problems of this area could no longer be solved by peaceful means during the lull between the two World Wars. A danger zone, divided in itself, instead of a roadblock to halt the would-be conquerors, was created in the heart of Europe. Is it surprising that those nations in the Eastern half of Europe, which gained their freedom and independence in the first World War, have all been reduced to slavery during and since the second World War? Two victories of the Western Democracies have brought them, as an end-result, more oppressive
3 Czechoslovakia - Yugoslavia - Rumania.
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masters than any they had known previously. Roughly, this is the balance sheet of twentieth century peacemaking in the Eastern half of Europe.
A correct interpretation of European history teaches us that the geographical frontier has in general proved stronger than the ethnographical one. And, though conquerors have from time to time succeeded in breaking through the natural ramparts created by the Almighty - in most cases indeed after a brief interval - the natural order of things has mostly been restored. Rivers - even the largest ones - act rather as links connecting the territories flanking their shores the geographical frontier functioning as a dividing line between states is the mountain range; particularly the watershed. The natural fortifications of the Middle Danube Valley - the line of the Carpathians - form an easily defensible obstacle against inroads from the North and the East; and they afford protection alike to all the peoples living in this territory. The ethnic principle would therefore have to be applied in the Basin encircled by the Carpathians in a manner not likely to dislocate the uniform defense system of the peoples living in the Danube Basin. It is of general European interest that the fortifications formed by the Carpathians be rendered strong enough to hold their own against all attacks. That result, however, is attainable only by the institution of a uniform defense system extending to the whole territory. This requirement is a key problem of European stability. The Czechoslovak politicians dug the grave of their own State when they expected Europe to help their country in its hour of danger, instead of themselves ensuring the effectual defense of Europe by the traditional co-operation in the Danube Valley which for centuries had protected Europe against Turkish invasions.
I did not wait for Hitler's advent to power to advocate in the Hungarian Parliament co-operation between Hungary and her neighbors. The waves of the American financial crash of 1929 had hit the disintegrated Danubian region most severely in the early thirties. "Without a reasonable amount of economic co-operation," I said on May 27, 1932, "our country, isolated as it is, cannot survive. This is, however, also true in the case of our neighbors, though according to Dr. Benes, it is only Austria and Hungary who bear the grave consequences of this situation." After describing the devastating effects of the world economic crisis in Czechoslovakia, I continued. "All these
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troubles of Czechoslovakia do not please me at all. Difficulties of one nation always have a direct bearing on the fate of other nations. I know that we Hungarians will suffer, if Czechoslovakia fares ill. It is high time that we put an end to reproaches, to exaggerated censure of each other's faults and shortcomings, and that all of us begin to seek a solution which will take us out of our present impasse. If we want to prevent the collapse of Central Europe, we must become imbued by a new spirit of mutual esteem and solidarity - honest nationalism which works for international understanding."
On a balmy September afternoon, in 1934, in Geneva, on leaving the Assembly meeting of the League of Nations. Mr. Benes joined me in my walk along the Lake. He felt gleeful, with his influence strengthened by the admission of the Soviets to the League, and imparted to me his conviction that everything would be perfect in Europe if only we, the Hungarians, would acquiesce in our fate and give up our demand for a revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty. He became quite exuberant in his praise of the existing international order guaranteed by the League of Nations, which excluded the possibility of any major change. I listened to him in silence and felt uneasy, for he seemed to really mean what he was saying. I asked him finally: "Are you aware of what dangers threaten you from the North?"
He stopped and I spoke to him in great earnest, holding him by a button of his jacket: "Has the time not come, for you to consolidate the position of Czechoslovakia, at least on her Southern frontier, with her neighbors? Can you feel safe, while on bad terms with every one of them - not only Germany, but also Poland, Hungary and Austria? One of them, under a leader called Adolf Hitler, has just started massive rearmament. Who will be his first victim? It will be You, Mr. Benes, with your friends far away and your enemies so near! And don't think that I will feel happy while You are being destroyed, for I know that after You it will be my turn. Would You please give serious thought to the necessity of co-operation on equal terms among the nations of the Danube Valley?"
I felt annoyed with Benes, for he had been the leading opponent of Danubian unity, whereas this concept did have able spokesmen in the Prague Parliament. Prominent among them was Milan Hodza, the competent Slovak Leader of the Agrarian Party, who two months later became the Prime Minister in Prague. Before the war, he had been
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a member of the Hungarian Parliament; he understood our mutual problems particularly as an economist, and was convinced of the necessity of a unified Danubian system. For years, we had maintained friendly relations, to which Mr. Benes now alluded.
"I know of the plans you have discussed with Hodza," he said in a somewhat discouraged tone. "You may even be right, but I cannot change my policy - I have gone too far in a different direction." One month later, Konrad Henlein launched a new party, the "Sudeten Home Front." The bells were tolling for Mr. Benes, but he pretended not to hear them.
Danubian unity offers the best protection for the Balkans also. The traditional highway of the Russians - the road leading to Constantinople along the Black Sea coast can be blocked best by forces in the Transylvanian Carpathians outflanking that route, but hardly by frontal defense in the Moldavian Low Lands. If the Transylvanian mountains in the Southeast are guarded by a determined band of defenders threatening the flank of an advancing Russian army, no Russian general will dare to penetrate Southward beyond the small town of Focsani across that narrow strip of land - barely 120 miles wide - lying between the Carpathians and the marshes of the Lower Danube. In the course of three campaigns undertaken against the Balkans during the nineteenth century by the Tsars, the mere appearance of an Austro-Hungarian Army in the passes of the Carpathians sufficed either to force back the Russians, or at least to bring them to a halt. The most important stronghold for Balkan security is the Carpathians, the defense of which, however, cannot be ensured except within the framework of a unified military system in the Central Danubian Basin.
The disintegration of the Danube Valley has caused the deterioration of cultural relations also, giving rise to difficult and indeed delicate problems. This region is the meeting point of various Eastern and Southeastern cultures of Byzantine origin and the basically different Western cultures resting on Roman Catholic and Protestant foundations. This difference in culture formed quite as important a dividing line in the life of the peoples, as did national divergences. And although the antagonisms originating from cultural differences may not seem to be as intensive as those of a national character, they are nevertheless deeper, more lasting and even more difficult to bridge. The Soviets, through the intermediary of the Russian Orthodox Church, are fully
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exploiting Moscow's Byzantine traditions, but they are still struggling against the Roman Catholic Church, which is putting up more effective resistance to Communism, than does capitalism or any other single Western force.
The antagonism existing between the Pravoslav (Orthodox or Greek Oriental) world and the cultures that have developed on Roman foundations not only involves religious and denominational differences but - as a consequence of the mission which the various Christian Churches have been fulfilling in this part of Europe - it extends also to the general way of life, to traditions, to ideals, to social concepts and to the State and social machineries. In a word, it involves the whole standard of culture and denotes a difference extending to every phase of the life of the people. This was reflected also in economic matters, in wages, in price levels, and indeed in the quality of the work done. Until the nineteenth century, the churches provided for the spiritual and physical welfare of these peoples, supplying them with scholars, artists, doctors, intellectual, agricultural and industrial instructors; consequently, the difference between the conceptions and cultural standards of Byzantium and Rome continued in the age of nationalism to be as fundamental a phenomenon as were the national differences. The present monolithic Communist structure imposed on all these peoples has considerably reduced these differences which, nevertheless, are far from being extinct.
In the Paris Treaties after the first World War, these considerations were completely ignored. That is why it could happen that the treaty-makers attempted to compress in a single centralized State nations with stronger individualities than any others in the Balkans: the Pravoslav Serbians and the more sophisticated Western European Croats, a nation thoroughly Catholic in its spiritual structure. Moreover, the Croats, protected for eight centuries by the Crown of St. Stephen against absorption by the Turkish invaders, had avoided becoming Balkanized. In general, it may be stated that a West European culture area will inevitably feel unhappy if it is incorporated in the Balkans, which for centuries has suffered Turkish occupation. The different moral standard of the Ottoman Empire - its predominant weakness of purpose and its one-time proclivity towards corruption - has struck deep roots in that region. The undeveloped character of social conscience, the lower scale of wages and the inferior standard of living compared to Central
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Europe - all these exercised a depressing effect on the intellectual and material life of societies with Western ideas accustomed to a higher standard of culture and ethics.
Following the incorporation of Croatia into Yugoslavia, not only the Croats, but even the Serbian minority of Croatia, led by the talented Svetozar Pribichevitch, very soon became antagonistic to the centralized new regime. He was accused in Belgrade of being "infected by the culture of the Svaba" (meaning by Svaba the Hungarians and the Germans of Austria-Hungary). He felt closer to Raditch, the Croat leader, than to the Serbs in Serbia proper and joined in the Croats' fight against centralization of the State - When King Alexander I proclaimed his dictatorship, he emigrated from Yugoslavia, which he had helped to establish.
There was a lesser, yet quite distinct separation after the first World War in Rumania also, between Rumanians from Transylvania and those from the "Regat," the pre-World War part of Rumania. Most Rumanians follow the Byzantine rite, yet the Rumanians of Transylvania disliked the mores of the Regat, on which centuries of Turkish domination had left a deep imprint. Cultural disparity has caused much resentment on the borderline of two civilizations. General degradation by the Soviets, wiping out all Christian culture, is now equalizing East and West on the lowest common denominator.
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THE MUTILATION OF HUNGARY
Among the Peace Treaties which ended the first World War, two were resented as particularly repulsive by the interested nations: the Treaty of Sevres (August 20, 1920) which in fact sentenced Turkey to death; and the Treaty of Trianon (June 4, 1920) which carved up Hungary with the intent to cripple her to helplessness. The hour for the burial of these two vital nations, however, had not struck. Within three years (July 24, 1923), in the Treaty of Lausanne, the victorious Turks humiliated all their foes and then proceeded to build up on solid foundations their rejuvenated national State. Nor did the Hungarians, encircled by hostile forces, ever accept mutilation as the final solution of their national destiny. "Subjected to trials which might have destroyed altogether a weaker and less courageous nation," wrote the British Professor Macartney in 1940, "the old tree is able to withstand any storm and even to push out new leaves. . . . Summer always does come back to Hungary."'
Threatened with strangulation by the Little Entente, Hungary reacted with amazing resilience and achieved, instead of her expected collapse, considerable progress between the two World Wars. In 1947, she was subjected again to the ignominy of a second Paris Peace Treaty surpassing the first one in injustice and severity. Her youth decimated by war, her people and her land mutilated, undermined by Communist intrusion, disabled by foreign occupation, spoliation and deportations followed by ruinous inflation - all this twice within half a century - what nation has ever shown such endurance? The Hungarian spirit remained unbroken during the long decade under the Soviet heel, and revealed itself again in 1956, in Hungary's heroic Fight for Freedom: the ninth time since 1604 that the Hungarian people had risen to arms against foreign oppression.
Some misdeeds, bordering on crime, have been committed in our century by Western political leaders which have remained unintelligible to me. Why, for instance, did Lloyd George wish to destroy Turkey, the traditional ally of Britain against Russian imperialism? Of course Britain's wartime alliance with Russia had undermined the British
1Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. I, p.189.
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position in Constantinople. But as soon as the war was over, did not the Western world need a strong Turkey again to stand guard at the vulnerable Southern flank of Russia? Who was to fulfil Turkey's traditional mission at the Dardanelles: the defense of the Mediterranean world? What interest did it serve to unleash against the Turks outdated colonial ambition - the French in Syria, the Italian in Rhodes and in the Dodecanese, the Greek in Smyrna and its hinterland - unless it was to justify the cumbersome British mandates in Palestine and in Mesopotamia? Who would profit from the breaking up of the Near East into feuding bits of countries while rendering Turkey completely powerless?
One afternoon in London, in the late twenties, I did ask Lloyd George, in a polite way, what were his motives for this policy. The colorful Welshman had dropped in to see Lord Rothermere, who received him in my presence. Still vital, and accentuating his points, Lloyd George admitted that he had erred in his judgment. When the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was destroyed, he believed that Turkey was the remaining "sick man" who also had to be deprived of all influence in order to restore sanity in Europe. "But only the Sultanate was weak; the Turkish people proved to be strong!" he exclaimed. "Now that they have defeated us, you will see, we will be good friends again." This forecast proved to be correct. But even in retrospect his buoyancy prevented Lloyd George from realizing what damage had been done to Europe, when the unity of the Danubian Basin was destroyed.
As far as Hungary was concerned, Lloyd George, a co-author of the Trianon Treaty, was not too happy either. Long before the Treaty was concluded, he became worried about the exaggerated territorial claims of Hungary's neighbors. On March 25, 1919, he wrote that 'there will never be peace in Southeastern Europe if every little State now coming into being is to have a large Magyar irredenta within its borders."2 He also warned that people staying with their motherland should have "precedence over considerations of strategy, of economics or communications, which can usually be adjusted by other means," instead of separation.
These warnings by Lloyd George were not heeded, however, by the
Peacemakers, including Lloyd George himself. The opportunistic con-
2 Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference (New Haven, 1939), p. 226.
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sideration prevailed in Paris that at the expense of Hungary all her neighbors could be gratified. Moreover, in 1919, from March 22 to the beginning of August - that is, during the period while the Treaties with the Successor States were being drafted - Hungary was subjected to the evil rule of the Communist dictator, Bela Kun. In mid-March, President Wilson had sent George Creel, one of his close collaborators, to Budapest to determine whether there existed in Hungary a stable government which could be invited to the Peace Conference. Creel, later a close friend of mine, related that for three nights, while in Budapest, he slept in his railroad car, such were conditions in the distressed Hungarian capital. He called on the Hungarian President, Count Michael Karolyi, saw his confused collaborators and then reported to President Wilson that the Karolyi Government, befuddled with Marxism, would not last and that Hungary was heading for Communism. A few days later, the degenerate Count, disgusted with excessive French demands, released Bela Kun from jail and handed over his country to this Soviet agent.
So, during the crucial months, while Hungary's fate was being decided, there was no one in Paris to represent Hungary's rightful interests. Neither mercy, nor fairness was practiced by the Peacemakers concerning Communist-ruled Hungary.3
On January 15, 1920, the Allies handed their peace conditions - a truly devastating document, physically to Hungary, morally to themselves - to Count Albert Apponyi, the President of the Hungarian Delegation. Next day, in the name of the people of Hungary, Apponyi addressed a single demand to the Supreme Council. He referred to "the great principle so happily phrased by President Wilson, namely that no group of people, no population, may be transferred from one State to another without being first consulted - as though they were a herd of cattle with no will of their own - in the name of this great principle, an axiom of good sense and public morals," he said, "we request, we demand a plebiscite in those parts of Hungary that are now on the point of being severed from us. I declare we are willing to bow to the decision of a plebiscite whatever it should be."
3 Thanks to David Hunter Mil1er, it is known that Hungary's fate had been irrevocably settled by the Frontier Delimitation Commision of the Supreme Council at the beginning of May, 1919, when the territorial clause, of the Trianon Treaty were completed. It was only on January 15, 1920, that the Hungarian Delegation was handed the Peace Treaty. By then the treaties with the Successor States had all been signal and no territorial change whatsoever could be effected.
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Evil though they may be, accomplished facts create more durable results than does a just cause devoid of all power. During the period of revolutionary turmoil in Hungary, the Successor States had transformed the military lines of demarcation into political frontiers guaranteed in Treaties, signed in 1919, by the Allies. Unwilling to remedy a gross injustice, or to undo the badly mangled map of Danubian Europe and then re-do it all over on the basis of the ethnic principle, as pledged, the President of the Supreme Council, Alexandre Millerand, in his Covering Letter, dated May 6, 1920, refused to provide for a plebiscite anywhere. The Letter - conceived by Lord Curzon - cynically argued that having acquired "the certitude that . . . a consultation . . . would not offer a result different sensibly from those which they (the Allies) have arrived at," plebiscites were considered "unnecessary." But to induce Hungary to swallow the bitter pill, it was sugarcoated with another promise, also to be broken. The Letter gave assurance that the Allied and Associated Powers, mindful of the principle which had guided them in the fixing of the frontiers, were ready to admit that some frontiers might not be in harmony with ethnographic and economic requirements, and that local investigation might demonstrate the necessity of shifting the present border-line here and there. Modifications judged desirable by a Delimitation Commission were therefore allowed to be reported to the Council of the League of Nations which would offer its services for an amiable rectification of the frontier. In conclusion, the Letter declared that the Allied Powers expected a Declaration from the Hungarian Delegation within ten days giving them to understand that they were authorized to sign the Treaty as it stood.
A note from Count Apponyi, the next day, to Mr. Millerand, expressed the Hungarian Delegation's "most painful surprise" at the Allied Powers' refusal to apply in Hungary's case the principle they had proclaimed. Unable to accept the responsibility for an affirmative answer, Apponyi announced the entire Delegation's demission. On May 17, 1920, the Hungarian Government reiterated Apponyi's protest "against the manifest breach of the principle of the right of a free self-determination" for the people of Hungary and stated that it was "precisely by virtue of this principle that the Government thought it possible to abstain from insisting on incontestable historic rights." The foundation for a future Hungarian policy aimed at the revision of "Trianon"
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was therewith established. Then, battered into helplessness, and with reference to Millerand's Covering Letter seeming to contain "formal promises of a nature to alIow, some softening of the stipulations of the Peace Treaty in the near future," the Hungarian Government declared: "Led by this supposition and fully conscious of the grave situation of the country, the Hungarian Government do not consider themselves able to refuse signing the Treaty of Peace." This act was perfected on June 4, 1920, in the palace of the "Grand Trianon," located in the park of Versailles. On the same day the dejected Hungarian Government resigned.
The Note in which the representatives of the Hungarian Government informed the Conference of Ambassadors on November 24, 1920, of the ratification of the Treaty, contained a passage reminding the Allies of their obligations toward Hungary: "Never in all the thousand years of Hungary's history has the nation been called upon to ratify so cruel a treaty and one containing such severe conditions. It could only do this in the sure and unshakable hope that the signatory Great Powers will find and apply the most adequate means for enforcing the few provisions designed to protect Hungary's interests." This "unshakable hope," based mainly on the Millerand Letter, did not materialize. No action was ever undertaken or even considered by the League of Nations to rectify any part of the Hungarian frontier. Such Hungarian demands were already squelched at the level of the Delimitation Commissions in which the desires of the beneficiaries of the Trianon Treaty prevailed.
Nor had the Hungarian hope been fulfifled concerning the protection of the Hungarian minorities thus created. In its Note of November 24, the Hungarian Government once more emphatically called attention to this problem. It stated that, "Means should be found to regulate the question of the national minorities living in the transferred territories, whose lot is very far from enviable. Imprisoned, maltreated, bereft of their possessions, exposed to every kind of molestation, their rights violated, with no possibility of appeal to any impartial authority for redress of their wrongs, these unfortunate people find their situation going from bad to worse and are enjoying none of the minority rights promised them under the Treaty of Trianon. Denied the advantages of a plebiscite," the Note ended, "we had to let our fate be decided by the victors. We resigned ourselves to the inevitable, but in so doing
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------were led by the conviction that the Great Powers would be able to enforce their will not only to the detriment of Hungary but also in the interest of the victims of the Treaty, that is, of the minorities in the transferred territories."
Western critics, even some unfriendly to Hungary, find little satisfaction in her senseless crippling in contravention of pledges and principles proclaimed by the victors. Harold Nicholson, the British chronicler of the Peace conference-never accused of being friendly to Hungary explains morosely in "Peacemaking" that the main objective at the Peace Conference was not to offer a general regional settlement to the Successor States, but to consider the specific claims submitted by the Czechoslovak, the Rumanian and the Yugoslav Committees.4 It was too late when it was realized that these "entirely separate Committees bad between them imposed on Hungary a loss of territory and population which, when combined, was very serious indeed. . . . The total cessions imposed placed more Magyars under alien rule than was consonant with the Doctrine of Self-Determination." According to the Hungarian census of 1910, 3,352,791 Hungarians were transferred under alien rule without having been consulted. Rumania alone obtained 31.7 per cent of Hungary's territory, with only 28.6 per cent remaining in Hungary of the land cultivated and defended for over one thousand years with the sweat and blood of the Hungarians.
Another British expert, Hugh Seton-Watson, who inherited some of his father's pro-Slav bias, while generally defending the 1919 Peace Treaties admits5 that as a result of the Trianon Treaty "large numbers of people were left on the wrong side of the frontiers, and their existence gave rise to a series of international problems commonly summarized under the name of Minority Problems...." He tells us that "the northern fringe of the Hungarian plain was taken by Czechoslovakia on the grounds that, although its population is mainly Hungarian, a strip of fertile land was necessary to the economic life of Slovakia. The plainland west of the Transylvanian Western Mountains was assigned to Rumania in order to give that country a railway line of economic and military importance connecting north and south . . Subotica and Baranya areas on the Hungarian frontier were given to Yugoslavia for strategic reasons. In areas of this kind minorities are separated by
4 Harold Nicholson, Peacemaking (London, 1933), pp. 117, 127-128.
5 Hugh Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe Between the Wars (Carnbridge, 1940), pp. 269-270.
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what seems to them an arbitrary line from the main body of their peoples, with whose countries they are immediately contiguous."
Professor C. A. M. Macartney,6 recalls "what the Treaty of Trianon did to Hungary. It made an end of the historic State which had existed ever since Arpad led his warriors across the Carpathians at the end of the ninth century A.D. Of its area (excluding Croatia-Slavonia) of 282,876 square kilometers, it assigned 4,020 to Austria, 61,633 to Czechoslovakia, 589 to Poland, 103,093 to Rumania, 21 to Italy and 20,547 to Yugoslavia, which also received the 42,541 square kilometers of Croatia-Slavonia, leaving Hungary herself with only 92,963. Of the population of 18,264,533 (Inner Hungary. Census figures of 1910), Austria received 291,618, Czechoslovakia 3,517,568, Poland 23,662, Rumania 5,257,467, Italy 49,806 and Yugoslavia 1,509,295, besides the 2,621,954 inhabitants of Croatia-Slavonia. 7,615,117 persons were left to Hungary. And although the dismemberment of Hungary was effected in the name of national self-determination, substantial numbers of Magyars were, on any computation, transferred to the Successor States. . . . The persons of Magyar mother-tongue shown by the 1910 census as residing in the area assigned to the Successor States (adjusted after the Sopron plebiscite and other minor rectifications) amounted to 26,183 to Austria, 1,063,020 to Czechoslovakia, 230 to Poland, 1,704,851 to Rumania, 6,493 to Italy and 441,787 to Yugoslavia (besides 105,948 in Croatia-Slavonia). . . . In many cases, solidly or preponderantly Magyar areas contiguous to the main central bloc of Magyar population were left outside Hungary's new frontiers for the economic or strategic benefit of the Successor States..."
The Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs published in 1920 the papers which his Government had submitted to the Paris Peace Conference.7 We read there that in Hungary, preceding her dismemberment, "persons of Hungarian mother tongue make 54.5 per cent of the whole population and those of another language than the Hungarian are distributed among three greater and several small races: Rumanians 16.1 per cent; Slovaks 10.7 per cent; Germans 10.4 per cent; Serbs 2.5 per cent;" (others 5.8 per cent). Considering that the Czech element only made up slightly less than half of Czechoslovakia's population and the Serbs in Yugoslavia only 36 per cent, it was only Rumania
6 C.A.M. Macartney, October Fi/teenth: A History of Modern Hangary, 1929-1945 (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 4-5.
7 Viclor Hornyansky, Hungarian Peace Negotiation, (Budapest, 1920), p.2.
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among the Successor States where the racial composition of the population appeared to be more homogenous (73 per cent) than it had been in old-time Hungary.
But according to the Rumanian census of 1930, in Transylvania proper-the most ancient Hungarian province transferred to Rumania - with a population of 2,870,751, the Rumanians numbered 1,657,923; thus forming only a slight majority of 56.1 per cent. Even after the expatriation of 197,000 Hungarians from Transylvania there stfll remained in 1930, 826,796 Hungarians, about half as many as there were Rumanians. This Rumanian superiority in numbers was offset, however, by the higher cultural and economic standards of the Hungarians. The above quoted Hungarian official publication of 1920 describes the racial composition of the inhabitants in the 41 towns which had to be ceded that year by Hungary to Rumania: 64.6 per cent were Hungarians, with only 17.7 per cent Rumanians and 15.3 per cent Germans, the latter representing equally higher cultural and economic standards than those of the Rumanians. At the time of their transfer to Rumania, in the towns and villages with more than three thousand inhabitants the majority, 58.7 per cent, were Hungarians, and the Rumanians amounted to 23.4 per cent. Only in rural areas with villages under three thousand inhabitants did the Rumanian population achieve a majority.
It is in consideration of such facts that Professor Macartney8 properly stated that "while the authors of the Treaty had held the ethnic principle to possess an overriding validity before which all historical, economic and other considerations must give way, they had in practice violated that principle very largely to the detriment of Hungary. And those other considerations had not been negligible. Historic Hungary had constituted a geographical unit of a perfection hardly to be matched in Europe. . . So the Treaty which dismembered Hungary did not lop off outlying parts unconnected with the center, or with each other; it cut through organic nexuses, severing sources of supply from factories, primary industries from their finishing counterparts, the finished product from its purchaser. The remnant which called itself Hungary was left with useless amputated stumps sticking out in every direction and an economic structure unsuited to its natural conditions, being semi-industrialized, with emphasis on the
8 Ibid., p.5.
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finishing industry, but containing, so far as was then known . . few mineral resources or sources of power and thus, as it appeared, destined by nature to be an agricultural country...."
As the leader of the Small Holders (Peasant) Party, I conducted, between the two World Wars, research on various economic and social problems. Among the twenty-five European Continental states, Hungary was ninth, at that time, as far as the density of the population was concerned. I found that Hungarian agriculture could not support more than 120 persons per square mile. But the density of the population was 217 and machinery was not being used on the farms in order to provide more work for the rural laborers. Industry had to be developed even though very few raw materials necessary for industrialization were left. In sources of energy Hungary had become unusually poor; her coal supply per capita amounted to only 5 per cent of the European average and hydroelectric power was simply non-existent. Under Soviet domination the Communist Governments in Hungary have been having a tough time also; their industrialization plans have broken down twice within sixteen years. Hungarian labor continues to pay with its hardships for the mistakes of the Peacemakers.
The problems of the white collar workers could not be solved properly either. The overhead of a much larger country weighing on post-war mutilated Hungary was augmented by 350,000 refugees, most of them intellectuals of all professions, employees, teachers dismissed by the new rulers. These paupers came streaming back from the ceded areas to what had remained of Hungary. In the budget of the Hungarian State Railways pensions soon amounted to more than did the salaries. Wives were dismissed from employment to make place for the refugees. In the overcrowded country, there were no jobs, practically no place left for the youth. Of the three thousand graduating yearly from the Hungarian Universities, about one thousand found some work, often in menial jobs, or by underbidding union wages. What happened to the rest of these desperate youth? It was Hitler who had an answer to their problems, and for that the Paris Peacemakers must share the responsibility.
No aid could be expected for Hungary from abroad either, following the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. An ethnographic frontier may become a political frontier, but it should not serve as an instrument of economic isolation. Within the ring formed by
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------the Carpathians almost every river, and every valley leads in the direction of the Hungarian Plain; and the timber and industrial raw materials produced in the mountainous districts are just as indispensable to the inhabitants of the Plain as are the foodstuffs produced in the Plain to the peoples living in the mountains. The settlement of the inhabitants in the whole territory in question, as well as the establishment of towns, has actually followed the dictates of this necessity. More than a thousand years ago the Magyar conquerors of the country took possession of the fertile plains, slopes and river valleys; the peoples of other races living there at the time, withdrew to the world of forests and mountains, which later on also became the home of the foreign settlers who filtered into the Carpathian Basin.
This ethnographical distribution of races in the Basin has remained practically unchanged down to our times. The centrally-situated capital of Hungary, Budapest, was built on both shores of the Danube, at the most important point of contact between the Carpathians and the Plain; the commercial and industrial centers of the provinces have also sprung into being at points of contact between the Highlands and the Lowlands, at the places most advantageous for the exchange of their products. Consequently, the provincial towns lie at the meeting points of mountain and plain, whereas on that line ethnic groups in most cases become separated. In the event of the interposition of customs frontiers, these towns-whether annexed to the Plain or to the Highlands - become incapable of fulfilling the mission awaiting them. They were compelled to undertake a one-sided economic function, whereas their natural function is a double one: to form a connecting link between two economic areas and systems of divergent character. These towns have two hinterlands - not one. And customs frontiers act as particularly anti-economic and disturbing factors in the disunited Carpathian Basin. The crippling of the Hungarian nation crippled the beneficiaries also.
We must in general describe as untenable the miniature economic autarchies formed after the war by the tiny States of the Danube Valley which have become the source of an unnatural and injurious development. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was economically a well balanced structure. With respect to agricultural products it was practically self-supporting; it did not produce export surpluses and was therefore able to ensure all agrarian producers a reasonable
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price by the aid of a moderate customs tariff. In the industrial field the Monarchy had in general a favorable balance, thus providing possibilities for export and the accumulation of capital and wealth. Apart from the advantage that the Monarchy was not dependent upon any outside factor, its independence was also ensured by the circumstance that it was not driven to rely on the German market to the extent in evidence in all the agrarian States of the Danube Valley, following the disruption of the Monarchy.
The Paris Treaties substituted for the customs frontier of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy - some five thousand miles in length with a moderate customs tariff on imports - a "Chinese Wall," some nine thousand miles long, imposing absurdly high customs duties. Apart from intersecting the economic lines of connection that had existed for centuries, the new economic frontier grew into an impassable barrier and led to the systematic introduction of export and import prohibitions, paralyzing the once active merchandise traffic between the interdependent territories of the Danube region.
This unnatural situation eventually compelled the small States of the Danube Valley to halfheartedly introduce a system of self-supply, if only for the purpose of satisfying home requirements. During the course of two decades, each of these States appropriated the trifling capital at its disposal for the purpose of developing those branches of production which could not operate at a profit and, for that very reason, had not been in existence before. The agrarian territories - short of hard currencies - created heavy industry while the industrial countries brought into being a subsidized agriculture for the purpose of making themselves independent of outside pressures and influences. And, urged on by their political antagonisms, these States invested capital in this unnatural development in proportion as the necessity for an extension of the number of articles protected by customs duties and the measure of protection increased. Before her annexation by Germany, Austria was paying her farmers a higher subsidy for the wheat produced in that Alpine land than the market price of wheat was in neighboring Hungary. Economic isolation was undoubtedly harmful to Hungary, but it became equally detrimental to her estranged neighbors, for none of them possessed the attributes of economic independence; particularly at the time when Hitler began to pull them systematically into the Nazi living-space. Incomparably greater
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were the attributes of stability in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy which had been changed in the workshop of peace into a shaky new system, expected to last unchanged.
It had been Hungary's historical role to organize the united defense of the Central Valley of the Danube surrounded by the majestic Carpathian Mountains, against assaults, whether from the East or from the West. During three centuries of continuous warfare against onslaughts of the Ottoman Empire, the Hungarian nation - as numerous as the French in the fifteenth century when the Turkish invasions starte - decreased from five million to one million by the end of the Turkish wars in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The two hardest hit Hungarian provinces in the South were repopulated mostly by refugees fleeing Northward from the still beleaguered Balkans: Transylvania by Rumanians, and the Banat by Southern Slavs and other nationalities. In the Banat ceded to Yugoslavia, there still remained-in spite of the ravages of three centuries of warfare - a relative Hungarian majority as against the Southern Slavs (Serb, Croat, Bulgar and Bunyevac populations) who in 1919 took over this province.9 By the end of the first World War, these nationalities made up 45.5 per cent of Hungary's total population. They were allotted by the Trianon Treaty 71.4 per cent of her territory and 63.5 per cent of her population.
Even temporarily, this kind of peace settlement could only be maintained by force, not by the consent of the victim. In this respect, the military clauses of the Trianon Treaty betrayed much foresight and a complete lack of decency. Surrounded by neighbors hostile to her - for fear was preying on their mind - Hungary's new frontier was to become indefensible. Deep inside the Big Plain, it afforded no natural obstade whatever against invasions from the North, East and South. Budapest, the capital, was less than 20 miles away from the border and the next two largest cities, Szeged and Miskolcz, were even closer to it. No major effort would be needed to destroy these cities overnight with gunfire from across the border, against which Hungary would have no protection.
For, wide open to enemy attack as she was, the Trianon Treaty deprived Hungary of all effective means of defense. "No heavy gun, i.e. a caliber greater than 105 mm.," no armored cars or tanks of any
9 Magyar Statisztikai Szemle, 1940, No. 11, p. 773.
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size (Section 1, Table V) were authorized for the token armed force of Hungary with which to defend itself against such excellent arms as were manufactured in Czechoslovakia by the Skoda Works for the use of the Little Entente and, some time later, for Hitler. Conscription and the drafting of recruits were forbidden in order to prevent Hungary from forming a reserve force for her army limited to 35,000 mercenaries while the combined armed forces of the hostile Little Entente amounted to half a million men. The enslavement of Hungary was to remain in all events a cheap affair, for the Treaty ordered: "The armed forces of Hungary must not include any military or naval air forces" (Article 128). This prohibition extended even to the purely defensive fighter planes. To eliminate every risk for the victors should the Hungarians have to be slaughtered from the air, anti-aircralt guns were not authorized either. Completing the elegance of these stipulations, Hungary was to be kept in ignorance concerning eventual military moves or preparations directed against her. She had to undertake "not to accredit nor to send to any foreign country any military, naval or air mission" (Article 142), herself remaining subjected to military control.
This control, carried out mainly by hostile Little Entente personnel, was not only rigid, but also vexatious and was to serve political as well as military purposes. In January, 1928, the Little Entente powers protested to the League of Nations against a shipment of armaments sent from Italy to Hungary. The ensuing international investigation established that the five freight cars-discovered at the border station near Szentgotthard-were loaded with machine-gun parts. It was some rusty Italian booty from the World War, unusable for military purposes. But it was useful material for propaganda against clandestine Hungarian rearmament and was fully exploited as such.
Why was this rubbish ever acquired by the Hungarian Army? Only because it was in contravention of the Trianon Treaty! An attitude of defiance was developing in the tiny Hungarian Army, justified as far as its contempt for the Treaty was concerned, but unhealthy when involving undue risks for the nation. The Trianon Treaty gradually created a situation in Hungary which made parliamentary control of military affairs, at first difficult, and later impossible. From 1935 on when Nazi Germany discarded with impunity all her military restrictions, the Hungarian Army felt itself bound by nothing except the
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limitations of its budget. It considered all interest of civilian - like members of Parliament - in military affairs as unpatriotic snooping into secrets that were not to be divulged. No worthwhile progress was thus achieved in the military sense, but the Army maintained its self-respect by disobedience to the despised Treaty.
Only in 1938, one year before the outbreak of the second World War, could Hungary announce her decision to rearm, and belatedly her military organization did proceed thereafter according to an orderly plan. Only Hitler profited however from Hungary's military unpreparedness which disabled her from resisting the German Army's march across her territory in April, 1941, for the attack against Yugoslavia.
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THE HUNGARIAN MOVEMENT
FOR REVISION
I have referred to the causes why the Hungarian people and their leaders became desperate when their country was subjected to the Treaty of Trianon. The shock suffered from drastic mutilation seemed unbearable to the nation. There was hardly a family whose members had not been separated from one another, from their relatives and close friends; cut off from their work-places, their businesses or land, or altogether transferred under alien, generally quite oppressive rule.
Refugees living in railroad cars, the roaming jobless youngsters, veterans of the World War with nowhere to go, swore to retake at any cost their homes, lying now in foreign countries. Penniless, they were losing their patience. They joined in irregular formations of the "Ragged Guards" and for years they had to be arrested on various borders to prevent them from starting trouble. Count Stephen Bethlen, Prime Minister of Hungary for ten years (1921-1931), spent most of his intelligent work on the political and economic stabilization of the remaining chunk called Hungary. He exhausted his popularity, but put the country on the road toward progress. Until 1932, when Julius Gombos became the Prime Minister, the revision of the Treaty of Trianon had never been included in the programme of the Government, for expectations of the people were not to be aroused. The Government represented a minimum programme only: the defense of the rights of the Hungarian minorities under foreign rule-and even that remained unattainable.
It soon became obvious that no change in the status quo could be effected for more than a decade except by the use of force. A few districts in the West of Hungary, bordering on Austria, had a population with a German majority. There, the Peacemakers applied the ethnic principle again to the detriment of Hungary - and in an exaggerated way. In the so-called Burgenland a sizeable Hungarian population was included when it was assigned to Austria. This was not meant to be a reward to Austria (also one of the defeated countries), it was to stir up hostile feelings in Hungary against Austria in order to keep the two non-Slav neighbors disunited. The transfer of the entire Burgen
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land was to be effected in August, 1921, but the "Ragged Guard" and other irregular detachments (mostly ex-officers), who had been fighting Bela Kun's Communists, drove back whatever forces the Austrians sent into the Burgeniand. At the height of the crisis, through Italian mediation, a Conference was arranged in Venice by Nitti, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, where Austria and Hungary agreed on a plebiscite to be held in December of that year (1921). In conformity with the plebiscite's result, the major part of the Burgenland, with a population of 291,618, was then peaceably ceded by the Hungarians to Austria, while the town of Sopron and its environs, with 48,191 inhabitants, according to the popular vote, remained in Hungary.
A few conclusions, still worth remembering, can be drawn from the success of the Burgenland plebiscite:
1. This, the only plebiscite held in territory detached from Hungary, offered a result different from the one reached by the Allies. They evidently had been wrong in denying plebiscites everywhere. There can be no doubt that important areas, particularly those contiguous with mutilated Hungary and inhabited by a Hungarian majority, would have decided to stay in Hungary.
2. The basic principle to be observed in our era, if peace and a stable order are to be rebuilt, is correct observance of the ethnic principle. Following the 1921 plebiscite, a fair settlement made past grievances quickly forgotten on both sides of the frontier. Friendly relations shortly developed between Hungary and Austria, helpful to Western interests also, for Hungary assisted Austria in her struggle against absorption by Hitler. This friendship survived Naziism and the second World War. As President of "First Aid for Hungary," I witnessed, in 1956, the gratifying generosity with which the Government and the people of Austria received the Hungarian victims of Soviet barbarism. The application of the principle of self-determination had brought lasting friendship to that troubled area.
3 Italy, the first country among the victorious Powers to help Hungary following the tragedy of Trianon, earned the lasting sympathies of the Hungarian nation, whose feelings are not dependent on mercenary considerations. There is a widely shared misbelief in the English-speaking world that it was "Fascist Italy" which detected a soft spot in her heart for Hungary, (labeled "feudal"). Italy had extended her helping hand to Hungary in 1921, before Mussolini's
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advent to power (in 1922), and it was a democratic opponent of Mussolini, Foreign Minister Nitti, who had understood that the Western Allies were pushing their carving knife much too deep into the live body of the Hungarian nation. Irrespective of whether Italian internal policies stood Right or Left, there did exist a solid ground for Italian friendship with Hungary: their joint interest in the defense of the area north of the Adriatic Sea against inroads by pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism.
4. The so-called "Hungarian problem" never existed before Trianon. It was created by the Allies, who - once their victory was assured - in contravention of their solemn pledges, discarded the ethnic principle: the only reason given for the breaking up of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The revision of the untenable Trianon Treaty has been opposed with the argument that Hungary will never be satisfied unless her ancient boundaries are restored. This is patently untrue and the plebiscite of 1921, in which Hungary acquiesced, proved it. Hungary has properly understood how much happier and stronger an ethnically compact nation is than a conglomerate of divergent peoples. But what the self-respecting Hungarian nation has never ceased to demand is the right of self-determination for the Hungarians detached without consultation from their mother-country. In a decent Danubian order there may be no national privileges, but no one shall be held in bondage either.
The Hungarian movement for the revision of the Trianon Treaty was not initiated by the Hungarian Government. In fact, it did not Originate in Hungary. It was the English Lord Rothermere who became interested in the consequences of the mistaken Paris Peace Treaties. He came incognito to Hungary with an expert staff to inspect the new frontiers. Finding them more foolish than expected, he published a thunderous article about them in his paper, the London Daily Mail, under the headline: "Hungary's place under the sun." This happened in the spring of 1927, and the copy reached Budapest at Easter time. The unvarnished truth, coupled with the demand for justice for Hungary and stated by so influential a person, set free an outburst of repressed feelings, of renewed hope and of deep gratitude. The nation, abandoned by the West and nailed to the cross of Trianon by her neighbors, regained faith in its future redemption Lord Rothermere, hardly known by Hungarians previously, suddenly became the
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idol, the Saviour. Hallelujah! The bells of Easter were sounding in every heart: "Justice for Hungary!"
Stirred to action by the elementary eruption of the tortured people's deep-seated emotions, I shortly met Lord Rothermere in Paris, not only to express, as best I could, the Hungarian people's esteem and gratitude, but also to consult him about his eventual plans on how to direct the aroused Hungarian energies toward constructive and realistic national goals. There and then, it was agreed that we Hungarians would organize a broad popular movement, based on Article XIX of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to carry out a campaign among the victorious Powers for the peaceful revision ot the Trianon Treaty through orderly processes of international law. For publicity abroad, we could count on Lord Rothermere's newspaper empire.
The instrument of this policy, the "Hungarian League for Revision," was set up within a month, on a broader basis than had ever existed in Hungary. The membership consisted of the leaders of all the political parties, religious denominations, economic and other professional organizations, chambers, cultural associations and labor unions. The latter contributed a major part of the League's funds; they understood in their workshops what it meant to be cut off not only from a large part of your people, but also from nearby raw materials and markets. It was quite fortunate that, encouraged by understanding in Britain - but not by Britain - some patriotic organizations with irredentist leanings also joined the League and thus placed themselves under constructive leadership. Members of the Government, however, preferred to abstain from formal adherence in order to avoid difficulties with the Little Entente. Leadership in the League was tactfully but firmly exercised by its President, the distinguished author, Francis Herczegh, who despite his advanced age, devoted much of his inspired work to the accomplishment of the League's purpose. In perfect harmony, I assisted him in the good work as the Executive Vice-President until March 1941, when I left Hungary for America - these 14 years of voluntary labor have given me much satisfaction in an increasingly disintegrating world.
The hope for a peaceful revision of the intolerable Trianon Treaty definitely restored legality and a stable order in Hungary. The numerous restless elements, ex-Army officers, the jobless youth, the despairing refugees, incurably homesick, clung to this idea as the last hope for
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the betterment of their miserable fate. No victorious king has ever been given such spontaneous acclaim as was showered on Lord Rothermere, when he revisited Hungary the following year. The Hungarian will to live, in the midst of the ugly mess created by the Paris Peacemakers, was not directed at revenge in any way. The ex-officers' groups gave up their plans of armed invasion and no individual attempt at terrorism was ever conceived in Hungary. It was the hope attached to Article XIX of the Covenant of the League of Nations which induced the Hungarians not to take the road which the Yugoslavs were soon to choose. No act of violence was committed between the two World Wars by Hungarians against any of their oppressors. But the people of Hungary stood unanimously and firmly by their single demand: the equitable revision of the unjust Trianon settlement by peaceful means. This was not warmongering, it was the only possible peace policy. It eliminated all adventurism in Hungary. Restored self-reliance enabled the downtrodden Hungarian nation to avoid the pitfalls of Naziism longer than any of her Little Entente neighbors. Yet, this mature policy, based on a valid principle of international law, was denounced by the French - Little Entente Alliance as a provocation of war. While Hitler, unauthorized, was throwing off, as he pleased, the shackles of the Versailles Treaty, Hungarian policy, aimed at the revision of the Trianon Treaty, and pursued in legality and decency, was to be rebuffed, if need be, even by preventive war. In June, 1934, during his visit in Belgrade, Barthou coined the phrase: "Any step toward revision of the Peace Treaties is courting war." Had he been alive, President Wilson might have been startled by this travesty of his policy. The justified action against those responsible for the Marseille regicide degenerated, in Laval's concept, into an attempt at the political blackmail of Hungary by the time the showdown in Geneva was reached.
Hungarian revisionism was to be stopped short by the Little Entente, certainly not because it would endanger peace, but because the conviction was spreading in the West that the shabby treatment of Hungary had been a bad mistake. In 1934, in the House of Commons in Eng]and, there was a group of about 240 Members, composed of men from each of the three parties, which, to the annoyance of the Foreign Office favored a revision of the Trianon Treaty. In the House of Lords prominent Members, led by Lord Newton, had been voicing strong criticism of the unjust Trianon Treaty from the time of its signing. In
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Italy, Mussolini had always approved the Hungarian demand for revision, and also insisted in his conversations with Sumner Welles (1940) on the territorial claims of Hungary. Aldo Dami, the Italian scientist, took the stand that Hungarians should not be forcibly dispersed in five countries. He published a detailed plan ("La Hongrie de Demain") similar to that of Lord Rothermere's, which, by applying the ethnic principle in the border areas, would return two million Hungarians to their motherland. As often happens in France, writers of the younger generation attacked the cruel verdict imposed on Hungary, and in the tradition of Emile Zola, demanded that justice be restored.
The fact has almost passed into oblivion that the Fifth Party Congress, held in the Soviet Union in 1924, included in its program the approval of the demand "that the Hungarian-populated Czechoslovak, Rumanian and Yugoslav territories be reannexed to Hungary."1 It is a fact that after Italy the Soviets were the next Power to identify themselves with the Hungarian demand for the revision of the unjust Trianon Treaty. This Soviet tactical stand of taking sides with the underdog remained unchanged as long as Russian aspirations did not include the Danubian Basin. Only after the Teheran Conference (1943), where the road leading to the heart of Europe was thrown wide open for invasion by the Red Army, did the Soviets turn their coat inside out.
To win popularity in Hungary, it had been Bela Kun, the Communist dictator, who had driven the Czechs out of Northern Hungary in 1919. No other Hungarian regime, prior to the period of the second World War, had ever resorted to force of arms to recuperate lost territory. Yet, by the end of the second World War, it was the Hungarian "feudal regimes" which were castigated for their revisionist policies as warmongers and imperialists by the Soviets. It seems to have become Hungary's tragic share in the Great War of the twentieth century to be used and abused by the victorious Powers, whoever they may temporarily be, for providing handouts and gratuities to her three neighbors, earning thereby for Hungary the lasting enmity of the three profiteers.
This was the cliniate in which the Marseille regicide was to be discussed in Geneva.
1 Endre Jonas, Trianon, a European Problern (Zurich: Danubian Press, 1960), p. 14.
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Part III
DIPLOMACY AND BLACKMAIL
"Am I therefore become your enemy,
because I tell You the truth?"
Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians
COLLAPSE OF THE EUROPEAN ORDER
Adolf Hitler's appointment in January, 1933, by Reichs-President von Hindenburg as the Chancellor of Germany was the death blow to the remnants of the European order which had survived the political and moral ravages of the first World War and the Paris Peace Conference. Gone was the "spirit of Locarno" which had helped Briand and Stresemann, in October 1925, to lay the foundations of a system for the general pacification of Europe. That inspiring trend was reversed. The agreements between Germany and her neighbors to submit their controversies to arbitration were cast aside by Nazi arrogance. France, twice invaded within the last fifty years by the German Army, felt particularly affected by the renewed menace from East of the Rhine. Security became a national obsession in France. A downward trend was also started in the life of the Reich's small neighbors, a growing tragedy which, alas, to the present day has not come to an end.
By 1934, when German rearmament admittedly was begun, the balance of power was already shifting away from the Western Democracies, for will-power and determination are just as potent factors as effective physical power in the shaping of the destinies of nations. And Hitler had what Nietzsche termed the "Wille zur Macht" (the will to attain power); in fact, it was the only qualification he had, which impressed me in my several discussions with the Fuehrer. That persuasive, almost mystic superiority complex however, he possessed to an exaggerated degree. It assured for this uneducated fanatic mastery over his highly educated nation. It determined both his ascendance and his doom.
The nineteenth century Concert of Europe, which had maintained relative peace in the world during 100 years, was gone for good, and the wartime division of the European powers into the victorious Entente and the defeated Central Powers had also disappeared by 1934. But no new balance of power or guiding influence had developed on the Continent. Particularly, in the heart of Europe all stability and cohesion were destroyed, which fact did not escape Hitler's attention. On the ruins of the venerable Austro-Hungarian Monarchy various small people endowed and stricken with a keen sense of independence
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were busy setting up their separate miniature national autarchies. Many of them were wary of the threat looming in the East in the shape of the giant Bolshevik Russia imbued with world-revolutionary ambitions. From then on, they also had to struggle against Hitler's schemes, whose drive for "living space" they could never halt in the disintegrated Valley of the Danube. Their situation became increasingly uncomfortable, when to Hitler's stepped up subversive actions the Western Democracies reacted with another menace, rapprochement to the Soviets. Wedged in between two brutal totalitarian dictatorships, the internal good order of these small states was exposed to infiltration and subversion by both the Nazi and the Communist ideologies and by the concomitant apparatuses at their command. Indeed, they were living dangerously.
Victory in the first World War had not benefited the Western European Democracies either. Britain relaxed in the post-war years and enjoyed the reduced amenities of a bygone Victorian age without accepting, however, the corresponding sacrifices. Her foreign policy was equally antiquated. In the shade of an imaginary "splendid isolation," British overall policy concerning Europe remained based on the centuries-old maxim: keep the Continent divided. Temporarily, this approach proved successful, since both Hitler and Stalin were pursuing a similar policy. The British position seemed quite comfortable with competition crippled and political cohesion disrupted on the Continent. To counterbalance France, at that time the strongest Continental power, the British Foreign Office had favored the creation of a stable German government led by Hitler to replace tottering democracy. It will be remembered that for more than a year after Hitler's take-over of the government the British still approved of him, while refractory France was being annoyed by the arrogant Nazis. The British believed that their respectability would not suffer from these manoevres-after all, Hitler had observed all the formalities of the game and had obtained power through democratic processes. Even Mr. Eden who disapproved of Prime Minister Neville ChambeHain's policy of "getting together" with the dictators, seemed to believe that Litvinov, although a Communist, "was a good European."1
While dark clouds of the approaching tempest were forming over complacent Britain, the waste of years-never to return-was even
1 Facing the Dictators, p. 182.
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more appalling in the course followed by the Third French Republic. The dynamism of the bourgeois French Revolution had been exhausted by time, by party strife and intrigue; worn out cliches no longer generated in the masses the courage and determination to stand up with eighteenth century slogans against the Proletarian Revolution of the twentieth century, whichever brand - Nazi or Bolshevik - it may have been. Unable to find the long overdue solutions to her pressing internal problems, or to develop a constructive European policy aimed at unification, France had become grievously decadent. In a rapidly changing world, with vast, novel tasks to perform, she fell back on outmoded, rigid diplomatic and legal formulas which did not fit her needs, but prevented reconciliation. Thoughtlessly, her leaders did not appraise properly the destructive aims of the Soviets, the difference between the weak Tsar Nicholas II, and the successor of Genghis Khan, the cunning Stalin, whom French political leaders of all shades - Barthou Laval, Herriot, and Leon Blum - were prepared to accept as an ally and even to trust. By habit, France reintroduced the quarantined Russians into the midst of their prospective victims. In her quest for security through restoration of the Franco-Russian alliance, France took a downhill road which was to lead her first into the morass of the Popular Front infected by the inclusion of the Communist Party and from there on, after Hitler and Stalin joined hands for the spoliation of Europe, down to the bottom, to defeat and surrender to the Nazis.
Nothing is more relative in the life of nations than power. The self-satisfied lethargy of France and Britain following the First World War automatically brought into prominence their junior partner in the victorious Entente: frustrated, yet upcoming Italy. Indeed, it was Mussolini, and Mussolini alone, who saved Austria from Hitler in July, 1934. At that time, Italy was the only major power which was fully rearmed and the Duce intended to make use of that investment before it became obsolete. But he was hesitant, as yet, to commit Italy either to her wartime Allies, who had disregarded her interests in the past, or to her traditional foe, Germany, who might mistreat her again in the future. To the dismayed Mr. de Kanya, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Duce confided in the autumn of 1934, shortly before starting his adventure in Abyssinia, that the "Mare Nostro," the sea so romantically coveted by D'Annunzio, was no more the Adriatic Sea but the Mediterranean, in which Basin Italy would replace the decadent
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British rule. That Empire was crumbling - said Mussolini - it would soon come to an end, for their armed establishment, even the British Navy, had been neglected to the point where they could no longer discharge their extended responsibilities.2 The Duce's firm logic was coupled, however, with short term wishful thinking. He did not live to see the anticipated end of the British Empire realized.
Following the murder of Dollfuss, which became a milestone in the history of European decline, the shocked French leaders hoped that Mussolini and Hitler would stay divided, that in French-Italian relations new combinations would become possible and that perhaps Italy could be won over into an alliance with France. But Yugoslavia remained unalterably hostile to Italy. Her opposition became a stumbling block to the French policy of rapprochement with Italy which could not be disregarded. For by antagonizing Yugoslavia, the French-Little Entente Alliance might have been loosened, even upset. French strategic thinking had been overrating grossly the value of the Little Entente insofar as the defense of France against eventual German aggression was concerned, for the Little Entente, as such, was operative practically only against Hungary. Even the Yugoslav mobilization in 1934, in support of the Nazis, did not modify this mistaken French evaluation.
While in Western Europe conditions remained unstable because of lack of political organization and leadership by the Great Powers, Central Europe and the Balkans grew shaky and confused as a result of overorganization of those small states. In February, 1933, under the impact of the Nazi take-over of Germany, the Yugoslav-Rumanian-Czechoslovak loosely knit alliance, the Little Entente, transformed itself into a permament international organization, while retaining its close ties with France and its good relations with Poland. One year later, in February, 1934, the Balkan Pact was signed combining Yugoslavia-Rumania-Greece-Turkey, but omitting Czechoslavakia, the third member of the Little Entente, and also Bulgaria, an indispensable link in any Balkan system. The reason for the latter omission was discovered one month later: the Balkan Pact was accompanied by a secret protocol, guaranteeing the territory of the signatories which caused friction between revisionist Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia defending her territorial
2 Mussolini spoke with disdain of the British to Prime Minister Gombos in 1935. The Mediterranean Fleet of the British had not been properly provided with armmunition and Mussolini believed that his navy could have destroyed that of Great Britain.
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status quo. Moreover, the policies of Greece and Turkey - both friendly to Hungary - did not coincide with those of the other two Balkan Fact partners opposed to Hungary. So, they held several meetings in 1934 to coordinate their divergent interests. Besides face-saving, very little was accomplished, for according to their geographical location these small states had to seek defense against different pressures weighing on their borders. Czechoslovakia, for instance, felt endangered mainly by Nazi Germany, whereas Yugoslavia, still out of Hitler's reach, was leaning on Germany against the expanding Italian influence on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.
At a meeting of the Balkan Entente (October 31, 1934), Greece, quite reasonably, refused to accept any responsibility outside of the Balkans in view of her limited resources. The ambitious Dr. Tevfik Rouchdy bey, Foreign Minister of Turkey, who liked to poke a finger into every pie, then launched the plan of merging the Little and the Balkan Ententes, since each of them was too weak to stand up alone against any aggressive great power. But Titulescu, the Foreign Minister of Rumania, a country not yet endangered by either the Soviets or the Nazis, wished to avoid all added obligations. Endowed with the Byzantine gift of pleasantly phrasing unpleasant decisions, he praised in flowery terms the ideal of both Ententes, which was identical: "the maintenance of peace, but in spheres so distinctly separated that it. would be absurd to ask the signatories of one pact to blindly shoulder the responsibilities of the other." The validity of this reasoning could not be doubted and therewith the move toward unity of the small Central European and Balkan states came to an end.
Thus, in autumn, 1934, when the Marseille murders suddenly inflamed the smouldering embers on the Continent, there existed no established authority to uphold the rule of law and justice, except the League of Nations, which was already wasting away. In March, 1933, Japan politely had given notice of her decision to withdraw from the League and the same year, in October, the Nazis suddenly quit with a bang. A medicine was then selected as a remedy which was to hasten the death of the patient: in September, 1934, prodded by France, in agreement with Britain and Italy, the Assembly admitted the Soviets to membership in the League of Nations. The always respectable Journal de Geneve reported (September 9), that it was the grand idea of Barthou, recommended also by Benes and Titulescu. "Like all men they
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are subject to error." To what an error! On January 27, 1934, Kaganovitch, at that time second in rank to Stalin, had declared: "Our task is precise: to use in every manner the divergencies among the capitalist countries and not allow them the possibility of resolving their own internal contradictions." Five years later Stalin, "the bulwark against Hitler," became the trigger man of the Second World War which knocked out France and brought under Soviet domination his sponsors, Czechoslovakia and Rumania. The argument proffered in Geneva, In the summer of 1934, in favor of the Soviets, had a ghastly resemblance to the motivation voiced nowadays to promote the admission of Red China to the United Nations: the requirement of universality, which, with America absent, was actually non-existent in the League from the very beginning. Within a few months, during the Abyssinian crisis, the world witnessed the fact that devoid of physical power, even the highest international authority of the world becomes worthless, unless it maintains a high moral standard. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact gave the coup de grace to the League of Nations which, on December 14, 1939, still gathered enough energy to reach the eminently logical conclusion that "by its own actions the Soviet Union has expelled itself from the League of Nations."
MURDER:
AN INSTRUMENT OF NATIONAL POLICY
The reader will probably remember the political aspect of Europe in the 1930's, as he later saw it in the vivid light of the Second World War, when the line-up of the various powers was clearly visible. But, in 1934, when the Marseille regicide was perpetrated, the European scene was still chaotic and shifty, with only a few somber outlines clearly drawn The time was not yet ripe for the totalitarian dictators to start large-scale armed aggression, which, one by one, was to wipe out the independence and freedom of their small neighbors. But murder of their political opponents was already on the agenda and was marking the path of their progress as the forerunner of greater evils to come.
Just before the New Year, 1934, Prime Minister Duca, the strong-man of Rumania, was murdered by a fanatic of the Iron Guard, allied to the German Nazi Party. The year started in that agitated country with the arrest of some 3000 pro-Nazi extremists. The core of the conspiracy, however, had certainly not been wiped out, for shortly thereafter, at the last moment a plot was uncovered, planned by officers of the General Staff, to bomb the Orthodox Cathedral in Bucharest during the Easter midnight service and thus destroy King Carol and his Cabinet. Urged by the liberal-minded Titulescu, King Carol, although inclined toward the Nazis, agreed under the impact of the misfired conspiracy to dissolve by decree the pro-German Rightist organizations in Rumania. But, as often happens, the pendulum now swung to the Left. The Bucharest Parliament turned its eyes Eastward and approved the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviets. On October 8, the Francophile Mr. Titulescu came to terms with King Carol and again took over the Foreign Ministry, which he was to direct during the international crisis caused one day later by the murder of King Carol's brother-in-law, King Alexander of Yugoslavia.
On June 15,1934, Mr. Pieracki, the Polish Minister of the Interior was murdered for political motives by an Ukrainian, John Marzinkovitz In the early 1920's, following the reconquest of a major part of the Ukraine by the Russians, remnants of the Ukrainian Independence Movement fled from their Soviet-dominated land to Germany, where,
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as anti-Communists, they were well received. Another Ukrainian faction which emigrated from Galicia1 was hostile to Poland but had no grudge against the Russians, who at that time were a threat to Poland. To forge an instrument against the Poles, Mr. Benes offered to the latter group a friendly haven in Prague, awarded scholarships to their students, and gave clandestine support to the group's anti-Polish political work. The assassin of the Polish Minister belonged to this group.
In the same month, on the 30th, another, even more ominous murder was committed, under ghastly circumstances which made Hitler's power in Germany uncontested. Captain Ernest Roehm, Chief of Staff of the SA, a dynamic Nazi organizer, had decided to develop his Party Militia into a regular army. This raised distrust in Hitler's suspicious mind. The Chief of his Security Police, the diabolic Reinhard Heydrich, did not fail to notice his reaction. Eager to destroy Roehm, his competitor, he forged documents to prove that the disloyal Roehm, while on a vacation at a Bavarian lake, was preparing a Putsch to liquidate Hitler. As if stepping out of a Shakespearean drama, Hitler flew into a rage and together with Heydrich and his SS men invaded Roehm's villa at night. Roehm, Hitler's one time best friend, was shot to death while still in bed.
A blacklist prepared by Heydrich was approved then by Hitler. It contained, besides the Fuehrer's opponents, other names who might have obstructed Heydrich's ascent to the top of the Nazi hierarchy. His career was prodigious thereafter, until in Lidice it came to an inglorious end. The day following Roehm's murder, I happened to be on a tour in the Bavarian mountains. I became curious: one car after another passed me, driven by SS men in black uniforms, with the window blinds drawn. Soon it became known: hundreds, if not thousands, of Germans were arrested and executed on this occasion. This was the first mass murder in Nazi Germany, and since Hitler got away with it, others were to follow. Prominent Germans, such as General Kurt von Schleicher, a former Chancellor of the Reich, were executed merely because Hitler did not like them, and another former Chancellor, the foxy Franz von Papen, only escaped a similar fate by going into hiding, thus saving his life for coming afflictions.
Next in line to be murdered by Hitler, while heading the govern-
1 A former Austrian provinces adjudged to Poland by the Peace Conference.
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ment, was Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of Austria. His death acted as a catalyzer; it speeded up various diplomatic actions and also precipitated the murder of King Alexander. The easy-going West has never properly understood or appreciated the struggle which Dollfuss - this champion of freedom - led against superior, brutal forces, sometimes with desperate means and single-handed. Adverse Marxist publicity has done much harm to Dollfuss' reputation which deserves to be restored. Not quite five feet tall and of simple peasant stock, he became the champion of little Austria's resistance to the two towering evils of our time: Naziism and Communism. At that time, the majority of the Austrian Marxists stood yet far to the Left; unfortunately for all of Central Europe, they had not joined the moderate Second International but professed adherence to the so-called "Two and a Half" group, which in an emergency - as was also experienced in Hungary during Bela Kun's dictatorship - would join hands with the Bolshevik-dominated Third International.
In the summer of 1933, Dollfuss had to face two revolutionary upheavals, which blew up railroad tracks, bombed buildings, and with arms and other aid from Czechoslovakia, tried to establish Marxist rule over Austria. The fighting had hardly stopped in the streets of Vienna when we saw the valiant, miniature Chancellor marching upright, exposed to a hundred deaths, behind the coffins of the killed patriots. On October 3, 1933, an extremist of the other brand, a young Nazi, fired two shots at the Chancellor, one of which was deflected from his heart by a button. In February, 1934, the Socialists again staged an armed revolt against him but were thoroughly defeated. Caught in a pincer, between two violent revolutionary movements, Dollfuss was compelled by adverse conditions - sustained by foreign subversive efforts - to rule temporarily by decree, unless he was ready to accept Nazi domination which at that time in Central Europe was still a more potent menace than Communism.
Threatened from within by the bold Nazi underground and Socialist paramilitary organizations centered in Vienna, and also from the outside by Hitler and the agile Mr. Benes, Dollfuss decided to seek support for Austrian independence from his friendly neighbors: Hungary and Italy. Following his visit in Budapest, in mid-March, 1934, the Pact of Rome was concluded among Italy-Austria-Hungary, mainly for the purpose of lending political and economic support to Austria
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for the maintenance of her independent statehood. There were no other powers in Europe at that time sufficiently interested in the fate of Austria to share in these responsibilities, although the way was left open in the Pact of Rome for their participation in the agreements. Even after the murder of Dollfuss, no power was found outside of the signatories of the Pact of Rome which would have risked the impairment of its relations with flourishing Nazi Germany for the sake of besieged Austria.
In those months, I was Hungary's Chief Delegate in Geneva to the League of Nations. The German Minister to Switzerland, Baron Weizsaecker, seemed quite worried by the Nazi Party's interference in the conduct of Germany's foreign affairs. He foresaw, a year before the murder of Dollfuss, that Hitler would eventuafly attempt to annex Austria by the use of force. At his insistence that I talk to Hitler and convince him not to upset Germany's improving international position by some adventure, in early autumn, 1933, I visited Berlin. I was feted at a pompous dinner in the Adlon, in Hitler's absence, by his collaborators: Rosenberg, Goebbels and his Austrian advisers, headed by Herr Habicht, Hitler's "Inspector for Austria," who had been expelled from that country. I did not need much time to understand that all advice to the Nazi Party in the direction of moderation toward Austria was futile. So instead of waiting for Hitler's return, I visited Count Buelow, the respectable Undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had Conservative leanings and was mistrusted by the Nazis. In a whisper and apologetically, he admitted that German foreign policy was being shaped exclusively by Hitler and his Party and that he [Count Buelow] was only conducting routine administrative work. Yet, each morning, glancing through the papers on his desk, he delayed his resignation - so much damage and misery would result should the Party settle these delicate matters. Austria's situation was hopeless, in his view, if Hitler succeeded in remaining in power, for the Fuehrer was intractable on the subject of Austria. I left for Budapest with dismal impressions and thereafter never saw Berlin again.
In September, 1934, one year later, at a dinner during the meetings of the League of Nations' Assembly, I called Mr. Eden's attention to that sore spot-besieged little Austria. I frankly told the British Chief Delegate that I was more worried at present about the fate of Austria than that of my own country, since the annexation of Austria by Nazi
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Germany would soon lead to general war. And then, I risked the question: Would the United Kingdom consider what guarantees it could give to Austrian independence? In an icy tone, I was informed that Britain felt much relieved and had to attend to other problems since the Austrian crisis was at long last solved. Solved? For how long? Mr. Eden accepted at face value a recent statement by Hitler, when the assassination of Dollfuss did not bring about the collapse of Austria in which he limited his interest in Austria to German "cultural" relations.
It is an unpleasant but recurrent experience in modern diplomatic life to find most of the political leaders you deal with overburdened with routine work, time-consuming social duties, excessive concern with the press, etc., and therefore loath to attack major political problems before it is too late to avert a crisis. This must have been the mood of Mr. Eden. But could he expect that Hitler's tactical retreat in Austria would change in any way his basic strategy aimed at expansion? Irrefutable evidence to the contrary was available to me. Shortly before Hitler became Chancellor, I tried to persuade him to leave Austria alone or else Germany would lose all her friends. He became incensed and went into a harangue: "Austria is a German land and will become part of Germany." He abused the "wobbly and soft" Austrians who needed to be instilled with Nazi discipline. "I may temporize with the 'Anschluss,' but I will never compromise in carrying out that duty," was his final assertion. Statesmanship demands preparation to meet the worst possible eventuality. The democratic habit of taking "calculated risks" instead of squarely facing onerous problems at the proper time has caused many a calamity to the West which also bad to pay a heavy fine for its complacent attitude towards Hitler.
I always have believed in the usefulness of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and have disagreed with the national aspirations of some political parties in Hungary and in other Danubian countries which were seeking complete separation from Austria. I also have supported wholeheartedly Hungary's participation in the Pact of Rome for it was to strengthen the sagging morale of Austria. Among the Middle Danube States, the key position was held by Austria whose independence had become a cornerstone upon which European peace also rested. Vienna in the hands of the German Reich could never be an end in itself - it would be a point of departure for further expansion, the gate-
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way leading to Budapest, Belgrade, and the Dardanelles. Should Germany force its way into Vienna, every small nation down to the Mediterranean would be at her mercy; the position of Prague, particularly, would become untenable. Prague's fate then would determine, sooner or later, the future of Budapest also. The "Drang nach Osten" had to be stopped in Vienna. The security of all the Danubian and Balkan States was built upon the power of resistance of the triangle, Vienna-Prague-Budapest. Should any one of these three pillars crumble, the rest were bound to go down with it.
The decision of the Paris Peacemakers: the isolation of Austria from the neighboring small nations with which for many centuries she had lived in full partnership, was ruinous to Austrian interests, not only because of its economic consequences, but mainly because of political and ethical considerations. The Austrian question, ever since 1919, had been handled by the Allied Powers and by the League of Nations, primarily as an economic problem. The "relief" funds and international loans which had been granted to Austria, probably helped more to destroy the self-confidence and national pride of the Austrians than most of her benevolent creditors imagined. An honest people that for centuries bad earned international respect by industry and cultural accomplishments, could not accept as a solution of the problems of its national existence, the humiliating position of presenting herself, at regular intervals before international authorities, begging for loans which she was certain never to be able to repay. The will of the Austrians to maintain their independence had to be strengthened. They had to be given a definite mission, the fulfillment of which would keep up their spirit, rebuild their national ideals along traditional lines and enable them to regain their self reliance and vitality. The mission of the Austrians had always been to unite the Middle Danubian nations in a broad co-operative system. Vienna had been, for many centuries, the market place not only of material goods but also of the cultural products of the highly civilized Danubian nations. The Austrian spirit, imbued with Latin elements, developed, in the course of generations, a distinct national individuality different from the rest of the Germanic peoples. Tolerance and assimilation of foreign cultures was the main feature of the Viennese atmosphere, where the peoples of the Danube Valley gladly gathered under the auspices of the Court of Vienna. To be sure, there had been internal strife within the Austro-Hungarian
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Empire; but it never rose to become an international danger. The calming Viennese atmosphere has been for many centuries helpful to the security, peace and prosperity of Europe.
Publicity which qualified the Pact of Rome at first as a "Fascist Alliance," was not only mean but also unintelligent, for only Hitler could profit from it. In February, 1934, shortly before the Pact of Rome was signed, the Nazi movement was outlawed in Hungary. The Alliance of Rome was not even neutral, it was simply anti-Nazi, and Hitler knew it perfectly well. He decided, following the signing of the Pact of Rome, to take action without delay in Austria: to wipe out her annoying Chancellor. Hitler could not tolerate interference in his "living space," least of all by Mussolini, an ideological competitor. On July 25, of the same year, an armed squad of Nazis dressed in Austrian uniforms invaded the Chancellory and shot the intrepid Dollfuss in his office. He died without being permitted by his assailants to receive medical aid.
Tribute was paid to the brave Austrian Chancellor in the League of Nations by no lesser statesman than the eminent Delegate of Switzerland, Mr. Motta, at the plenary meeting of the Assembly on September 12, 1934. "His fundamental idea," said Motta about Dollfuss, "was to defend the integrity and the self-government of his country. He died for this ideal. He faced the menace of death which he felt coming, with faith and patriotism and accepted it without flinching. . . . All parties, even those against whom he fought, have to bow to the man who sacrificed his life for his principles."
This cowardly crime prompted several changes in European attitudes, and some of them were beneficial. Mussolini's energetic move barring Hitler's road into Austria allayed most of the adverse criticism previously voiced against the Pact of Rome and made it possible for the successor of Dollfuss, Kurt Schuschnigg, during a visit in Budapest in September, 1934, to strengthen, together with General Gombos, the Hungarian Prime Minister, their adherence to the Pact. There also developed in England an irreparable disenchantment with Hitler. "What would Hitler do to me," asked Lord Chatfield, the First Sea Lord, during my visit in September, 1934, in London, "if he had a chance to treat me as he pleased, when he did this to Dollfuss, another German?" Unannounced and not admitted, the British Foreign Office moved away from the side of Germany and back to the old-time "Entente Cordiale"
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with France. The early diagnosis of this fact proved helpful in my diplomatic work in Geneva, yet this change was publicly revealed only in 1937, when following the abdication of King Edward VIII, Stanley Baldwin voluntarily retired and, surveying in the House of Commons his term of service as Prime Minister, mentioned this turn in British policy as having been decided upon in autumn, 1934, after the murder of Dollfuss.
One Western reaction, however, to Nazi barbarism proved to be hopelessly unsound. As years passed by, it grew into a deadly mistake which now threatens our Free World with final disaster. Disgust with Hitler and his policy of expansion induced the Western Democracies to seek better defense against this growing menace. But reluctant to accept the inescapable sacrifices, they became increasingly inclined to rely on the hoped for aid from, and even an alliance with, the Soviets. Summer 1934, the murder of Dollfuss, was the time when the aroused but complacent West took the decision to help the Soviets out of the isolation which paralyzed their destructive energies. Moreover, the Democracies had no joint strategy and no coordinated forces of their own. They relied on individual deals and power political combinations with one or the other dictator. Europe thus became dependent on both dictators and took the calculated risk that Hitler and Stalin would outbalance each other indefinitely.
It was France, her Foreign Minister Barthou, who started the ball rolling toward the precipice, when in summer, 1934, he payed an official visit to Moscow. Thereafter, when the Soviets applied for membership in the League of Nations, there were fine warnings voiced, but no worthwhile opposition to their acceptance developed. Not only Britain, but Fascist Italy, angered by Hitler's Austrian adventure, voted for the admission of the Soviets during the September Assembly Meeting. The fiction promoted by Mr. Barthou during his visits to Warsaw and Belgrade became almost generally accepted; namely, that a pro-Slav policy to which the Soviets also belonged would shift the European balance of power in favor of the Western Democracies and keep Hitler definitely in his place. So Barthou became most active trying to bring about a network of alliances which would include the Soviets and would help to keep Germany down.
The myth of a Slav political entity was brutally refuted, however, at Marseille by the Croat and Bulgarian assassins of King Alexander,
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the murderers and the victim himself all being Slavs. Unintentionally, Mr. Louis Barthou, who greeted the King on the Quai des Belges, was also killed on that 9th of October, 1934. Dressed in an Admiral's uniform and decorated with the wide red ribbon of the French Legion of Honor, the smiling King Alexander, a descendant of the Karageorgevitch dynasty, traveled in an open motor car and was engaged with Mr. Barthou in a friendly conversation, when in the Rue Cannebierre, the main traffic artery of Marseille, a man shouting "Long live the King!" jumped on the running board of his car and fired several shots at the occupants. Colonel Piollet, who escorted the King's car on horseback, struck down the assassin immediately, but the murderer continued shooting until overcome and lynched by the bystanders. Several shots were also fired on the car from the crowd, obviously by accomplices in the murder plot. King Alexander, hit by two bullets and bleeding from five wounds, died shortly without regaining consciousness. The aged Louis Barthou, whose right arm was torn asunder by a bullet, bled to death before any help reached him. The French General Georges, a member of the Supreme War Council, sitting opposite the King in the car, was hit by several bullets, one of them right over the heart, but the Serbian decoration of St. Sava deflected it and saved the General's life. Stray bullets killed two mothers in the crowd and wounded ten other spectators, one of them fatally.
In the series of political assassinations the last notorious murder, also in 1934, occurred in Leningrad on December 1. Sergei Kirov, the third-ranking Commissar in the ten-member Bolshevik Politburo, was killed in a plot in which prominent Party leaders and the Political Police were involved. The murder of Kirov was greeted by Stalin as a welcome occasion to launch the largest purge in Russian history. This mass murder of his political opponents he labeled in true Bolshevik style a "war on terror." After a one day trial, on December 6, he had sixty-six "terrorists" executed. Kamenev and Zinoviev were placed under arrest to be later sentenced to death. There followed an avalanche of terror lasting for months and sweeping out Stalin's opponents not only from the Party but altogether from existence. The Soviet delegation had to observe for a while some reserve in the League of Nations in view of the home record, which in spite of the utmost secrecy seeped out and prevented the Soviets, as yet, from seeking acclaim as the champions of freedom.
LAVAL IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT
A few days after the murder of King Alexander, the Journal de Geneve (October 12) mused in a melancholy mood: "Much killing is going on in Europe and all the victims stood on the same side of the barricades." In fact, it was not the tyrants and corrupt politicians but decent leaders who were killed in those months: the Rumanian Duca, the Austrian Dollfuss, who both stood for independence and freedom against simultaneous assaults by the totalitarian forces on the Right and on the Left. Also the victims of the Marseille plot, King Alexander and Louis Barthou, had been champions of a patriotic order. In the same vein, the Swiss paper further complained that "there is a constant menace of violence in Europe because of the barbaric morale resulting from the bad European situation." The traditional sound order of Europe was already being squeezed in the pincers of ruthless Naziism and Communism.
The shock caused by the double murder of Marseille was equally profound in Yugoslavia and in France. The "Cavalier" King was respected and even popular among the Serbs, for he was strong and brave and his people felt secure that Serbian hegemony over the heterogeneous new populations of the vastly expanded Kingdom would be upheld under his firm guidance. His prestige was enhanced by connections with European dynasties: Queen Marie of Yugoslavia was the sister of King Carol of Rumania, also a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and of Tsar Alexander II. King Alexander I was closely related to Princess Marina, who was then engaged to Prince George of England. His eleven-year-old son, Peter, was going to school in England, which also was in his favor. Peter was proclaimed the King of all the Yugoslavs under the tutelage of a Regency composed of three persons, among whom Prince Paul became the uncontested leader.
The loss of the King, who seemed irreplaceable, plunged the Yugoslav regime into deep mourning. Belgrade was grimly determined to exercise righteous retribution against whoever was implicated in the crime. The simple people in the old Kingdom of Serbia displayed pathetic signs of sympathy and grief for their King and his dramatic
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demise. Fifteen thousand wreaths, hundreds of them made of silver and even gold from all over the country, lent Oriental pomp to the military funeral at the end of October, at Oplenac, in the mausoleum of the Karageorgevitch dynasty. From Kossovo Polje, the historic battlefield of the Balkans, a huge branch of a pine tree was brought by peasants which had been planted by Emperor Dushan the Great, in the fourteenth century.
Of course, some crocodile tears were also shed - as is in style at the bier of a Monarch. The shoe-thumping era of Nikita Khrushchev had not yet dawned on the international world. The Yugoslav destroyer, "Dubrovnik," carrying back from Marseille the body of King Alexander, had been escorted ceremoniously across the Straights of Messina by an Italian fleet. The British press gave much publicity to this Italian geste, not only because courtesy is generally appreciated by the British, but mainly because it was interpreted as evidence of the Italian desire to avoid a break in Italian-Yugoslav relations.
The French reaction to the murder of their Minister of Foreign Affairs was what could be regarded as standard under circumstances existing then in France. Louis Barthou, a respected member of the French Academy, had been the most often appointed minister in the frequently changing cabinets. A state funeral in distinguished style was arranged for the prominent patriot, with lugubrious pomp and classical orations, while pandemonium broke out in political circles and in the press, with harsh accusations directed, as habitual, against the "inept regime." At first, the Marseille police were held responsible for Barthou's death, which could have been prevented, if his wounded arm had been tied tightly in order to avoid the fatal hemorrhage. But no aid could be brought to Barthou, so dense was the crowd gathered around him. Then, shortly, the entire French police system was bitterly accused of disintegration - not without some justification.
For the Marseille case coincided with a protracted scandal which had stirred up the worst political crisis since the founding of the Third French Republic. 1934 was the year, when the Russian-born manager of a pawnshop, an international adventurer, Alexander Stavisky, disappeared with bonds amounting to 25 million francs. He was found dead later in a villa near Chamonix. He had been enjoying police "protection" and the police reported suicide, but rumors held that he was shot by the police to prevent him from disclosing the names of his
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influential accomplices. Shortly, the body of Judge Albert Prince, who led the investigation, was also found, dead, beside a railway track. The judge was known to have unearthed dangerous information on the political background of Stavisky's frauds. It was openly charged in the press that the honest judge was eliminated by the influential political Maffia. Stirred into action by their keen sense of justice, by their general dislike of government, and also for the sake of excitement, the Parisian people descended upon the Police. During the ensuing riots, they stormed the Palais Bourbon which houses the Chamber of Deputies. On that day -February 7th - I was apprised by an indignant matron in the rioting crowd that "the situation in France has become intolerable: the policemen and the assassins are the same persons!" A new investigation did uncover secret connections of Stavisky with a number of persons in high places, some of whom took refuge in suicide. But to the present day, this affair remains shrouded in darkness.
French tempers were rising again in October, because of the failure of the Security System in Marseille. Wholesome indignation forced Albert Sarraut, the most unpopular Minister of the Interior, and Mr. Berthoin, the Director of National Security, to resign. The Stavisky scandal had swept two governments already, out of office, the ephemeral Cabinets of Chautemps and of Daladier, succeeded by the dignified Mr. Doumergue, a former President of the Republic. His high authority, however, which normally might have improved conditions, was resented by the Communist Party. which felt that instability was a prerequisite for the formation of a Popular Front government and the coveted Communist participation in it. As a first step toward their goal, they called a general strike of the workers against Doumergue, who - they alleged - was setting up a "Fascist dictatorship." But the strike turned out to be abortive, and Rightist organizations: the Croix de Feu, the Young Patriots, and a new Rightist Party, the Common Front, reacted with growing vehemence against the Leftists. During Mr. Doumergue's entire tenure of office, they were clashing with the rioting mobs. The assault against the traditional European order by the two totalitarian aggressors had hit France badly and was destroying her internal stability. Chaos drove the prices high and this trend almost excluded French goods from the world market, causing unemployment. On November 8, 1934, because of general loss of confidence, the impeccable
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Prime Minister, Doumergue, resigned in the midst of a European crisis unfolding then, as a consequence of the Marseille murders.
With this distraught French situation for his background, Barthou bad been trying vainly to promote Italian-Yugoslav rapprochement. The tenacious Minister of Foreign Affairs had to realize how hard it was to cultivate at the same time two friends who were fighting among themselves. On the other hand, Hitler's scheming for "living space," openly advocated, made the Fuebrer's isolation appear as the proper answer to his policy of expansion. In almost all of Europe, a French-Italian Entente which would lastingly separate the Duce from the Fuehrer, was considered as a most desirable development, so much in the general interest that no eventual Yugoslav caprice should be allowed to compromise that constructive policy. The crime perpetrated at Marseille dispelled recklessly this bappy dream; unexpectedly, it not only wiped out Barthou, the mastermind behind the planned alliance with Italy, but also jeopardized the new European political concept. Any involvement of Italy in the murder plot would cause an instantaneous break of Yugoslav relations with Italy-maybe even war; it certainly would force France to move away from her recent policy of seeking closer ties with Italy; it might push Mussolini into the arms of Hitler.
Obviously, a scapegoat had to be found to be chastised, in order to give satisfaction to the Yugoslavs' rightful demand for justice - after all, their King had been killed! Whatever the truth may be, Mussolini had to be spared, or else a dangerous wedge would be driven between Italy and the French-Little Entente Alliance. It became urgent to set up a well-selected target for Yugoslav indignation, since in Belgrade anti-Italian demonstrations had started spontaneously, and two days after the King's murder the Italian Consulate was stoned in Sarajevo.
The first phase of the investigation did not produce evidence helpful for this kind of political scheming. On the spot, in Marseille, it was carried out by Alexandre Guibbal, the Director of the Surete Nationale of that town. At the request of the French authorities, high officials of the Yugoslav Police participated from the very beginning in the work of the French Police, directed in the Paris Ministry of the Interior by Mr. Pierre Mondanel, General Controller of the Criminal Police. The findings of the initial investigation were objectively summed up at a
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press conference held in Geneva on October 13th, by Mr. Dimitrievitch,
a Yugoslav Police Inspector. He named Ante Pavelitch, the Chief of the revolutionary Croat Ustasha organization, who lived in Italy, as the instigator of the crime. He also named the murderer, a Bulgarian. and two Croat accomplices. The latter two: Pospisil and Rajic had spent some time in Hungary, at Jankapuszta, a farm housing Croat refugees. Here, they had received Hungarian passports, were then sent to Zurich, Switzerland, and thence to Lausanne where their Hungarian passports were taken and replaced by Czechoslovak passports. No authority, or person of Hungarian nationality seemed to have been involved in these proceedings.
The fabricators of the forged Czechoslovak passports betrayed a morbid sense of humor. One passport was made out for Mr. Benes, the well known Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the other one for Mr. Novak, the Police Commissioner who used to escort Mr. Benes during his travels, but the photographs were those of Pospisil and Rajic. In the record of the murderer, using the alias of "Kelemen," there was found no trace whatsoever that would connect him with Hungary. He was later identified as Welitchko Kerin-Dimitrov, a Bulgarian from Macedonia who had never been in Hungary. He had been a member of JMRO, the Bulgarian-Macedonian revolutionary organization led by Vancho Michaelev. On his badly mangled body the Marseille Police found tattooed the sinister emblem of the JMRO: a skull placed on two crossed shinbones. He was a professional killer and King Alexander was not his first victim.
On October 15th, Mr. Pierre Laval was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in France. He took over not only Barthou's office, but also his bifacial policy, radiating warmth toward the Yugoslavs and also toward their foes, the Italians. He seemed to have stepped into Mr. Barthou's shoes with a ready-made formula in his mind - how to solve the annoying impasse caused in French plans by King Alexander's murder. On the day of his inauguration, a terse communique in the semi-official "Le Temps" pointed a finger at his choice, the nation which was to fill the role of the villain. "The existence of a vast plot is certain" - it read - "It is just as certain that the terrorists received aid from certain countries. Hungary holds top rank among those countries." This script for the drama to be performed at Geneva was as shrewd as it was short and it was loaded with cynical innuendoes.
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Laval could not exonerate, as yet, Italy, for the Duce might refuse to play ball. So, "countries," in the plural, were accused of having aided the terrorists, among whom Italy might be included later. Hungary, however, was offered definitely as a scapegoat, on whom all the blame could be heaped - if convenient. Furthermore, preceding a final stand by France, some questions would have to be answered. Would Yugoslavia accept such substitution? Would Italy throw Hungary, her partner in the Pact of Rome, to the wolves? And finally, could defenseless Hungary herself - although mutilated, disarmed by the Trianon Peace Treaty, and cornered by the fully armed Little Entente - be intimidated to an extent where she would acquiesce in her condemnation for an international crime she had not committed? It became my duty to provide the answer to this question.
Unable to distinguish what was right from what was expedient, the efficient Mr. Laval urgently went to work, for fear the Yugoslavs might run out of patience. To tighten the noose around Hungary's neck, he needed the cooperation of the Little Entente (which encircled Hungary). Mr. Benes, subservient to France, was the first Foreign Minister to respond to Laval's summons. On October 17th, an official French communique stated that "at a long and cordial meeting in Paris, the two Ministers stated the perfect identity of the French and Czechoslovak governments' views concerning their foreign policies." The problem which required this consultation was the Yugoslav demand for severe punishment of all those responsible for the murder of their King. The identity of views emphasized in the communique was reached by agreeing that Hungary should become the scapegoat.
The agile Mr. Benes surpassed himself on this welcome occasion in lining up promptly his colleagues for concerted action against Hungary. Two days later, on October 19th, he turned up in Belgrade, where, after a conference with King Carol of Rumania and an audience by Prince Paul, the Yugoslav Regent, the three Little Entente Foreign Ministers met at a conference, followed in the evening by a meeting of the Balkan Entente. They published separately, identical and cautiously worded communiques asserting their determination "to collaborate for peace" and to establish a front against terrorist activities which had thrown Europe into a bloody turmoil and were now threatening grave conflicts.
These texts followed Laval's line, except that Hungary was not
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mentioned. She could not be named, for meanwhile a hitch bad developed. As often happens to plotters, they had not plugged one loophole, and facts had leaked out which destroyed the explosive material that the French and, more bluntly, the Czechoslovak papers (not yet the Yugoslavs!) tried to light into a blazing bonfire. On October 18, the "Lidove Listy" came out in Prague with the headline: "Not the Croats, the Hungarians Committed the Murder" and Lidove Noviny," also the "Ceske Slovo," wrote on that day in the same provoking style. They could not influence, however, the important meeting in Belgrade the next day, for the French judge in charge of the investigation did not seem to know that Hungary had to be besmirched. Innocently, he gave the information to the press that two Croat accomplices of the Bulgarian murderer, who had stayed some time in Hungary at Jankapuszta (Pospisil and Rajic) had admitted that they had been recruited for the murder by the Pavelitch organization; that while in Hungary they knew nothing of the plan to kill the King; and that even "after having arrived in Lausanne, they still were unaware of the purpose of their mission." Pospisil added: "I and my companion were completely ignorant of what we were expected to do in Paris. If I had known that it the King, I would have obeyed the orders of the organization." The two Ustashis obviously told the truth; they admitted their share in the crime and did not try to exonerate themselves. The Journal de Geneve, an honest paper in a decent country, wrote thereupon (October 19): "Up to now, no evidence whatsoever has been produced that any government, and in particular the Hungarian government, would be implicated in the murder plot. . . . Some are taking the wrong road or just intend to excite thereby public opinion." In the opening round of the contest, Mr. Benes failed to score. From then on, he considered it his personal job to produce damning evidence against Hungary which would destroy her international standing and good name.
With the Little Entente tightly harnessed to his chariot, Mr. Laval, whose determination was not weakened by minor mishaps, felt confident that the oncoming tempest could be diverted in the direction of Hungary. He was now ready to offer Mussolini the guaranty that the Yugoslavs would not raise any accusation against him in connection with the Marseille crime. The French press reported that on October 19, Laval declared at the meeting of the Cabinet that "a loyal and
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complete agreement with Italy is an indispensable condition of the consolidation of peace in Europe and of the restoration of an atmosphere of collaboration among the powers." Having cast the bait to catch Mussolini by reserving for him a prominent place in the European Club, Laval told the press that his visit to Rome had become urgent.
INVESTIGATION OF THE CRIME
The Marseille crime, like any gruesome sensation, stirred up much publicity in Hungary, but at first caused no apprehension of future evils. Mr. Laval's October 15 communique, however, did alarm the press and the government, for it was recognized as a herald of forthcoming serious trouble. A Hungarian official communique, most of which I knew to be correct, was drafted hurriedly. I knew for certain that the refugee camp at Jankapuszta had been dissolved. This fulfilled a personal promise I had given to Mr. Yeftitch, the Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia, in June. Before returning to Geneva in September, I visited that farm; I checked on the spot that orders had been carried out and that all the Yugoslav refugees had left. The communique, furthermore, referred correctly to the observance of the agreement signed on July 21, to put an end to the border incidents, which thereafter definitdy had stopped on both sides. I did not doubt the official statement that no connection existed between the tragic Marseille events and Hungary. The troubles fomented in Austria by the Nazis had induced the Hungarian Government to seek better security and an improvement of its relations with the Yugoslav neighbor to the South. I knew this, for I had been instrumental in promoting that policy.
One sentence was inserted, however, in the official statement which became the source of many woes, although at the time it was published, I had no reason for questioning it. This sentence stated that "no passports have been granted in Hungary to any of the names (!) mentioned in the press as the assassins." This was a verbatim true, but misleading statement; Hungarian passports had been given to two accomplices of the assassin, though not in the names mentioned in the press (Pospisil and Rajic), but under aliases which they were using while in Hungary. The man responsible for this clumsy deception was Mr. Imre Hetenyi, the Chief of the Budapest Police, who did not wish to admit his mistake to his superior, the Minister of the Interior. By denying a minor blunder of which he was guilty, he committed a major one. He also ran out of luck when he denied to the brilliant French Commissioner, Belin, who was in charge of the investigation
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abroad, the existence of a refugee camp in Jankapuszta, and even the fact that there was a Jankapuszta in Hungary, just because that name was not to be found on his map. Such uncooperative behavior was, of course, resented by friend and foe alike and, unduly, aroused suspicion as to the honesty of Hungary's conduct.
What kind of a man was this Police Chief who refused to take seriously the investigation of the Marseille crime? I considered him an impossible person and at the same time indispensable. There was nothing sinister about this Scarpia of Budapest. Jovial and debonair he was called "Uncle Chocho" by the people, sometimes even in Parliament. He started his career in the Police Force as a newspaper reporter sniffing around for some bidden sensation. With his flair for the romantic, he delved into a delicate situation in which an Archduchess and a Colonel were involved. Always a knight, he stole the love-letters of the lady from her disgruntled Romeo's apartment and then gratuitously, laid the precious package at the lady's feet. This gallant service paved for him the way to a job in the police force, where, thanks to his ingenuity, he achieved a rapid rise to the very top.
I had not been particularly fond of this Police Chief during the two decades I sat in Parliament. He had never done a thing to annoy me, but he did play a few nasty tricks on fellow members in the Opposition when he wished to gain favorable attention from the heads of the various Governments. Yet, I must admit, had it been up to me, I would not have dismissed him, either. We were living then in the period following the collapse of Bela Kun's Communist regime, when Moscow, besides its regular subversive apparatus, was crowded with revenge-seeking refugee ex-Kommissars from Hungary. With the unfailing instinct of a retriever, Uncle Chocho picked up the infiltrated Communist agents in Hungary, met the conspirators and arsonists, uncovered their secret printing shops, seized their arms in clandestine depots and, constantly on their trail, he had a jolly good time. His prize catch was the notorious Matyas Rakosi, head-man of the Hungarian section in the Moscow Komintern, who after the second World War became Hungary's hated dictator. Rakosi would not believe that Uncle Chocho was more clever than he, so he returned to Hungary, where he had served time once before. But Uncle Chocho was awaiting him at the frontier, before he could pass through the customs. There he was arrested and sent to prison. After a few years of
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solitude, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact came to his rescue and Rakosi was swapped for Hungarian flags taken as a booty by the Russians in 1849, from Louis Kossuth's heroic Freedom Fighters. In 1956, it was the Freedom Fighters of our era who chased Rakosi back to Russia after several years of misrule in Hungary. History repeats itself with curious twists.
Police Chief Hetenyi's performance in controlling Communist subversion in Hungary remains unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Much of the credit for the assurance with which he picked his apples when ripe, must go, however, to a daring agent of his, Peter Heim, who in the early twenties joined the Hungarian section of the Komintern in Moscow and found ways and means to report expeditiously to his boss in Budapest on plans and moves of the Communists, as soon as they were hatched in Moscow. Peter Heim, in good standing with the Komintern, served in Moscow until autumn 1939, when he was recalled to Hungary for fear that the Nazis might denounce his undercover activities to the Soviets, their newly acquired partners. Anyway, this Peter could not avoid his doom. Entrusted in Hungary, as a reward, with the security of Regent Horthy, his much too one-sided talent did not allow him to relax. He enlisted, as a double agent, with the Nazis, reporting conscientiously to Hitler on Horthy's every move. He had served in his lifetime many a master, some of them simultaneously, but he had never been guilty of helping the Communists. For this omission he was hanged, when the Soviets occupied Hungary in 1945.
The Hungarian Charge d'Affairs in Geneva, Mr. Zoltan Baranyay, had reported in mid-October to Budapest that our handling of the Yugoslav border incidents was generally remembered in League of Nations circles as helpful to the prestige of the League. It was therefore a good idea for the Hungarian Government to publish now our papers submitted in June to the Council of the League of Nations, and also my Geneva speeches on the Hungarian-Yugoslav conflict and its settlement. That first conflict had aroused much attention in Geneva. In its editorial of June 6, the well informed Journal de Geneve admitted that "the reproaches addressed by Budapest to Belgrade are exceptionally grave." The paper explained that the capricious new frontier-line in the flat Hungarian plain cut across the properties of some 75,000 Hungarian small peasant farmers who were being mistreated and occasionally even shot by the Yugoslav border guards, when visiting
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their adjacent small fields across the border. The Swiss paper truthfully told that on a frontier of 300 miles there were only nine authorized crossing points and some villagers had to make a detour of 90 miles to bring their crops home a few hundred feet away.
Fifteen years after the war's end, this was a truly vexatious situation, concerning which Mr. de Kanya, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had exchanged for several months inconclusive notes with the Yugoslav Government. So, he decided in May, 1934, to submit to the League of Nations a detailed document and to invoke Article XI of the Covenant with reference to certain acts of the Yugoslav authorities "apt to disturb good understanding between nations on which peace depends." I had been for many years a close friend of Mr. de Kanya and repeatedly helped from the Opposition benches this brilliant diplomat to carry out his foresighted policy. Yet, I insisted now that a friendly solution and not the humiliation of Yugoslavia be sought and good neighborly relations be restored between our countries. An old disciple of the Viennese Ballhaus-Platz, Mr. de Kanya did not trust the Serbs ever to respond favorably to friendly approaches from people in the North, whom irrespective of nationality - Germans, Austrians or Hungarians - they collectively called "Swaba" (Swabians) and treated them generally as enemies. Unable to persuade me of the validity of his pessimism, Mr. de Kanya urged me finally to go to Geneva as Hungary's Chief Delegate and find out the truth for myself. This is how the improvement of Hungarian relations with Yugoslavia became at that time a personal affair of mine.
On June 5, 1934, in the morning, the Council of the League of Nations met in public session to consider that Hungarian complaint. I was careful not to hurt the pride of the Yugoslavs and only pleaded for an equitable solution after having surveyed the facts contained in the Hungarian fifteen-page memorandum. I assured the Council that we had no other purpose than to eliminate the causes of friction, preferably by direct negotiations between our countries. Mr. Konstantin Fotitch, the robust Yugoslav Delegate, argued that his government had resorted to strict measures of legitimate defense, since Hungary, from 1931 on, had been granting asylum to Croat refugees guilty of terroristic acts committed in Yugoslavia. In conclusion, however, he also expressed his Government's willingness "to enter into direct conversations with Hungary." This was a big step in the right direction.
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Mr. Vasconcellos, the refined Portuguese Chairman of the Council, expressed thereupon the Council's unanimous hope that an accord would soon be reached between us and that there would be no need for any examination of the conflict by the Council.
That afternoon, in the cafeteria of the League of Nations, Dr. Tevfik Roushdy bey, the Foreign Minister of Turkey, accosted me with the question: would I like to meet Mr. Yeftitch, the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had just arrived in Geneva? I was pleased with the unexpected opportunity to continue privately with the competent Yugoslav Minister the public discussion of the morning. While sipping a cup of coffee at the counter, we did not take more than 15 minutes to break the ice which months of formal negotiations between the Ministries had piled up. I made it perfectly dear to Mr. Yeftitch that Hungary, just as well as Yugoslavia, had to respect the right of asylum of political refugee - but only as long as they respected the laws of the country which granted them shelter. Mr. Yeftitch, a man of few words, nodded assent, whereupon I assured him that Hungary had no interest in harboring terrorists, even if they were driven by political motives. As evidence, I recalled the conviction last spring to fifteen years in jail of a Croat refugee, Edward Remec, for a bombing attempt committed in Yugoslavia against the Police Kommissariat in Koprivnica. Confidently, I finally asked Mr. Yeftitch to contribute to the desired improvement of our relations, by making certain changes - always on the basis of reciprocity - in the rules governing the border traffic and the use of arms by the frontier guards. With hardly any comment by Mr. Yeftitch, we immediately sat down to put into writing the principles of the agreement which were to guide both governments. With a sigh of relief, I read the text over the telephone to Mr. de Kanya in Budapest. I had to read it twice, for he would not believe his ears. On this basis a detailed, final agreement was signed on July 21,1934, in Geneva by the two interested governments.
This experience points to one of the reasons, why I believe that the defunct League of Nations, and its more vulnerable successor, the United Nations, have been and are still useful. The League was not an institution which had in itself authority or power to preserve the peace or to prevent war. But Geneva was "the place where"- in the words of Frank H. Simonds - compromise was to be made." The United Nations did follow until recently the same tradition. If burdens,
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which the United Nations is not fit to carry, were not transferred onto its shoulders so often by evasive Great Powers, it could perform a more useful service as an international political exchange, where opponents could meet informally to settle their differences.
That same evening of June 5, in a friendly but serious conversation Mr. Yeftitch explained to me his worry about a Croat refugee camp in Hungary, called Jankapuszta, which was much too near the Yugoslav border and from which overnight refugees could sneak into Yugoslav territory to commit their acts of terrorism. This was the first time that I heard the ominous name of Jankapuszta and that the refugees harbored there were considered by the Yugoslav authorities as dangerous to their country's security. I felt that Mr. Yeftitch's warning might be justified and that we should not take any chances. Of my own accord, I promised Mr. Yeftitch to see to it that the camp in the proximity of the Yugoslav border was dissolved. Upon my return to Budapest, I called the attention of Prime Minister Gombos and Mr. de Kanya to my promise and they both were quite anxious to satisfy the Yugoslav request.
Alas, the best intentions backfire occasionally! Had we not insisted on the urgent liquidation of Jankapuszta, Uncle Chocho would not have passed Hungarian passports to the Croat inmates. And this constituted the one and only irregularity of which Hungary could rightfully be accused in connection with the Marseille murders. The Police Chief did this for his own convenience, to get rid by a certain date - as ordered - of that nuisance, the unruly Croat refugees. For unless they carried a passport, they were not admitted into any neighboring country and would have to stay indefinitely in Hungary, where they were not welcome.
Following the murder of King Alexander, relations between Hungary and Yugoslavia remained correct until the middle of November when the expulsion of Hungarians from Yugoslavia dangerously heightened the tension. For the sake of appeasement, the Hungarian Government suppressed a newspaper for two weeks because of the publication of an article insulting to the memory of the murdered King, while Mr. Vukcevitch, the Yugoslav Minister to Hungary, paid a courtesy call on the Foreign Minister in Budapest to thank the Hungarian Government for its condolence at the death of the King. Regard for Yugoslavia's hurt feelings was evidenced in Italy also when, on
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October 18, Ante Pavelitch and Eugene Kvaternik, the two Ustashi leaders, were arrested in Torino. France asked for their extradition, but was saved much embarrassment when it was denied.1 She did not insist any further, for the French Government also had refused, some time ago, the extradition of the authors of an attempt on the life of the Italian Crown Prince, Umberto. The Austrians paid their debt to the dead King by arresting in Vienna the Croat Percevitch, a former Colonel of the Austro-Hungarian Army who was accused of having selected, together with Kvaternik, the murderers from among the Ustashi.
Inevitably, mistakes were also made in hunting the criminals. A tourist, posing as a Hungarian, but traveling on a Yugoslav passport, had spent some time last August in the French port of Le Havre. It was a shock to the French Police to find that his name was Ante Pavelitch. In utmost secrecy, a painstaking investigation was started to uncover the connections and activities of the Ustashi Chief while in France. The suspect's tracks led, however, to the City of New York, where Pavelitch was identified as the Consul of Yugoslavia bearing the same name as the Croat revolutionary leader.
Much commotion was caused in those weeks by the disappearance of a mysterious "Blond Lady" and her escort "Peter." According to the investigation, they had brought the firearms and had given the final instruction to the murderers in France. A number of attractive blond females were held in custody in various police headquarters in Europe: one In Paris, another very elegant one in Thonon, who turned out to be a chambermaid in the clothes of her vacationing employer. Budapest also held its charming "Blond Lady," called "Dora," and for a day or two her name was echoed in the papers all over Europe. She wished to remain incognito, while on a visit in Hungary and was identified as the sister of Ivo Frank, a former member of the Croat Parliament. The real "Blond Lady" and her elusive escort, however, were only identified years later, when, in 1937, Milan Stojadinovitch became Prime Minister in Belgrade, with a program of political reconciliation.
Stojadinovitch proved successful in concluding a pact of friendship with Fascist Italy, which, among other things, provided for the repatriation of Croat emigrants to whom amnesty was granted by Yugoslavia.
1 With reference to a convention signed in 1870, which exeluded extradition for political delicts.
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Vladeta Milichevitch, the Serbian expert on the Ustashis, was appointed Delegate Extraordinary of the Yugoslav Government to supervise the measures taken in Italy. Milichevitch - in his own words - "had gone into this adventure in an effort to unveil the last of the secrets of Marseille."2 Most of all, he tried to find out who "The Blond Lady" and "Peter," her escort, were. Two prominent Croats, Dr. Budak and Dr. Bubalo provided information on this mysterious couple, which tallied, and Bubalo, an excellent amateur photographer, even had pictures in his possession which he had made of them.
The secret was revealed; "The Blond Lady was Stana Godina and Peter was her husband, Antun Godina. . . . He had left Croatia at the time of the old Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, after murdering his brother. He had been living in Chicago, and was for a long time, a member of Al Capone's gang, and a specialist in forging documents. His wife Stana, was a Croat, born in Chicago. . . Godina ran the Pavelitch centers in Trieste and Fiume, and had not only made the attacks on the trains in Austria, but also forged one thousand dinar notes. Pretty blond Stana Godina played courier for the Ustashis, travelling to Croatia via Fiume and Sushak, crossing the frontier-bridge with a smile on her face and the detonators for the bombs in her brassiere."3
When the preparations for the Marseille assassination were made, Stana Godina "travelled to Paris as an ailing expectant mother in a Wagon-Lit and took with her the explosives and weapons."4 Her husband had been producing passports of various countries, presumably the Czechoslovak passports also which were used during the murder plot. Peter Godina became later in Pavelitch' regime the Chief of the Secret Police. It is not known what became of this couple since then.
By mid-November, the French-Yugoslav police investigation of the Marseille crime had ended. The press was given the true name of the murderer: Velitshko Kerim-Dimitrov, born in 1897 in Bulgaria. In his homeland, he had been condemned for murder twice: once in 1924, to death, for the murder of a Communist Deputy, Hadshi Dimov Dima eight years later he was sentenced to life under an alias-curiously enough by the same court in Sofia - because of the murder of Naum Tomalevski, a fellow member of IMRO condemned for having become a traitor to the revolutionary cause. It was reported, furthermore, that
2 Ibid., pp.90-91.
3 Ibid., p.96.
4 1bid., p.96.
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a vast Croat-Macedonian revolutionary organization was functioning in Berlin, led by a doctor, Branimir Jelitch, and his cofleagues: Kvaternik, Paritch and Milyovitch. It was said that they collaborated with General Sarkotitch and Colonel Percevitch in Vienna, both one-time officers on the Austro-Hungarian General Staff. No reference was made by the French Police to any offense committed by Hungarians.
A few days earlier, findings of the French Police had been given to the Belgrade newspaper, Vreme; and the New York Times (November 5) also published admissions of the three Ustashis who had come to France from Hungary, via Switzerland. They testified that on September 4, an emissary of Pavelitch had come to Hungary to select three Croats for participation in the plot to murder the King "who had been sentenced to death many months before." By whom? It was not revealed. The instructions with respect to the murder plot were given to these Croats in Switzerland by Kvaternik, the Assistant Chief of the Ustashis. While in Hungary none of the accomplices had been informed of the crime they were to commit.
On November 13, the Hungarian Police also ended its investigation and published a communique on its results. In compliance with the request of the French authorities and of the Yugoslav Legation, a vast investigation had been carried out, several hundreds of foreigners had been questioned and twenty-one arrests were made. No accusation could be raised, however, against any of these persons in connection with the Marseille murder. There was no indication that the murderer had ever stayed in Hungary.
The decision was announced in the communique that all Yugoslavs residing in Hungary, who might be considered as Croat political refugees, would be placed from then on under police surveillance.
This second communique by the Hungarian Police was correct. But the misstatement in its first cornmunique had not been corrected.
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YUGOSLAVIA STARTS ACTlON
While the investigation of the Marseille crime was being carried on, Hungary felt the need to demonstrate that she was not isolated in a hostile world. General Julius Gombos, the Hungarian Prime Minister, embarked confidently on visits to friendly governments. His first official visit was paid, at the end of October, to Poland. It had been arranged under less strained circumstances, and now became more timely than ever. Before leaving for Warsaw, Gombos told the press: "Never in Hungarian history did our people accept murder as an instrument for the realization of their policies." He then added that Hungary would demand with utmost energy that "the whole truth" be revealed. This demand was a polite warning to Belgrade and, perhaps, even to Rome. It meant that any attempt to put undue blame on Hungary would be repudiated, and also that a full account would be made on how and by whom terrorism was introduced in the life of Croatia, which caused the murder of her ablest leader. Hungary had nothing to fear if the whole truth were told as to why the Croat national movement degenerated into revolutionary action, even terrorism.
Prime Minister, Julius Gombos, was a Hungarian patriot and a former captain in the Austro-Hungarian Army's General Staff. We established close comradship in 1919, while fighting together against Bela Kun's Soviet engineered Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Then, elected to the Parliament, we struggled for overdue democratic reforms and for a revision of the unjust Trianon Peace Treaty. Affable and trusting, Gombos gave me his full support during the entire Marseille crisis. Our friendship, however, broke up later. In 1935, when influenced by Herman Goering, Gombos evidenced authoritarian tendencies.
Prime Minister Gombos was warmly received in Poland. Polish-Hungarian friendship was a thousand-year-old popular tradition. But this time, there was an immediate menace also, which urged the Poles to not allow Hungary's standing and usefulness to be undermined. The farsighted Marshall Pilsudski and his Government were unwilling to stake the Polish national existence on the faith which France placed in the Soviets.
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Barthou had allied France witb the Slav countries. He also had established the formula that confronted with the evident Nazi menace it was useful to find a military counter-weight in the East, which from the internal point of view carried no obligation. But the Poles - though also of Slav stock - did not approve of the inclusion of the Soviets into any alliance in which Poland was implicated. The French Left, however, after Barthou's death, was going one step further, and - qualifying the Soviets as the staunchest opponents of the Nazis-they preached that the Soviets would save France and Europe from the Germans. The Polish papers retorted that everyone who did not accept the Bolshevik alliance as the best guarantee of peace soon would be regarded in France as an enemy. Even if prodded by France, Poland had no desire to grant free passage through its territory to the Russian Army. Since France was eager to celebrate her marriage with the Soviets, she was now pushing visibly toward a divorce from Poland. Even in the international world one cannot afford to live in bigamy.
From all this muddle around an alliance with the Soviets, the British stayed aloof, perhaps because they did not know where to stand. In one of his editorials in October (1934), Wickham Steed wrote in the London Times that he was asked repeatedly to explain British policy. He had to reply that it could not be explained, for it did not exist. Slightly annoyed, Mr. Eden wrote about Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary at that time, that his "brilliant analytical mind hated to take decisions."1 But neither could Mr. Eden's general policy be considered as dynamic. Since it was based on the inviolability of treaties, irrespective of whether they were just or unjust, and eventually extorted at gun point. Eden's rigid adherence to the status quo strengthened immobilism in Europe, even when changes would have seemed imperative. His excessive reserve explains his predilection for the role of "an honest broker."
At that time there was also much speculation in America about the value of the Soviet pledges. But it took the two English-speaking Great Powers, another World War, and the Teheran Conference before they definitely accepted the misbelief which the astute French had erroneously reached a decade earlier; namely, that the Soviets could be trusted.
Prime Minister Gombos and Marshal Pilsudski had different views
1 Facing the Dictators, p. 139.
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from the French, and they were rather pessimistic on what Europe might expect from Soviet "good will." Pilsudski's sound comprehension of the lurking danger proved most helpful to Hungary in the coming stormy weeks at Geneva. It made me confident that in the uneven struggle, forced on Hungary, the Polish Marshal stood on the side of decency, even though in post-war Europe Poland and Hungary had followed politically different lines.
Polish-Hungarian friendship did not fit into the Little Entente system - directed against Hungary but friendly to Poland. The bad split in Europe, caused by the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919, persisted and had widened by 1934. The Little Entente, in defense of the status quo, could usually rely on collaboration with Poland, whose independence was restored in 1919, while Hungary was dismembered at the same time. So Hungary stood for a revision of the unfair settlement from which Poland and the three Little Entente powers had profited. Was there now a change of Polish policy in the offing? The Rumanian press showed signs of nervousness and the Czechoslovak papers became quite irritable over the Hungarian Prime Minister's friendly reception in Poland. Mr. Benes countered the Polish attitude toward Hungary by affirming in the Prague Parliament a policy of rapprochement with the Soviets. Throughout the vicissitudes of the coming years, the beguiled Mr. Benes was to repeat his pledge of undying friendship with the Soviets to the very end, even in February 1948, when the Big Brother, with a single blow below the belt, knocked him out of political existence.
In Yugoslavia - another member state of the Little Entente - the initial excitement had died down by the end of October, to give place to firm determination. On October 23, the Regents appointed a new Cabinet in Belgrade, headed by Mr. Uzunovitch. I was glad that Yeftitch, with whom I got along well, had been retained as Minister of Foreign Affairs. On the other hand, the presence of the imperious General Peter Zhifkovitch in the Cabinet, as Minister of the Army and the Navy, filled me with the anticipation of coming evil. On October 28, the new Prime Minister solemnly declared in Parliament that "Yugoslavia will keep cold-blooded and reserved but not indifferent or inactive." He assured the Deputies that "Yugoslavia is using all her energy to have the Marseille crime completely uncovered, the responsibilities established, and the indispensable sanctions (!) applied." I
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noted with uneasiness that the word "sanctions" was used now, for the first time, in an official Yugoslav statement, instead of "punishment," which applies to guilty individuals, whereas "sanctions' are taken against delinquent countries in conformity with the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Commenting on Uzunovitch's views, the Journal de Geneve (October 30) expressed the opinion that it was quite natural for Hungary to receive the Croat refugees kindly, for the Croats, like the Hungarians, were being treated as a minority by the centralist Yugoslav Government. But recently "Belgrade has obtained what it requested (from Budapest) and agreements have been concluded regulating the border traffic. Diplomats with an inside knowledge are aware that in consequence of Mr. Eckhardt's mission to Geneva, personal relations between the delegates and also the general atmosphere have improved." The Swiss paper expressed the hope in conclusion that the present turn in the opposite direction, reported by the Little Entente and in a part of the French press, would be only temporary.
At the end of October, a loose end must have been discovered in Laval's master-plan, for he made it known that his visit to Mussolini would be postponed "because of insufficient preparations." This delay gave Prime Minister Gombos the opportunity to call meanwhile on Mussolini in Rome (November 6), and also to pay his respects, although a Protestant, to Pope Pius XII. Before the start of the contest in Geneva, it seemed advisable to bolster Hungary's international position which, as far as Italy and the Vatican were concerned, could hardly have been any friendlier. According to the New York Times (November 7), the meeting of the Hungarian Prime Minister with Mussolini was "distinguished by the greatest cordiality." The two leaders made a general review of the present European situation and of the notable changes which had occurred since March, when they last saw each other. The rift between Italy and Germany - caused by the assassination of Dollfuss - the rapprochement between Italy and France and some cracks in the united front of the Little Entente were openly discussed since each country of the Little Entente had reacted in a totally different manner to the possibility of the annexation of Austria by Germany. On his way to Rome, Gombos stopped over in Vienna for an intimate talk with the Austrian Chan-
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cellor, Schuschnigg, and he had another successful conference with him on his return voyage, on the Semmering, (November 10).
Home again, Gombos refuted, in a short statement, as "unfounded allegations" the press reports about a cooling off of Hungary's friendship with Italy and repudiated the "campaign of defamation" in full swing at that time against Hungary in the Little Entente and the Leftist Western press. But in strictest confidence he passed on to me, with some misgiving, the information that he found it impossible to discuss with Mussolini the problems connected with the Marseille case, for, the moment that Gombos approached that subject, Mussolini turned mute. Similar Italian reserve must have caused the "insufficiency" of Laval's diplomatic preparations.
On November 17, in the morning, a call from Prime Minister Gombos asked me urgently to a conference with him and with members of his Cabinet. We met in the lovely Sandor Palace, built and decorated in the best Empire-style on the hill of Buda, overlooking the Danube. We reviewed at first our relations with Yugoslavia, which had been satisfactory since last June, after we had agreed on changes in the border control. We were unanimous in deploring the crime of Marseille which reversed the desired rapprochement between Hungary and Yugoslavia. In September, after the elimination of the border incidents, Hungary had also concluded a new trade agreement with Yugoslavia. The Minister of the Interior gave a detailed account on the removal of the Croat refugees from Jankapuszta. These refugees - never more than two score - had not been kept under constant police surveillance, but gendarmes dropped in occasionally at Jankapuszta to look over that unruly crowd. Mr. de Kanya, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed us that, wishing to give full satisfaction to the Yugoslav demand for better security, he had decided not only to have the group of Croats in Jankapuszta disbanded, but to get rid of them once and for all. Police Chief, Hetenyi, was given the order to get them out of Hungary without delay. The ailing Mr. de Kanya surprised me with the news that he also had made the unpleasant trip to the remote Jankapuszta to make sure that the troublemakers were gone.
Beyond all doubt, the record of the Hungarian Government was clean. It had to grant asylum to the Croat political refugees - in fact, there was no government anywhere in the world which did deny asylum to the Croats. When, on the other hand, their activities on Hungarian
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soil became a threat to good-neighborly relations with Yugoslavia, the Hungarian Government acted not only correctly, but also with energy. In this affair, we felt that no responsibility of the Hungarian Government could be established.
Our conference, however, did not end on this happy note. In the last three days, the Yugoslav authorities had started expelling Hungarians from their territory. The expellees were arriving now in Hungary in growing masses; they had to leave their homes within 24 hours - some within 10 hours - with all their possessions left behind. Moreover a number of Hungarians were arrested for no valid reason. On November 16, the New York Times reported, for the first time, that 105 Hungarian farmers had been expelled and that they spoke of a "reign of terror" being started in Yugoslavia. The paper added that Yugoslavia was "concentrating public anger against Hungary." Obviously, harsh pressure, bordering on terrorism, was being applied against Hungarians. I felt that for some reason the Yugoslavs were suddenly overplaying their hand. While accusing Hungary of harboring terrorists, they were committing acts of terrorism themselves, and on a large scale. This did not make sense, nor was it in their interest. In view of the degenerating situation, I accepted the urgent assignment to Geneva as the Chief of Hungary's Delegation to defend our rightful interests.
We like to speak in retrospect of "good old days," but things were not so good in mid-November, 1934. The League of Nations, in charge of the plebiscite in the Saar territory, was kept in suspense by rumors of a Nazi "putsch" being planned there, which induced France to mobilize a couple of Army Corps on the German border. There was a protracted war, fought in the desolate Gran Chaco between British and American oil interests by the troops of Bolivia and Paraguay, which the league of Nations was expected to stop. At the Naval Conference in London, a sharp dissension had developed between the British and the Japanese, while the Disarmament Conference in Geneva was stymied by the "benign Mr. Litvinov"- with exactly the same arguments as are presented now, by the Soviet delegate, who repeats Litvinov's old demands for general, total disarmament and no controls. The world picture was further enlivened that autumn by minor conflicts: clashes between Albanians and Greeks in the Northern Epirus; armed riots by Basque and Catalan revolutionaries in Spain; the arrest of the Papal Delegate, Msgr. Ruiz y Florez, in Mexico; and
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an omen, seemingly unnoticed by the Little Entent - an overwhelming electoral victory of the Nazis in Danzig.
The murder of Dollfuss had aroused deep indignation against Hitler. He had to placate Europe to protect his master plan - the speedy rearmament of Germany - to which everything else was to be subordinated. To gain funds for rearmament, he established, in the beginning of November, a new bar against debt payments to Americans and then set in motion the diplomatic apparatus to improve his sullied reputation. The New York Times informed the world (November 9, 1934) that the German Ambassador, Hassell, had guaranteed to the Italian Government that "Germany unrestrictedly recognized the independence of Austria" - and added: "Chancellor Hitler's personal promise that henceforth he would follow a strictly hands-off policy where Austria was concerned." Next day, Franz von Papen made his debut before the Anglo-American Press Association in Vienna. It was the hunting season in Austria and the German Ambassador, with a macabre sense of humor, assured his audience that he was gunning only after deer, "his only victims."2 In a provocative tone, he denied that Hitler aimed at the annexation of Austria, for "Germany only seeks spiritual unity with the 31 million people of German race beyond her frontiers." He presented the "Anschluss" as a sort of "bogey of the unduly nervous." With almost every pledge already broken in Hitler's short reign, his Ambassador concluded with a sort of mockery: "Since the Anschluss is forbidden by treaty, there is of course no question of Germany's trying to bring it about." The Ambassador got away with this nonsense particularly in the British Foreign Office. With a sigh of relief the British Minister to Budapest told me that he found this statement rather "reassuring."
At the same time, Hitler's personal emissary, Joachim von Ribbentrop, arrived in London on a confidential mission. He pretended to be sounding out the British Government on Germany's newest diplomacy: the restoration of friendly relations all over Europe and, particularly, the eventual return of Germany to the League of Nations. At the same time, he informed the British Government "tactfully" that Hitler had started the rearmament of Germany. No consent or answer was requested by Hitler, so not much was said in London about it, and Ribbentrop's visit was played down. By sheer coincidence, an alarming
2 New York Times, November 10, 1934.
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speech was delivered by Winston Churchill a few days earlier. He denounced (November 11) in pathetic terms the aerial unpreparedness of England, finding herself now in a more critical position than in 1914, menaced by invasion of her territory from the air. Churchill's speech made hardly any impression. In 1930, he had demanded 5000 airplanes to discourage the upcoming of Hitler. Churchill had expensive ideas. Much later, in 1947, in his Fulton speech, be wished to constrain Stalin by the development of America's armed might. Who would listen to him in times of peace? After all, wasn't Churchill considered a "warmonger"?
There was a great deal of trouble in the world in the summer, 1934. Because of this, I declared in the Hungarian Parliament (July 12) that a new peace conference must be held since it would be good policy to bold peace conferences before, rather than after wars. In addition, a new menace, the Marseille case, was to be handled in Geneva.
Next to the Marseille affair, only the plebiscite in the Saar Valley was to be placed on the agenda of the coming Council meeting. These two completely separate problems were somehow connected by the League's mechanism. The Chairman of the League's Special Committee for the Saar was the respected Italian Ambassador, Baron Aloisi, who would also represent Mussolini in Geneva, when the Marseille case came up. France, anxious not to lose the Saar completely, was thus dependent to a considerable extent on Mussolini's good will. Laval had just summoned the German Ambassador to tell him that the Saar plebiscite was not a bilateral issue between Germany and France, but an international problem under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. The Duce could not be offended by France a mighty good reason for Laval not to put him into the dock.
Doumergue's successor, Prime Minister Flandin, was given a huge vote of confidence (November 13) in the Chamber of Deputies, and thereby - as far as France was concerned - the go-ahead signal was given to Laval also for his scheme. In pursuit of it, he received (November 16) Count de Chambrun, the French Ambassador to Rome, for a second conversation within two days to give him detailed instructions concerning an early renewal of negotiations with Italy. If Chambrun was successful, Laval would visit Rome. French papers, reflecting Laval's views, explained that the difficulty in these negotiations came from Italian revisionism, particularly in Central Europe, in
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the form of support given to discontented Hungary. It was explained that France would lose the support of the three countries forming the Little Entente if she were to yield to the demand for revision of the Hungarian peace treaty, which might constitute a precedent for a demand to revise the German Peace Treaty also. Laval emphasized that Chambrun should make Italy understand that French-Italian rapprochement could only be realized in correlation with Italian-Yugoslav rapprochement. Italy must abandon the Hungarian claims if she wanted to win the friendship of France. These press reports on Laval's policy served as a melancholy reminder of how bills, run up by the big Powers, are often presented to lesser clients.
Laval also received on this day (November 16) Mr. Fotitch, the Director of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who came to see him in company of Mr. Spalaikovitch, the Yugoslav Minister to France. The final arrangements for the Geneva campaign against Hungary were then discussed. P. J. Philip reported on this meetinga that Laval told Kosta Fotitch that "since the documentation on Hungarian responsibility was incomplete," the Yugoslav Government should confine itself to placing the information in its possession before the League's Council "without formulating any charge." This advice, however, was disregarded -according to Mr. Philip - due to pressure of public opinion in Belgrade and of members of the Little Entente "who also came under the influence of the excitement against Hungary." With some naivete, Mr. Philip remarked that even Czechoslovakia has decided to support Yugoslavia unreservedly. Obviously, he was unaware of the neferious role which Benes had been playing.
Mr. Philip did admit, however, that the tone of the Belgrade press had roused the greatest uneasiness. Lava! therefore felt an urgent need of being on the spot in Geneva. He promised to Belgrade and Prague to administer through the League "an object lesson" to Hungary and thus finally put an end to the whole treaty-revision movement in Central Europe.
The official information handed on this day to the press only stated that the Yugoslav Government intended to submit in a few days the results of its inquiry to the Council of the League of Nations and demand that international rules be set up against terrorist organizations in order to avoid a repetition of the tragic Marseille events. There
3 New York Times, November 19, 1934.
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was little enthusiasm in London for this Yugoslav intention. The doubt was expressed, on good authority, that an investigation by the League might receive exaggerated publicity and cause a tension detrimental to European appeasement. Heedless of the deteriorating situation in Europe, the British Foreign Office wished to calm down all emotions by admitting no change whatsoever.
The brewing storm did not leave me much time to study the findings of the Hungarian investigation. Police Chief Hetenyi again gave me the assurance of his innocence and piled a huge stack of papers on my desk to fascinate me with the colossal amount of work which his zealous investigation had produced. I was interrupted in my studies, on November 19, by an official notice from Belgrade that Mr. Yeftitch, the Foreign Minister, had left for Geneva with a document which contained the data collected in Marseille, Paris, Belgrade and Sofia during the investigations. I read with considerable interest in the communique that Mr. Yeftitch's document "enumerates the facts which point to the responsibility of Hungarian authorities for the support given to terrorists participating in the Marseille murders and for a series of other terrorist acts which were prepared in Hungary."
Not a single true fact, no damning evidence had been brought up, as yet, in the abundant publicity abusing Hungary. I was most anxious to find out at last what proofs of Hungary's guilt our detractors could concoct. I took the train to Geneva and continued, in the sleeping car, with members of my small delegation, to study the contents of two suitcases filled with documents and reports which on my ]ast day in Budapest our Foreign Office and Counter-Intelligence had sent over. on November 22nd, in the evening, we rolled into the station at Geneva, where I was met by our Minister to the League, Mr. Laszlo Tahy, a nice country squire. On the platform, quite aroused, he handed me the text of the Yugoslav note which Mr. Fotitch, in the name of the Yugoslav Legation, had presented that afternoon to Mr. Avenol, the Secretary General of the League of Nations.
I glanced through the note. In a harsh tone it repeated the propaganda accusations of "Hungarian connivance" in the Marseille regicide, as voiced in the Little Entente press hostile to Hungary. But again, not a single fact, no evidence whatsoever, was included in the note, except a promise to submit to the Council of the League of Nations a memorandum at an unspecified later date. The document, advertised
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in the November 19 Belgrade communique, obviously was too weak to be exposed to the daylight. Without naming any guilty person or any concrete act, the Yugoslav note invoked the important Article XI, Paragraph 2, of the Covenant and submitted to the authority of the Council the "situation which gravely compromises relations between Yugoslavia and Hungary and which threatens to disturb the peace and good relations between nations."
The Yugoslav note, while strongly worded, did not invoke the first Paragraph of Article XI, but only the second, the so-called "friendly paragraph" which declared it to be "the friendly right of each member" to bring to the League's attention any circumstance which threatened to disturb international peace. No memorandum with evidence of Hungary's "connivance," not even a request for an investigation based on Paragraph 1 of Article XI, was submitted to the League. Obviously, the Little Entente was aware that there existed no damning evidence against Hungary. At that moment I knew that the noisy action conducted against Hungary was nothing else but a political frame-up. Right there, I decided not to yield an inch to the perpetrators of this ugly performance.
It seemed clear that I had to perform one duty immediately - even before I could consult in the late evening hours with my government in Budapest. It was imperative that I reject without delay the empty, general accusations against Hungary to prevent erroneous impressions and bad publicity based on one-sided information. So, that first evening in Geneva, I called a press conference and met a number of newspaper correspondents and reporters in my hotel, whose interest had been roused by the serious tone of the Yugoslav note. I felt sore and indignant and drafted a short but firm declaration which determined my entire later strategy in Geneva.
I expressed, as a personal opinion, my satisfaction with the League of Nations jurisdiction in the Marseille affair. I asked that it be dealt with urgently and that the entire background of the crime be objectively clarified. I then protested against the campaign of slander and called it a premeditated political action conducted against Hungary: it was designed to divert attention from the real causes of the Marseille tragedy and was aimed at ruining the moral integrity of Hungary, which, disarmed, was believed to be an easy prey.
The promptness of my retort proved very useful indeed. It was
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published, together with the Yugoslav note, and prevented objective newspapers from taking a stand as long as the facts behind the Yugoslav accusation remained unknown. My declaration was strong, but I had to give a definite warning that I would refuse to be intimidated by whatever forces were being mobilized against Hungary.
THE CURTAIN RISES IN GENEVA
The functions of the League of Nations had very little in common with those of a court, where justice was sought and cases were decided by objective judges upon their merits. Not the dispensation of justice but the maintenance of peace was the main duty of the League of Nations, and the same is true of the role of the present United Nations. As a policy, the parties to a conflict were therefore treated by the Secretariat and the Council as potential troublemakers; they were allowed to give vent in acrimonious speeches to their hurt feelings and grievances, but meanwhile formulas were worked out and compromises sought privately to appease both sides, if possible, or at least to pacify the more dangerous one. In the worst case, the unsolved dispute was kept in abeyance.
The claim submitted by a party to a conflict was weighed and considered by the Council members in conformity with the power, political importance, and troublemaking ability of the respective party, rather than on the basis of fairness. Herein lay the weakness of the Hungarian position. As yet, I stood alone before the tribunal of the League, confronted by the powerful French-Little Entente Alliance controlling most of the votes in the Council and influencing the League's apparatus. There was, however, a single ray of hope: the rule of unanimity in the Council, where besides its members, each party involved in the dispute was allowed a vote. Unless I agreed to it, Hungary could not be convicted. It was the interested powers themselves which had to agree to a settlement under guidance and pressures by the Council. This principle was not unwise; decisions arrived at by mutual consent will probably be respected more willingly by the interested parties than sentences by a tribunal which has no power or means to impose its verdict on recalcitrant governments.
On that first sleepless night in Geneva, pondering the course of unfolding events and the above considerations, I concluded that the most important element in winning victory or suffering defeat in Geneva was my own determination. If I lost the confidence of my country, I would resign, but I would not yield to any threat or enticement by foreign powers. If their ambition to humiliate Hungary was rejected,
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our enemies might resort to war. I was resolved to accept even that responsibility - excepting her honor dismembered Hungary had so little to lose.
Another powerful factor-next to our own resolute stand - which I intended to cultivate and win over to our side, was world opinion. If hard pressed while serving a just cause, the best defense is the flight into publicity. The love of truth is just as dear to the hearts of men as is the love of freedom. Many a time have I seen false prophets retreat when publicly unmasked as hypocrites. The big newspapers from all over the world were well represented in Geneva. They had access to news on the manouvering and horsetrading which took place in the League behind the scenes. They could influence decisions through the stand of their papers. With its precise and unbiased coverage of League of Nations affairs, the French language Journal de Geneve, read day by day by delegates to the League, appeared to me as the most important paper for our cause.
I remember gratefully at this point the friendship and gallant stand of Lord Rothermere, an Englishman with an Irish imagination. Late one night, I was roused from my sleep by his telephone call from Scotland. The noble Lord, who had lost two sons in the first World War, had no desire to sacrifice his only remaining son in a second World War, which he forsaw could happen, unless the unjust peace treaties signed by Lloyd George were revised in decency and fairness. He recognized that the Hungarian Peace Treaty, concluded in Trianon in 1920, was the sorest spot in the peace structure and that it had turned President Wilson's principles into a travesty. He launched a press campaign under the slogan of "Justice for Hungary" and I joined in his work wholeheartedly from the very beginning.
In the placid atmosphere of a dairy farm pervading the self-centered British Foreign Office in the period between the two world wars, any change for better or for worse was resented officially, and, of course, the growing demand for the revision of the Trianon Treaty was sullenly rejected. This emboldened the vigilant Mr. Benes to assume the role of a champion of the status quo, particularly in fighting against any improvement in the Hungarian Peace Treaty. He clashed publicly with Lord Rothermere, but the outcome did not displease the noble Lord, who now offered me in Geneva the all-out aid of his publicity empire. This was a godsend in my uneven struggle: not only for in-
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fluencing public opinion in Britain, but also in my tactical moves in the Geneva labyrinth for the promotion of our views and for the prevention of hostile actions. Nothing had helped me more in reaching an honorable settlement in Geneva than my dossier on Serb terrorism which had pushed the Croats into wild reaction. In strict confidence, I allowed one of Lord Rothermere's correspondents to look at this material, just long enough to provide him with arguments that would discourage exaggerated Yugoslav accusations against Hungary. I never used this file on the Serbs, for I had no intention of hurting that brave people. Furthermore, I was aware, that a gun is a weapon only as long as the last cartridge has not been fired.
Of course, I was also aware that the propaganda orchestra of France, joined with those of the Little Entente, would overpower my lonely efforts. I also expected that editors and commentators, unfriendly to Hungary, would not wish to depart from their policies, preconceived ideas and animosities. Some correspondents might not bother to study the background of the Marseille affair surrounded by intrigue. I also had to suppose that a number of cynical reporters would mainly go for sensations and occasionally be duped. Yet, in 25 years of public life, I had gathered the experience that there was one thing which no newspaperman could resist; namely, news? Therefore, almost every evening during the crisis a press conference was held where I reviewed the day's events and outlined what could be expected the next day. Hungarian diplomats, doubtful at first of this routine, were amazed later by the amount of favorable publicity it did gain. The flow of reliable information also cheered the Hungarians both in Geneva and back home. The Journal de Geneve noticed (November 23) that the Hungarians "do not seem to be disturbed. They accept gladly that full light be thrown on the Marseille affair."
A third task, to be organized without delay, was maintenance of liaison with the Secretariat and various delegations, particularly those represented on the Council, in order to exchange our views and information with theirs. I distributed the subjects of interest among members of my delegation, and the staff of the Hungarian Legation in Geneva. Generally, this service did function properly. On the top of the hierarchy, next to me, was our forthright, well liked Minister, Mr. Laszlo Tahy, a personal friend of the Hungarian Prime Minister. He was new in Geneva, but had many close friends among the diplomats. His
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First Councilor, Zoltan Baranyay, knew everybody in the Secretariat. He had spent many years in the Hungarian Legation at Geneva, remembered all the rules of procedure, every precedent, and proved to be a valuable collaborator. But as a former professor, he was infallible. When Mr. Tahy once insisted on some erroneous information being reported to Budapest, Zoltan punished his boss by doing exactly as he was told and then enjoyed the resulting muddle.
I must also recall Miss Waldberg's contribution. As a special correspondent of MTI, the Hungarian official news agency, that charming young girl captured the attention of her colleagues in the press, of secretaries, and of quite a few diplomats. She was the prettiest girl, if not in Geneva, certainly in the League of Nations, and as bright as the sunshine. She relayed my messages, was received out of turn in the Secretariat, and brought back competent answers to delicate questions which I personally could hardly have asked. Soon, everybody called her "Miss Jankapuszta" and some diplomats only knew her by that name.
The morning following my arrival in Geneva (November 23)1 was gratified to find in the papers my statement of the evening before, rejecting the Yugoslav accusation. This was important, for the aspect under which a case is presented for the first time in the press may determine its future handling. Attack and counterattack were thus kept in balance; the accusation against Hungary of national terrorism was rebuffed as an act of international terrorism. I was surprised, but not displeased by two letters published in the press which were addressed to the Secretary General of the League of Nations, one signed by Mr. Benes and the other one by Mr. Titulescu, the Foreign Ministers of Czechoslovakia and Rumania respectively. In identical terms, each associated his country integrally with the Yugoslav request in view of the "exceptional gravity of the facts contained in the Yugoslav note which were of direct concern" to their respective countries. What these exceptionally grave facts were, was not disclosed, but it was emphasized that they were "endangering the general conditions on which peace in Central Europe depends." The Marseille murder case was thus transformed into a political affair.
It was a cowardly act on the part of three of her neighbors to gang up menacingly on Hungary, disarmed by the Trianon Treaty and kept defenseless all the time. The murder of King Alexander was
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strictly Yugoslavia's concern and no injury whatsoever was inflicted on Czechoslovakia or Rumania by his assassination, which could not be brought therefore under the meaning of the Little Entente Alliance. Moreover, it had not been disclosed what the "exceptionally grave facts" were, referred to by the two allied Foreign Ministers. Hungary was to be indicted on charges not revealed to her, and generally unknown. I had to explain the unfairness of this procedure to the press. The Little Entente might not score on this point either.
The integral association of Mr. Benes with the Yugoslav request struck me as inopportune from the point of view of that clever technician. The same day, when Benes and Titulescu presented their letters to Mr. Avenol (November 22), the Extraordinary Assembly of the League of Nations had convened, and it was the turn of Mr. Benes to preside over its meetings. Having become now a party to the conflict with Hungary, Mr. Benes had disqualified himself as the President of any meeting on the agenda of which the Yugoslav request would be considered. Benes thus lost the considerable advantage which he did possess, of assisting the Yugoslavs with the authority of the Council's President. I assumed that together with his letter about this association with the Yugoslav note, he had also submitted his resignation from the Presidency of the Council. I gave too much credit to Benes in this respect.
It might be of interest to review the position of the press in various European countries as of November 22, 1934, when the campaign concerning the Marseille affair was launched in Geneva. Diverse opinions were expressed, not only concerning the contested case, but generally on terrorism in Europe and its role in recent history. The colors in the publicity picture were vivid, but the contours were distorted - not always deliberately, for the exaggerations in the press were dictated mostly by conflicting national interests and a clash of emotions, none of which is conducive to truth. As in the Japanese play, "Rashomon," the witnesses to a murder not only told inconsistent stories but in fact remembered the tragedy, each of them, differently. Imagination embellishes our lives but perverts our records which make up history.
The Little Entente press, committed to the complaint of Yugoslavia, the victim, was rather monotonous. Devoid of facts incriminating Hungary, it followed the month-old lead from Prague in
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name-calling and vituperation in a shrill voice. Now, that the climax was reached, nothing worse could be done. There was a single theme, to which nothing was added: Hungary, the permanent menace to European peace, must be subdued and severely punished! Hitler and Stalin were forgotten and Mussolini deliberately omitted. There was only one black sheep in Europe: disarmed Hungary! Truly, there exists no worse detestation than the hatred for those whom we have wronged.
The Paris papers, in the role of the prosecution, gave their full support to Yugoslavia, but they also had to husband the sensibilities of Mussolini. Equal concern for these two incompatible patrons inspired such silly statements as the one in the Petit Parisien which praised the Yugoslav note of November 22 as "crushing but not aggressive." The French papers mostly served the policy of Laval, so Le Journal promised Mr. Yeftitch a formal condemnation of all demands for the revision of the peace treaties, while the Petit Journal comforted Italy by explaining that Mr. Eckhardt could risk the demand of an urgent procedure in the Council for he knew that no unanimity could be obtained there for the application of penalties or sanctions against Hungary.
The Italian press, speaking for the defense, followed the maxim of Clausewitz: the best defense is the offensive. The Giornale d'Italia expressed its regret that the so necessary discussion of political crimes was adjourned for "it may become embarrassing to more than one government." The paper enumerated a series of international crimes of recent years in which the accusers of today were the culprits of yesterday: the attempt in Vienna on the life of King Zogu of Albania committed by an Albanian refugee who found asylum in Yugoslavia; several attempts at Mussolini's life by Italian refugees protected by influential persons in France; a series of acts of terrorism, bombings, arson, murder, etc., in Italian territory adjacent to Yugoslavia by emissaries of Yugoslav organizations; terror acts in Bulgaria at the service of "a neighboring power"; the haven granted last summer in Yugoslavia to Austrians who participated in the murder of Chancellor Dollfuss, etc. The paper promised that documentation on all these facts would be presented in Geneva.
The Stampa chimed in: "The investigation of political crimes can not be restricted to a single case," and if you wish to investigate your neighbor, you must accept to be investigated by him." The Gazetta del
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Popolo stirred up the hornet's nest by asking, "How have Croatia and the Croats been treated by Belgrade?" It also recalled the murder of Sarajevo in 1914, when the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, and his wife were assassinated, which started the World War. That most sinister crime had been organized by a Serbian national association and the murderer, Princip, had been glorified by the Serbian government as a national hero.
In contrast to the medley of injurious criticism on the Continent, all this excitement hardly touched the serenity of the leading British newspapers. They published the notes and statements by all the interested parties and, seemingly on official inspiration, expressed the belief that Britain would make no choice between Italy and Yugoslavia. Their sense of dignity, coupled with irresolution as to where to stand, induced the British to choose the role of an arbiter in the dispute submitted to the League. This sound decision imposed upon the British a degree of reticence, always favored by them anyway in a muddle.
I cannot pass up this opportunity to express my admiration for the Swiss press, in the columns of which decency generally precedes financial interest. Democracy does not necessarily have to become decadent. A large share of the credit for the staunch Swiss resistance to Naziism and Communism, as well as for their brilliant military preparedness during the second World War, goes to the great Swiss newspapers. Rereading now the editorials of autumn, 1934, in the Journal de Geneve, (a French language newspaper with readers of French descent,) I am deeply impressed by the perspicacity and forthright honesty of that paper which raised it far above the level of most of the newspapers in France.
One day before the Yugoslav note was published, the Journal de Geneve put the Marseille affair into its proper perspective: "What does Yugoslavia want? Certainly to put Hungary into a bad moral position. She demands that Hungary's revisionist campaign and her activities to protect her minorities (abroad) be repressed. But Yugoslavia is acting mainly under internal pressures. Croat and Macedonian terrorists have been outlawing themselves by such acts of terrorism as the one committed in Marseille. The crimes of these people must be punished, but their problems must be studied objectively. Justice should be done to every people!"
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This editorial was by no means one-sided. It remarked that "the camp at Jankapuszta was dissolved, but it was very imprudent to have tolerated it at all." Hungary had to take her share of the blame for a mistake but not for a crime. The editorial then asked: "Did Hungary and Italy have a monoply of terrorism? What did the Nazis do to Dollfuss? Wherefrom did the murderer come who killed the Polish Minister, Pieracki? Last February, the Socialist upheaval in Vienna was actively supported by Czechoslovakia and it has cost many lives. The activities of the Macedonian ORIM and its relations with the Komintern and the Soviets will also have to be studied." The Soviets, according to the editorial, certainly profited from the Marseille murder: "The King was fighting Soviet influence within the Little Entente and never recognized Moscow. The Soviets also try to start a conflict between Yugoslavia and Fascist Italy. The discord in Europe provides chances for Moscow and practically transforms the Soviets into an arbiter."
At my first press conference in Geneva (November 22), on the evening of my arrival, I assured the correspondents of the newspapers that we would not be unnerved and gave them the text of a message I had just wired to the Hungarian people telling them that it was their duty to keep cool headed under all circumstances, now as well as in the future. Then I called the attention of the press to the empty accusations in the Yugoslav note. Although very grave, they had not been documented. This looked to me like a smear campaign. Prime Minister Gombos told the press in Budapest that "the Yugoslav attitude is to call a man a scoundrel and a murderer in November and add that proof will be produced in January." In its editorial of November 24, the Journal de Geneve, in the same vein, found this omission "most regrettable." The Yugoslav note "condemns without naming those who inspired or promoted the Marseille crime." That paper also expressed surprise that the Yugoslav note was only directed against Hungary, while Italy, where Pavelitch was arrested, had not even been mentioned. The action of Yugoslavia was legitimate but "it should have avoided the appearance of being inspired by political motives."
"It is astonishing" - said a second editorial - "that Rumania and Czechoslovakia should have associated themselves with the Yugoslav note. It was the King of Yugoslavia who was assassinated and the Little Entente's interests were not involved in it. By accusing Hungary
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alone, the document obtains a distinctly political character. Either Hungarian revisionism will suffer a moral defeat (and the problem of Hungarian minorities will be relegated into the background), or European conscience will have to take notice of the necessity to rectify the Hungarian frontier. This seems to be the real issue in the Yugoslav-Hungarian litigation." The foresight of the Journal de Geneve was truly remarkable. The failure of the Little Entente campaign to destroy the position of Hungary in 1934 opened the door for the Vienna Awards of 1938 and 1940 which restored to Hungary parts of her former territory inhabited mainly by Hungarians.
Prime Minister Gombos also emphasized in a statement published in Budapest, (November 23), the political purpose of the Vugoslav complaint. its aim was to first discredit and then intimidate Hungary, without, however, producing any evidence of her guilt. Gombos asked that the League of Nations establish objectively, and without delay, the responsibilities for the Marseille murders, since "Yugoslavia and her friends, confident of their superior military power, accorded to them unilaterally by the peace treaties, are putting the peace of Europe in peril." Prime Minister Gombos reversed the charge that Hungary was a menace to the peace and raised the question clearly: who was threatening the peace of Europe? Disarmed and defenseless Hungary or the fully armed Little Entente which had selected Hungary as a scapegoat to be destroyed? An immediate investigation by the League had become urgently necessary, be concluded.
The battle around the Marseille affair was fought against Hungary in Geneva with all the weapons of propaganda and diplomacy at hand, In order to gain for the French-Little Entente alliance clearly defined political results. Laval was in overall command of the plot, not only because of the uncontested leadership of France within her alliance with the Little Entente, but also because of Laval's intense logic and weird cynicism which urged him up to his last hour before a firing squad to use his unquestionable talent for rationalization of whatever he believed to be opportune, even if revoltingly indecent.
In retrospect, I still find it amazing, that this spectacle could be staged in Geneva, loaded with falsehood from beginning to the end without exploding in the face of the plotters. My hands were tied; I could not expose the guilty without endangering the interests of my country. But the press knew almost every phase of the political black-
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mail which preceded the showdown in Geneva. The New York Times had reported (November 20,1934) that Italy had informed France that if Yugoslavia brought any charges in Geneva openly against Italy, Rome would not be responsible for the effects of it on Italian public opinion. Since in Fascist Italy the press was subjected to Government control, this was a very thinly veiled threat, properly understood by Laval. Two days later, the NewYork Times could report that Laval had gained the assurance that Yugoslavia would withhold the bringing of charges specifically against Italy. This is why the Yugoslav memorandum accused only Hungary, and did not even mention the name of Pavelitch, although he had been arrested in Italy. The New York Times, however, expressed the belief that Laval wanted "to steer the Yugoslav memorandum into the same pigeonhole where their own (French) famous dossier on German rearmament reposes." This was a mistaken interpretation. Laval had never contemplated such a soft line; he planned to press disarmed Hungary against the wall to inflict upon her, following physical dismemberment, moral mutilation also.
As is customary in the diplomatic world - the Communists had also acquired this aristocratic habit - the first shots in the battle of Geneva were fired in a convival atmosphere. On November 21, a dinner party was given by Titulescu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister, in honor of Laval, who had just arrived at Geneva. The Little Entente Foreign Ministers and Delegates to the League were present in complete numbers, and the announcement was made after dinner that perfect agreement was reached concerning the text of the Yugoslav note. According to a confidential report, which I received next morning, Mr. Laval summed up on this occasion the purposes of the French-Little Entente Alliance, on which they had all agreed, in three points:
1. In order to keep the Alliance intact, satisfaction must be given to Yugoslavia's rightful demand for punishment of the murder of her King;
2. Blame shall be placed only on Hungary, and Mussolini must be exonerated to draw him thereby into collaboration with France;
3. Hungary's insistence on the revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty must be brought to a halt by destroying her international position. Revisionist policy which separates Italy from France and her Allies shall be discredited once and for all.
Next day, Laval, along with Benes, his assistant, visited Maxim
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Litvinov, to keep the Soviet Chief Delegate posted on their plans. The shrewd Laval, of course, had noticed by then, how inadequate the documentation was which the Yugoslavs intended to submit to the League together with their note. The incongruity of the Yugoslav complaint against Hungary was criticized by Laval, the able advocate, who advised against publishing such flimsy evidence. So, at first (on November 22), no documentation was presented to the League. Laval was also dissatisfied with the harsh tone voiced against Hungary in the Yugoslav note. He insisted that it be softened, for it might upset Mussolini. But his counsel was not followed properly. The news spread in Geneva that Laval had convinced the Little Entente to delay the discussion of the Yugoslav complaint until January. Meanwhile the search for some material incriminating Hungary would be continued.
It was lucky that upon my arrival in Geneva I had pressed for immediate action by the Council. I now submitted a formal, official demand to the Secretariat, asking that the Little Entente's attack against Hungary's good reputation and honor be not left in suspense. At first, I intended to invoke the serious Paragraph I of Article XI of the Covenant, which would compel the Council to treat urgently the Yugoslav note. But I had to avoid even the appearance of intentionally broadening the rift with the Little Entente. I drafted and redrafted my letter to Mr. Avenol. But the Professor in charge of revising our French texts still objected to my final draft, thinking that it was ambiguous. I referred to, but did not invoke, the entire Article XI (which meant both its friendly and its austere paragraphs) and also mentioned - but only mentioned - the broad fourth Paragraph of Article IV of the Covenant, thus retaining elasticity and a free hand to invoke later, at any time, any one of these paragraphs. It is not easy to draft in French, the most logical of all languages, a correct sentence capable of more than one interpretation. I asked the Professor whether he was quite certain that my text was ambiguous. Reassured, I refused - to his amazement - to have any change made in the letter. The New York Times (November 25) thought that the relevant part of my letter was "shrewdly worded." Maybe this comment was not meant as a compliment, but it was the only expedient technique within my reach.
Bad news continued to pour in during these days from Hungary on provocations committed on the Yugoslav border; on the steady
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increase in the number of expellees, and even on irregular Serb troops moving toward the Hungarian frontier. Violence was in the air and the situation might get out of hand if a reasonable solution of the Marseille affair was delayed. I again alerted the press. Against my desire, I said, I would have to publish my documentation on internal terrorism in Yugoslavia unless she submitted at once the much talked about evidence on Hungary's alleged guilt. This, I hoped, would expedite the consideration of the Yugoslav note by the Council.
Another problem had also arisen which had to he solved. On November 27, our alert Mr. Baranyay returned to Hungarian headquarters from the Secretariat with the news that Mr. Benes had left Geneva without having resigned from the Presidency of the Council. In a letter addressed the same day to Mr. Avenol, the Secretary General of the League of Nations, I raised the following question: "Czechoslovakia has integrally associated herself to the Yugoslav note. Would it not cause grave inconvenience to the Council, should His Excellency, Mr. Benes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, neglect to renounce his functions as President of the Council of the League of Nations, as is foreseen in paragraph 4 of Article IV of the Internal Statutes of the Council?"
My letter was held in the Secretariat and never reached the Council, but it did cause some headache to the Secretariat. Mr. Benes, high up in the Masonic hierarchy, which dominated the Secretariat of the League, was an indefatigable worker who carried ready-made answers to annoying problems which the timorous bureaucrats in the Secretariat preferred not to approach. Benes was the apple of Mr. Avenol's eye: he relied on Benes and catered to him. Resisting all roundabout attempts at persuasion, I refused to withdraw my letter, which asked for the disqualification of Mr. Benes, unless the Secretariat made the proper announcement. To all outward appearances, Benes had tried to impose himself as judge and prosecutor of Hungary at the same time; thereby, however, he became a defendant. Sugar-coating Benes' forced withdrawal; a communique was issued finally by the Secretariat to the effect that before leaving Geneva, Mr. Benes had informed the Secretariat that he would renounce the exercise of the Presidency whenever the Yugoslav note was on the agenda.
Mr. Benes never forgave me the downgrading I had administered to his prestige in the League. The impassive Mr. Joseph Avenol, a
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former French Financial Inspector, was more deft; he did not betray the embarrassment caused by my uncompromising attitude. Yet, in that given situation, I had to impress our opponents that I would not be intimidated. I believe in compromise, which very often is the only lasting solution to a conflict. But when you are cornered and in a weak position, don't yield an inch! It would be taken for an admission of weakness and concerted attack would precipitate your doom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------THE ACCUSATION AGAINST HUNGARY
The delay in presenting the Yugoslav memorandum supporting the accusation against Hungary caused some impatience in the diplomatic and press circles of Geneva. I was particularly annoyed, for, beyond a denial, it is hardly possible to devise an intelligent defense against general accusations which have not been specified. If Hungary was to be subjected -as planned - to continuous slander for two months more, she might face condemnation by world opinion before having had a chance to state her case. I had to intensify in the press, my counterattacks against Yugoslavia, our highly vulnerable opponent. So I resorted to every imaginable means of publicity. The New York Times reported (November 24) that in the park surrounding the Palace of the League of Nations and in hotel lobbies I held press conferences, explaining over the microphone that "Hungary cannot wait until January to remove the stain" caused by unfounded accusations. Mr. Eden who "had hoped to postpone public debate until January - was compelled to change [his] mind."1 He admits now that "with both sides demanding a discussion, delay would only have increased the dangers." My decision to expedite the public debate proved useful, for it shortened the persistent smear-campaign.
I also threatened to call my strongest card. On the morning of November 28, the Journal de Geneve reported that "in answer to the Yugoslav note devoid of all documentation, Mr. Eckhardt will reveal important facts concerning the internal policies of Yugoslavia," which had caused acts of terrorism. It may have been this warning which expedited the immediate results. That same evening, a seventy-eight-page Yugoslav memorandum, comprising forty-eight annexes and eighteen photographs, was submitted to the Secretary of the League of Nations, with the request that "the Council consider the question of the Hungarian Government's responsibilities for the terrorist action directed against Yugoslavia."
This long-awaited Yugoslav memorandum began with the accusation that preceding the creation of the Croat Ustasha there already existed in Hungary organizations preparing illegal actions. No such case was
1 Facing the Dictators, p. 125.
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mentioned, however, in the memorandum, for in the said period, there occurred none about which Yugoslavia could complain. The second chapter dealt with the handling of Yugoslav refugees in Hungary since 1931, the time at which the violent Croat reaction to Serb terrorism did develop. I have to state that there had occurred no change in the routine handling of the Croat refugees in Hungary. The Croat refugees gathered in Hungary in eight localities; one among them was Jankapuszta. These refugees, at first, passed through police control, but they were not given financial aid by the Hungarian authorities. A number of them were employed by small businesses and farmers, for there was much sympathy for the persecuted Croats, with whom Hungarians had lived at peace for eight centuries. The rest were usually taken care of by the Croat, Perchetch, who had rented the farm Jankapuszta for this purpose and acted in Hungary as the chief of the Croat refugees.
There was nothing illicit or even unusual in this procedure, particularly not before the Marseille crime had occurred. What Hungary gave these refugees was far less than what the Hungarian revolutionaries received through the generousity of the U.S.A. in 1956, when they arrived in Camp Kilmer, following Hungary's fight for freedom. Hungary gave the Croats nothing more than what every civilized nation in Europe was granting to political refugees. The Yugoslav memorandum referred to the deposition of Mijo Krajl, an accomplice in the Marseille regicide, who testified in France that the Croat refugees drew lots in a Hungarian town, when, on orders of the Ustashi Command, three among them were selected to travel to Switzerland. Deceitfully, the memorandum did not include the relevant part of Krajl's deposition; which added that at the time these Croats left Hungary, they did not know and no one had told them why they were to travel to Switzerland, nor had they been informed that they had been selected for the purpose of perpetrating the Marseille or any other crime. Regardless of this, no Hungarian authority or private person was involved in this procedure.
The Yugoslav memorandum classified the members of the "terrorist bands established in Hungary" into five categories, but no Hungarian name appeared among them. The first category was composed of former Austro-Hungarian officers, most prominent among them General Sarkotitch and Colonel Perchevitch, both Austrian residents of Croat descent and not connected with Hungary in any way. Then, three
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categories consisting of Croat refugees were enumerated: those with a criminal record; jobless Croat workers abroad; and Croat peasants who fled across the Yugoslav border. As a fifth category, members of the Macedonian organization, Orim, were mentioned, who allegedly gave instruction to the Croats in terrorist techniques. Again, no Hungarian official or private person was mentioned in any of these categories. A sixth, probably the most important category, however, was omitted from the Yugoslav enumeration: the Croat patriots, who had formed the Ustasha for self-denfense against Serb terrorism after their leader, Stephen Raditch, on June 20, 1928, was assassinated in the Belgrade Parliament.
The Yugoslav memorandum, however, did insist that the Hungarian authorities had knowledge of the aims and terroristic methods of these refugees. As the only evidence, it referred to a letter by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Yugoslav Legation in Budapest expressing its regrets over violent acts committed by Croat refugees in Yugoslav territory. This was an admission of guilt, accused the memorandum. Attached to the memorandum was a photograph of Croat refugees in Ustashi uniforms, equipped with daggers and hand grenades, grimly parading "in Jankapuszta." I rubbed my eyes; there were high mountains in the background of the picture, whereas Jankapuszta lies on a flat plain. It did not take much time to establish that the picture showed the Apennines at Fontecchio, near Arezzo, in Italy, where a camp for the Ustashis was located.
This disclosure of the truth had hardly occurred inadvertently. The text of the Yugoslav memorandum accused Hungary, but the picture pointed its finger at Italy. Could the Serbs, a fundamentally honest people, go to extremes in their reprisals against Hungary knowing that their accusation was unfounded? Very shortly thereafter, threatened by the invasion of Hungary and war at the instigation of General Zhifkovitch, I was able to reject offers of an unworthy compromise because I had this information.
The next paragraph of the memorandum, however, dissipated my pleasant expectations. It cited a number of cases, when Hungarian passports were given to Yugoslav citizens (which is unlawful), even to three accomplices in the Marseille regicide who had been staying for a while in Jankapuszta. Photographs of these passports were attached to the memorandum with their serial numbers, etc. This revelation
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disturbed me immensely. I called up Budapest and reported to Prime Minister Gombos that during my inquiries back home no mention had ever been made of this irregularity, nor did I know that the Hungarian passports of three accomplices were genuine and not faked like the Czechoslovak papers. None of my statements would ever have been believed in Geneva, had I unwittingly denied this error.
I asked the Prime Minister to send to Geneva with utmost urgency a fully informed police officer of high rank - other than Police Chief Hetenyi, in whom I had lost confidence - and also the Chief of Hungarian Counterintelligence, both under strict orders to tell me the whole truth. The defense lawyer, I pleaded, must know every fact in the case, particularly those which might be harmful to the cause he was to defend. I felt it would be far better that I disclose our mistake and give an honest explanation for it, than to wait for our opponents to exploit it maliciously. Gombos fully agreed and promised to send the requested experts to Geneva without delay.
For the past two weeks, Foreign Minister de Kanya had been away from his office on a sick leave, and had only resumed his duties three days before the dispute in Geneva was ended. For over a decade, I had opposed the governments of Hungary for their reluctance to put through such timely changes as the land reform. But all the time, I had been collaborating in perfect understanding with Mr. de Kanya on international affairs. I now missed his wide experience and keen judgment. I also felt the need to eliminate the negative influence of scary bureaucrats who abound in every foreign office of the Old, as well as of the New, World, eager to delay timely decisions.
I therefore asked Prime Minister Gombos to give me a free hand to deal with the Marseille affair in Geneva as I saw fit, within the limits of his general instructions. He granted my request, and I remember gratefully how firmly he upheld all my decisions which some of our diplomats wished to water down. It is life-long regular practice of diplomats to seek a compromise to any and every conflict, which practice often with them becomes an ingrained habit. Yet, concessions have to be excluded by a self-respecting nation when its honor is thereby affected. Before I left for Geneva, Regent Horthy gave me a hint of his feelings: "The honor of Hungary has resisted until now every trial," was his last sentence when I took leave of him. The Admiral's expectation was perfectly in line with my resolution.
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The next point in the Yugoslav memorandum brought up against Hungary was the alleged financing of Croat terrorism, including the Marseille assassinations. This accusation was quite ludicrous and completely undocumented. It was also widely known that the mint of the Ustashi currency was not in Hungary. If the Marseille regicide was carried out "in an atmosphere of luxury"- as the memorandum asserted - certainly the funds were not collected in Hungary where the Croat refugees had to earn their modest living, mostly as simple farmhands.
The Yugoslav memorandum contained serious misgivings because of the Hungarian Government's reluctance to extradite Croat political refugees at the request of the Yugoslav authorities, and to deny information on them. It reproached the Foreign Ministry because it was only on the 21st of November of the current year that it had transmitted to Belgrade a list of the suspicious Yugoslavs who had been living at one time or another in Hungary. Preceding the Second World War, did any civilized government extradite or denounce political refugees at the request of their persecutors? If guilty of a crime while in Hungary, the Croat refugees did stand trial by the competent Hungarian court. The Croat refugee Premec, enjoying asylum in Hungary, was sentenced - as mentioned - to fifteen years in prison by a Hungarian court for a crime committed in Yugoslav territory. This procedure did not fit into the Yugoslav intention to liquidate every Croat revolutionary. The memorandum objected that the Hungarian court only dealt with the case of Premec in order "to publicize the internal conditions in Yugoslavia and to establish an alibi for the Hungarian Government." Premec was convicted many months before the Marseille murders were perpetrated. Could the Hungarian Government prepare this much in advance its defense against yet unknown Yugoslav accusations?
In its summation, the Yugoslav Government complained of twenty terrorist acts committed in Yugoslavia, all of them since 1929. Indeed, terrorism was quite widespread in Yugoslavia at that time. But why should Hungary be made responsible for it? Would the real cause not be closer to home, i.e., the suspension of the Yugoslav constitution on January 6, 1929?
The memorandum condensed in three points Hungary's responsibility for the Marseille regicide: 1) the criminals were deliberately trained in Hungary for the murder of the King - a statement which
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the Yugoslav Government knew to be untrue on the basis of its own investigation; 2) three accomplices left Hungary with Hungarian passports - an undeniable fact for which Hungary was responsible; 3) the Marseille regicide was the culmination of a terrorist action inspired and aided by the Hungarian Government - a little soul - searching might have led the Yugoslav Government to a different conclusion.
In its last chapter, the Yugoslav memorandum accused the Hungarian Government of a "policy of systematic negation." It concluded that the Marseille crime was nothing else, but the natural consequence of a conspiracy against Yugoslavia, organized and sustained from abroad. It ended with a declaration that the Hungarian Government had taken upon itself a grave responsibility which the Yugoslav Government considered as its first duty to denounce before the League of Nations.
Late the same evening, having glanced through the Yugoslav memorandum, I issued a short statement in time to be published in the press together with the Yugoslav accusation. I promised evidence that would prove that Hungary could not be held responsible for a plot which was decided upon, prepared, and perpetrated outside of Hungary. I emphasized that "the legal and illegal Croat revolutionary movement exists everywhere, where Croat refugees reside, for its exclusive source is the discontent caused by internal conditions in Yugoslavia."
In terms of the Yugoslav memorandum, I concluded: "The Marseille regicide was nothing else, but the natural consequence of a conspiracy organized in the very interior of Yugoslavia."
In spite of the late evening hour when it was issued, my retort was again published together with the Yugoslav accusaflon. The technical perfection of the American communication system was quite admirable. Next morning (November 29), the New York Times presented the Yugoslav memorandum to its readers and judged it as exceedingly grave because it spoke of direct responsibility of the Budapest Government. And then came an extract of my statement which charged that the murder plot originated in Yugoslavia and that it had its "exclusive source" in the discontent with the internal situation in Yugoslavia due to Belgrade's policy.
Although doubtful of Hungary's role in some respects, the Swiss press, as usual, showed much objectivity. The Yugoslav memorandum was criticized as incomplete. The name of Pavelitch, for instance, had
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not even been mentioned, nor did the memorandum expose the vast terrorist organization of the Croats, spread all over the world. The Swiss press believed that a complete dossier on the Croat revolutionary movement should have been presented by the Yugoslav Government. Democratic naivete was mixed in this opinion with a keen sense of fairness. For the internal rift, bordering on civil war, was exactly that sore spot which the Yugoslav Government tried to hide most of all from the world.
Through the medium of the Swiss press, however, I was warned that the Yugoslav memorandum had raised some doubts concerning Hungary's conduct toward Yugoslavia. It stated that Budapest could not be exonerated, unless it was proven that the Croats guilty of the Marseille regicide had obtained in Hungary nothing else but asylum, to which they were entitled. The question was asked, did Hungarian authorities grant the Croat refugees valid passports, or had the papers in their possession been faked? More resented than the passports were the Hungarian official contradictions and evasions, thoughtlessly committed by the reckless "Uncle Chocho." It was also brought up that Jankapuszta had not been liquidated rapidly enough and that for a while "Hungary was playing with fire."
I knew nothing about the Hungarian passports as yet, but I could give, at my next press conference, competent answers and firsthand information on Jankapuszta. It was not a camp, I explained but a privately owned farm, rented to a Croat named Perchetch, who settled his refugee compatriots there as farmhands. Perchetch refused to disband his workers all at once, before the crops, which he did not wish to lose, had been harvested. By the end of the summer, there were still about a dozen stragglers left on the farm, who were ejected by gendarmes. Perchetch demanded a considerable sum as compensation for the losses he had suffered through the government action. It was from this last uprooted batch of Croat revolutionaries, forcibly removed to a neighboring town, that three accomplices in the Marseille Regicide had been selected by Colonel Perchevitch, who came in September from Vienna to Hungary for this purpose.
The Italian press resented much more sharply the Yugoslav accusations against Hungary than did the Swiss papers. It called attention to the fact that there were Croat refugees all over the world, the greatest number of them in America, the haven of political refugees.
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They all were working against Yugoslavia, as bitterly as were the Croats in Hungary. The relevant question was: did the Hungarian Government know of the preparations to murder King Alexander? There was no evidence whatsoever in this respect. The criminals met in France; received funds and firearms in France; and committed the crime in France. Why, then, was Hungary called to task?
The Hungarian daily papers had also sent their correspondents to Geneva. They observed, as requested, a moderate tone in their reports. The semi-official Budapesti Hirlap shrugged off lightly the Yugoslav documents which "could be considered as ridiculous, if the honor of a nation were not involved."
THE POLITICAL CHALLENGE
After the presentation of the Yugoslav document, the confrontation of the litigants before the Councfl could not be delayed much longer. On December 1, before leaving for Geneva, Laval outlined his foreign policy program to the Chamber of Deputies in Paris. He followed closely Barthou's concept, who wished to encompass the European Continent in a tight network of security pacts and alliances which would encircle Nazi Germany.
In June, 1934, Barthou took the Disarmament Conference by surprise with his theory of "collective security," which only applying to the Continent was described as a "policy of blockade" by Sir John Simon on behalf of the British Delegation. At that time, Britain had not yet relinquished her support of Nazi Germany. That decision was only taken in October 1934, after the murder of Dollfuss. Even Henderson, the British President of the Conference, rejected with unusual severity Barthou's idea, which would have shut out British influence from the Continent. I watched Litvinov performing at the Conference as the most active supporter of French policy. Moscow hand branded the honestly defensive Treaty of Locarno as aggression. But now the Soviets enthusiastically endorsed the setting up of a network of military alliances to create a power-political imbalance which would impose the uncompromising will of the Franco-Russian alliance - then in the process of formation - on Europe and eventually on the world.
As long as only France and the Soviets identified themselves with this system of collective security, the European Continent would find little difficulty in securing its balance of power. These two far-distant powers, however, had to be connected. An important link in this, as yet incomplete system, was the planned French-Italian Entente, which had to be brought into harmony with the existing French-Little Entente Alliance. The stumbling block in this broad concept-antagonism between Rome and Belgrade - was heightened now by the murder of King Alexander and by the part which the Italian-sponsored Pavelitch and the Ustashis played in it.
Laval tried in a speech held in Paris to pay off both sides. He first
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gave to Yugoslavia advice of moderation. The difficult job of exonerating Italy, by omitting her name from the Yugoslav complaint, had been achieved with the aid of the adroit Mr. Benes, who was enchanted with the prospect of having Hungary castigated instead. But Laval knew that Hungary, tied to Italy by the Pact of Rome, would not be abandoned easily by Mussolini. He therefore dropped the word in Rome that Austria would be left under Italian influence, but France wished to see Hungary isolated. Surrounded in the Valley of the Danube by the three Little Entente states, Hungary was to be left entirely at the mercy of the Little Entente. She was to disavow her policy aimed at the revision of the unjust Trianon Peace Treaty and establish a political regime subservient to the Little Entente.
Shrewdly conceived, Laval's policy was to intimidate Hungary and bring her down to her knees. "Nothing can change our faithfulness toward our Allies" - he assured the Little Entente. "There is a principle, the necessity of which has to be recognized by all: the maintenance of the present frontiers." He then gave a free hand to the Little Entente against Hungary by warning her that whosoever wishes to change a frontier "disturbs the peace of Europe." From now on the international action started against Hungary did not have to be restricted to the empty charge of her participation in the Marseille regicide, but also could be motivated by her policy of treaty revision.
The indictment of Hungary for a crime which she had not committed was thus superseded in the League of Nations by a political challenge. The question before the Council was shifted from "what is true" to "who wields more power." Hungary's position through Laval's strategem became more dangerous. Under the rule of unanimity the Council could not arrive at imposing sanctions against her, but it could condone violent action against Hungary if she were denoted as a threat to peace. As an immediate consequence of Laval's encouragement, Serbian armed bands, the Chetniks, under orders of General Zhifkovitch, converged on the Hungarian frontier and the number of Hungarians expelled from Yugoslavia became alarming. In the first week of December, Europe was shoved frivolously to the brink of war.
In its editorial of December 2, the Journal de Geneve called attention to other passages in Laval's speech which it considered unwise. Hitler was trying in those days to dissipate the bad impression which his decision to rearm Germany had created. Ribbentrop was sent to
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France to assure Laval that Hitler desired an entente, not only with France, but with every country in Europe - not mentioning, of course, that this offer was valid only for the time while he was rearming. Laval was agreeable to such conversations, for he had not given up his ambition of achieving reconciliation with the German Reich. With him it was a premise that there did not exist, as far as he was concerned, any discord with any foreign power because of its internal policy. To the bitter end through many a disenchantment Laval stuck to this cynical view. Naziism was no obstacle to Laval's collaboration with Germany in 1934, or at any time later. Laval had no faith nor any principles, but he did wish to serve France and therefore asked for some evidence of sincerity on Hitler's part. From all the existing problems, he chose as a test case the adherence of Germany to an Oriental Locarno Pact which would also include the Soviets.
For this unfortunate choice the Journal de Geneve (December 2) blamed Prime Minister Flandin and his Cabinet, dominated by a joint front of the Free Masons. For them Fascism was the main enemy and there could be no forgiveness for them. Rapprochement with Italy was only acceptable to them if Fascist influence was counterbalanced by a binding entente between France and the Soviets. This unsound equilibrium became at that time the cornerstone of Laval's foreign policy. It precipitated the degradation of France. Intelligent Swiss advice in this respect, was not heeded by France. As envisaged by Laval, wrote the Journal de Geneve, "the Oriental Locarno Pact would allow the Soviets to intervene in all the conflicts arising among Berlin, Warsaw, Prague and the Baltic Republics, whereas the Soviets have demonstrated right now" (at the Disarmament Conference) "that they wish to aggravate every dissension in Europe. The Soviets will promote wars in Europe in which they would not participate, but which they intend to use ultimately for the launching of Communist revolutions. Laval's policy would legalize the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of their small Baltic neighbors; it would expose Poland and also Germany to the danger of becoming a corridor for the Soviet Army; and it might induce the Reich to get in line with Moscow and take a stand against France." It was amazing, concluded the paper, that Laval should qualify this dangerous maneuver as "an European duty." In August, 1939, all these apprehensions proved to be correct.
At the end of his speech, Laval extolled "Franco-Soviet solidarity,
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which shall benefit every country and consolidate peace in Eastern Europe." The Journal de Geneve countered that "there is the grave danger in the Oriental Pact that it makes the peace of Europe dependent on the sincerity and loyalty of the Soviets. We believe that a system of regional peace pacts is excellent, but once and for all the Soviets must be excluded from it." This sound approach was not then and has not been since, adopted, in decisive moments of our history.
In Geneva, I had followed with much interest the futile debates in the Disarmament Conference. This was one of the few spots in the International world where the U.S.A. was represented. Ambassador Hughes Wilson outlined on November 20 the American plan concerning the control of production of armaments and of munitions which, very exaggeratedly, was considered at that time as the key to lasting peace. Since then, the recommended state control has been established by many governments, yet peace has become more elusive than ever.
For peace does not consist of paragraphs wisely or foolishly devised by peacemakers. It grows in the hearts of the millions, content with the fate they have to share; or, if forced to live under intolerable conditions, they yield to hate making the blessings of peace unattainable.
Justice, much more than Prosperity, is the indispensable prerequisite of lasting peace. There was material progress between the two World Wars, but rigid adherence to the status quo, often in contradiction to fairness, became the League of Nations' main concern. In this respect Britain had shown some leniency in Opposition to France toward Germany. But concerning Central and Eastern Europe, the Foreign Office adhered to its masterplan: the promotion of Slav policies and interests. Thus Britain remained concerning the Danube Valley in complete agreement with the French-Little Entente Alliance. The nations humiliated at the Paris Peace Conference by the victorious powers were subjected to harsh treatment and continued discrimination. They were deprived in times of peace even of the hope of a peaceful change. Could this policy lead to anything but violent reactions? In November, 1934, with Hitler in power, the good Mr. Pflugl, the delegate of Austria, still had to come hat in hand to Geneva, to ask the Disarmament Conference for equal rights and permission to set up an army for self-defense. Sixteen years after the war's end little Austria, facing the wrath of Hitler, was still held disarmed and had to beg for proper considerations of security, her most vital interest!
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In these years, the Western World fell rather short in moral assets, and this defect became even uglier when camouflaged by hypocrisy. In Geneva, it was the adaptable Mr. Litvinov who won the first prize for hypocrisy. He had been throwing monkey wrenches into any and every negotiation which might have led to a better understanding among the dissenting powers, with Benes, his errand boy, carrying the Soviet intrigues to and from the delegations. Then, when the Disarmament Conference was turned successfully into a mess, he proposed that it transform itself into a permanent institution under the name of "Peace Conference." (Mr. Khrushchev has repeated by now every device used in Stalin's time to sabotage controlled disarmament, but as yet, he has not gone this far.) No wonder that MacDonald, the British Prime Minister, expressed unusual pessimism concerning disarmament in his funeral oration on the London Naval Conference (November 20, 1934).
On his way to Princess Marina's wedding, the Yugoslav Regent, Prince Paul, was informed by Yeftitch, his Foreign Minister, on the proceedings in Geneva. Prince Paul then had a lengthy consultation in London with Sir John Simon, the legalistic-minded British Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Before Mr. Eden left for Geneva, the British Cabinet discussed (December 1) the handling of the Marseille affair and favored the view of Prince Paul that, following a general condemnation of the crime, the debate in the Council be postponed until January. Mr. Eden had agreed with this view, but I certainly could not support it.
This British attitude did not mean a general acceptance of the Little Entente's designs, and I consoled myself with the experience that, as a rule, dilatory tactics were favored in delicate situations by the British Foreign Office, rather than any rapid solution. Yet, in this event, a delay would not bring about the hoped-for cooling off of emotions, it could only deepen and envenom the crisis. With the press and the Secretariat, I insisted therefore that the Council debate of the Yugoslav accusations not be postponed, for any delay would prolong the campaign of slander, against which Hungary would have to react. It might also intensify the tension inside Yugoslavia and provoke dangerous incidents on the Hungarian-Yugoslav frontier. Also, the expulsion of Hungarians from Yugoslavia demanded urgent
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action. Heaps of news reached us day by day underscoring my pessimistic evaluation of the situation inside Yugoslavia.
With a sigh of relief, I then learned that on December 5 the Council would meet to discuss the Yugoslav complaint against Hungary under the Presidency of the Portuguese Ambassador, Mr. Vasconcellos, "who unites determination with courtesy." This respected diplomat, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, was liked for his objectivity. The newspaper, however, predicted that Mr. Eden would propose the postponement of the debate until January and that "Mr Eckhardt will defend - energetically as foreseen - the thesis of his country." I was not displeased with the fact that it had been noticed in Geneva that I would not be a pushover for the Little Entente. But I had no preconceived plan for the debate. My parliamentary experience had taught me that retort has to be adapted to the attack and to all the facts brought up during the debate.
THE DARKEST HOUR
In the first days of December, the Chief Delegates to the League began arriving in Geneva for the Council meeting. Preceding the expected showdown, I wished to contact some of them personally. From the five Great Powers who had been the original permanent members in the Council, Germany and Japan had withdrawn in 1933; on the other hand, in September 1934, the Soviets were accepted as a new permanent member of the Council. Next to the four Permament Members (Britain, France, Italy and Soviet Russia) there also were then six non-permanent members on the Council. From the Little Entente, only Czechoslovakia had been elected to non-permanent membership, but Yugoslavia, being a party to the conflict with Hungary, and Rumania having associated herself with Yugoslavia, both were to be invited to the Council table together with Hungary, whenever the Marseille affair was on the agenda.
The Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Yeftitch, arrived without fanfare on December 3, in the company of Konstantin Fotitch, the Permanent Delegate of Yugoslavia to the League. News from Belgrade preceded them, telling that Yeftitch had met strong opposition back home from colleagues in the Cabinet, for not being energetic enough in Geneva. It was also rumored that the Little Entente countries would not be satisfied with a simple moral condemnation of Hungary, but would curtail their relations with her by closing their frontiers.
Next day (December 4), Mr. Eden arrived in Geneva. His instructions by the Cabinet remained a strictly guarded secret, probably because they were vague and not much could be said about them. Sir John Simon, according to the press, had recommended that nothing should be precipitated, and it seemed quite probable that Eden would adhere to the preferred British method of temporization followed by a compromise. Eden was greeted in Geneva with much expectation, for he was said to be, since their college years, a personal friend of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. It was also hinted in the League's Secretariat that Eden would form a committee of the Great Powers to work out together a solution to the conflict. At this early stage of the showdown, I bad to ascertain on which delegation and to what extent I could rely.
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I also had to supply some of them with factual information and to correct eventual erroneous notions of theirs.
My first exploratory visit was with the Italian Ainbassador, Baron Pompejo Aloisi. Of athletic build and with a Roman profile, he was highly regarded in diplomatic circles for his power of decision, and for his forthright, always tactful ways. For these fine qualities, he was elected President of the Subcommittee on the Saar, at the height of the conflict between Germany and France; a truly delicate task, which he absolved with considerable success. It was, first of all, from him that I expected assistance, mostly truthful information on behind-the-scenes negotiations among the Great Powers.
In September, during the Assembly meeting, the Ambassador had been helpful to Hungary and friendly to me personally. He envied me for my close relations with Gombos, the head of the Hungarian Government. "You are lucky" - he told me - "for you know what your goal is, and your Prime Minister gives you a free hand on how to achieve it. I don't know what the Duce drives at. Each morning at 8 o'clock, I call him by telephone and he gives me his instructions, but only for the day, and I have to follow them to the letter." Then, in answer to my comment on Italy's current dispute with Abyssinia, he became quite unhappy: "I agree with you that this conflict could be settled by negotiations. But I have to abstain from all talks with the Abyssinians. Just this morning, Mussolini forbade me to sit down at the same table with a Negro. So this afternoon, I have to stay away from the Council meeting where the Abyssinian complaint will be discussed, because a black delegate will be sitting at the table. I had rather jump right away into the Lake, than deviate from Mussolini's orders."
I found Baron Aloisi, this time, a very different person. I briefly Outlined my plans and asked him for his eventual comments. With an icy look he stared at the Lake, out of the window, as if I were not present at all. Believing that something in my presentation might have annoyed him, I assured the taciturn Ambassador that I would carefully avoid in Hungary's defense every argument which could be detrimental to Italian interests. Again, no answer, but he moved now to the window. I remembered the similar experience of which Prime Minister Gombos spoke, which he had had recently in Rome with Mussolini. Suddenly, I felt sorry for the embarrassed diplomat
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obviously, he had strict instructions to play it dumb. An exceptionally brave man, a naval officer in the World War, he had invaded singlehandedly, as a diver, the port of Pola and sunk the flagship of the Astro-Hungarian Navy. Physical and moral courage, how different attributes, rarely present both in the same person! Quite saddened, I cut my visit short, assuring him that I would keep his delegation posted.
If you wish to retain good will, you must be careful not to become a burden to your friends. I transmitted thereafter to the Italian Delegation all the information which, I believed, could be of any interest to them, but never, during the Marseille affair, did I ask them for anything. In the Council, Aloisi spoke as well as I could expect him to, and the government-controlled Italian press lent its full support to the Hungarian cause. By not trying to engage Italy in our troubles, I retained her wholehearted assistance.
Next morning, on December 4, I payed my respects to Laval, whom I had not met before. He sat at his desk immersed in paperwork, glanced at me sideways, "Oh, that's you?" Not waiting for me to finish my first polite sentence, he stated unemotionally, in a matter-of-fact way: "I have not read the papers you have presented but I can assure you that France will remain faithful to her Allies." He extended his hand, without asking me to sit down-and my meeting with Laval had come to an end.
This small man without faith, having only a strong intellect, was ugly in his physical appearance. He called back, however, childhood memories of mine. With his olive brown skin, in his best black suit, he looked like the gypsy blacksmith on a Sunday afternoon at the faraway estate in Hungary, where I was horn. His epigrammatic rudeness was shocking, but helpful, for I knew now exactly where he stood. As curtly as is possible, he made me understand that he was not interested in who was right, or who was wrong. In fact, he was not interested in the Marseille affair, although it had cost the life of Barthou, his eminent predecessor. He was concerned exclusively with the cementing of the alliances of France, and for this purpose he was prepared to support his small Allies almost to the limit in whatever moves against Hungary they had in mind. So, I could spare my eventual efforts to try to convince him of the truth. I also could afford to avoid personal contacts with Laval. While saving time, we could thus
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maintain polite appearances in Hungarian-French relations - an unsatisfactory but practical approach.
The darkest hour is just before dawn. In spite of my faith in our just cause, I had become aware that in the coming showdown, Hungary might stand all alone in a hostile world. She might by sacrificed by her intimidated friends and trampled by her enemies who were united. I had a call from the Polish Ambassador to London, Count Edward Raczynski, who wished to see me urgently; he had a message from Marshal Pilsudski, which he wanted to deliver before the next day, when the Council was to meet. Disillusioned by my recent experiences, I felt quite tense when the Ambassador entered. Poland was an ally of France - what kind of a message would I have to take?
Contacts among diplomats in Geneva were in those days rather informal, except for the Great Powers, whose Ambassadors erected ramparts of prestige around themselves. The representative of a small power was usually asked to visit the Ambassador who wished to make a communication to him. Colonel Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland was quite anxious to have his country accepted as a great power. I appreciated so much more the Polish Ambassador's visit to my hotel.
I remember with some nostalgia the diplomats of Count Raczynski's type. They outshone the rest of society not only with their talent, but even more so with their grace. Their manners probably originated in Versailles and had been transplanted to Vienna together with the ornate Baroque art which enlivened the Catholic cultures of Central Europe. Civilized nations used to be polite, before the barbars invaded the international scene. But this style had a special cachet. It was as light as a souffle', yet solid; kind and cynical; frivolous and serious at the same time. It was virile but with a feminine charm.
There was nothing stuffy or hypocritical about the Polish Ambassador, nor did he try to save the world on this occasion. Unreservedly, he entered the fight in Geneva in the defense of a decent cause. Poland did have in Geneva, as her permanent delegate, the learned Mr. Komarnicki, who did useful work mostly in the committees. Marshal Filsudski wished to lend now more political weight to the Polish position, and had sent Count Raczynski to Geneva. I was delighted to hear from him that the Marshal had personally instructed him not to allow Hungary to be humiliated. I asked the Ambassador if he would
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kindly explain "how this instruction would apply in the present conflict?"
"The demand of Yugoslavia for punishment of the criminals is justified," he said without hesitation. "We are friends of Yugoslavia and, after all, their King has been killed. Poland will stand by Yugoslavia in this respect. The intention of the Little Entente, however to humiliate Hungary is a fraud which I will not tolerate. Particularly, any time that Benes opens his mouth, I will slap him down!"
Hardly able to retain my composure, I interjected: "May I consider this, Mr. Ambassador, as an official statement of the Polish Government?"-"Yes, you may." - "May I report this conversation to my Government?"-"Please do. This is the reason I came to see you! " - From unexpected quarters Hungary received the most appreciated help. Unquestionably, part of the merit belonged to Prime Minister Gombos for having strengthened, during his visit in Warsaw, the sympathies of Marshal Pilsudski for Hungary. On the other hand, the sly Mr. Benes had also played his part in alienating Poland from Czechoslovakia. His present role of a prosecutor did not fit him well, for he was the sponsor of the Leftist Ukrainian movement held responsible for the murder of the Polish Minister of the Interior, Pieracki. Yet, with butter on his head, Benes chose to stand in the sun.
The sincerity of a government's policy may be judged generally by the attitude of its press. My fine impression of the Polish stand was strengthened by a review of the Polish papers, for they followed the same line as did Raczynski. The Express Poranny (December 4) wrote about the justified reaction of Yugoslavia, "in contrast to some governments" which wish to exploit now the abominable Marseille affair for their own political purposes. It is contrary to sound morale - concluded the paper - that political bills of this sort, not connected with the Marseille tragedy, be presented to the Hungarian nation.
Marshal Pilsudski's stand by Hungary's rightful cause was one of his last acts before he died (in early 1935). I was - and still feel - happy about this experience. The Marshal did not cultivate self-aggrandizement by demagoguery or by costly public relations, so the Western world knows little about his accomplishments. Yet, his stature will grow in European history until he may outshine all the
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contemporary leaders as the greatest, maybe the only great statesman of the
Continent in his time.
For enlightened critics will judge political leaders by their lasting achievements and not by the slogans which they may have coined with temporary success. Pilsudski had achieved the impossible: he had liberated and reunited Poland as a free country, after having been partitioned among three mighty Empires for one and a half centuries. He led his gifted, but pugnacious people from the ravages of a World War to peace and consolidation; he gave them a democratic constitution with as much personal freedom as was compatible with the nation's good order under existing circumstances. As long as he lived, he successfully defended reunited Poland against her overwhelmingly stronger neighbors, the two ruthless totalitarian dictatorships: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, in whose shadow Poland had to live.
Pilsudski also had foreseen correctly the mortal peril which Hitler's advent to power would create, and was prepared to prevent it, even with desperate means. In May, 1932, while in London, I learned that Pilsudski had reactivated his semi-secret military forces and was concentrating them around Danzig to provoke a showdown with Germany, before Hitler could get to the helm. My good friend, G. Ward Price, a foreign correspondent of the Daily Mail, had already joined the Polish irregulars splashing through slush and fog toward that Baltic port, when Tardieu, the French Prime Minister and his Conservative bloc, favorable to this Polish scheme, were defeated at the elections. It was Edouard Herriot, the victorious leader of the Radicals, who had to decide for France what attitude to assume now, concerning a preventive war by well-equipped Polish troops against revengeful but as yet unprepared Germans.
Since 1924, Herriot had been the most influential promoter of a French-Soviet alliance. In 1931, while Laval, as Prime Minister, was preparing the Treaty of Non-Aggression with the Soviets (signed in 1932), he had nothing but praise for Russia's "progress" and her military achievements. He shrugged off the subversive activities of the Third International as "unimportant" and refused to notice the tyranny which the Soviets represent. Having won the election in 1932, Herriot denounced in a vehement speech the outgoing French Cabinet of Tardieu as "adventurers" who would have plunged France over a precipice. The Polish irregulars had to be disbanded and within two
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years, Hitler started his massive rearmament. Did Herriot remember this in Vichy, in 1940, when he proclaimed, as President of the Chamber, the capitulation of his country to the Nazis? Did be realize how a few skirmishes on the Baltic coast might have prevented the devastating second World War, had he, Edouard Herriot, had the vision of the impending tragedy and the intestinal fortitude of Pilsudski to accept full responsibility for a bold move which only few would understand and many deplore?
The tempestuous fate of his nation had hammered Pilsudski, the resolute aristocrat, a descendant of Lithuanian princes, into unbreakable steel. Fanatic masses were needed to liberate Poland from under Tsarism; so, still a young man, Pilsudski decided to organize the Polish Socialist Party. Under the watchful eyes of the Russian Ochrana, he published the Robotnik, a secret newspaper, which he edited, printed and distributed himself, in order to prepare the Polish masses with his courage and good humor for the coming struggle. Fearlessness made of him the idol of the working classes, but also caused his exile to Siberia, his imprisonment by the Russians in the dreaded Tenth Pavilion of Warsaw and his confinement in a German jail during the World War.
With Poland liberated, reunited, and the invading Soviets defeated, Pilsudski hoped that his task was completed. Modestly, he retired in 1923 to his country home, but was forced to retake power in his own hands in 1926, exactly as happened later, in France, to DeGaulle, because of the Parliament's incompetence. Pilsudski's vigorous abuse of the Sejm (the Parliament) was not resented by the proud Polish people, so great was their respect for him, and - they also felt - that his criticism was deserved. Up to his death, he maintained progress, decency and a balance between freedom and order. In his last years, be tried to improve the endangered security of his homeland by pacts of non-aggression, first with the Soviets (1932), then, in January 1934, with Germany. He was adversely criticized in the West, by complacent, yet sanctimonious political factors, for his Pact of Non-aggression with Hitler which, although in the long run inoperative, evidenced his keen sense of reality. Before signing the Pact, Pilsudski had informed Regent Horthy of Hungary that he could not continue to stand alone against Hitler. He had to seek a guarantee - he confided - of Polish independence now, before Germany was rearmed, for thereafter no
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improvement of the Polish position could be obtained from the Nazis. His great passion, Poland, has been trampled by her enemies and abandoned by her Allies. Yet, with deep lines furrowed by conscience and exertion across his noble features, Marshal Joseph Pilsudski's lonely figure still looms tall across the dense fog which has descended upon the troubled land of the Poles, as the timeless symbol of "The Patriot," the only thing which he wanted to be.
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Part IV
THE SHOWDOWN
"Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."
Shakespeare, Henry VI
CONFRONTATION IN GENEVA
The 83rd Session of the League of Nations' Council, which was to deal with the Yugoslav accusation against Hungary, convened in Geneva on December 4, 1934. In the building of the Disarmament Conference, where we were to meet, strict security measures had been taken "because of the nature and importance of the debates."1 The Council started its work in a private meeting held at the request of Mr. Benes, who wished to make a declaration. Punctuality, observed by monarchs as a mark of politeness, was not binding to Mr. Litvinov. The Chief Delegate of the Soviets delayed the opening of the meeting by his late arrival.
The matter Mr. Benes brought up was "a personal question." Benes was hurt; he expected to be the star performer of the drama staged in Geneva by the three Powers of the Little Entente. He had been degraded, more by his own mistake than by my action, from President of the Council to the role of a stand-in for the Yugoslav Delegate. He tried (but failed) to build up his personal annoyance into an international incident. He complained that in the annals of the League of Nations there was no precedent for any such intervention as mine. He would give me no answer, for the only judge of his conduct was his own conscience. Unable, however, to raise a storm, Benes retraced his steps in the end and declared that in the spirit of international courtesy he asked to be replaced as the President of the Council, while the Yugoslav request was being discussed. No one dissented, and Mr. Benes was dropped from the Presidency. A soothing pill to appease Benes' hurt vanity was administered by his patron, Mr. Laval, who paid tribute to the ability of Benes "who knows the traditions of the League of Nations better than any other person." To this compliment Litvinov associated himself. For his many services to the Soviets, this small gratuity was well deserved by Benes.
He, inadvertently, had done me a real favor by calling attention in so conspicuous a manner to his disqualification. Hard-pressed, I wished to demonstrate that I would not be intimidated by Benes or any other Mogul in the League. I had to avoid being forced into the
1 Journal de Geneve, 7 December, 1934.
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unenviable role of a defendant. I became a litigant, in the same position as Mr. Benes. By clever manoeuvering, the Secretariat had kept my objection to his Presidency well away from publicity. With a bang, Mr. Benes called attention to it! Newspapers the next day concluded that I would not become a pushover for the Little Entente. This was exactly the impression I wished to create, in order to restrain attempts at the humiliation of Hungary.
So without further delay, the Yugoslav complaint against Hungary was placed on the agenda of the Council. The Portuguese Ambassador, Mr. de Vasconcellos, whose impartiality was above all doubt, was to preside over these meetings. I was perfectly satisfied: an urgent and objective examination of the dispute was assured, and the smear campaign against Hungary could not be continued indefinitely. Agreement was also reached to elect Mr. Eden at the proper time as the reporter of the Marseille affair. He tactfully participated thereafter in the private conversations among the Powers represented on the Council. The permanent Council of the Little Entente also held a meeting to coordinate the tactics they would follow.
Since Article XI of the Covenant, which the Yugoslavs had invoked, demanded unanimity for the settlement of disputes, Hungary could not be humiliated unless I gave it my consent. The Covenant also provided that member nations would not go to war before submitting their disputes to arbitration and only after a delay of 3 to 9 months. Whatever turn the discussion in the Council took, no immediate damage would result from it. Yet, a dangerous conflict was brewing; not in Geneva, but on the Yugoslav border, and the League might soon become embroiled in it. With the threat of unleashing the unruly Serbian forces, Hungary might be blackmailed into submission, or she would have to face invasion by Serbian raiders. Their plans seemed to have been synchronized with the proceedings in the League. The climax in the conflict between the Little Entente and Hungary was now quite near.
News received on the evening of December 4, and confirmed at midnight in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Gombos, left no doubt that irregular Serbian troops (the so-called "Chetniks") had been mobilized; they were moving north in force, toward the Hungarian border. Composed mainly of Serbian war veterans, they had been settled, as a reward for bravery, on the rich soil of the Banat,
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a former Hungarian province. These fierce fighters lived off the land; they did little work, but were ready to rise and strike any moment against any internal or external enemy of the Serbs. It was General Zhifkovitch whose orders the Chetniks followed, and the General was out now for a coup to grab supreme power in Yugoslavia. In 1929, he became Prime Minister when King Alexander suspended the Yugoslav Constitution, dissolved Parliament, and disbanded the Croat and all other political parties, thus establishing his royal dictatorship. Armed clashes provoked on the Hungarian border by the Chetniks could force the shaky Belgrade Government to resign. The invasion of Hungary would be the first step in the General's plan. It would rally around him the patriotic Serbian elements and enable him to establish his military dictatorship. Then he would proceed to destroy all Croat and other national resistance against pan-Serbian domination.
It was fortunate that by this time I had obtained all the factual information on the handling of the Croat refugees by the Hungarian authorities, including those who had been residing in Jankapuszta. Joseph Sombor, the always correct Head of the Political Section of the Budapest Police and Colonel Gustave Hennyey, the reliable Chief of Hungarian Counterintelligence, with whom I could work on most friendly terms, had arrived in Geneva under strict orders of the Prime Minister to lay all their cards on the table - face up. I again obtained irrefutable evidence that Jankapuszta had been a private farm where the Croat refugees had been working as farmhands. No collusion had existed between them and any Hungarian authority. Much against their desire these Croats had been evacuated - some of them ejected - from Jankapuszta following orders of the Hungarian Government. I aLso learned that some Croats were given Hungarian passports by the Budapest Police to enable them to leave Hungary, otherwise they would have had to remain. Mr. de Kanya, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had insisted in June on their leaving the country without delay. The Hungarian high officials, who had arrived in good time, were trustworthy beyond all doubt; much relieved, I passed on to the press all the information just received, and also prepared an additional memorandum for the Council.
I also obtained valuable confirmation of the correctness of my stand from the camp of our opponents. Madame Tabouis, a prominent French journalist, felt bitterly frustrated by the handling of the
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Marseille regicide in the League; not so much because of the false accusation raised against Hungary but because of the clean bill of health which was being granted to Mussolini. As a niece of the famous Ambassador Cambon, she had top level contacts in the French Foreign Office. At tea one afternoon, we reminisced about the French "Immortals": Emile Faguet and Gustave LeBon. I had the good fortune of having been their student at the Sorbonne; she, on the other hand, extolled the merits of Mr. Barthou, another Immortal, held by Madame Tabouis in highest esteem. Unexpectedly, her lively expression stiffened; she was to tell me a secret. She had, she whispered, studied the depositions of the criminals arrested in France for the Marseille murder, among them the testimonies of those who had stayed for a while in Hungary. Each of them had stated that while in Hungary he had known nothing of the murder plot against the King and that he had become implicated in the crime only after he had left Hungary. And with a frown she added: "Must you be that loyal to Italy?" She would have loved to see Mussolini discredited in order to facilitate a French-Russian alliance, in which she had believed since her childhood.
On December 5, the Council completed its tedious negotiations on the Saar without dealing with the Marseille affair. It was a welcome occasion for feting Aloisi, the Italian Chairman of the Council's Subcommittee on the Saar, by all who wished to draw Fascist Italy into closer cooperation with France. To eulogize each other had become, among the Delegates, a standard procedure; so Mr. Laval recited in a monotone Ambassador Aloisi's praise in neatly polished sentences, followed by a moderate acclaim on the part of Mr. Eden. Then, inescapably, and hanging onto the coattails of these two Great Powers, Mr. Benes took his turn to throw bouquets effusively at the celebrated diplomat, and flowers - lots of flowers - at almost everybody present, to arrive finally at the glorification of the League and its work for the maintenance of peace in which he, Mr. Benes, participated so wholeheartedly. For many years, Benes was inexhaustible in his efforts at extolling the perfect and immutable European order. This went on until 1938, when at Munich he was harshly interrupted. But he resumed his cheerful routine during the war, in the wake of the invading Soviet Army. Yet, he never achieved in Moscow the eminence he had enjoyed in Geneva. The cult of personality had been
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developed in the Soviets almost to perfection. With Khrushchev as one of the cheer leaders in Stalin's time, poor Mr. Benes became expendable.
While Laval and Mussolini were exchanging personal telegrams of congratulation in connection with the happy end of the Saar contest, tragic events were further developing on the Hungarian-Yugoslav border. There was alarming news in the British press, and the BBC also reported (on December 6) sinister facts about the brutal expulsion of Hungarians. The Chetniks had reached the Hungarian frontier and their demeanor was provocative. There were unconfirmed reports that in the vicinity of Szeged they had crossed into Hungarian territory. An official Yugoslav communique falsely stated that Hungary was ejecting the Yugoslavs. Obviously, this was an attempt to envenom relations and to incite the Serbs to further acts of enmity. Retaliation on Hungary's part would have been the biggest blunder, for Western public opinion was reacting unfavorably to the persecution of Hungarians by the Yugoslavs, and repayment in kind would have cost Hungary much of the sympathy which had been gained, particularly in England.
On December 6, I had a most satisfactory telephone conversation with Prime Minister Gombos. We agreed that whatever provocations the Chetniks or the Yugoslav border guards should commit, there would be no retaliation on Hungary's part. To avoid possible incidents in the tense situation, the Prime Minister ordered the Hungarian border guards withdrawn three miles from the Yugoslav frontier, and he requested the military attaches of the foreign powers in Budapest to visit the frontier and verify the measures taken by Hungary. On December 7, the New York Times published a first page report under the headline: "Contingent of Yugoslav Army challenges frontier force-clash barely averted." On that day, as Mr. Laval later admitted, we had drifted to the brink of war.
The New York Times began to show a lively interest in the expulsion of the Hungarians. It reported that in the frontier town of Szeged 1,308 expellees were being cared for, some of them blind, and that seventy-four among them had to be hospitalized. Some had lived thirty to forty years in Yugoslavia and many had to flee afoot. A Yugoslav Government statement announced that 2,717 Hungarians "had been asked to leave," and that another 2,700 Hungarians who
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had not forsworn their allegiance to Hungary were to be expelled. A few hundred Swabians (Germans), disliked by the Serbs, were also unceremoniously ejected into Hungary - a rather curious procedure. I dutifully transmitted all the news to the British, to the Italians, and to several other delegations. Some annoyance was noticeable among the British at the Yugoslav provocations, which they understood as being inspired by General Zhifkovitch and his clique. Mr. Eden was said to be quite anxious to bolster against the General the position of the Yugoslav Government in power. My work in the League of Nations appeared to me now more complicated than ever, for I would have to refrain from weakening the position of our opponent, the present Vugoslav Government, since this might help a more venturesome Serb group in Belgrade in its drive for power. It was rumored in the Secretariat that Mr. Eden was in frequent contact with Prince Paul, seeking to lessen the dangerous tension.
On the eve before Hungary's confrontation with Yugoslavia in the Council (on December 7), Mr. Kalman de Kanya, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, arrived in Geneva. In the coming crucial days, I would benefit from the wise advice of this outstanding diplomat who combined the best traditions of the Viennese school with wide experience and a keen judgment. Mr. Eden remembers de Kanya as "a polished Ballhausplatz diplomatist smooth and missing no tricks."2 I may add that he was entirely dedicated to the cause which he served. Self-reliant and dignified, he inspired respect for himself and for his views, but never publicized any of his successes. Persecuted by the Nazis whom he loathed, he was cared for in his last hours by my daughter in the winter, 1945, during the siege of Budapest. God Rest His Soul.
On December 7, in an atmosphere of great debates, and with the gallery packed, Mr. Yeftitch unemotionally read to the Council his lengthy declaration. He was firm in demanding the repression of terrorist activities, but he also showed a desire to be moderate. He only accused "authorities in Hungary" directly, and not the Hungarian Government as he had done in his memorandum. His role was very delicate: he suffered from being prevented from naming those whom he held responsible for the murder of his King, yet he had to satisfy somehow his people's rightful demand for justice and retribution without
2 Facing the Dictators, p. 129.
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inciting them to violent action against Hungary, as planned by General Zhifkovitch. Watching Yeftitch - a simple, unattractive man averse to dramatizing his case - I thought more highly of him, for among the Little Entente hypocrites he tried his best to remain decent.
Mr. Yeftitch condensed in nine points the same charges he had raised in his memorandum of November 28, but he now put increased emphasis on Yugoslav political unity, against which the terrorist actions were directed. He did not object to broadening the present discussion "in order that an international convention might be arrived at" to counteract terrorist activities. This was a constructive suggestion Mr. Eden and Laval had discussed with him. Finally, he called the Council's attention to the dangers which threaten peace and good understanding among nations should terrorism remain unpunished. The moment Yeftitch had finished, first Mr. Benes, then Mr. Titulescu rose to declare that their respective countries associated themselves entirely with Yugoslavia's complaint.
Mr. Clarence K. Streit, in his report from Geneva,3 noticed a few omissions in Yeftitch's declaration. He had mentioned by name all the terrorists in the band which went to France for the assassination, but not the leaders who had escaped to Italy. Mr. Streit also reported that "the Yugoslavs privately make no secret that their real quarrel is with Italy, just as the Hungarians make no secret that theirs is with Czechoslovakia." Mr. Yeftitch had also remained silent regarding the Hungarian expellees. During these last days, several papers had sent their correspondents to Hungary; the expulsion of Hungarians, in contravention of their minority rights guaranteed in the Peace Treaty, could not be denied any longer. In fact, the reports told about a worsening of the situation in the border area. The New York Times reported (December 8), from Roszke,4 that the Chetniks had penetrated, at night, one third of a mile deep into Hungarian territory. With the Hungarian border guards withdrawn, it was the peasants armed with scythes who drove them back across the border. News also leaked out from Yugoslavia about the homes of the expellees having been looted upon their departure. All these abuses were reported in great detail; Mr. Yeftitch could not risk a denial.
The Yugoslavs did not fit too well into this atmosphere of make
3 New York Times, December 8, 1934.
4 A Hungarian village near the Yugoslav border.
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believe in Geneva. They are like children; they show themselves such as they were created, with admirable qualities and unconcealed defects. They cultivate truth undiluted by hypocrisy. Their hatreds are violent and their friendships enduring. In Admiral Horthy's evaluation, they make the best sailors in the world, so when at the end of the World War the Austro-Hungarian fleet was ordered to surrender to the Allies, he chose the Yugoslavs to be the masters of his small but glorious fleet. All this was in my mind, when I rose in the Council to counter the expose of Yeftitch. I had to be firm in rejecting his unfounded accusations, but I did not want to hurt him or his people. I rightly hoped that the good work we had started the previous summer would, after a while, be resumed.
For some forty minutes I spoke freely, for I like to watch my audience while I address them. I expressed the sincere indignation of the Hungarian Government and of the people at the Marseille act of terrorism. Then, in logical sequence, I protested against the acts of terrorism carried out during recent days against the Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia. "The expulsions seem to be carried out systematically. The victims are being gathered from village to village and from city to city. No exception is made for the sick, the young and the aged. Emphatically I declared: "I reserve the right to submit to the Council on the basis of the Covenant the circumstances of the highest interest which I have just mentioned." This appeal was directed against the action of General Zhifkovitch, not against Yeftitch-and members of the Council were aware of it.
I certainly was no longer a defendant; I had raised a counter-charge, and went on to tear up the Yugoslav charges. There was no evidence to support them, and the entire action of the Little Entente was nothing more than an attempt to soil Hungary's moral integrity by accusing her of complicity in the regicide. I announced that I would submit the next day an additional memorandum to the Secretariat of the League. One by one, I refuted the unfounded Yugoslav accusations and summed up my rebuttal in a precise statement, quoted the next day in several papers:
"The criminal act of Marseille has not been prepared in Hungary; the King's assassin has never stayed in Hungary. No preparatory act was committed, even by an accessory to the crime, on Hungarian
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territory. The concept of the crime, as well as its execution, was the work of a society existing in Yugoslavia.
"King Alexander was condemned to death in a resolution by Croat refugees who do not reside in Hungary. This organization has charged the 'Ustashis' with carrying out their decision. Hungary is not the Country where the crime was conceived, prepared or executed.
"And therefore, Hungary does not share in any responsibility in Connection with the Marseille Regicide."
I now turned on Mr. Benes. The nine points in Mr. Yeftitch's expose were supported by only two witnesses, and the testimony of both of them was supplied by Mr. Benes. One of them, a Slovak, named Vinco Mihalus, was a notorious extortionist; he testified that the Hungarian National League had been plotting against Hungary's neighbors, and he also named me among the plotters. A year previously, the same Vinco Mihalus had fabricated a pamphlet accusing Mr. Benes of similar misdeeds directed against Hungary. So I called Mr. Benes' attention to his duty to defend himself first against Mr. Mihalus, and stated that only thereafter would I take notice of this witness.
The other witness, whose testimony was produced by a Czeclioslovak source, was Jelka Pogorelec, a Croat woman with a dubious reputation who had lived in 1933 (one year before the Marseille regicide) among the Ustashis in Jankapuszta, where she gave birth to an illegitimate child. Frustrated by her lovers, she offered her services to Belgrade and was hired as a spy by Yugoslav Intelligence.5 She related gruesome stories about her experience with the Ustashis in Jankapuszta and testified that the Hungarian local authorities were involved in their shady affairs, but she could not mention anyone of them by name. So, quite pointedly, I asked Mr. Benes to tell the Council whether the testimony of two such witnesses would entitle him to besmirch the honor of an entire nation? In the debate thereafter, the names of these witnesses were never again mentioned.
There still remained the political assault against Hungary, led by Laval and Benes, to discredit her revisionist policy. This also had to be repulsed. It is a defamation, I stated, if revisionism is identified with terrorism, as had been attempted by the Little Entente. "The Marseille murder has nothing to do with revisionism, for it is a symptom of revolutionary bitterness created by the Yugoslav regime." The
5 Milichevitch, pp. 41-43
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absurdity of the allegation that Hungary participated in the Marseille murder plot because she desired the restoration of Croatia to Hungary is obvious, for "Hungarian revisionism has never included the land of the Croats among its aspirations. The contrary is true. It is her policy of revisionism which has enabled Hungary to prevent all irredentist adventures; for it is a policy which gives hope that desired changes can be achieved by peaceful means. Revisionism is a peace policy. It is based on the Covenant of the League of Nations and on international collaboration. Thanks to this policy, Hungary can afford to wait for better times to come."
On this first day of the debate, I stood alone against the three Little Entente powers, as well as the Balkan Entente, of which Yugoslavia was a member. Tevfik Rouchdy bey, the Foreign Minister of Turkey, also rose to support the Yugoslav position, which he did with his customary shrewdness. He expressed his confidence that "the Hungarian Government would severely punish the Hungarian authorities implicated," that each other government would also punish any of its implicated nationals, and that all the nations would conclude an anti-terrorism convention. Rouchdy bey thus filed off all the edges of the Yugoslav memorandum and limited his comments to the criminal case. Mr. Titulescu asked the Chairman to continue the debate into the foflowing week, and it was then up to Mr. Benes to give a preliminary tongue-lashing to Hungary. He stated that Czechoslovakia felt that she also was being directly threatened, for plots brewed "on the northern Hungarian frontier" were directed against Czechoslovakia. Taking the occasion to fight attempts at treaty revision, he warned that there would be a "catastrophe" if anyone tried to test the territorial integrity of the Little Entente. The Associated Press reported on the debate (December 7): "Dr. Benes did not hesitate to use the word 'war' several times as he lashed out at present and prospective enemies of the Little Entente." Four years later, sabre-rattling Mr. Benes was offered the occasion to defend his country's territorial integrity. It was not disarmed Hungary but rearmed Nazi Germany which he had to face. Cautiously, be chose surrender.
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THE DAY OF THE GREAT POWERS
The second day of the Council debate on the Marseille regicide (December 8) took place in perfect calm, and brought little satisfaction to the Little Entente. They even found Laval's speech to be somewhat weak in its conclusions. He opened the discussion by firmly announcing: "France in this grave debate is on Yugoslavia's side." Then, addressing Mr. Yeftitch, who was brooding at the end of the oval table over disturbing news from Belgrade, Laval paid tribute to Yugoslavia's composure: "By the calm she has not broken and must not break, Yugoslavia has proved her strength and unity." This, of course, was an admonition for the future, and thereafter Laval restated some of the Yugoslav accusations against Hungary less bluntly, but more deceptively, than Yeftitch had done. "Agents have departed from Hungarian territory," he said, "who went to commit crimes in Yugoslavia and even on French soil." Word for word, this was true, but was Hungary responsible for the crimes of agents acting under foreign orders? According to Laval, Hungary was implicated, for "Hungarian authorities had given Hungarian passports to terrorists who were Yugoslav citizens and have thereby facilitated their criminal activities." (Due to "Uncle Chocho's" frivolity, this was the only questionable fact in the Hungarian position. If the granting of Hungarian passports to some Croat refugees had been publicly revealed by us at the proper time during the Hungarian police investigation, present accusations and suspicions could have been avoided by simply telling the truth: that a minor violation had been committed in complete good faith.)
It was a matter of routine for Mr. Laval, the well versed advocate, to exploit this error. He accepted my frank account on the passports made on the previous day in the Council: "Mr. de Eckhardt has told us that legally these passports could not be obtained; he did not pretend that they were false or that they had been falsified: he has thereby admitted that Hungary has the duty to establish the responsibilities for it." The facts in this statement, and its logic, could not be disputed.
Having scored on this point, Laval turned his attention toward revisionism, the "bete noire" of the French-Little Entente combine. He reiterated forcefully the declaration he had made a few days before
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in the French Chamber: "Whoever wills to change a frontier post is troubling the peace of Europe." He gave notice that it would be an important and delicate task of the Council to see to it that the principle embodied in Article X of the Covenant be upheld, which made it the duty of every member to respect and maintain the territorial integrity and political independence of all the other members. He did not mention the equally valid Article XIX of the Covenant, which provided for the possibility of peaceful revision of the Treaties.
This omission, of course, had been carefully calculated. Under the label of "political crimes," Mr. Laval was jumbling together terrorism and revisionism, and asked that both be repressed. He insisted: "A new international regulation has to be provided. Effective repression of political crimes must be assured on the international level. France reserves the right for herself to submit in this respect . . . concrete proposals to the Council." The convention he intended to propose, Laval assured the Council, would not interfere with the right of asylum. This I accepted, but I also suspected that his convention would knock out Article XIX, one of the two pillars on which the League was established. Meanwhile, taval advised the interested governments to ferret out and punish the accomplices to the Marseille regicide; it was particularly the Hungarian Government - he told which would have to reopen its investigation in order to assure just and effective reprisals.
The tone of Laval's speech was firm, his methods oblique, but as far as the Marseille affair was concerned, the content of his speech was moderate. The New York Times (December 9) recognized that asking Hungary merely to resume the investigation of some of her officials' conduct "was much less than the moral condemnation of Hungary," demanded as a minimum by the Little Entente. Laval had started to work in favor of a peaceful solution. But the time had not yet come for me to make a move in that direction. Blackmailing by the Little Entente through various pressures in the Hungarian border zone still continued; the expulsion of Hungarians, though their number had fallen much lower in the last twenty-four hours, had not yet been stopped, and the Yugoslav orders to this effect had not been rescinded. I informed the press that I might have to appeal to the League if the frontier situation became worse. I explained that Hungary was con
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templating an appeal eventually under the very serious Article XV of the Covenant applying to disputes "likely to lead to a rupture."
There was nothing devious in the very direct speech of the Italian Ambassador, Baron Aloisi, who spoke after Mr. Laval. Clarence K. Streit reported that he "devoted fifty of his one thousand words to the praise of King Alexander as deserving of 'the esteem of peoples' and almost all the rest to support of Hungary's arguments or position. He expressed sympathy for the injury to her honor that Hungary had suffered from the accusations; but. . . he expressed none for the blow Yugoslavia had suffered."1 In open contradiction to Mr. Laval's thesis that revisionism was an intolerable political crime, the Italian Ambassador stressed Hungary's affirmation of the essentially pacific character of her revisionism. He also expressed the Italian view that "the treaties should be adapted to new exigencies, for that means guaranteeing the preservation of peace." He stressed that Italy had always held that revision must come "through legal forms." For him revisionism was "the rejection of terrorism."
Yeftitch, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, became quite incensed with Aloisi's statements. In his report Mr. Streit disclosed2 that Yeftitch had privately "intimated that he could no longer accept the conciliatory solution contemplated yesterday because of the open approval of revisionism by Aloisi of Italy and his conspicuous failure to say anything regarding Yugoslav unity - let alone public recognition to Yugoslav integrity, which Yugoslavia insists France must obtain from Rome as part of any Franco-Italian rapprochement."
Having listened to the divergent views of the Representatives of France and Italy) Mr. Eden's comments were expected in the Council with heightened interest. Tactfully, the future rapporteur of the Yugoslav complaint refrained from expressing his views on revisionism and also warned others against embittering the debate with extraneous issues. After paying tribute to the two victims of the Marseille crime, Captain Eden confessed that he would find it very hard to form an opinion concerning the responsibilities outlined in the Yugoslav complaint, since the investigation in France had not yet been terminated. "We may consider ourselves lucky to have under present circumstances a forum in the League of Nations where events of this kind may be
1 New York Times, Decernber 9, 1934.
2 lbid.
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examined calmly." Alluding unmistakably to the expulsion of Hungarians from Yugoslavia, he then warned: "I do not conceal from the Council that certain of the reports which I have recently received give cause for anxiety. There is a heavy responsibility upon all of us at this Council table not to allow local conditions to deteriorate while we are seeking here to secure a solution." Mr. Eden emphasized that the right of asylum was dear to every Englishman's heart and that in her long experience Britain had found that this right was rarely abused when coupled with true personal liberty. But Britain does not tolerate acts of violence being prepared on her soil. He finally asked for moderation on all sides to facilitate the task of the League by limiting the extension of the conflict.
Eden's dignified speech, however, did nothing to calm the Little Entente's excitement, caused by Baron Aloisi. They found Mr. Eden to be so cold toward Yugoslavia that they could not accept him for the rapporteur on a dispute where they expected total victory. Unquestionably, the Serbs had harmed their own cause by the abuses committed against their Hungarian minority. Doubts were also raised among members of the French Delegation about Mr. Laval's going to Rome in the near future. My reaction, of course, was very different: I felt grateful to Mr. Eden for having warned the Yugoslavs against endangering the situation on the Hungarian border. No major evil was threatening Hungary now in Geneva; but unless the Great Powers restrained them, the Serbs might start serious mischief on the Danube.
In describing the attitude of the Great Powers regarding the Marseille murders, I must devote some space to the Soviets, not because Maxim Litvinov, their Commissar for Foreign Affairs, delivered a strange speech on this second day of our discussions in the Council, but more important - to call attention to the astounding gullibility and complacency of the Western Great Powers in Europe who sought the alliance of the Soviets, in times of peace, as a guarantee of their security and well-being.
In mid-September, 1934, the admission of the Soviets to the League of Nations caused considerable uneasiness among the delegations in Geneva. This was not due to any doubt concerning the result of the coming vote, but because of maneuvers and intrigues aimed at transforming a routine procedure, the entrance of the Soviets, into some sort of celebration. Anxious to win the favors of the Slav big brother,
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it was particularly Mr. Benes who was busying himself with such scheme - and very soon, not to he outsmarted by his nimble colleague - Mr. Titulescu joined enthusiastically in his strategem
Since 1927, the Soviets had been participating in various activities sponsored by the League of Nations, notably the Disarmament and certain economic conferences Their entrance into the League was greatly facilitated by Hitler's exit in 1933, which led to the Soviets' political rapprochement with France and their economic cooperation with Britain, marked in 1934 by a new trade treaty. Thirty years ago, the Soviets were sabotaging armament control exactly as they have been doing it in recent years. But they impressed naive Western souls, for a while, with their deceptive, peaceful disposition. Scared by the rise of Hitler, the Soviets had coined a new catchword: "Cooperation in the interest of peace" with the capitalist countries. They had withdrawn into a defensive posture and were seemingly on their good behavior, for in the Far East they also were having trouble with the Japanese. Hard pressed, they still won a major victory in subversion with their new propaganda slogan. They popularized the idea of cooperation with the Communists and maneuvered the allied French people into acceptance of a "Popular Front" government (1936) spiked with fellow-travellers who brought in their wake decay, humiliation, and the surrender of France. This pattern of a coalition government based on all the democratic political parties, including the Communist-accepted at the Moscow Conference (in October 1943) by Britain and the United State - was applied in 1945 to the liberated countries in Europe. It caused the loss of half the Continent by the West and, for years, the decay of the remainder of Europe.
By September, 1934, all the Great Powers in the League had agreed to accept the Soviets as a new member. The British Government, in agreement with Paris and Rome, had undertaken to promote their admission. Mussolini intervened with the Hungarian Government in this sense. In 1924, I had prevented the establishment of diplomatic relations between Hungary and the Soviets by quoting in Parliament passages from a British Red Cross report (1919) on the mass murders committed by the Bolsheviks in Leningrad. I never changed my views of the Soviets, so when their admission was put to a vote, I walked out of the Assembly. An official of the Hungarian Delegation then
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carried out the Hungarian Government's instruction to vote for their acceptance.
There were, however, nations, such as Switzerland, Argentina, Ireland, Portugal, etc., which were beyond the reach of Soviet power and could afford to disregard the Russians' displeasure. On various occasions they gave expression to their moral scruples and, on September 18, they voted against acceptance of the Soviets. A delegation from Soviet oppressed Georgia had previously arrived in Geneva; they distributed reports and documents on Soviet crimes committed in their country and argued that the Soviets were not qualified to be accepted as a member of the League. It was the League's 6th Committee which would have had to clarify the situation, but the Soviets refused to answer any charges, although supported by the Ukraine, Azerbaidjan, Armenia, White Russia and Turkestan. In the midst of all this turmoil, I saw Mr. Litvinov arrive in Geneva. Entering the lobby of his hotel, he sighted there the entire Georgian Delegation. As if bitten by a viper, he and his bodyguards turned around hastily and left the hotel and even Geneva! For three days they could not be found anywhere in Switzerland. There must have been some truth in those Georgian charges. The Journal de Geneve (September 10) tersely remarked that the requirement of universality in the League should only be satisfied when it left intact "the principle of justice and honor" which must prevail over universality. I wonder whether the United Nations would not be better off today had they used this decent yardstick while admitting new members from behind the Iron Curtain?
According to the alphabet, Hungary is a neighbor of Ireland, so sitting next to Mr. Eamon de Valera in the Assembly of the League, I listened with sympathy to his honest views, which he expressed with much clarity. I feel indebted to him for a book he gave me, written by Arthur Griffith, the hero of Irish independence, who was inspired - as Mr. de Valera related - by the example of the Hungarian, Louis Kossuth, who dared to challenge two Empires: the Austrian and the Russian; whereas, Ireland had to fight against only one Empire: the British. On the Soviet issue, de Valera's speech greatly relieved my conscience, for he said much of what I could not voice, (September 12, 1934), that the days were gone when freedom of religion could be denied by a government. His political and religious ideals represented
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the opposite of the Communist teachings, he continued, yet he would vote for admission of the Soviets, since this was a League of Nations and the Russians were one of the largest nations on earth. But he wanted to bring the Soviets into the League so that they might learn to respect human rights and to induce them to extend to all the nations the guarantees against subversion which they gave to the United States when diplomatic relations between them were established. And, certainly, he stated, the admission of the Soviets was no occasion for any celebration; no privileges should be accorded to them; the problem of their membership must be discussed publicly, and the opportunity must be accorded to every member to vote against their admission.
This plain talk decided the issue. Mr. Motta, the Swiss Delegate, told the Assembly that the Soviets would have to give some explanations when they joined the League. Their anti-religious propaganda plunged Christianity into tears and compelled us to ask God for justice. Mr. Eden, far from showing enthusiasm, explained that he would vote for the admission of the Soviets because he wished the League of Nations to be as representative as possible. Finally, the Soviets were admitted with only 39 votes. There was no folk-festival, no trace of jubilation when, escorted by the agile Mr. Benes, a Trojan Horse, the Soviet Delegation took their seats in the League that five years later they helped to destroy.
The arrival of Mr. Litvinov in Geneva for the December meeting of the League's Council was accompanied in the Swiss press by outspoken criticism of subversive Soviet practices. The Journal de Geneve veritably unmasked the role which the Communists played in Yugoslav terrorism. On November 22, the paper quoted a speech made one year earlier (in 1933) by Ivan Raitch, representing the Yugoslav Communist Party in the Komintern. He had declared in Moscow, at the Plenary Executive Meeting of the Communist International, that the Yugoslav Communist Party "is aiding the formation of nationalist revolutionary groups. . . . This movement has been producing results already. Such groups have been formed in Croatia and Slovenia and are now being formed in Montenegro also." The Swiss paper then revealed that this revolutionary activity was based on the directives of the Soviet agent, Munzenberg, for the establishment of ties between Muscovite militant Communism and the national autonomist move-
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ments in Europe. I became aware that against the Soviets a real case could be built up by Yugoslavia, whereas against Hungary no governmental complicity in terrorist actions could ever be truthfully established.
By December 8, the day when the Great Powers, the Soviets among them, outlined their positions concerning the Marseille crime in the Council, the tragic consequences of Kirov's murder had become partly known. That morning, under the headline "Litvinov and terrorism," the Journal de Geneve quoted the respected Swiss statesman, Mr. Motta, who had warned in September those delegates who proposed to introduce the Soviets into the League: "You speak of the evolution of the Bolshevik regime - we also hope for it, but we cannot believe in it." Stalin was justifying now Motta's views, said the paper, by having had shot within a week sixty-six persons for Kirov's murder. The paper also recalled the wave of massive terror launched by Djerdjinski when Dora Kaplan wounded Lenin, those 20,000 passers-by who were imprisoned then and exterminated in groups. Uritzki's murder in 1920 had also cost 3,000 lives.
In anticipation of much worse to come, the Swiss paper exclaimed: "There is nothing more cruel than cowardice! And Litvinov will speak today on terrorism! Is he the man who may give to the world a lesson on this subject!" In answer, the article pointed to the criminal past of Litvinov himself: "He was a member of the band which in July, 1907, robbed 250,000 rubles from a Tiflis bank, killing 35 persons. On January 17, 1908, he was arrested by the French police while trying to pass on some of the . . . banknotes. Under the aliases of Delitiariek, Borissuk and Wallach-Meer, he has been a prominent member of a terrorist gang before assuming the role of preaching morality to our forgetful world." These grave accusations have never been refuted, but they were allowed to slip into oblivion. The fiendish skill of the Soviets, promoted by our domestic gravediggers, cajoled our good American people by word and by print, in films and in plays, into embracing the wartime Soviet Ambassador, the "benign" Mr. Litvinov, as a sincere friend. Guests hastening to his receptions in the nation's capital jammed 16th Street during the second World War, while his agents and spies stole the American atomic secrets and stealthily prepared for our undoing.
I wondered that day, sitting at the Council table, what Mr. Litvinov
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would have to say, inasmuch as he had been stripped of all respectability by the Swiss press. He could hardly express his sincere view: his satisfaction with the Marseille crime, which eliminated King Alexander, who had consistently opposed Soviet influence in the Little Entente. Years later, when I visited Belgrade, the Tsarist flag still flew above the Russian Embassy. White Russian officers from Wrangel's counterrevolutionary Army had settled in sizeable numbers in Yugoslavia and rendered that country just as odious to the Soviets as Fascist Italy. The latent conflict between these two of her enemies would be inflamed - I believed - this afternoon by Litvinov. Least of all would he spare the Hungarians, the most determined enemies of Communism, who in 1919 had made a laughing stock of Bela Kun (the Soviet agent) who had set himself up as the Hungarian dictator. Whoever was counted out in Geneva during this conflict, the Soviets could only profit from it.
A vicious attack by Litvinov against any one of these Powers, or even against all three of them, would have seemed quite logical to me. But I was not reared in dialectical Marxism. Sordid recent events in Leningrad and sinister future plans were weighing then - maybe not on his conscience - but certainly on Litvinov's mind. He could not expose himself to counterattack; also, as a newcomer to this august gathering, he wanted to cut a good figure while dealing with a subject so ticklish for the Soviets. Therefore in his opening statement, Litvinov simply brushed off the Yugoslav complaint. He told that the assassination of King Alexander had been made possible "by the complicity of certain unknown authorities of an unknown country." Leaving the door open for a future attack against whichever side he pleased, he then declared that for the time being he would withhold all opinion on the Marseille crime. He did not take sides with any one of the litigants, but he, of all people, delved into the question of terrorism. On the eve of the most horrible Soviet bloodbath, he, the spokesman of Stalin, the terrorist, qualified terrorism "a revolting and dangerous phenomenon." Then, in a professional tone, he gave us a course in the history of international terrorism.
Admitting the undeniable, but keeping open every escape route, he declared that there existed individual terrorism which had been widely practiced in the country he represented. Before the war, he continued, there were in Russia, revolutionary parties which concentrated their
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activities on that type of terrorism, "while another revolutionary party to which I (Litvinov) belonged opposed such procedures." Mixing truth with falsehood, he tried to exonerate himself and the Communist Party. But terrorist action in the past, he went on, had never extended beyond the Russian borders, whereas terrorism in the post-war years, which fills us with indignation and disgust, is not based on individual, but on group action, and is inspired by reactionary ideas which try to revive past, unpopular regimes. Almost always, it is organized in foreign countries and it fights against Marxism, the value of which it does not recognize. He concluded that the Marseille regicide belonged in this category and expressed the conviction that the League of Nations would understand how to carry out its duty.
Litvinov's speech was aimed exclusively at establishing a theoretical alibi for past acts of Communist terrorism. Nonplused, I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. The subversive methods, practiced all over the world by the international Communist conspiracy, he had boldly shoved into the shoes of his opponents, qualified as reactionaries. According to Litvinov, there existed something like acceptable terrorism, as distinguished from disgusting terrorism - the latter being directed against Marxists. This Communist technique could confuse weak minds: it was based on distortion and falsification; it was a special brand of the "big lie." I could perhaps qualify it a travesty with a fantastic semblance to reality, but deliberately disjointed in its overall logic. The onetime brilliant painter, Pablo Picasso, adopted this technique in his paintings, after he joined the Communist Party. There is a plan and even some logic in such deceit, just as there is in madness.
There was also some jargon in Litvinov's English language which Mr. Eden did not seem to enjoy. "I wish he would speak French," he whispered to his neighbor. For me, in one respect, Litvinov's baffling speech was quite reassuring: he was not out to get Hungary. He was covering up the Soviet's bloody footprints, as does the fox when it wipes out with its bushy tail all the traces it might leave behind in the snow. I had considered being introduced to Litvinov, as was expected of a delegate of a small power: I felt now, however, that it was safer to stay away from him altogether. He was on the defensive; if I left him alone, he would start no trouble. With a twinkle in the eye, I nodded to Litvinov when I left the Council meeting. He nodded back - he understood the situation perfectly.
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The real intentions of the Soviets were disclosed - much against their will - by the Chief of the Budapest Police, the alert "Uncle Chocho." In the first days of November (1934), he arrested three Hungarian Communist agents, led by Emmerich Horvath, who were sent to Hungary to organize internal disturbances during the expected crisis. Obviously, Moscow had decided to increase the tension, both in Hungary and in Yugoslavia, by terrorist activities. In the Hungarian-inhabited area of Subotica, in Yugoslavia, the authorities arrested at the same time no less than sixty Communist agents recently infiltrated in order to carry out subversive actions.
However, more truth on the vicious terrorism committed in those months by the Komintern was revealed only ten years later, (in 1945), when the Soviet Army invaded Hungary and the NKVD released from jail, in Vac, a man called Matuska, and put this criminal, sentenced for life, in charge of a penitentiary. In 1931, in the vicinity of Budapest, the Orient Express was blown up by a bomb when passing over a viaduct in Biatorbagy. Twenty-two persons were killed and over one hundred wounded. Arrested by the Police, Matuska admitted having committed the crime, but he gave no motive for it. The judge had to make psychoanalytical studies during his trial: was he insane, an incorrigible criminal, or a political terrorist? His quick repartees were impudent and startling. He accused a certain "Leo," as having made him commit the crime, without identifying Leo. Matuska did not gain any material advantage from this mass murder, which remained a mystery for ten years. He was declared completely sane of mind by the Courts, but his death sentence was commuted by the Regent to life imprisonment. Nobody suspected that Matuska, seemingly with no political affiliation whatsoever, had been a tool of the Communist Underground. Carefully, he had been planted in Budapest years before, ordered to stay out of politics and to perpetrate his ghastly crime when "Leo" his contact man, commanded him to do so. Litvinov's speech on terrorism must be evaluated in the light shed by these facts. And it may perhaps be added that on the day when Litvinov spoke in the League, thirty-seven more victims were arrested for Kirov's murder in Soviet Russia in Stalin's "drive against terrorism."
The melancholy fate of Mr. Beksadian, Stalin's first Minister to Hungary, also belongs in the history of Stalin's "drive against terrorism." This pock-marked, paunchy little Armenian used to occupy,
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with Mrs. Beksadian, his nondescript, aging wife, a lonely corner at. diplomatic receptions. Unnoticed, they stood against the wall silently, for they spoke nothing but Russian, which very few people in Budapest understood. A few months after Kirov's murder, Beksadian notified the Hungarian Foreign Office that he was leaving on a protracted vacation for a shooting party in the Caucasus. As is customary among diplomats, Mr. Kristoffy, the Hungarian Minister to Russia,. awaited him upon his arrival in Moscow. He did see Beksadian and his wife from a distance, when they stepped off the train and were instantly grabbed by NKVD agents. Months later a new Soviet Minister, Mr. Sharonov presented his credentials in Budapest. He was transferred from Warsaw, without Beksadian having been recalled; and arrived with a smart and cultured blond "wife," yet not the same wife he had in Warsaw a week before, where he had served as the Soviet Ambassador. Sharonov spoke various Western languages, but suddenly did not seem to understand Regent Horthy, when asked in French and also English about Mr. Beksadian's health and whether he had returned from the shooting party? These questions have remained unanswered, and the Beksadians were never seen again.
The Journal de Geneve (December 11, 1934) reported next day that Mr. Litvinov's speech had evoked smiles. The rarely sarcastic New York Times (December 9, 1934) also found that "Russia ran true to historical form by denouncing terrorism more vigorously than anyone else."
Litvinov's irritating performance deprived the discussion in the Council of all its zest for that day. Five members had spoken previously; Mr. Komarnicki for Poland and Mr. de Madariaga for Spain, eager to create a friendlier atmosphere, paid tribute in a few words to Hungary and to Yugoslavia, both of whom were their friends, for their moderation. The remaining two Council members, Mr. Castillo Najera (Mexico) and Mr. Rivas Vivana (Chile) absolved their task by expressing approval of a convention against terrorism to be submitted to their Governments. The same evening, I sent to the Secretariat for distribution an additional Hungarian memorandum. It registered the measures Hungary had taken and intended to take for the prevention of acts of terrorism. It again refuted the baseless Yugoslav accusations against Hungarian authorities and patriotic associations. Finally, it set forth clearly that the Marseille regicide could
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not be connected with revisionism, for the Hungarian nation, aspiring for the revision of the Trianon Treaty, was determined to use exclusively peaceful means in the spirit of the League of Nations Covenant.
There was nothing new in this memorandum. But, while assuming full responsibility for it, Hungary's policy and her conduct were restated precisely and in writing.
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THE END PLAY
In the final phase of the debate in the Council of the League, the Western Great Powers found themselves enmeshed in the power-political net which they themselves had laboriously woven. Basically, it was not Yugoslavia and Hungary, but Italy and France, who were opposing each other in Geneva, while at the same time seeking rapprochement with one another in Rome. There were no territorial problems dividing Italy from France, but they were the leaders of two antagonistic groupings in Central Europe: the Little Entente system allied with France, and the powers of the Pact of Rome patronized more loosely by Italy. Yugoslavia, a member of both the Little and the Balkan Ententes, had become an indispensable link in the French system of alliances. Besides helping to keep Hungarian revisionism down, she also served to thwart similar ambitions of Bulgaria concerning the revision of her frontiers. But Yugoslavia was unalterably opposed to Italy and blocked thereby rapprochement between Italy and France. Nevertheless, the French-Little Entente system remained solid during the Marseille crisis and so did the Pact of Rome. In spite of Laval's maneuvers to persuade Mussolini to drop Hungary, the Duce never wavered in his support. Also the Austrian Chancellor, Schuschnigg, mobilized troops on the Yugoslav border when the Chetniks threatened to invade Hungary.
Hostility between Italy and Yugoslavia was deep-rooted on both sides, for Italy was contending with Yugoslavia for domination of the Adriatic Sea. The traditional Italian aspirations concerning Dalmatia - the beautiful province on the East Coast of the Adriatic, which, for centuries, had been ruled by the merchants of Venice - were strengthened after the First World War by strategic considerations. President Roosevelt once complained1 in a light vein that as a young man, he owed his first political defeat to Admiral Horthy, later the Regent of Hungary. During the World War, Roosevelt, then Undersecretary of the Navy, was sent to Italy by President Wilson to coax the Italian Navy, much stronger than the Austro-Hungarian fleet, to greater activity. The Italian Minister of the Navy, Thaon di Revel,
1 In May, 1940, during an audience I had with him.
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a distinguished gentleman with a goatee, refused however to follow suit, arguing before the Cabinet Council that this would be too dangerous. Horthy, the Commander in Chief of the hostile fleet, was conducting most unconventional warfare; he subjected the cities on the wide-open Italian East coast to raids, and under the protection of the innumerable islands covering the Dalmatian shores, he carried out hit and run assaults which practically paralyzed the Italian fleet. Of course, Yugoslavia, having inherited from Austria-Hungary that advantagious position on the Adriatic Sea, was determined to keep it and defend it. Since Serhian defense is always offensive, there was more than enough reason for the Italians to complain. In his Milano speech,2 it was Mussolini's main demand that the Belgrade press stop insulting the Italian Army before relations between the two countries could he improved.
In the Council debate, the Yugoslavs could hardly have expected a more favorable statement from Italy than that given by Ambassador Aloisi. Their real disappointment was Mr. Eden's speech. He had not uttered a single word of blame against Hungary, but had delivered a serious warning against the brutal expulsion of Hungarians from Yugoslavia. Worst of all, they did not receive British recognition of the constructive role which the Yugoslavs believed they fulfilled in the Balkans by the maintenance of their unity. True to himself, Laval had tried to persuade Mr. Eden that the need of the hour was not justice but appeasement and that means must be found to calm the Yugoslav excitement. In this event, however, the British chose pressure on the Yugoslavs and not appeasement. The British condemned in strong terms the persecution of the Hungarian minority. The New York Times reported from London:3 "Not since Adolf Hitler's Aryan outbreak has public feeling in Great Britain been so stirred as by the spectacle of the indiscriminate deportation from Yugoslavia at a moment's notice of Hungarians, young and old, feeble and strong." The London Daily Mail drew the inference that these flagrant acts of Yugoslav barbarism emphasized the necessity of urgently revising the Trianon Peace Treaty.
Emotional outbursts of British public opinion, however, would hardly have influenced Mr. Eden, nor did they determine the stand
2 Referred to in the first chapter of this writing.
3 Frederick J. Birchell's report on December 10, 1934.
4 Decembcr 10, 1934.
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of the British Foreign Office. Aloofness often is only an expression of the embarrassing complexities which British foreign policy represents. Preparing for the delicate role of the rapporteur, or rather for that of an arbiter in the current conflict, Mr. Eden found a welcome opportunity to observe reticence concerning the Yugoslav abuses against the Hungarian minority and the Marseille crime, which he certainly should not prejudge. Other considerations also induced Mr. Eden to avoid the condemnation of revisionism, although Britain was firmly tied to the observance of the status quo. British foreign policy is frequently studded with subtle internal contradictions. Encouraged by non-committal Nazi enticements, the Foreign Office was deluding itself with the hope that the Germans could be brought back into the League they had left only a year ago, by dangling before their eyes treaty revision through the instrumentality of the League. The days, however, when this offer might have been accepted, were gone. The Pact of Four (Britain-France-Italy-Germany) proposed by Mussolini to the British and signed in Rome on the 7th of June, 1933, did provide for the revision of the treaties within the framework of the League, but that Pact had never been ratified. This bait did no longer attract Hitler, for there was no situation more favorable to the rearmament of Germany without any controls, than the one he had achieved by unilateral action, thanks to the complacency of Britain and France. The Foreign Office considered - in theory - the possibility of treaty revision as the key to the adaptability of the treaties, which key should be retained - even if not used-as an instrument for the maintenance of peace, in extremis. Moreover, the threat of treaty revision was a powerful means by which France could be prevented from imposing her preponderance over the European Continent. Rome had to be granted the means with which to slow down French dynamism; so the usefulness of her Hungarian Ally was not to be destroyed. The precarious European balance of power demanded the preservation of Hungarian influence. This was the logic followed by British policy in this event. The British needed the French for the stabilization of the status quo on the Continent, but the French needed the British even more, because of their widespread responsibilities overseas which depended largely on their collaboration with the British. Such subtle considerations regarding the power-political balance of the Continent
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shaped the British attitude in Geneva in addition to the search for justice and truth, as heralded by the press.
Laval's policy was less complicated, yet difficult to determine accurately. Without hesitation he would have to support the Little Entente, but only up to a point. He could not allow his present associates to upset his major plans for the future; therefore he would also have to counsel moderation to his Little Entente Allies. He inherited from Barthou the project of an Oriental Pact, but he was much less sold on an alliance with the Soviets than had been his predecessor. Austria, a protege of Italy, was tottering under Nazi pressures; if at the proper time the weight of Hungary was also reduced, Mussolini might have to fall back on an alliance with France, which would open the door toward French-German understanding and more unity on the European Continent. In the long run, Laval's policy was aimed at the restoration of friendship with both of his neighbors: Italy and Germany rather than Russia. This was his master plan and he could not allow it to be endangered by his minor Allies in the Little Entente, whose exaggerations or untimely violent actions might force Mussolini to defend Hungary against destruction and cause a break between Italy and France before the intended Franco-Italian alliance could be established. An all-out attack against Hungary by the Little Entente appeared to Laval as inopportune or at least premature.
The French press now visibly mirrored Laval's desire to reach a rapid and reasonable solution. There was little vituperation against Hungary. On December 10, the Matin, the Petit Parisien, the Journal and the Petit Journal, all expressed concern over the gravity of the conflict and the fact that no formula had been worked out as yet to end it by a compromise. The French papers insisted that if this affair was ever started, a solution should also be found. The Oeuvre alone remained composed and wrote about "a political leader in Geneva" who thought that some good would result from this excessively bad affair.
Following reciprocal deprecation in the Council, an atmosphere of conciliation had been generated in Geneva. It appeared that war as a means of settling the Marseille affair was out of the question. Fortunately, the Soviets had stepped out of the picture and none of the other Great Powers wanted war or would have then condoned violent action in Europe. On December 9, the tension was greatly relieved
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when the news arrived that after the return of Prince Paul from the royal wedding in London, the order to cease expelling the Hungarians was issued in Belgrade. Undoubtedly, the Yugoslav government of Uzunovitch had been prevailed upon by Great Britain and France to change its harmful attitude which would prejudice the Yugoslav case against Hungary. It was a hopeful sign that official circles in Belgrade were accusing now "the overzealousness of local officials" for the hardships which had befallen the Hungarian deportees. The Chetniks on the Yugoslav border now refrained from aggressive action. Unless General Zhifkovitch resorted to a putsch, a peaceful solution seemed to be assured.
Bargaining on the diplomatic level, however, was still lagging. The immediate task was to prevent explosive speeches at public sessions of the Council, while urgently working out some compromise under which the Council could safely adjourn the formal solution of the dispute to its January session and appoint one of its members to submit a report. Two demands of the Little Entente that Hungary would have had to reject seemed to have been dropped by this time (December 9): the Hungarian Government would not be accused directly of any guilt in connection with the Marseille crime, since no evidence in this sense had been submitted to the Council; the honor of the Hungarian nation would not be placed in doubt by identifying terrorism with Hungarian revisionism, since the latter was based on the Covenant of the League. On the first point, the Yugoslavs had toned down their accusations but insisted that the resolution to be passed place some blame on Hungary by branding Hungarian authorities chargeable of negligence. The second point was modified into the demand that the integrity and unity of Yugoslavia be recognized in the resolution as necessary to the maintenance of peace. The outlines of a compromise became discernable; the task was now to draft a text acceptable to both sides.
On this day, December 9, spurred by the good news from Belgrade, Laval was particularly active. He warned Yeftitich that should Belgrade imperil peace, France would start negotiations with Germany, for France would not be dragged by Yugoslavia into a conflict with Hitler. Laval also bargained with Aloisi who then - for the first time - asked me to come to see him. He intimated that the draft of a resolution he gave me to read, might be acceptable with minor
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modifications. To my regret, I could not agree with the Ambassador, for indirect responsibility for the crime was still placed on the Hungarian Government, and Hungarian revisionism was held to be directed against Yugoslav unity. Later in the day, Aloisi met Mr. de Kanya, who also refused to accept a somewhat improved text which referred to Article X of the Covenant without mentioning Article XIX. Under the auspices of Mr. Eden, Laval was mollifying the Little Entente, while Aloisi was working on us. This was League of Nations technique: not bad when the Great Powers had reached an understanding, at least in theory, as was the case then.
This last day before the denouement, however, proved most unpleasant for us Hungarians. Nobody seemed to be interested anymore in the murder of King Alexander. The Little Entente orchestra, directed by Mr. Benes and aided by his numerous friends in the Secretariat of the League, was using threats and launching intrigues to disturb Hungarian cooperation with Italy. Hungarian revisionism, which nobody denied, had become the main target of the malevolent efforts, and word was spread, even with reference to Mr. Eden, that unless Hungary quickly gave up her resistance, she would forfeit every claim to European consideration. The threat was conveyed to us that if denied satisfaction by the Council, Yugoslavia would take recourse to Article XV of the Covenant, which would allow her to take independent measures, including armed action against Hungary. I was personally much annoyed by the utterly baseless accusation, which found its way into some newspapers also, that in trying to force Aloisi to continue to give full support to Hungary, I had threatened that I would publish incriminating evidence against Italy. Both Mr. de Kanya and I perfectly understood the role the Italian Ambassador had to fulfill in trying to achieve a solution through compromise. On December 5, a new one was added to his many burdens. Ethiopian frontier guards had clashed with Italian forces at Ualual and Aloisi had just submitted the Italian representations to the League. We were grateful to him for the time he had devoted to the support of Hungary while his country was having trouble in Africa, and for the skill and fundamental firmness he displayed at all times during the Marseille affair. This intrigue was the last act in the smear campaign conducted then against Hungary in Geneva. But it did not disturb in any way our friendly relations with the Italian delegation.
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To complete this narrative on annoying propaganda, I must describe an episode which did not influence the outcome of the Marseille affair, but had some bearing on the evaluation of European events in America. At the height of the tension, I received a letter from a Hungarian who had just returned from America. He informed me that he had been present last summer (1934) at a meeting of Croat immigrants in Youngstown, Ohio, where a condemnation of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia to death was applauded. The writer also related that a collection was made there for Croat national purposes. In 1941, while I was traveling in the Middle West, Croat organizers of the Youngstown meeting called on me, quite proud of having participated in that meeting. In 1934, however, this story still appeared to me as improbable, so I passed it on for verification to the correspondent of the Associated Press. He checked on it in America the same night, found the information perfectly true, and a detailed report on it was published next morning in the European press. This news caused a sensation, for what had happened in America was worse than anything of which Hungary had been accused. Unable to refute the confirmed facts, Radoye Yankovitch, the Yugoslav Consul General in New York City, published a clumsy statement 5 to the effect that several months ago "the Croat meeting at Youngstown, Ohio, was prearranged in order to furnish Dr. Eckhardt with arguments for Hungary's defense at Geneva." It did not belp the Yugoslav cause to concoct this type of press information.
This episode, thanks to the excellent reporting and technical achievements of the American press, showed vividly and at the right time that the accusation against Hungary of having plotted the murder of King Alexander was a malicious fabrication. Unfortunately, the interpretation of European news by some American papers did not betray the same degree of perfection. In the period of isolationism, the daily paper most interested in European affairs was the New York Times. The paper had an able correspondent in Geneva, Mr. Clarence K. Streit, whose reports I have been quoting. But the foreign editors of the paper had a yardstick of their own in New York; policies which did not fit into their prefabricated patterns were branded as sinful and occasionally the European picture was made into a caricature.
Here is an example, a New York Times editorial of December 9,
5 New York Times, December 8, 1934.
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which at the apex of the crisis I resented. The editorial praised the League of Nations for its efforts aimed at conciliation: so superior when compared with the "secret diplomacy" of twenty years ago. I asked myself: has "secret diplomacy" ever been used more vastly than right then and there, in Geneva? My greatest concern was to keep abreast of all the horse-trading and secret negotiations going on behind closed doors. In fact, no case against Hungary would have existed at all, if secret diplomacy, cultivated by Laval and Benes, had not concocted false accusations against her. And it was exactly these two intriguers, Laval and Benes, whom the editorial singled out to assure them of America's esteem, for they were "men of peace." One day earlier, the Times had truthfully reported that Benes - only Benes - was threatening the world with war. Not Yeftitch, sincerely mourning the death of his King, but Benes, the kibitzer, wished to crush disarmed Hungary. The next day, the New York Times, identified itself completely with Mr. Benes, and warned Hungary that she had to comply with the League's decision, for "the League had at its disposal a very real police for the occasion." I had repeatedly stated in Geneva that Hungary would abide by the decisions of the League. Thus, for no valid reason, the New York Times was rattling a sword that did not exist, since during the two decades of its existence the League had never established a police force.
On December 10, in the midst of such confusing propaganda, the expected turn for the better arrived in the early morning hours. December 9 was a Sunday, and Mr. Eden drove to the country leaving no word behind where he was going. He writes in his memoirs that he wished "to keep out of the ferment" meaning thereby mainly Mr. Benes, who kept looking for him frantically all day, eager to prevail upon Mr. Eden. But Mr. Eden wished to make up his own mind, so he only returned late in the evening when - he writes - he expected that the Delegates "would be prepared to listen to me." After ceaseless negotiations, the British Delegation announced that a compromise formula in the Yugoslav-Hungarian conflict had been worked out. At a conference ending well after midnight, Eden, Laval and Aloisi had agreed on a text to be submitted for adhesion to Hungary as well as to the Little Entente States. I noticed, somewhat shocked, that Edward Benes had pushed his way into this conference of the great powers.
5a Memoirs, p.128.
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By his own choice, he had become a party to the Conflict under consideration yet, he would not observe the discretion Mr. Yeftitch and I had sustained. Benes could never resist the temptation to place himself in line with the Great Powers and thereby annoyed even Mr. Titulescu, his equally ambitious Little Entente colleague. That little man just did not know his place.
Another general precept which for his own benefit Mr. Benes might have observed was: you cannot fool all the people all the time. Falsification of data and texts which had been successfully practiced by him at the jumbled Paris Peace Conference in 1919, led this time to adverse results. In a dry tone, Mr. Eden reveals in his Memoirs6 that at their final conference (December 9) Benes, at first, was trying to scare him. Eden did not like the draft which the French and the Little Entente had worked out jointly. It contained "irrelevant references against revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Benes was unhappy when I (Eden) had to point out that the Covenant was misquoted in a sense favorable to himself." (Emphasis mine.) Eden and Laval eventually "agreed to leave out all references to revision and drew up with their experts a much better resolution for the Council."
The critical meeting of the Council could now be set for the after-noon, by which time, it was expected, the resolution would be privately approved by the interested parties and then submitted by Mr. Eden to the Council. We had to endure, however, new pressures and fruitless, weary negotiations; for the draft of the resolution still was not quite acceptable to us. The difficulty was caused by the Hungarian passports issued to the Croat refugees, a bona fide mistake used against Hungarian authorities as evidence of their involvement. Yugoslavia no longer accused the Hungarian Government of a crime, but she urged international supervision of the measures to be taken in Hungary against terrorism. Although appearing as moderate, such a decision of the Council would have placed Hungary under international tutelage, in which the Little Entente would have demanded a prominent role; thereby interfering in Hungary's internal affairs, including her policy of treaty revision. Sixteen years after the wars end, Hungary could not accept this or any new foreign control, however loosely that obligation might be worded. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, argued that she must obtain effective guarantees against the revival of
6 Ibid., p. 129.
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terrorism. The conflict between Hungary and Yugoslavia had been narrowed down to this dispute, in the afternoon when I took my place at the Council table to defend the interests of Hungary with the available means of open diplomacy, while Mr. de Kanya, our Foreign Affairs Minister, continued in hotel rooms the indispensable private negotiations in old-style secret diplomacy with the Mssrs. Aloisi and Eden.
---------------------------------------TRUTH PREVAILS
The December 10th Council meeting lasted for more than five hours; it heard at first an eloquent speech by Mr. Titulescu, the star among the Little Entente performers. Knock-kneed, completely beardless and on the fatty side, this portly Rumanian diplomat impressed me as a palace chamberlain from the Orient. He read his pompous oration, mixed with honey and poison, from a sitting position; yet his rhetoric, more than his arguments, remained impressive. He paid, at first, tribute to the memory of King Alexander of Yugoslavia, and then expressed his flowery condolences to France. "For everything," he declaimed, "that affects France also affects Rumania, as is so impressively recorded in history and evidenced by our present close relations. When France is cruelly wounded by the heroic death of Louis Barthou, an honorary citizen of Rumania, my country, as an interested party, demands in the name of the two great leaders who have disappeared: more light and proper sanctions!"
Titulescu then heaped vibrant praise on the memory of Count Albert Apponyi, the former Delegate of Hungary, held in high esteem in the League, who died last spring; only to compare that "living cathedral" to Eckhardt, his present unworthy successor, who has completely changed the style of the discussions. "Courtesy," he complained, "is being replaced today by gratuitous affirmation and provocation."
Coming to the meeting, I had been warned by the Austrian Delegate, the good Mr. Pfugl, that Titulescu had invited friendly reporters to be present at the very start of the meeting, when he would destroy with personal invectives the self control of "Mr. Tibor Eckhardt, still an apprentice in this game around the Council table." Titulescu's bombastic praise of Count Apponyi, whose life in Geneva the Rumanian diplomat had embittered more than any other of his foes, was a rhetorical counterpoint for balancing by homage to a dead Hungarian statesman the calculated insults he was to hurl at his current Hungarian opponent. Once before, he already had tried to bluff me, just as I was to deliver in the Council Hungary's plea regarding the complaints of the Hungarian minority in Rumania. He stopped me in
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the corridor to eulogize almost tearfully "his closest friend," who had left us, the great Apponyi, and to express his desire to nourish similar sympathies toward me. There exists a fortunately rare, but bold type of hypocrisy which is embarrassing to an extent that it leaves you speechless. I only met one other such perfect bluffer: von Papen, at one time Hitler's Ambassador to Vienna. Two weeks before Hitler invaded Austria, he congratulated me publicly for my lecture with which he so fully agreed: namely, that in all events the independence of Austria must be maintained.
That afternoon, Titulescu changed seats at the table with Benes, to sit directly opposite me. So I directed the lovely "Miss Jankapuszta" to sit behind me and to keep smiling at Mr. Titulescu, no matter what he said. My old friend, the Austrian Pfugl, told me later that during the meeting he had telephoned to Chancellor Schuschnigg in Vienna to assure him that everything went well in Geneva. "Bent over his papers, Eckhardt is puffing at his cigar, taking no notice of the irate Titulescu, while the Hungarian's handsome secretary registers with a charming smile the rude remarks flung at her boss." It was none else but Mr. Titulescu who became disconcerted; he could not continue to hurl his invectives at the pretty girl! Gallantly, he turned away from us and addressed the rest of his speech to the gallery, where this scene caused some hilarity. Mr. Eden also had a way of cooling off the fiery Mr. Titulescu, if he became too long-winded: he quietly opened the window behind Titulescu, who could not stand any draft.
There was some impressive rhetoric in Mr. Titulescu's presentation of the Yugoslav complaint, but the logic of his arguments was less poignant than Laval's had been. He admitted that the Hungarian authorities were guilty mainly of omission and deduced that Yugoslavia asked for the help of the League and of Hungary to take measures against the guilty authorities, but did not question Hungary's honor. Essentially for home consumption, he then reverted to aggressive oratory. Mr. Benes had threatened Hungary at the previous Council meeting with war, which I rebuked as propaganda, and added: "If you have no traditions, you rely on propaganda." This remark, of course, did not apply to Rumania, nor would it apply to ancient Bohemia, but it did fit Czechoslovakia, a newborn state fabricated during the World War by emigrants in Pittsburgh. Titulescu became indignant, for he and Benes were "the two oldest servants of the League,
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whose present action is based on international solidarity for the maintenance of peace, which deserves only praise and certainly no blame." Then - a shocking faux pas for an old servant of the League - he upheld the Rumanians, whom two thousand years ago Roman Emperors had settled in Eastern Europe, and so "were there to receive the Hungarians when they arrived from Asia." When Titulescu was through with his speech, Roushdy Aras bey, the Turkish Minister, rose to remark - not without resentment -that his people were also Asiatics and there was nothing derogatory in this fact.
Titulescu's performance was quite entertaining, yet harmful to the interests of the League of Nations, where, since the exit of the two revisionist Great Power - Germany and Japan - adherence to the status quo was stiffening into a dogma. An international organization, whose only purpose becomes the maintenance of an unalterable power-political system with exclusion of any change, will provoke the hostility of all the vital force - good and evil - desirous of asserting themselves. Titulescu made the doubtful prophecy that a world-wide plebiscite held on the question of revision would soon convince the discontented peoples that "they were an infinitely small group in the ensemble of peoples, at the center of which the Hungarians formed the most active and rather noisy kernel." Titulescu's enviable self-assurance was bolstered by his confidence in the Soviets, whose Ambassador, for the first time in Rumanian history, had been received on December 3 by King Carol, when at Titulescu's insistence, diplomatic relations between their countries were established. The Soviets did not plead for the revision of their frontiers as did Hungary and their reserve imbued Titulescu with faith in their friendly intentions. Six years later, however, the policy of Titulescu proved to be a colossal blunder, when in the summer of 1940, a Soviet ultimatum struck Rumania like lightning from a clear sky, imposing upon her by the force of arms a cession of her territory of considerable magnitude, which Rumania did not undertake to resist.
Titulescu, a skilled craftsman in Byzantine-style politics, preferred treacherous Soviet dialectics to Hungarian plain talk about revision. Less aggressive, however, than Mr. Benes, he did not completely identify revision with terrorism, but with a curious twist accused it of being "the father of terrorism." "The idea of revision " he warned, "troubles the peoples' minds regarding the fair settlement o
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their fate, so their hands grab for arms to carry out the commands of an exasperated spirit." Soon, history was to flatten Titulescu's logic. Preceding Stalin's attack on Rumania in 1940, Joseph Kristoffy, the Hungarian Minister to Moscow, was unexpectedly invited to the Kremlin. Stalin asked him sneeringly, whether Hungary had given up her demand for the restitution of her territory annexed by Rumania. "Now is the time to take back Transylvania," he advised bluntly. Revisionist Hungary, however, refrained from resorting to violent methods, and chose arbitration. She accepted the Vienna Award (August 30, 1940) which restored only a part of her territory lost to Rumania. In relations among nations, injustice is the basic evil. It will be countered by revisionism with peaceful means, or by terrorism and war, should the former fail. It was on the rock of injustice that all the Paris Peace Treaties foundered, and the talent of Titulescu did not suffice to stop that elementary reaction.
Titulescu had been hard on Hungarian policy in his speech. This assured him wide publicity in the Rumanian papers. But he knew that Hungary could not be humiliated, so in conclusion he assured the Hungarian nation that he did not put its honor in doubt. "To convince Hungary of this, I offer her my hand, and ask her to cooperate with us in order to give the Yugoslav nation the reasonable satisfaction which it asks. Let us all help, thereby, the cause of peace." Outside of the conference room, in private negotiations, a formula was being worked out for settling the conflict. So Titulescu ended his bellicose speech by waving an olive branch at the Council table.
Two-faced Mr. Titulescu had predicted "rupture or rapprochement" with Hungary, but expressed his preference for the second solution. Not so Mr. Benes, the "Apostle of Peace," who proved unable to control his frustration. He became aware by then that his scheme to shackle the revisionist policy of Hungary was crumbling. But he still tried to argue cynically that this was "no time for legal justice" but for political decisions by the Council. The accusation of Hungary's complicity in the Marseille crime having failed, Benes threatened: "If the Council has not the courage to tell the truth politically, we will go away from here and there will be danger that the conflict will continue to develop still more." Among the Yugoslavs, Benes preferred to play ball with the adventurer, General Zhifkovitch, rather than with the reasonable Yeftitch. Three days earlier, Benes had tried to rouse the
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Council with the allegation that Czechoslovakia was directly threatened by plots brewed in Hungary. But he again forgot to submit to the Council any evidence whatsoever to prove his accusation. He also rejected the Italian thesis about the possibility of "revision through legal forms" and repeated that he was unable to separate revision from terrorism. The only point of view he accepted was the one expressed by Laval: that any attempt to change a frontier meant war. Flushed with anger, he turned on Hungary and addressed to me the threat: "Give up revision or I will lead you to hell!"
Mr. Yeftitch, the only Delegate who had the right to demand satisfaction from the Council for the loss which his nation had suffered, was the most moderate of the Little Entente ministers. He read his speech softly and rapidly, almost eager to end it. Essentially, it was a point-by-point reiteration of what, in speech and in writing, the Yugoslavs had stated previously. But Yeftitch added that "there has never been in the mind of the Yugoslav Government the idea of confusing the actions of certain Hungarian authorities with the sentiments of justice and honor of the Hungarian people." And later in a passage of his speech, Yeftitch alluded to activities in Italy and even in Belgium which showed that the Ustashis outside of Hungary had been deeply engaged in the murder plot against King Alexander. "The Council learned with horror," he complained, "that the death sentence against King Alexander had been pronounced in Belgium. It is true that this so-called resoluion was read in some centers of the Yugoslav emigration on direct instructions of Ante Pavelitch. . . . This resolution charged the said Pavelitch, as chief of the terrorist organization, to execute the sentence. . . . I shall add, as a comment, . . that the chief of the terrorist organization charged with the execution is beyond the reach of justice." Italy had refused to extradite Pavelitch and this much, Yeftitch felt, he had to divulge. "The Yugoslav Government," he said modestly, "has fulfilled to the end its duty of maintaining peace and waits now for the Council to carry out its duty in this respect."
On the first day of the debate in the Council (December 7), the Polish Delegate, Mr. Kornarnicki, had alluded to aid given by Czechoslovakia to Ukrainian political refugees engaged in subversive activities against Poland. On this final day of the debate, eager to remove from the discussion in the Council this most embarrassing
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complaint, Mr. Benes offered to Poland bilateral negotiations. But he had also threatened Hungary to take her to hell and the Polish Delegate had strict instructions not to tolerate any overbearing behavior by Benes toward Hungary. So, Mr. Komarnicki rose after Yeftitch to remind Benes of the murder of the Polish Minister, Pieracki, contrived last summer by Ukrainian refugees in Czechoslovakia. He laid down the essential conditions which would have to be satisfied by Czechoslovakia before relations between their countries could be improved. Benes, the champion against terrorism, could not avoid then giving his assent to measures against terrorism to be taken by himself in Czechoslovakia And these were the last words pronounced by the embarrassed Dr. Benes in the unholy Marseille affair.
Dispassionately I had been watching Mr. Benes during the discussion, with the feeling that he was consistently digging his nation's grave. For more than thirty years he had been piling up too many mistakes, which I have to recall to avoid the appearance of condemning a one-time respected Central-European leader without proper evidence. Right then, he was committing a fraud by accusing Hungary of a crime, which, he knew, she had not committed. He had badly overplayed his hand and made it obvious that even at the cost of a preventive war he would attempt to deprive encircled Hungary of all hope of a betterment of her fate. His radical thinking was purely negative and since his youth was based on a single idea: "Destroy Austria-Hungary!" This negative slogan became the title of his book written in France before the World War. Whatever it did to Europe, it proved most useful for Benes in furthering his personal career in the years while France and Britain maintained close ties with Tsarist Russia, the main antagonist of Austria-Hungary. Jointly, these Great Powers incited and aided the national aspirations of the Slavs within the Dual Monarchy. For twenty years, Benes had been sailing with favorable winds. Still a young man, he was sitting triumphantly in 1919 among the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference and assumed there the role of an arbiter in Central European questions. He provided the Allies with false data, crowded his fragile State with indigestible national minorities and provoked the lasting hostility of all his neighbors whom he had wronged.
It needs greatness for men and nations alike to discard outdated policies which had once brought them much success. Benes' career
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was based on the breaking up of Austria-Hungary; so his opposition to anything resembling that Empire remained adamant, even after it became obvious that only by the restoration of Danubian unity could the intrusion of Hitler into the Middle Danube valley be prevented. Benes perpetrated and perpetuated the division of the vital Danubian area through his Little Entente Alliance which kept down Austria as a paltry German state of no consequence and threatened Hungary with obliteration by a ring of Allied states unless she acquiesced in her mutilation. At a time when Great Power imperialism was on the decline, Benes started off on an imperialistic tangent and imagined that the Czechs would inherit the position of which the World War had deprived Austria. Intoxicated with his newly won power, he built up a rapaciously imperialistic state bending alien peoples under its yoke without regard for their desires or their interests. With storm clouds gathering in the sky, he continued his feuds with every neighbor. His tactics made him blind to the strategic realities of the European situation which were to destroy him without mercy.
Central European nations, like the Poles and the Hungarians, had for centuries been shedding their blood in torrents for their independence, while the Czechs enjoyed political security and a high level of bourgeois prosperity under the protective umbrella of the Habsburgs. The Czechs gained a reputation for the sensible way in which they adapted themselves to any given situation and avoided thereby unnecessary hardships. Hussite audacity of the Middle Ages had invariably resulted in disaster for the Czechs, so after the Battle of the White Mountain (1620) they reverted to the more realistic teachings of St. Wenceslas, whose policy of compromise proved more efficacious. It provided, within the framework of the Habsburg Empire, peaceful coexistence for Czechs and Sudeten Germans in Bohemia: their common, ancient Fatherland versed in the arts and refinements of Western life. It secured for the Czechs the continuity of their national life in harmony with the Sudeten Germans. In the early twenties, Mr. Beran, the political leader of the Sudeten Germans, repeatedly assured me that they were loyal citizens of Bohemia but insisted on retaining equal rights with the Czechs and not being downgraded to the status of a minority. They cherished Bohemia, the land which their ancestors had built up during many centuries together with the Czechs. But when small-bourgeois conceit and chauvinism, personified
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by Benes, broke their traditional ties, one by one, with their homeland, they turned away from Prague and sought support in Berlin. Among the grave mistakes committed by Mr. Benes, his Sudeten German policy constitutes probably the stupidest offense.
Anthony Eden, a good diplomat with poor judgement, saw Edward Benes in April, 1935, in a different light. Eden resented "the impatience of the vanquished" with the peace treaties as a nuisance and he liked Benes "very much," for his rigid adherence to the status quo in Central Europe could be fitted well into the British over-all policy of immobilism. He also approved of Benes' efforts to bring Soviet influence into Europe and was glad to see Russia emerge as a European great power. Benes, according to Eden,1 "was eager and dexterous perhaps a little too dextrous. His active mind was forever scheming new plans and projects; they were so numerous that they could not all be good" - a truly merciful characterization of Benes the President, who led his country repeatedly into an abyss. But, of course, Eden had approved - in fact he was the first one among the Big Three to approve the deplorable action proposed by Benes to expel Czechoslovak citizens by the millions from their ancient homelands, simply because they belonged to a different race with which Benes refused to co-exist. Partnership in crime creates a lasting bond.
For Benes was walking ah the time on a tight rope. His heterogenous state composed of 6.5 million Czechs and 7.1 million minorities2 could have been dissolved democratically by its own Parliament. To forestall such calamities, he caused a law to be passed on April 30, 1937, "for the protection of the State" which practically made him a dictator. Thomas Masaryk, the founder of the Czechoslovak Republic, had taught that "States are being maintained by the same ideas on which they have been established." The centrifugal forces in Czechoslovakia growing because of the denial of self-determination to the subjected people, might have destroyed that state even without Hitler's interference.
On this last day of the debate, Benes' intensified threats against Hungary did not permit me to delay my answer, as was kindly suggested by Mr. Vasconcellos, the President of the Council, who wished to give me time to prepare my closing speech. My retort (in French) had to
1 Memoirs. p. 192.
2 3.3 million Germans, 2.5 million Slovaks, 0.8 million Hungarians, 0.4 million Ruthenians, and 0.1 million Poles. Statesman's Year Book, 1926, p.768.
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be improvised in order to have it published in the press along with the attacks against Hungary. I certainly had to put an end to the accusation that Hungary was pursuing a policy of terrorism. I therefore declared that "independent of the planned international convention against terrorism, Hungary was ready to negotiate with her neighbors an agreement on police measures which would prevent all hostile agitation by political refugees." Then, accepting without reservation the declaration of Italy's Delegate, I noted that Mr. Laval had stated that France stood with Yugoslavia but hoped for a reconciliation between Yugoslavia and Hungary. I referred to this sentence because it allowed me to take a bow toward France: "Hungary willingly joins her efforts to those of France toward this end." During the entire Council debate, I had avoided all polemics with the Great Powers, including France, the leader of the hostile coalition.
I hoped sincerely for reconciliation with Yugoslavia and refrained from pouring oil on the smoldering embers. Mr. Yeftitch had not presented any new facts, so I could restrict myself to merely referring to my speech and the memoranda addressed to the Council. But I kept the record open concerning the expulsions from Yugoslavia, which by then totaled over 3,000 Hungarians, and stated that without resorting to reprisals Hungary was still awaiting satisfaction. Deliberately, I skipped Titulescu's speech. As a publicity stunt, he had tried to start a personal feud, so I deflated his vanity by completely disregarding his talk. I wished to concentrate my attention on Mr. Benes, who with his threats had given me the opportunity to bring before the highest international authority the problem of treaty revision and the lawfulness of that policy.
I made it crystal clear that the Covenant of the League of Nations, in its Article XIX, did provide for the possibility of peaceful revision of the Peace Treaties and that this rule could not be disregarded, unless the validity of the entire Covenant was placed in doubt, including Article X, on which the observance of the status quo was based. "If you ask me why," I apprised Mr. Benes, "sixteen years after the war that threatened to ruin all mankind, the Danube Valley still knows no veritable peace when I am convinced that all peoples desire it - I can answer recalling just one fact:
"A great Ambassador of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire left for the guidance of his successors this dictum: 'For the victor in war
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or on the diplomatic battlefield the first essential is sincere reconciliation with the adversary. What has Hungary seen in sixteen years? Has there been a single act of reconciliation?"
I then paid tribute to the "eminent services Mr. Benes has rendered the League when a disinterested party," but I regretted that he could not remain objective where Hungary was concerned. Yet, the Danubian States depended so much on one another that misfortune for one was misfortune for all. I warned Mr. Benes: "You have threatened to lead us to hell. But if you do so, Mr. Benes, you will have to come along with us!" This prediction soon became a reality, for leading the peoples of Austria-Hungary to perdition Benes reached hell in 1938, six years before Hungary was taken over by Hitler. Aware of his mistake, Benes became visibly perturbed, so I reached out in conclusion for the hand which the Little Entente had extended:
"Hungary is ready to respond to, and associate herself with, any sincere effort tending to improve the present situation and she will not be stopped in doing this by the bad treatment she has just received from the Little Entente governments."
The journalistic mind of our age learns fast and forgets even quicker. The principles of President Wilson which were to bring lasting peace to earth were hailed in the early twenties and forgotten by the beginning of the thirties. Reference to Article XIX of the Covenant could therefore be misconstrued as warmongering in the press and even in the League of Nations! This balloon inflated with lies was, however, punctured during the debate. The New York Times noted next day that there was in the Council one small constructive item that might grow. With genuine surprise the paper revealed: "It happens there is a peaceful way to revise treaties. It is contained partly in the Covenant's Article XIX, but neither Germany nor Hungary has ever turned to it, possibly because it seemed altogether hopeless. Mr. Titulescu himself reminded Hungary yesterday that Article XIX existed as a safety valve. . . . Mr. Eckhardt then noted not only this Article's existence but also the fact that it had originally been meant by Wilson to be part of Article X and to form a safety valve for that Article's territorial guarantees. If it was a choice between rupture and rapprochement yesterday, then this may point the way for the rapprochement that was chosen." The New York Times had recognized
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at last that treaty revision might lead the way to more peaceful conditions.
The political campaign in the League of Nations, intended to humiliate Hungary and stamp out her policy for treaty revision, thus came to an end with the opposite result achieved. The lawfulness of Hungarian revisionism could no longer be denied, even by its opponents. Standing firmly by her just cause, Hungary had strengthened her position in the face of Little Entente threats and pressures. The liquidation of the Marseille affair was now reduced to a technicality within the League. The case could be wound up the same night, since the private negotiations conducted outside of the meeting by Mr. de Kanya had, meanwhile, also been concluded. At the proposal of the Council's President, Mr. Eden was unanimously elected the rapporteur of the Marseille affair. A few hours passed in expectation before the Hungarian Government's approval of the proposed resolution was received from Budapest. It was almost midnight when, to the relief of the tired Delegates, Mr. Eden made his brief report and then read the text of the resolution (see Appendix), submitting it to the Council for approval.
"The resolution," according to the New York Times, "like all Council resolutions, was a compromise. Without declaring that the Hungarian Government was responsible for terrorism in any way, as Yugoslavia had originally demanded. . . it expressed the opinion that 'certain Hungarian authorities may have assumed, at any rate through negligence, certain responsibilities relative to acts having connection with the preparation of the Marseille crime. Two important modifications had been gained by our Delegation in the resolution: no blame whatsoever was placed on the Hungarian Government; and it was incumbent upon the Hungarian Government - not on any international authority - to take "appropriate punitive action in the case of any of its authorities whose culpability may have been established." The resolution stated that the Council was "convinced of the good will of the Hungarian Government to perform this duty" and requested it "to communicate to the Council the measures it takes to this effect." All foreign interference in this procedure was thus excluded.
3 December 11.
4 The italics are mine; they refer to the words which were inserted at the Hungarian Delegation's insistence in the final text.
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The attack on Hungarian revisionism had also fallen short of its purpose. In full agreement with Hungarian views, the Council ruled in its resolution that the Covenant made it especially incumbent on the League members not to tolerate or encourage, but to repress and help repress political terrorism. But revisionism was not reproved and Article X of the Covenant was not cited as the Little Entente had demanded, since Hungary had insisted that in this event equal weight be placed on Article XIX, which admits the revision of treaties by peaceful means. The danger of political terrorism was handled properly by establishing a "Committee of Ten" to study proposals for international legislation against terrorism with a view to negotiating a League convention regarding this menace. A few hours earlier, Laval had submitted to the Council the draft of a pact to end terrorism and suggested the creation of a "Permanent World Penal Court." Before ending its meeting the Council proceeded to designate the ten nations whose Delegates would constitute the Committee of Ten. By this time, Benes had left the meeting; he was no longer interested in the Marseille regicide. So, in a rather unexpected reversal of roles, Czechoslovakia was omitted from this Committee and Hungary appointed a member - her reputation obviously had remained unimpaired.
At the end of the historic meeting of December 10, 1934, the Council unanimously approved the resolution submitted by Mr. Eden. Only Laval for France and Aloisi for Italy spoke after the rapporteur, both in praise of the resolution and with thanks to the Portuguese President, Augusto de Vasconcellos. Modestly, the President gave all the credit to the League which had won a great victory and "deserved well of peace." On leaving the meeting, unexpectedly Laval stopped me with his hand outstretched: "Accept my congratulations. You have defended your country very well!" There was nothing political in Laval's gesture; it was the acknowledgment of a professional fighter after the bout. "Thank you, Mr. President," I bowed, shaking hands with the man who had never even looked at me before. "My job was easy, I was defending the right cause."
In the darkness on Quai Wilson little men stepped out from under the tall trees. They swarmed around me, shaking hands joyfully. Titulescu had called the Hungarians "Asiatics," so these Chinese diplomats wished to express their happiness with the success of their Hungarian kinsman.
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THE AFTERMATH
The French-Little Entente campaign against Hungary came to an end two months after it had been started, essentially for two purposes:
to provide a scapegoat for the justified wrath of the Yugoslavs incensed by the murder of their King; and to destroy the growing prestige and international standing of Hungary and silence thereby her demand for the revision of the unjust Peace Treaty of Trianon. But, as the plot promoted by Laval and Benes unfolded, it produced several unforeseen hazards and pitfalls, which in December, at the climax of the crisis, had to be handled cautiously.
The immediate menace was the invasion of Hungary by irregular Serbian troops which might provoke war even among the Great Powers. On December 10, the day the compromise was reached in Geneva, the Belgrade Radio was still making false accusations against Hungary.
General Zhifkovitch was continuing preparation of his coup in Belgrade, but in Geneva only Benes rattled the Serbian General's sword. Hungary, however, had remained unimpressed; she sidestepped provocations, refrained from reprisals, but did not yield. Yeftitch, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, supported by Prince Paul and by Britain's Mr. Eden, had always opposed Zhifkovitch's hazardous aims. So it became possible to work out a solution in Geneva before irreparable mischief was committed in Belgrade.
Another scheme on which Laval at first seemed to have agreed with the Little Entente, was to force Hungary to accept international control of her policy, allegedly as a measure against terrorism; in fact, to check thereby her revisionist policy. No government guilty of such submissiveness could have survived in Hungary a single day. I left no doubt in Geneva about Hungary's decision to rather face armed invasion than to surrender voluntarily to blackmail. Consideration for Italy and Poland prevented the French-Little Entente Alliance from resorting to the use of force in trying to impose such control on Hungary.
The advocated minimum demand of the hostile coalition was to have the Hungarian nation, or at least her Government, condemned by the League of Nations as guilty of international terrorism. This
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verdict would have ruined Hungary's political and moral standing and would have served as justification for keeping Hungary dismembered by the immutable Treaty of Trianon. Hungarian revisionism was to be equated by the Council with international terrorism. The protagonists of this shabby policy had learned nothing from the wild German reaction to the war-guilt clause in the Versailles Treaty. Sooner or later, they might have pushed the Hungarian people into a mood of despair.
It was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Captain Eden, the Chief Delegate of Britain, whose efforts in the last 24 hours steered Europe away from the brink of war and set the contestants on a course of conciliation. Upon his return from London, Prince Paul explained in strong terms to the aggressive Uzunovitch and his Cabinet what bad effect the expulsion of Hungarians and the Serbian border provocations have had on public opinion in London and even in Paris, although formerly their Allies had been disposed to go along wtih the campaign against Hungary. Mr. Eden confirmed Prince Paul's judgement. While trying to keep Yugoslavia out of mischief, he also mitigated the Hungarian objections to the text of the resolution which we finally accepted at his insistence. 1934 was a year of great uncertainty in British foreign relations and this had helped Mr. Eden in staying aloof from both parties in the Geneva contest. He certainly had not been a friend of Hungary; he proved this during the second World War by the unmotivated British declaration of war against Hungary on December 6, 1941, one day belore Pearl Harbor1 and again in October, 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Revolution. But he won friends in Hungary - including myself - by championing human rights in Geneva. I regret deeply that the League's successor, the United Nations, has veered away from one of its basic duties, the protection of human rights as expressed in its Charter, and that it overlooks the beastly amorality of the jungle in granting membership and aid to a number of people unfit to establish orderly governments.
Much relaxed, I studied next morning the press reviews with all their contradictions. The British praised the League and Mr. Eden for having saved the peace by using civilized methods instead of war. The
1 when after Pearl Harbor Hungary was forced by Hitler to declare War against the United States, President Roosevelt withheld for six months the American declaration of war against Hungary. Eden also was the first one to agree in 1942 - as stated previously - to the expulsion of the Hungarian minority from Czechoslovakia, although they had lived in that land for over one thousand years.
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French papers commended their Pierre Laval for having dispelled the storm clouds from the European horizon, but also expressed doubts about the eventual reactions of Belgrade; the Yugoslavs seemed at first hurt by the news of the compromise concluded in Geneva. It gave me satisfaction, therefore, to read in Vreme, the official organ of the Belgrade Government, that Yugoslavia gained a brilliant victory in the League and that Hungary had capitulated. Obviously, the Belgrade Government decided to appease Yugoslav public opinion, for the paper commented - contrary to fact - that "Italy has abandoned Budapest, which was placed under the control of the League, suffering thereby the greatest defeat ever registered by an independent country." With a sigh of relief I decided that I could return now to Budapest. The Yugoslav Minister to France had greeted Laval with a big kiss upon his return to Paris. If the Belgrade Government felt pleased with the Council's resolution, our conflict with Yugoslavia had come to a happy end.
Inevitably, the Italian press expressed a different opinion from that of the Yugoslavs. Their best known paper, the Corriere delta Sera, wrote about "the compromise which is most satisfactory to Hungary" since instead of an international committee, Hungary alone was entrusted with the investigation, which her Government bad started anyway, immediately after the Marseille drama had occurred. The Cazetta del Popolo paid tribute to Hungary who came out of the debate intact and honored, as she had well deserved.
The New York Times expressed the unfounded opinion that "the Little Entente and France got the long end of the compromise and Hungary and Italy the short end."
I still feel that the best informed, objective opinion on League affairs was published in those days in the Journal de Geneve. Its editorial2 commented truthfufly that the resolution arrived at unanimously in the Council conferred on Hungary the duty to investigate whether Hungarian authorities, at least through their negligence, may have assumed responsibility for the Marseille crime. The League thereby also expressed its confidence in the Budapest Government. Yugoslavia, on the other hand (wrote the paper), had obtained full satisfaction in her fight against terrorism. The improvement of her security meant a legitimate success for Mr. Yeftitch. The merit of the
2 December 11, 1934.
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Council was great, although it was facilitated by the interested parties. Yugoslavia had resisted the temptation to impose justice by arbitrary means, while Hungary gave evidence of praiseworthy moderation and raised thereby her moral prestige. According to the paper, the role played by Great Britain deserved admiration. Some may have been disappointed by Mr. Eden's neutrality, but this allowed him in the decisive moment to exercise a salutary influence on Hungary in the brilliant tradition of British diplomacy.
Upon my arrival in Budapest, I was warmly greeted at the Central Station by a huge crowd. Nobody wanted war in Hungary, and least of all against Yugoslavia. The next day, Regent Horthy conferred upon me the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, the highest decoration existing at that time in Hungary, and the House of Deputies gave me a standing ovation. Hungary's good name had been brought home stainless and the Little Entente attack to discredit the Hungarian policy of treaty revision had not received any support by the League. In fact, revisionism was given a boost, its lawfulness having been tacitly admitted.
As promised, the Hungarian Government reopened its investigation without delay to determine whether any officials could be charged with neglect of duty in connection with the Marseille plot. The Yugoslav Government was requested to communicate to Hungary its findings on any guilt on the part of Hungarian officials. Obviously for lack of such findings, no communication was received and Mr. de Kanya complained that this was retarding the completion of the Hungarian inquiry. So, we proceeded to clear up the situation: essentially, the issue of Hungarian passports to Croat refugees. Since all these passports had not been recovered, we decided to invalidate them by changing the form of our passports. The Police Captain in charge of the Budapest Passport office was transferred to a post of minor responsibility. With a full report I returned to Geneva and submitted it on January 12, 1935, to the Council of the League. There arose no disagreement thereafter in the course of the League's routine procedure, and on May 25 the formal settlement of the Hungarian-Yugoslav controversy was perfected. By that time, as the leader of the Small Holders Party, I had become involved in a bitter electoral campaign fighting for overdue reforms in Hungary and had withdrawn from the representation of my country in the League of Nations.
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The solution arrived at in the League was unquestionably the result of a compromise, but it did not smell of appeasement. Compromise consists of mutually acceptable concessions, in order to solve a conflict: whereas appeasement, in Mr. Eden's interpretation is to "perpetrate an injustice in order to get a little present ease."3 Laval had tried appeasement when he offered Hungary as a victim to the Little Entente. Had his cynical scheme been allowed to succeed, evil reactions would certainly have been unleashed. The opposite result was achieved, however, by the fair compromse painfully worked out in Geneva, at least as far as the two primarily affected countries, Yugoslavia and Hungary were concerned, whose relations thereafter became increasingly more friendly. Sir John Simon revealed to the British public the day after the solution was reached in Geneva that the Yugoslav Government saw to it that the expulsion of the Hungarians was immediately stopped. The New York Times reported from Belgrade that General Zhifkovitch was now courting the Democratic Party leaders since the deportations, for which he was responsible, had backfired. One week later, the Government of Uzunovitch was forced to resign for having sabotaged Yeftitch and his reasonable policy.
After years of erring, a constructive trend was at last developing in Yugoslavia and it lasted until 1941, when Hitler abruptly put an end to all peaceful evolution. Because of Serbian centralization of the State, two policies had been clashing in Belgrade: one, determined to oppress all opposition by the various nationalities; the other, concerned with rallying them within a liberalized system. Uzunovitch was dedicated to Serbian totalitarian dictatorship; he demanded that in the grave times following the murder of the King, the opposition support the Government unconditionally. But Prince Paul threw his wholehearted support to the side of Yeftitch, who believed that in order to gain the loyalty of the embittered national groups the Government had to grant them concessions.
Shortly after the murder of the King, Prince Paul admitted in an interview, that "Yugoslavia was composed of elements whose traditions and mentalities were different," but that their unification would be continued and must become successful. He asked Yeftitch to consult the leaders of the dissolved political parties. Yeftitch succeeded shortly
3 Mernoirs, p. viiii.
4 Journal de Geneve, October 15, 1934
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in forming a Cabinet of personalities5 who would attempt to achieve more unity in Yugoslavia than had existed theretofore. The Croat leader, Dr. Matchek, and Father Koroshetz, the political Chief of the Slovenes, were released from jail and, although General Zhifkovitch was appointed Minister of War, the consolidation of the Yugoslav regime under the intelligent guidance of Prince Paul was in the offing. The air had been cleared in Geneva. A few months later, the opposition candidates were no longer banned from the elections, and at the end of June, 1935, Milan Stojadinovitch was charged with the liquidation of the dictatorship. That month Laval again became Prime Minister. It was the fourth Ministry in France he was able to form in this period of decadence after having concluded (in January, 1935,) his much coveted but utterly futile Rome Agreement with Mussolini.
Following the verdict of Geneva, Hungary considered more hopefully her relations with Yugoslavia. The respected former Prime Minister, Count Stephen Bethlen stated in retrospect with a sigh of relief that in the past "nothing has been more dangerous to peace than the attempt to place one state under the arbitrary authority of another state."6 Mr. de Kanya, then Foreign Minister of Hungary, looking forward to a better future, told the Reichspost in Vienna:7 "We have buried the Hungarian-Yugoslav conflict and the psychological moment has arrived to examine on both sides what means would make possible a rapprochement and the harmonization of our mutual conceptions." Someone in Prague must have noticed that Mr. Benes had gone too far in Geneva in publicizing his hostility towards Hungary; for Mr. Milos Kobr, the Czechoslovak Minister to Hungary, a diplomat with no personal opinion, told a press conference in Budapest that "there was no antipathy between our two countries. We do not demand that Hungary renounce her political objectives." The Minister of Czechoslovakia then proposed that we follow the example of Germany (!) which had concluded a pact of non-aggression with Poland - faraway cry from Benes' threat to lead Hungary to hell unless she renounced her policy of treaty revision.
Faint lights of hope were flickering at Christmas, 1934, on the entire European horizon. France, England and Italy were conducting friendly negotiations which paved the way to the Stresa Conference (April,
5 Decernber 21, 1934.
6 December 25, 1934.
7 December 25, 1934.
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1935) and to a temporary relaxation of tensions. Yet, there was one country among the Powers of Geneva, the latest arrival, which did not feel the necessity of any change. Following Litvinov's oration in Geneva against terrorism, the Soviets continued unabated the extermination of the internal enemies of Stalin. Before performing the traditional burial ceremony at the Wall of the Kremlin for the remains of the murdered Kirov, sixty-six Bolshevik opponents of Stalin were put to death in Moscow and in Leningrad, while thousands were arrested all over the Soviets. The Law of the Jungle had descended over Red Russia: yet, she was soon to be granted the role of the "guardian of peace" in Europe.
From 1933 on, when Hitler became Chancellor of the German Reich, Stalin reversed step by step his foreign policy of isolation from the capitalist world. He joined the League of Nations of which he had been speaking with so much hatred and contempt; he began striving for a leading role in the direction of affairs in Europe, and even in other parts of the world. Most astonishingly, he professed cooperation and solidarity with the capitalist states provided they were opposed to Nazi Germany. He reckoned realistically with the complacency of the West and up to the present day, the Soviets are cashing dividends paid on that policy, now continued on a grand scale by Khrushchev.
In the thirties, there developed a rift in Europe caused by fear of Nazi Germany, but there existed no balance of power in the sense of the Nineteenth Century, based on mutual consideration among the Great Powers. Anxious to keep Europe divided, the British at first blocked France; then, after the murder of Dollfuss, they unsuccessfully tried their negative approach to Germany. Lacking in devotion to principle, the "Appeasers" landed at first in Munich, and later in Moscow, while seeking an alliance with the Soviets (1939). Meanwhile, the Continent was writhing without a policy and without leadership, once to the Right and then to the Left, equally unwilling, as were the British, to make the needed effort, or to accept the indispensable economic sacrifices. No wonder that the two dynamic revolutionary forces, the Nazis and the Soviets, exploited the chaos of the Continent; they organized their respective groups and formed two aggressive poles whose conflict would lastingly destroy peace and the harmony of Europe. The question facing the non-committed nations in Europe - among them Hungary - was this: which totalitarian Great Power,
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the Nazis or the Soviets, would force them to enter into its orbit, and how long could they manage to keep away from both of them?
The European tragedy was deepened by the division of the Middle Danube Valley, the one-time cornerstone of European equilibrium. In this sideshow, Benes of Czechoslovakia had been playing the leading role, and after Geneva, he still gained in importance, since the aged President Masaryk was to resign within a year, leaving behind Benes as his successor. So the thaw generated in Geneva did not last long. On May 2,1935, Laval signed the Franco-Russian military alliance as the first link in the contemplated new European system, and on May 16, Czechoslovakia followed suit by signing a treaty of her own with Moscow. This was a long step backward from the better standard set by the League of Nations. This Treaty was identical to the pre - War military alliances of mutual defense and offense for it bound the contracting parties to immediate mutual assistance, to be rendered irrespective of whether the League pronounced a decision or not. The same day, a Czechoslovak-Russian Air Pact was also concluded which, in a fit of Czech over-zeal, agreed to establish and equip airfields in the very heart of Europe, and to place them and Czecho-Russian air traffic under the management of a joint central administration. The agreement guaranteed unconditionally that Soviet airplanes would be able to enter and communicate in Czechoslovakia without let or hindrance. Prague was 800 miles nearer to Western Europe than Kiev, the westernmost Soviet air base at that time. Benes had agreed to transform his homeland into a Soviet air base, to be used eventually for attack against the West.
These pacts caused a strong outburst of resentment, not only in Germany, but in most of the endangered European countries, even in some allied to Czechoslovakia. The Czech assertion that Moscow was the guardian of the European peace was countered with the accusation that the real purpose of the pacts was to assure the Soviets easy access to Central Europe and the possibility of appearing there in times of conflict to prevent peaceful solutions, provoke military actions, create confusion, and to drag, at a time chosen by the Soviets, Central Europe and the West into war. General Kort, the Military Commander of Moscow, was widely quoted in Budapest. In the month of June, 1935, after the resented pacts were conduded, he indicated their real purpose with old-time Bolshevik arrogance: "We shall throw the Red Army into
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the scales to hasten war and revolution. If the proletarian masses of Western Europe do not rise voluntarily to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Red Army will force that dictatorship on them."8 Had this not been the meaning of the pacts, they would have had no significance at all for the Soviets. They were given now a chance to subvert the Free World from bases established in its very midst. As a result of the pacts, Hitler declared:9 "Military factors have been introduced into Central Europe that have upset the European balance of power." Czechoslovakia chose thereby to become the number one enemy not only of the Nazis, but of every German - three and a half million of whom were living within Czechoslovakia's own borders.
By placing all his eggs in the Soviet basket, Benes also alienated his friends in the Little Entente. Actually, that Alliance existed thereafter in name only. Rumania, shy of the idea of being defended by Russia, refused to follow Czechoslovakia on the path to suicide. Titulescu had tried to push his country in that direction. He argued that for the sake of her French Ally, Rumania must ensure the Soviets the right of marching through Rumanian territory. His policy threatened to completely separate Poland from Rumania and impelled Stoyadinovitch, the realistic Yugoslav Premier, to absent himself from the Little Entente Conference. So Titulescu was dismissed by King Carol and Rumania reverted to her defensive alliance with Poland. The proper evaluation of Soviet policies drove Yugoslavia away from her almost exclusively Francophile policy and her relations with Hungary grew increasingly more friendly. So, the Czecho-Soviet alliance was left hanging in the air, the tattered remnant of the abortive French concept of "collective security" which, however, made of the Soviets an indispensable pillar of the Western security system.
It was the official thesis of Dr. Benes that the maintenance of peace in the Danube Valley concerned Europe as a whole. In the Hungarian Parliament and its Foreign Affairs Committee, I agreed with this thesis in general. But I raised the question. might not Czechoslovakia also be expected to do something in the interest of peace by eliminating rather than by adding dangers of war, then artificially fostered by Prague? By means of the Czecho-Russian treaty, a grave organic defect had crept into the political structure of the Danube Valley. A
8 Danubian Review, Vol. VI, No. 10 (Budapest: March 1937), p. 8.
9 Pester Lloyd, (Budapest: March 7, 1936).
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country's security, I argued, depends on the wisdom of its policies as much as on its self-defense. While allying his country with the Soviets, Benes expected to be defended by Europe. This was a basic mistake which was soon to deprive the minor powers in the Danubian Valley of their independence and of their freedom of choice. Yet, wedged in between the Nazi and the Soviet Great Powers, the small states in the Valley of the Danube did not wish to be tied to either of them. "Czechoslovakia," I concluded, "can fulfill her mission well if she fits into her natural setting and instead of seeking remote and risky friendships, creates a fair and tolerable situation for her immediate neighbors."10
10 Danubian Review, Vol. IV, No. 10 (Budapest: March 1937), p.10.
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RESPITE AND AGONY
The Soviet-Czechoslovak Pact of 1935 became a milestone in the history of Danubian decadence, for it definitely ruined all attempts at unification which the more farsighted leaders of the Successor States believed to be the only policy that in the long run might save the Danubian nations from Nazi domination. It also strengthened the popular support of Hitler and his arrogant programme in and outside of Germany, since the Soviets, favored by Benes, were generally considered by the rest of their neighbors as the worse one of the two menaces. Disheartened by the Nazis' absorption of Austria (March 12, 1938), the British "Appeasers" dispatched Lord Runciman to Prague in a distasteful attempt to placate Hitler by the amputation of the Sudetenland. Deprived in Munich of its defensible frontiers, in Marcb 1939, Hacha, the successor of Benes, then placed the truncated Czechoslovak State "trustingly in the hands of the Fuehrer." The Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia was the last helpless bit that remained of Czechslovakia six months after Munich, a conglomerate whose historic role Benes had so poorly judged.
In the last book he wrote, Benes boastfully pointed to a prejudice which had dominated his entire policy and led twice to the ruin of his country. "Since 1922 - he confessed - our effort has been oriented towards the Slav East (Russia) . . . . We never changed our ideas or our plans. . . . We worked methodically. Our endeavors to maintain this "Eastern" and "Slav" line were conscious and premeditated; they were based on a new conception of Europe's future."1
The consequences of the mistaken Peace Treaties upon Central Europe's destiny opened the way for the pernicious expansion first of the Nazis, and then of the Soviets. These basic structural mistakes deprived the interdependent Danubian area of its vital defenses: the Carpathians, against incursions from the East; and the Sudeten Mountains, against interference from the West. The consequences of the latter blunder were almost instantaneous. At a conference, held in Warsaw six weeks after Munich, Colonel Joseph Beck, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed his leading diplomats2 that "the
1 Dr. E. Benes, "Ou vont les Slaves?" Edition "Notre Temps" (Paris, 1946), p. 18.
2 Comte Jean Szernbek, Memoirs Plon, Paris, 1952, p. 369-370.
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weakness of that state (Czechoslovakia) surpassed everything that we originally may have expected. Before the war, there was much complaint about the Balkans, because the organization of the states there had been weak and they were used by others as instruments. After the war, all of Europe was 'balkanized' as far as the Carpathians. . . In principle, Hungary may be considered as being more resistant than the other countries. . . We have to see to it that we obtain as quickly as possible a common frontier with Hungary." Colonel Beck also remarked that "England and France were totally disinterested" in the Hungarian territorial claims which, according to the Munich Agreement, were to be settled by direct negotiation between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Colonel Beck's reference to the lack of interest in the Hungarian claims on the part of England and France - the two Great Powers primarily responsible for the debacle of the European Continent - proved to be an understatement. After Munich, these Powers not only dropped their interest in the Hungarian territorial claims, but completely abandoned Hungary and the rest of the Danubian States to Hitler and Mussolini, as the dictators' sphere of influence with which they did not wish to interfere. Since no agreement was reached between the Hungarians and the Slovaks at the Conference held in Komarom, the Hungarian Government requested the four Munich Powers to arbitrate the Hungarian claim concerning the South-Slovakian territories densely populated by Hungarians.
The French and British declarations of disinterestedness caused serious embarrassment to the Hungarian Government, for it had to content itself with arbitration by Germany and Italy - the only available Munich Powers - or create an accomplished fact, the method recommended by Poland. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Bela Imredy, leaned towards the latter policy and asked the Regent to sign an order to mobilize the Army. But Horthy refused and insisted that a peaceful solution be found concerning the revision of the Hungarian-Slovak frontier based on the ethnic principle. "I am a soldier," he told Imredy, "and I know what war means. I will not risk war for a result that can be achieved by other means."
Among the responsible Hungarian leaders who remained at a distance from Henlein, the Sudeten-German leader, and counseled moderation to Hungarian hotheads, was Count John Eszterhazy, the leader of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. An aristocrat, not only
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by birth, he was the sole member of the Slovak Parliament who dared to vote against the "Nuremberg" anti-Jewish laws after Munich. He survived Hitler, but after the return of Benes in 1945, he was handed over to the Red Army to be deported for slave labor to Soviet Russia. Years later, with both lungs destroyed by lead poisoning through working in a mine, Eszterhazy, once a strong, handsome young man, was sent home to die; but back in Czechoslovakia, he was kept in jail to bis last day - he was too popular among his people.
For two decades the territorial status quo in Europe could not be changed, for the "have-nots," even though restive, did not possess enough power to lend sufficient weight to their demands, however rightful these may have been. The Peace Treaty of Trianon had forced one out of every four Hungarians to live outside of his fatherland, scattered in five foreign countries. Yet, for 18 years the just and modest demand of Hungary for the rectification of her arbitrarily drawn frontiers had been consistently frustrated by the victorious Powers. But with the massive rearmament of Nazi Germany, a radical shift developed in the power-political equation of Europe which, in 1938, was to bring about a corresponding change in the status quo. When Britain and France withdrew from Central Europe, they created a completely new situation: they abandoned to the overlordship of Hitler the entire valley of the Danube. Further they put the Little Entente Alliance out of business and opened up the road toward the revision of the Trianon Treaty.
Germany and Italy, the two Great Powers deeply dissatisfied with the Paris Peace Treaties, thus obtained a position which would allow them to reshape jointly the badly mangled Danubian situation. Unification or any step toward a federation of these small states would be considered a provocation and be ruled out by Hitler, for he planned to incorporate them one by one, isolated and under pressure, into his "South-Eastern living space." Meanwhile, urged on by Mussolini, he consented to revise the Hungarian boundaries on the basis of the ethnic principle, as proclaimed, but disregarded by the Western Allies.
It might be of interest to note the similarity between the pressures in Europe at that time, caused by a change in the balance of power, and those presently developing in our world. Hider had succeeded in building up sufficient Nazi power during the period of Western complacency, with which to dominate the Continent. In the same manner,
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Stalin was allowed to expand and stabilize the Soviet Empire, after the war, while the West, still having the monopoly of the atom bomb was unquestionably superior to the Soviets. By now, the Soviets have added to their much stronger ground forces the atom arm and rocketry capable of global offense. The field where they are testing the new power equation is Berlin. Khrushchev wants his Yalta sphere of influence expanded so that all of Berlin should come behind the Wall. Then Berlin would constitute the "Munich" of our days.
Western attempts to prolong the present stalemate cannot lead to a favorable solution, for in an endless game of nuclear 'chicken' Khrushchev has a clear advantage over the West."3 Two changes in the Western approach appear as indispensable and timely: (a) it does not suffice to prepare for defense, we must have the determination to win; and (b) an all-out effort is needed to surpass the Soviet power beyond anybody's doubt and in every respect. Only then can we live at peace with Russia.
The irrepressible Hungarian demand for revision succeeded under the changed circumstances after Munich. On November 2, 1938, the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Italy met in Vienna to settle the new frontier line between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. According to the 1941 Hungarian census, the first Vienna Award returned to Hungary, along her frontier with Slovakia, a population of 1,081,247, of whom 83.2% were Hungarians. The same two Great Powers, in the second Vienna Award on August 30, 1940, revised the frontier between Rumania and Hungary with the consent of the interested Foreign Ministers: Count Csaky for Hungary and Mr. Manoilescu for Rumania. Of the population of 2,577,291 then returned to Hungary, 52.4% were Hungarians and 37.2% Rumanians.5 Including later territorial adjustments effected during the Second World War, a total of 2.7 million Hungarians rejoined life under their own Government. This considerable peaceful success could not have been achieved but for the perseverance and moderation of the Hungarian people's demand for peaceful revision which Hitler preferred not to disappoint.
Both in theory and in practice, the Vienna Awards were achieved in complete accord with international law and without the use of force. They corrected, in areas inhabited by mixed races, gross violations of
3 Stewart Alsop, The Saurday Evening Post, (January 27, 1962).
4 Magyar Statisztikai Szemle, (Budapest, 1947), pp. 8-10.
5 Ibid,
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the ethnic principle comitted arbitrarily by the Trianon Peace Treaty. These facts had to be stated clearly, for at the end of the Second World War the Vienna Awards were assailed by Little Entente propagandists as acts of Hungarian aggression. It is a baseless accusation that in alliance with Hitler, Hungary participated in the looting of Czechoslovakia. The truth is that a part of Hungary's territory inhabited by Hungarians for over a thousand years had been restored to her through the internationally accepted legal process of arbitration. Having asked for revision for eighteen years, how could Hungary have refused the homecoming of a part of her nationals?6
Twentieth Century peacemaking, with statesmanship yielding to demagoguery, can hardly be regarded as successful. Defects in the Paris peace treaties caused almost constant irritation because for two decades no improvement could be achieved by peaceful means. As made clear previously, President Wilson did wish to provide the possibility of treaty revision in the Covenant, irrespective of power politics. But the League of Nations, deprived since its inception of American dynamism, stiffened into a one-sided instrument for the defense of the status quo. The Monarchs at the Congress of Vienna (1815), more foresighted than the leaders of our era, did grant to defeated France, five years later, substantial treaty revision.7 Much trouble could have been avoided had the Allies at the end of the Second World War provided for the automatic revision of their agreements. It also seems that the right of holding plebiscites in disputed territories should have been secured for the United Nations. The peaceful liquidation of colonialism might have been aided thereby. And the day may come, after all, when the problems of the Danube Valley will be given honest consideration. Besides those accorded in the two Vienna Awards, there were other territorial changes in the Trianon Treaty effected during the Second World War. In areas which once had formed a part of Hungary, the fortunes of war created power vacuums, in Czechoslovakia as well as in Yugoslavia, which the Nazis would fill unless occupied by the Hun-
6 The British historian C. A. Macartney ("October Fifteenth," Edinburgh University Press, 1956, p. 250) has criticized severely those "writers who, a little later, were so self-righteously branding Hungary with the vulgar and entirely inappropriate name of 'jackal.'" They "might in common decency have remembered her (Hungary's) repeated appeals to their own country's (Britain's) sense of justice and the renunciations made by her (Hungary) in that cause of claims whkh in her own eyes were justified on every score.
7 0n May 15, 1820, in the Final Act of Vienna.
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garians. 'The first such change through an accomplished fact occurred in Sub-Carpathia, also called Ruthenia (or Carpatho-Ukraine), a narrow strip of wooded land separating Hungary from nearby Poland. The majority of its population of 621,976 was composed of mountaineers of Ukrainian descent living under primitive conditions, According to the 1941 census - there was no indigenous Czech population at all in that province, and only 140,340 Hungarians. This forest land lacking in natural resources had been thinly populated during centuries by immigrants from the Ukraine. But for over a thousand years it had always formed a part of Hungary as a key position in the Carpathian defense system, The headwaters of the rivers, indispensable for the irrigation of the Great Hungarian Plain, originate in these mountains while the valleys used to serve for comunication between the two friendly neighbors, Poland and Hungary. Annexed in 1919 by Czechoslovakia, Sub-Carpathia became completely useless to faraway Prague and according to President Masaryk's statement - was only held in trust for the time when it would be handed over to the Russians. Ruthenia was to constitute part of a Pan-Slav Corridor between Moscow and Prague; meanwhile it was transformed into a barrier to isolate Hungary from Poland. High tariffs prevented the transportation of goods, such as much-needed coal, from Poland to Hungary and caused superfluous railway tracks to be torn up. The Ruthenian mountaineers lost their nearby Hungarian market for their timber and gazed longingly from their rocky abode towards the vast Hungarian Plain bearing the grains which once they had been harvesting.
In mid-March, 1939, when Slovakia declared her independence from Bohemia, the Ruthenians drove out their cumbersome Czech administrators, But the danger was iminent that Hitler would lay his heavy hands on that helpless province. Urged also by the Poles, Hungarian forces marched to the ancient frontier, the watershed of the Carpathians, and restored direct contact with Poland. Thanks to this escape route, tens of thousands of Polish soldiers, including the Army Corps of Lwow, were saved a few months later in September, 1939, from extermination, when Stalin stabbed Poland in the back in alliance with Hitler.
Hitler had tried to keep Hungary out of Ruthenia, for he wished
8 Ibid.
9 To Mr. Gilerson, a representative of the Red Cross (Narodny Listy, July 11, 1924).
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to secure that strategic position as a base for his coming campaign against Poland. On the other hand, Hitler used maximum pressure to force Hungary to participate in the invasion of Yugoslavia in April, 1941. He needed aid in urgently carrying out the military as well as political destruction of Yugoslavia. On March 26, General Simovitch of the Yugoslav Air Force carried out a putsch ousting Prime Minister Cvetkovitch and his Government who had signed, two days earlier, the Three Power Pact to joining Yugoslavia to the camp of the Axis. Hitler flew into a violent rage; this defection was a delaying manoeuvre, shortly before his invasion of Soviet Russia, which he had not expected. The Hungarian Minister to Berlin, General Sztojay, was put on a plane to get from Regent Horthy "an immediate and positive answer" to the Fuhrer's request not only to agree to the transportation of German troops across Hungary but also to participate with Hungarian forces in the occupation of Yugoslavia.
At that time, at the invitation of President Roosevelt, I was on my way to America, never to return to the country of my birth which I love. On March 1, 1941, the German Army crossed the Lower Danube in force, from Rumania into Bulgaria, to destroy the heroic resistance of the Greek people against Italian aggression. My last exit from encircled Hungary, the one through the Balkans, would soon be blocked by Hitler and I decided that I would not be trapped by the Nazis. On taking leave of the Regent, I found him over-optimistic concerning coming events. He agreed that the showdown in the Balkans was quite near but refused to believe that Hitler would wish to drag Hungary into it. An outdoor he-man, the Admiral would worry about a clash in Parliament which he did not relish, but placidly considered the fortunes of war with which he was familiar. Sir Alfred Chatfield, the First Sea Lord of Britain in the thirties, told me of an interesting encounter he had with Horthy during the First World War in the Straits of Otranto. Commander of a much smaller hostile fleet, Horthy flagged to the oncoming British forces, including two dreadnoughts: "Send the two Big Boys away, I wish to fight you!" Horthy hated to turn tail when challenged and the British Admiral seemed to appreciate his spirit.
But in 1941, it was Horthy's main desire to stay out of the war waged by Hitler - a person whom the Admiral despised. In 1937,
10 Concluded on September 27, 1940, by the Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan.
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just back from a naval parade in Kiel where Hitler had tried to impress Horthy with his new modern fleet, the Regent complained to me about "the vulgarity of that character" whose power was terriflying, but with whom he would never have anything to do. Now, in March, 194], Horthy had no doubt that the Nazis would be defeated in a few years' time, "somewhere in distant Asia or Africa." But he felt certain that the danger of war had passed away, well beyond Hungary, and that our neutrality could be maintained up to the war's end. He assured me that he would certainly refuse to join in Hitler's war or to resign under Nazi pressure which might enable Hitler to take over Hungary.
On March 7, 1941, I left Hungary via Belgrade. Under Nazi prodding, the Hungarian Foreign Office had intervened in Belgrade to refuse me a transit visa. My good friend, Rashitch, the Yugoslav Minister to Hungary, informed me of this when he handed me the requested visa. He also told me that instructions were given by the Yugoslav Government to facilitate my journey across their country. The manly contest, honestly fought in Geneva, had created ties of mutual friendship between us. It proved difficult, however, for me to get out of Hungary, for more than a hundred Gestapo agents crowded the railway platform in Budapest with orders to prevent my departure, if need be, even by force. My trusted friend, Joseph Sombor, who had assisted me in Geneva, sent twice as many detectives of the Budapest Police to the station, to take care of the Gestapo agents. This is how I started on my one-way trip to America.
The night before, I had spent hours alone with Count Paul Teleki the Hungarian Prime Minister. Although a leader of the Opposition - I enjoyed much closer friendship with him than most members of his own Party. He foresaw the gloomy future of Hungary and was determined to face it, come what may! Under no circumstances would he allow our country to drift into the war. This statement was good enough for me, for it was supported by Christian faith and the moral strength of a gentleman. But in those tragic first days of April, it was not Hitler's ultimatum alone which threatened Hungary. George Barcza, our Minister to London, reported that Mr. Eden threatened to break off diplomatic relations, unless Hungary prevented the march of German trops across her territory. The choice left for Teleki was between two disastrous alternatives: immediate destruction of Hungary by German land and air forces, or a state of war with Britain. Only a
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few months earlier (December 12, 1940), Hungary had concluded a Pact of Friendship with Yugoslavia to end Nazi intrigues playing one country against the other. Could Teleki now support the ruthless German attack against Hungary's friend? On April 3, at midnight, Teleki was informed of the subservience of General Werth, the Chief of the Hungarian General Staff, to the German Army Command. This was too much for him to bear. Next morning I learned in Cairo the tragic news of Teleki's suicide. In his farewell letter to the Regent he expressed the hope that "with my death I may perhaps perform a last service to my country."11 Churchill declared on the radio that the sacrifice of the Hungarian Prime Minister may not be forgotten and "at the coming peace conference a chair shall be reserved for him." But it was Stalin, at the war's end, who was sitting in Teleki's chair to take care of Hungary, as he pleased.
Early next morning, following Teleki's suicide, German tanks were rambling in the streets of Budapest. In his memoirs, written in exile, Horthy gives the following account 12 of Hungary's role in the occupation of the Bacska:13
"Having received Hitler's imperative demand, we found ourselves in a compelling situation to act." If we stayed away from the Bacska surrounded by German troops, a vacuum would be created and the large Hungarian national group there would become the defenseless victim of the Serb Chetniks. We also had to reckon with the certainty that if we rejected the demands of Hitler - that is, if we did not occupy the Bacska - the German Army Command would feel compelled not only to direct its own troops there, but also to occupy militarily the uncooperative "Hinterland" for the protection of its lines of communication, including its center, the capital, Budapest. "We had no doubt that this would mean the end of Hungary's independence."
Hitler invaded Yugoslavia at dawn, on April 6. But only on April 10, 1941, were the Hungarian troops ordered to occupy the Bacska after Croatia had proclaimed her independence and Yugoslavia had disintegrated within four days. Nowhere in Europe had the World War produced an outbreak of such wild hatreds and mass murder as erupted then among Serbs and Croats, soon to be topped by the fratricidal
11 Nikolaus von Horthy, Ein Leben fur Ungarn (Bonn: Atheneum Verlag, 1953) p. 228.
12 Ibid., p. 231.
13 Hungarian province annexed by Yugoslavia in 1919.
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struggle among Tito's partisans and Mihailovitch' Chetniks. The role of the Hungarian Army remained restricted to the occupation of the Bacska and only up to the old Hungarian frontier. The Bacska formed about one half of the Voivodina, a territory which Yugoslavia had annexed from prewar Hungary, and Hungary did not try to recuperate the other half, called the Banat. Nor did the Hungarian troops participate in Hitler's war in the Balkans, for which the Fuhrer did not disguise his resentment. Altogether, a mixed population of 1,066,122 returned under Hungarian administration, of whom 44.4% were Hungarians, while the aggregate of the various Southern Slavs amounted to 39.1% of the entire population. Horthy had stated correctly in his Memoirs that with his war against Yugoslavia Hitler had created a vacuum in former Hungarian territory. The strongest national group there, the Hungarian, certainly did need protection, not only against the Serb Chetniks, but also against the uncontrollable Montenegrin and Macedonian settlers, called the "Dobrovolci," dreaded for their savagery. The Hungarian occupation of the Bacska did not come under the meaning of peaceful revision; neither did it constitute an act of war. Under the existing circumstances, even the British did not see sufficient reason for breaking off diplomatic relations with Hungary, as they had previously threatened.
With the exception of 600,000 Hungarians left outside of Hungary, the nation was now united in its own State. Then came the Soviet victory at Stalingrad and the partition of Europe at Teheran and Yalta, with Hungary falling into the sphere of the Soviets. The Soviet Union had branded the Trianon Treaty an "imperialistic peace" before the war, but now reversed its attitude, for it found it more convenient to lure the three former Little Entente Powers into the Communist fold at the expense of Hungary which "had been in no hurry to adopt the Soviet political patterns and consequently received little support from the Soviet Union during the treaty negotiations."14 Beshaming decency and comon sense, the outrageous Trianon Treaty was again enacted in 1947 in Paris, even in a more malignant form than it had been originally drafted in 1919.
The woeful history of this aberration lies outside the scope of this book. Yet, may this much be noted for the reader's enlightenment,
14 John C. Campbell, The United States in World Affairs, 1945-47 (New York, London, 1947), p. 117.
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that in contravention of the ethnic principle and the right of self-determination granted widely, even to African tribes in the jungle, in the Soviet zone of Central Europe it was again the populations which were adjusted to the boundaries and not the boundaries drafted according to the wish and needs of the populations. 15 To exclude all outside interference with Comunist designs, the protection of the minorities was altogether dropped from these peace treaties. In order to help the wobbly Czechoslovak State to achieve some degree of stability, the Potsdam Conference ordered the "humane" transfer of the German and Hungarian populations to their countries of origin. Could inhumanity be exercised humanely? Out for revenge, Edward Benes, the reinstated President of Czechoslovakia, held the minorities under his rule responsible for the disintegration of the State in 1938. Applying the Nazi principle of "collective guilt," he deprived more than four million of them of their citizenship and ordered all their properties to be confiscated.16 Penniless, they were driven across the border from their homes where their forebears had been living for centuries.
In agreement with Benes, Stalin annexed Ruthenia, thereby cutting a wide road across the Carpathians for the Soviets' march into the heart of Europe. One by one, the Soviets transformed the nine Central and Eastern European nations in their zone into Communist satellites, including helpless Hungary, isolated by her neightbors and squeezed again into the straightjacket of the impossible Trianon boundaries. By 1948, the entire process was completed, and in 1956, when the youth of Budapest, mowed down by Soviet tanks, cried for help, the West could not be stirred into action. Half a century ago, Western pro-Slav propagandists had branded the respectable Austro-Hungarian Monarchy "the jail of nations." Many have contributed since then to make out of the false accusation of that time a lasting reality on the banks of the Danube.
Students of history may have become aware by now that small nations like the Finns, the Hungarians, or even the Turks who all share the tragic fate of living in the shadow of Russia, had to defend their supreme values in both World Wars primarily against that despotic Power. Both under Tsarism and Bolshevism, Muscovite imperialism
15 Article XIX of the Hungarian Armistice Terms, signed on January 22, 1945, in Moscow, declared: "The Vienna Arbitration award of November 2, 1938, and the Vienna award of August 30, 1940, are herewith declared to be null and void."
16 Presidential Decree No.33, published on Apri l 2, 1945, in Prague.
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was intent not only on depriving these peoples of their freedom and national independence, but also of their human rights which Russian oppression would put into jeopardy. Four times victimized within a century by the Russians,17 the Hungarian people never had a choice of the side on which to fight. But by defending themselves against the crushing attacks of Tsarist and Bolshevik Russia, they have been sacrificing their lives for the same ideals of freedom and independence at the service of which the youth of the Western Allies marched to their death. There were right and wrong causes involved in the World Wars, but no side could be considered as entirely right or wrong. This still unfinished War of the twentieth Century has been fought all the time by coalitions with the Kaiser and then with Hitler on the side of the Central Powers, and on the other side with the Tsar and the Soviets included among the Democracies. Decency and sound morale were not exclusively on one side, and Hungary's struggle against the onslaught of the Red Army was no less justified and honorable than the resistance of France to invasion by the Germans.
Victors, as a rule, will reap the fruits of their military triumph and reserve for themselves the toga of rectitude also. But peacemakers pronouncing moral judgments, should rather use one and the same yardstick for all concerned if they wish to achieve peace through better understanding. The vulgar repetition in 1947, of the Trianon Treaty, known to be unjust, cannot be explained away with the hypocritical argumentation that Hungary bad been fighting again "on the wrong side."
In the defense of cherished human values, the Hungarian people revolted in 1956 against their oppressors. Tbe youth of Hungary was massacred by the Red Army but earned undying glory for its heroism. It was the same foe, whom the Hungarian people had been fighting in the World Wars, and the same motive, their love of freedom, which consistently had spurred them into action. For the same patriotic stand, they were abandoned to Stalin's mercy at the war's end, but showered with praise by the Free World a decade later, when the Soviets had been recognized as "the wrong side."
"That is the greatest wrong which is accomplished in the form of right," taught Plato, two thousand years ago.
17 The Tsarist Army destroyed in 1849 Louis Kossuth's glorious fight for independence; at the end of the First World War Soviet agents established the first Communist dictatorship in Budapest under Bela Kun (1919) and they repeated the same disgrace in 1947, under the protection of the Red Army. In October 1956, Soviet tanks stamped out the Hungarian people's heroic fight for freedom, as will be still remembered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Appendix
THE RESOLUTION OF THE LEAGUE
(December 10, 1934)
GENEVA, Dec. 10,1934.-Text of the resolution of the League of Nations Council on the Marseille assassinations:
I. THE COUNCIL, convinced that it interprets the sentiments of the whole League of Nations;
Unanimously deploring the crime which occasioned the loss of the lives of the knightly King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, the unifier, and Louis Barthou;
Condemns this odious crime, Associates itself with the mourning of the Yugoslav nation and the French nation,
And insists that all those responsible should be punished.
II. THE COUNCIL recalls
That it is the duty of every State neither to encourage nor tolerate on its territory any terrorist activity with a political purpose;
That every State must do all in its power to prevent and repress acts of this nature and must for this purpose lend its assistance to governments which request it;
Is of the opinion that these duties devolve particularly on members of the League of Nations in view of the obligations of the Covenant in relation to the engagements they have undertaken to respect the territorial integrity and existing political independence of other members.
III. THE COUNCIL,
Desirous that good understanding on which peace depends should exist between the members of the League and expressing its confidence that they will avoid anything which might be of a nature to compromise it;
Noting that as a result of discussions which have taken place before the Council and documents which have been comunicated to it, particularly diplomatic correspondence exchanged between the Hungarian and Yugoslav Governments from 1931 to 1934, various questions relative to the existence or activities outside Yugoslav territory of terrorist
250
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elements have not been settled in a manner which has given satisfaction to the Yugoslav Government;
Being of the opinion as a result of these discussions and documents that certain Hungarian authorities may have assumed, at any rate through negligence, certain responsibilities relative to acts having connection with the preparation of the Marseille crime;
Considering on the other hand that it is incumbent on the Hungarian Government, conscious of its international responsibilities, to take at once appropriate punitive action in the case of any of its authorities whose culpability may have been established;
Convinced of the good-will of the Hungarian Government to perform this duty;
Requests it to communicate to the Council the measures it takes to this effect.
IV. THE COUNCIL,
Considering that rules of international law concerning the repression of terrorist activities are not at present sufficiently precise to guarantee efficiently international cooperation in this matter,
Decides to set up a committee of experts to study this question with a view to drawing up a preliminary draft of an international convention to assure the repression of conspiracies or crimes committed with political and terrorist purpose;
Decides that this committee shall he composed of ten members, one each from the governments of Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Spain, Switzerland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, each of these governments being invited to appoint a member;
Refers to this committee for examination of the suggestions presented to the Council by the French Government and requests other governments which may wish to present suggestions to send them to the Secretary General so that they may be examined by the committee;
Invites the committee to report to the Council so that the latter may apply the procedure laid down in the Assembly's resolution of the 25th of September, 1931, concerning the drawing up of general conventions negotiated under the auspices of the League of Nations.
THE AMERICAN HUNGARIAN LIBRARY
AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
New York, N.Y.
(Charter 1955, Absolute Charter 1963 by The University of the State of New York.)
The aim of the Society can be summed up in the following statement of Paragraph 2a of its Constitution: "to further interest in and knowledge of the contribution of Hungarian art, history and science to the culture of the United States of America."
JOHN PELENYI . . . . . Honorary President
Former Hungarian Envoy to Washington, D.C.; Prof Emeritus, Dartmouth; Presidcnt Emeritus, Free Europe University, Strassbourg, France.
ALEXANDER ST.-IVANYI . . . . . President
S.T.M. (Harvard), D.D. (Meadville); Bishop Vicar, the Unitarian Churches, Hungary; former M.P.; President, Hungarian Red Cross, etc.
BARON FRANCIS NEUMAN DE VEGVAR . . . Vice-President
Hon. President, New York American Hungarian Sport Club, Inc.
TIBOR ECKHARDT . . . Chairman, Archives Committee
Doctor of Law and Poj. Scienec, former Hungarian Envoy to the League of Nations, Geneva; M.P.; Chairman, Political Comm. of Hungarian Catholic League of America.
ALBERT B. MARK . . . . . Legal Advisor
Doctor of Jurisprudence, Counselor at Law.
Mrs. ANDRAS KOVACS . . . . . Secretary
Librarian; Board member, etc.
IMRE NEMETHY . . . . . . . Treasurer
Doctor of Law; former Chief-counselor, Ministry of Justice, Hungary.
DOUGLAS GRAHAM . . . . . Treasurer
Investment counselor etc.
FRANCIS CHORIN, Chairman,'
LESLIE ACSAY, TIBOR ECKHARDT, DOUGLAS GRAHAM, BARON FRANCIS NEUMAN DE VEGVAR . . . House Committee
STEPHEN REVAY . . . . . . . . Director
Director, Research Institute of Hungarian Minorities; Secretary, Hungarian Society, New York, etc.
The mail address of the Society is: P.O. Box 209, Gracie Station New York 28, N.Y. Urgent communications as well as orders of books should be addressed to: Rev. Alexander St.-Ivanyi, Lancaster, Mass. 01523.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appendix
THE RESOLUTION OF THE LEAGUE
(December 10, 1934)
GENEVA, Dec. 10,1934.-Text of the resolution of the League of Nations Council on the Marseille assassinations:
I. THE COUNCIL, convinced that it interprets the sentiments of the whole League of Nations;
Unanimously deploring the crime which occasioned the loss of the lives of the knightly King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, the unifier, and Louis Barthou;
Condemns this odious crime, Associates itself with the mourning of the Yugoslav nation and the French nation,
And insists that all those responsible should be punished.
II. THE COUNCIL recalls
That it is the duty of every State neither to encourage nor tolerate on its territory any terrorist activity with a political purpose;
That every State must do all in its power to prevent and repress acts of this nature and must for this purpose lend its assistance to governments which request it;
Is of the opinion that these duties devolve particularly on members of the League of Nations in view of the obligations of the Covenant in relation to the engagements they have undertaken to respect the territorial integrity and existing political independence of other members.
III. THE COUNCIL,
Desirous that good understanding on which peace depends should exist between the members of the League and expressing its confidence that they will avoid anything which might be of a nature to compromise it;
Noting that as a result of discussions which have taken place before the Council and documents which have been comunicated to it, particularly diplomatic correspondence exchanged between the Hungarian and Yugoslav Governments from 1931 to 1934, various questions relative to the existence or activities outside Yugoslav territory of terrorist
250
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
elements have not been settled in a manner which has given satisfaction to the Yugoslav Government;
Being of the opinion as a result of these discussions and documents that certain Hungarian authorities may have assumed, at any rate through negligence, certain responsibilities relative to acts having connection with the preparation of the Marseille crime;
Considering on the other hand that it is incumbent on the Hungarian Government, conscious of its international responsibilities, to take at once appropriate punitive action in the case of any of its authorities whose culpability may have been established;
Convinced of the good-will of the Hungarian Government to perform this duty;
Requests it to communicate to the Council the measures it takes to this effect.
IV. THE COUNCIL,
Considering that rules of international law concerning the repression of terrorist activities are not at present sufficiently precise to guarantee efficiently international cooperation in this matter,
Decides to set up a committee of experts to study this question with a view to drawing up a preliminary draft of an international convention to assure the repression of conspiracies or crimes committed with political and terrorist purpose;
Decides that this committee shall he composed of ten members, one each from the governments of Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Spain, Switzerland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, each of these governments being invited to appoint a member;
Refers to this committee for examination of the suggestions presented to the Council by the French Government and requests other governments which may wish to present suggestions to send them to the Secretary General so that they may be examined by the committee;
Invites the committee to report to the Council so that the latter may apply the procedure laid down in the Assembly's resolution of the 25th of September, 1931, concerning the drawing up of general conventions negotiated under the auspices of the League of Nations.
THE AMERICAN HUNGARIAN LIBRARY
AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
New York, N.Y.
(Charter 1955, Absolute Charter 1963 by The University of the State of New York.)
The aim of the Society can be summed up in the following statement of Paragraph 2a of its Constitution: "to further interest in and knowledge of the contribution of Hungarian art, history and science to the culture of the United States of America."
JOHN PELENYI . . . . . Honorary President
Former Hungarian Envoy to Washington, D.C.; Prof Emeritus, Dartmouth; Presidcnt Emeritus, Free Europe University, Strassbourg, France.
ALEXANDER ST.-IVANYI . . . . . President
S.T.M. (Harvard), D.D. (Meadville); Bishop Vicar, the Unitarian Churches, Hungary; former M.P.; President, Hungarian Red Cross, etc.
BARON FRANCIS NEUMAN DE VEGVAR . . . Vice-President
Hon. President, New York American Hungarian Sport Club, Inc.
TIBOR ECKHARDT . . . Chairman, Archives Committee
Doctor of Law and Poj. Scienec, former Hungarian Envoy to the League of Nations, Geneva; M.P.; Chairman, Political Comm. of Hungarian Catholic League of America.
ALBERT B. MARK . . . . . Legal Advisor
Doctor of Jurisprudence, Counselor at Law.
Mrs. ANDRAS KOVACS . . . . . Secretary
Librarian; Board member, etc.
IMRE NEMETHY . . . . . . . Treasurer
Doctor of Law; former Chief-counselor, Ministry of Justice, Hungary.
DOUGLAS GRAHAM . . . . . Treasurer
Investment counselor etc.
FRANCIS CHORIN, Chairman,'
LESLIE ACSAY, TIBOR ECKHARDT, DOUGLAS GRAHAM, BARON FRANCIS NEUMAN DE VEGVAR . . . House Committee
STEPHEN REVAY . . . . . . . . Director
Director, Research Institute of Hungarian Minorities; Secretary, Hungarian Society, New York, etc.
The mail address of the Society is: P.O. Box 209, Gracie Station New York 28, N.Y. Urgent communications as well as orders of books should be addressed to: Rev. Alexander St.-Ivanyi, Lancaster, Mass. 01523.
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The secret organizations in Yugoslavia however, continued their terroristic ... Revolutionary opposition to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes ...
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