Papers and Documents relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 1, 1919–1920 (Budapest, 1939)

Preface by count Stephen Csáky

PREFACE The Royal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, desiring to facilitate the objective study of international law and relations, has decided to begin the publication of papers and documents relating to Hungary's foreign relations. It was not until after the end of the World War that Hungary, mutilated as she was by that great cataclysm and shaken by the upheaval of two successive revolutions, recovered her complete independence in the conduct of foreign relations. From the beginning of whet may be reckoned as modern diplomacy, Hungary was represented abroad by the organs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was able, therefore, to pursue a foreign policy only through the instrumentality of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the former Monarchy. When those century-old ties were severed, and as soon as the yoke of the bolshevik regime had been shaken off, Hungary strove to rebuild her own international relations. The events with which this volume is concerned are scarcely cheerful. It is not at all the purpose of this publication to revive the rancors and animosities of those unhappy times. On the contrary

, publication of the record is an indication that those years belong to a past which can now be dispassionately examined in historical perspective. The present volume covers the period from the reestablishment of constitutional government (August, 1919) to the end of 1920. The diplomatic correspondence printed in this volume includes all the documents of that period which seem pertinent from the point of view of Hungary's foreign relations, as well as those documents which are significant as revealing attitudes regarding the application or interpretation of international law. In order to make this collection available to a wider circle of readers, documents in the Hungarian language have been translated