Papers and Documents relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 1, 1919–1920 (Budapest, 1939)
Appendix III. Parliamentary debates
9 48 Apponyi (General approval and applause. Exclamations : „Long live Apponyi!"), to the Supreme Council beginning with the sentence that unless substantial changes are made, the peace conditions are unacceptable to us because they cannot be fulfilled. All our reply notes are based on this basic premise. The Hungarian Peace Delegation was always able to preserve the dignity of the nation; it never retreated from its position and its arguments were always advanced with the characteristic dignity of our nation. This is the value which prevailed when all other values collapsed; the maintenance of this value was considered by the Peace Delegation as its first and foremost duty. (Approval.) As regards the work of the Peace Delegation and the peace treaty itself, I think my esteemed fellow-deputy, Antal Sigray, has characterized the situation correctly .. . I believe the fact must be recognized that this nation can accept the peace treaty only if it is convinced that the treaty, even if modified, cannot be permanent; that this peace treaty, like all the work done so far, is but the beginning of Europe's rehabilitation, work which, combined with the recognition of the new situation, will lead gradually to clearer conceptions and, step by step, to an entirely new condition, a condition which truly rests on understanding. My esteemed friend, Sigray, has said that the nation can accept this treaty only with reservations; reservations regarding revision. This reservation, I believe, is so natural that it is expected even by foreign countries. Even foreign countries know that this nation cannot commit suicide. (Approval.) The burden of the peace conditions is so heavy that this nation, having gone through Bolshevism and Rumanian occupation, cannot bear up under it. Acknowledgment of the fact that this situation is untenable and unbearable is bound to come. If we ourselves are convinced of this, then it will be possible for both parties to find a way towards a fairer solution. Perhaps I should again refer to a French author who, speaking of another state whose boundaries were likewise on prairie land and which was also compelled to live amidst unprotected boundaries, speaking of Brandenburg, this author, the great French historian Henri Lavisse, said that Brandenburg was condemned to grow or to commit suicide since with such boundaries it was almost impossible to form a state. The statesmen of the great powers are gradually returning to the mentality which characterized their great writers, scholars and philosophers. If they return to this prophetic statement of Henri Lavisse, then they too will realize that in this case a solution
