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

Appendix III. Parliamentary debates

i974 Count Paul Teleki, Minister for Foreign Affairs: ... I am grateful to the Members of the House who addressed an interpellation to me (Hear! Hear!) because Hungarian public opinion has every right to be outraged by what is happening all around us. It would take too long to describe how many times already our Peace Delegation has protested against the treatment by neighbouring States of the population of the occupied territories, particularly the Hungarian part of that population. In addition to the energetic protests of the Peace Delegations, numerous representations have been made by preceding Hungarian Governments to the Interallied Military Mission which was sent here to supervise execution of the armistice agreement and which is therefore the authority entrusted with the duty of controlling the conduct of the occupying armies and of preventing atrocities. Ever since I took over the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, I have continued to make representations. The list of protests which we have sent to the Allied missions and, recently, also to the representatives of the Czech and Yugoslav Governments (there is as yet no Rumanian representative in Budapest), is indeed a long one. I happen to have with me a list of some of the notes we have sent to the Yugoslav representative, chiefly concerning Baranya. These notes are dated November 27, December 9, 20, 22, 31 [1919], January 13, 22, 25, 31, February 17, 26, March 11, 27, April 13 and 21. To all these notes we have finally received one unsatisfactory reply. I may remark that copies of the notes addressed to the Yugoslav representative were also sent to the representatives of the Principal Allied Powers and to the Commission of Interallied Generals in Budapest

... The same procedure has been followed in the case of Czechoslovakia. I do not have here the list of our protest notes, but I may say that most of our intervention concerned atrocities committed in connection with elections in Slovakia .. . This is briefly the picture of our activities and I can only repeat that hardly a day passes without a protest on our part. To my great regret, I am bound to say that the results of these protests, which are the only means at our disposal, are practically nil. We know that the Allied agencies forward these protests to the authorities concerned; but we see no evidence that they in any way affect the treatment to which people in the occupied territories are subjected. I am glad that I have the opportunity of establishing this fact before the House. I pointed out this issue when I addressed the House for the first time as Foreign Minister and when I discussed the final peace conditions. But I welcome the oppor-