Papers and Documents relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 2, 1921 (Budapest, 1946)

Documents

2 1921 mediation, into friendly negotiations with Hungary. However, the Allied insistence on the integral execution of the Peace Treaty should not cause relations between Austria and Hungary to suffer. The whole issue had, after all, been created by the Allies. He expressed the hope that this fact would also be appreciated by Hungary and gave me an assurance that the Austrian Government would do everything in its power to find a solution for the question of Western Hungary which would not leave embittered feelings in its wake. He also hoped that any prediction as to the effect of the surrender of the Burgenland on Hungarian public opinion would be proved to have been over-pessimistic. Austria was in a similar situation with respect to Yugoslavia: the Yugoslavs were threatening Austria with eternal enmity if she did not cede the so-called first plebiscite zone in Carinthia without a plebiscite. The plebiscite took place, with a result favourable to Austria, and nevertheless relations between Austria and Yugoslavia remained satisfactory. I pointed out that the situation with respect to Hungary was wholly different. Among all the injustices which the Peace Treaty inflicted on Hungary, the assignment of the Burgenland to Austria was the most cruel. Other territorial losses could be explained on the ground that the vanquished pays the victor, or someone who joined the victor in due time. But in the case of the Burgenland, the Allies had taken land from one of the vanquished to give it to another vanquished State. It was not easy to acquiesce in losses which we were compelled by force to accept; it was impossible to reconcile ourselves to the knowledge that our former ally also sought compensation at our expense. I could not accept the contention that Austria was wholly innocent in this issue, which was created by the whim of the Allies and which Austria must accept. After all, it was the Austrian Peace Delegation which presented Austria's claim to the Burgenland

1; the Allies merely decided this claim in Austria's favour. Neither was the attitude recently taken by the Austrian Government such as to cause Hungary to believe that we were 1 Cf. Note No. 229 of the Austrian Peace Delegation to the Peace Conference, dated June io, 1919 ; English translation in Almond and Lutz, The Treaty of St. Germain, pp. 204—205. See also the Austrian Note No. 311, of June 16, 1919, ibid., pp, 276 ff.