Magyar News, 1994. szeptember-1995. augusztus (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1995-06-01 / 10. szám

propaganda campaign for the dismemberment of Hungary and in their efforts succeeded to obtain the suppest of two, criminally ignorant French politicians, Georges Clemenceau and Raymond Pointcare. President Wilson refused to cooperate in this conspiracy. He wanted Europe’s new borders to correspond with ho1 ethnographic boundaries, he wanted the principle of self-determination to prevail, but his views were disregarded. On January 24,1919 he protested the illegal Serb and Romanian occupation of parts of Hungary and on March 31,1919 he called the proposed dismemberment of Hungary “absurd”, but his objections were overruled by the French. As a result, the United States Congress refused to sign the Treaty of Trianon, but this product of Neronian insanity, this plan, unjust in substance and tragic in consequence, was implemented anyway.

THE TREATY OF TRIANON

On the 4th of June, 1920, one of the emelést treaties of human history was signed. Never before had a peace, imposed by violence, been more brutal in its bias, madder in its destructiveness, more forgetful of the lessons of history and better calculated to create future upheavals. The treaty cut mercilessly into the flesh erf compact Hungarian populations. Hundreds of towns were separated from their suburbs, villages were split in two, communities were deprived of their parish churches or cemeteries, townships were cut off from their railroad stations and their water supplies. A 1000 year old European country was made into an invalid as its territory was reduced from 325,000 to 93,000 square kilometers. In the process 35% of all Hungarians were turned into foreigners within the built by their fathers, as the borders were redrawn around them. In this way, the Hungarians became Europe’s largest minorities as Hungary’s territory was reduced by 71.5%. In comparison, the leader of the central powers: Germany lost only 9.5% of its territory. The outrage of this mockery of justice is illustrated by the fact that even Austria lined up at the carcass and received some parts of the dismembered Hungarian Kingdom.

From the fragments of Hungary, the unnatural successor states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and greater Romania were created. These strange entities forced Croats to live with Serbs and Czechs to live with Slovaks, demonstrating both the arrogance and the ignorance of Trianon’s architects. These artificial entities were not only geographic monstrosities but also economic absurdities and therefore their self-destruction was just a matter of time. As of this writing two of the three successor states have already disintegrated. One of the purposes of this writing is to suggest a plan to construct a healthy entity from the disintegrated pieces and to transform the third successor state without violence.

SELF-DETERMINATION

THROUGH PLEBISCITES

The very foundation of the 14 Wilsonian Principles "was that people have an unalienable right to determine their own destiny. Yet

2

at Trianon the application of self-determination and the use of plebiscites in drawing the new borders, was totally disregarded. When the recommendations of one of the delegates to the Peace Conference, those of Field Marshall lan Smith, to hold plebiscites in Transylvania, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Croatia and Slavonia were rejected, he was correct in declaring: “A plebiscite refused is a plebiscite taken!” By not allowing plebiscites, the dismemberment of the AustroHungarian empire and the redistribution of her 48 million citizens, resulted in the creation of 16 million oppressed ethnic minorities. These were not emigrants who voluntarily left their “old country”, but people who never in their life moved from their home towns and became foreigners, just because Clemenceau and Benes decided to redraw the borders around them.

When the Wends and Slovenes of the Muraköz protested their separation from Hungary, when the Ruthenians expressed their desire to remain part of the kingdom which they shared for a thousand years, when the Swabians of the Banat protested their annexation into Romania and Yugoslavia (\bjvodina), the answer of Clemenceau was always the same: no, no and no. There was only one exception to the arbitrary drawing of the new borders (mostly by Eduard Benes), there was only a single case where President Wilson’s principle of self-determination prevailed: It was in the case of the city of Sopron, which was allowed to hold a plebiscite and voted by a majority of 65% to remain part of Hungary and not tojóin Austria.

THE “GUILT” OF HUNGARY

Hungary was dismembered because she could not defend herself and because her greedy neighbors decided to help themselves to the unprotected carcass. Naturally, the architects of Trianon could not admit tins and therefore invented the theory of “Hungary’s

The Magyar population in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 15th Century. The blank areas are other nationalities or uninhabited mountain areas.

Guilt”, claiming that 1) She started the First World War and 2) She was a historical German ally and as such a destabilizing force in Europe. Neither were true:

It was the Serb para-govemmental organization, Narodna Obrana, which, with theencouragement of Russia and with the goal of a Greater Serbia, assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 and it was the Premier of Hungary, who alone in the AustroHungarian Council of Ministers, voted against a war of retaliation with Serbia.

As to the claim of being a “natural” German ally, history proves just the opposite. Whenever Hungary was independent, she acted as a keystone of balance between the Germanic and Slavic peoples and prevented attempts at both Pan-Germanic and the Pan- Slavic expansions. In the first 500 years of her existence, starting with the battle of Lechfeld in 955, Hungary fought to block the spread of German influence and created stability by filling the power vacuum of the regioa When under Germanic (Austrian) occupation between 1707 and 1867, she twice rose

The Austro-Hungarian Empire before WWII. The Hungarians in a few generations bounced back from the Turkish occupation and became a sizable force that wasn’t looked upon favorably by Austria.