Szittyakürt, 1977 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1977-12-01 / 12. szám

Page 2

HGHTE*

March, 1977

siderations, would not reduce the number under alien rule by more than

150.000, it was decided to accept the old boundary if the treaty contained a further provision pledging the signatories “to recognize any rectification which might subsequently be mutually agreed between Hungary and Rumania and which would substantially reduce the number of persons living under alien rule”. The idea was to indicate recognition of the fact that restoration of the Trianon frontier was not the final answer to the Transylvanian problem. When the question came before the Council of Foreign Ministers in May 1946, Mr. Byrnes dropped even this provision. With so many clauses in the four treaties in dispute between the United States and Soviet Union, this one did not seem worth arguing about any longer. Unfortunately, the decision to restore all of Transylvania to Rumania was taken without even giving Hungary a hearing, a circumstance which added to the resentment and disappointment felt in that country.

Both Hungarians and Rumanians came to the Paris Conference in July armed with maps, statistics and historical arguments, but the decision of the Council of Foreign Ministers had already settled the question. The

Great Powers were committed to support that decision at the conference and did so, although the American delegation took the opportunity to point out how it had been reached and was pleased to see the Australians propose that the conference really look into the facts and see if a fairer ethnic frontier might be found. The Hungarians, invited to present their views, first claimed a wide belt of territory, about 7,700 square miles, containing more Rumanians than Hungarians, then reduced their demands to smaller areas on the border including the largely Hungarian cities of Szatmár (Satu-Maré), Nagyvárad (Oradea Mare), and Arad. But even here the population of roughly 500.000 was less than two-thirds Hungarian, and the economic arguments were mostly on the Rumanian side. The Australian proposal evoked very little support, and the conference, in plenary session, finally accepted the prewar frontier without a dissenting vote.”

(J. C. Campbell, The European Territorial Settlement, pp. 209-13)

Based on the content of the above document, one has difficulty to decide which was the greater error, the cynic irresponsibility and negligence how the victorious nations have decided over the fate of other nations, or the madness how they compounded the grave errors of their WW I. peace conferences. They well knew, that the bloody tragedy of WW II. was a direct consequence of the ill conceived treaties of WW I., yet they have repeated the same errors. How well aware they were of the gravity of their decisions is proven by the statement: “The restoration of the TrianonFrontier was not the final answer to the Transylvanian problem.” But they also knew as the peace treaties of WW I. were the seeds of WW

11., the same way the WW II. peace treaties will be the seeds of the inevitable horror of WW III. — And they still did it!!

On the 50th anniversary of the Trianon peace dictatum, Yves de Daruvár in the publication: Le Destin Dramatique de ia Hongrie had

placed on trial those who conceived the peace treaties of WW I., as well as those who have repeated them more ruthlessly after WW II.

It is undeniable that in Paris among the major powers only the United States attempted to ease this treaty of hate and revenge. However this does not acquit the United States from the historical responsibility of the two times dismemberment of the Carpathian basin, that is historical Hungary. For this specific reason Cavendish Cannon, State Department secreatry, decided to cover up before the Hungarian-Americans and the world opinion the failure in the Transylvanian question and the brutal outcome of the Paris peace conference. On July 1946 he has called in Dr. Tibor Kerekes, the secretary of the American Hungarian Federation (AHF) and asked him to prepare a memorandum to the Paris conference. In the taylor made memorandum the AHF has denounced Hungary as war criminals and relinquished the ancient Hungarian territories, including the entire Transylvania and the millions of Hungarians who fell under foreign domination. Their only request was to return part of the heavily populated Hungarian border regions and the formation of an independent Transylvania. It remains a mistery who sanctioned or gave them the authorization for this act, certainly it was not the Hungarian nation. Even the Romanians did not have a clear conscience. As soon as they have learned that Byrnes in September 1945 at the council of the foreign

ministers raised the question of Transylvania, Peter Groza the Prime minister of Romania was immediately ready to return: Szatmár, Bihar and Arad counties, if he was allowed to transfer the Széklers in place of the local Romanians. Fortunately the government of Ferenc Nagy did not accept this offer.

At the Trianon peace conference after WW I. the Hungarian peace delegation lead by Count Albert Apponyi has done the outmost to avoid the terrible national tragedy. Nevertheless, without success, because the Paris conference of Free Masons on June 1917 had already decided the subdivision of the thousand year old Hungarian kingdom, which was built upon the land of the Magyar’s, Attila’s Royal Scythians descending from the oldest civilization on Earth.

When in 1946, the foreign minister of Ferenc Nagy’s government and the Hungarian peace delegation went to Paris they acted upon the order of the Kremlin and did no more than nodding their heads to the restoration of the prewar borders and even gave their approval to the annexation of Horvátújfalu, Oroszvár and Dunacsuny to Czechoslovakia for some ridiculous military reason. After such a prelude Tatarescu could rightfully say when signing the treaty: “We acknowledge with satisfaction and in this the Romanian people are unanimous, that this treaty on the question of Northern Transylvania serves justice and solution for the general interests. Final sanctioning of Romanias’ rights over the entire Transylvania is a great historical event.” (Fáklya, “így történt”, Aug. 1. 1951.) How just this second treaty was, let it be shown by the official Romanian statistics in reference to the above mentioned three cities:

1910- Hungarian Population -1930

1910- Romanian Population -1930

ARAD

46.085

29.978

10.279

30.370

NAGYVÁRAD

58.421

42.623

3.604

22.412

SZATMÁR

33.094

21.916

986

16.251

The numbers speek for themselves. The Hungarians were driven out and escaped while the Romanians were settled through systematic planning. This policy holds true especially today.

In spite of these statistics if we disregard the oversized Romanian government administration and military personnel we are faced with a completely different picture. This was experienced during WW II., when in the returned territories, not only the bordering towns like Kassa, Beregszász, Nagyvárad, Szatmár, Szabadka, but the internally located towns like Érsekújvár, Huszt, Kolozsvár, Újvidék etc., after the evacuation of Romanian, Czech and Yugoslav military and administrative personnel the entire region recovered their ancient Hungarian character overnight.

It is undeniable that large scale population resettlement is an inhumane solution. To say that the United States was not prepared for such drastic actions is incorrect, because it approved without batting an eye the resettlement of 4 million Sudeta-Land Germans and even went along with the Czechs to eliminate large Hungarian border communities whose population was deported in the middle of the winter in open railroad cars by the tens of thousands to the vacant Sudeta-Land.

In the event of returning the debated territories such a large scale population exchanges would have been unnecessary, because with the change of power they would have taken place by themselves as they did during the war. Along with the foreign administration and military personnel all those elements would have left volunterely who were settled there after Trianon, because they had no roots.

It is incorrect to say, that the United States saw no practical advantages in the idea of Independent Transylvania. The historian Tibor Eckhardt said that here in Washington during WW II. we succeded in having accepted our position by the State Department, that the US. would recommend Independent Transylvania in Moscow, which proposal was in the possession of Mr. Hull when the first time he met the Russians on the territorial subject at the end of October 1943.

Apart from the fact that under the idea of “Self Determination” they have twice dismembered the Carpath-Basin’s unique geographical, cultural, economic, military and political entity without asking the people in the annexed territories—this idea failed not only at the peace conference table but also in practice—when they declared that the economic necessity was more vital than the ethnic question. Thus the blindness, hate, revenge and misinterpreted big power interest gave birth to this crime which could not be carried out in any other way but with brutal force. But if this could be done twice with the power of force, it can also be reversed the same way. The great powers have again served with an example when they have established Israel, the “Czechoslovakia of the Middle East” and drove out hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the land where they lived for the past two thousand years. Why could not than we regain our inherited eternal historical rights in the annexed territories which were separated only since a few decades? Why could not we repatriate the few foreign settler Bessarabian and Regatian Romanians, Serbian Dorovoljacs, Czech Beamters, Moravian settlers, Ukranians and Toths?

We Hungarians do not expect a better future from those who used brutal force against us, but we also know that the course of history cannot be changed by a few guilty leaders—whether they are named Wilson, Roosevelt or Nixon—they can only delay it. Today the only reminders of 150 years of Turkish occupation of the Carpath-Basin are a few minarets and baths. Regardless how hopeless the present appears to be, the time is not far off when the few decades of revelry of the panslav-Bolshevic and ultranational vampire states will be something of the past. Above all in Transylvania which represents one third of the Carpath-Basin, larger than the present day Hungary. In spite of the policies of extermination in the occupied territories, even today there are over 4.5 million Hungarians. Three million of them are suffering in Transylvania. They are the largest so called “minority” in Europe and much larger than the total population of many nations of the world. On the 30th anniversary of the Paris peace dictatum we recall the words of J. C. Campbell: “THE RESTORATION

OF THE TRIANON FRONTIER WAS NOT THE FINAL ANSWER TO THE TRANSYLVANIAN PROBLEM!“ ISTVÁN yitéz ERDÉLYi