Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - Tibor Giant: The Role of Calvinism in President Wilsotis Relationship to Hungary during World War 1

Dominant in a larger country than Bohemia, perhaps politically more capable than any Slavonic people, and certainly more enduring and definite in their purposes, the Magyars, though crushed by superior force in the field of battle, have been able to win a specially recognized and highly favored place in the dual monarchy. Although for a long time a land in which the noble was the only citizen, Hungary has been a land of political liberties almost as long as England herself has been.

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2 Wilson's adherence to the romanticized concept of a freedomloving and chivalrous people was thus based upon a religious twist, which actually worked in favor of Hungary. It is easy to see that by the beginning of the twentieth century Hungary was neither Protestant nor democratic or republican. Everyday contacts in the New World and minor diplomatic crises, such as the arrest of the American Government agent Marcus Braun in Budapest in 1905,

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3 apparently did not impress the American public, which did not bother to review its concept of Hungary the way the British and the French did. This was a token of neither sympathy nor dislike but of an underlying lack of interest in the affairs of Hungary on the part of the Americans. The very same attitude seemed to characterize the writings as well as the political conduct of Woodrow Wilson both as an academic and as Chief Executive of the United States of America. Having thus established the real sources and nature of his attitudes towards Hungary it is now time to offer a brief assessment of Wilson's Hungarian contacts and policies between January 1912 and November 1918. Wilson's Hungarian-American contacts in 1912 provided an extra dimension for the presidential election campaign in a peculiar way. The 1

2 Wilson, The State: 335—36. 1

3 A detailed introduction of this episode would extend beyond the scope of the present study. Suffice it to say that Braun was released after President Roosevelt's intervention on his behalf. Marcus Braun, Immigration Abuses. (New York, 1906. Reprint: San Francisco, 1972). 40