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

Appendix III. Parliamentary debates

i972 sign the peace, resigned and placed its commission in the hands of the Government. It was then the task of the Government to decide whether or not the gravity of the situation created by the war forced it to sign a treaty in itself unacceptable and impossible of fulfilment. The Government took into consideration all the circumstances which have brought our country into this situation — a situation due not merely to a lost war but also to irresponsible men who, forgetting their fatherland, surrendered the government to alien groups who had no conception of loyalty to a country. The Government also took into account our open boundaries which are decidedly favourable for our enemies and because of which we have been unprotected ever since the end of 1918. Thus was created a fait accompli, today the only argument in Europe, because there are no forces which can now change these faits accomplis. Considering these circumstances — the serious position of the country which could lead to a fatal catastrophe, the Government was obliged to choose between two alternatives, each involving tremendous responsibility; it decided that it could not refuse to sign the peace treaty. The Peace Delegation, and I myself when I made a statement from this place and laid the accompanying letter before the House, referred to certain sections contained in the accompanying letter which may be regarded as concessions and which, perhaps, offer some hope for the future. The Government, which has become convinced that behind these promises, couched in seemingly empty phrases, there lies a factual basis in the changed attitude toward Hungary, hopes that therein the way we have chosen will be made more endurable. The Government's hope, however, becomes in the case of the nation a condition. For the nation is immortal, the nation wants to live; what the Government views as a hope to lead us out of the present situation is transformed from the point of the nation into a condition. This we have duly emphasized in the reply which the Hungarian Government made to the Allies concerning the peace conditions. Those documents, that is to say the communication of the Peace

. Delegation which you already have seen in the newspapers and the reply of the Government, were delivered to the appropriate forum in Paris on the afternoon of the day of expiration . . . This is what I wished to announce to the House. I should like to add that soon I shall be able to submit to the House the first volume of the Peace Delegation's report; then in succession the second and third volumes which contain all documents