Fraternity-Testvériség, 1988 (66. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

1988-04-01 / 2. szám

i

FRATERNITY

Page 5

TRIANON:

THE FRUITS OF A POISONOUS TREE

by Frank Koszorús, Jr.

The 68th anniversary of the Peace Treaty of Trianon brings to mind the devastating consequences of the Treaty not only for contemporary Hungarians, but also for generations to come. Historians readily agree that the post-war peacemaking, including the Treaty of Trianon, helped lay the groundwork for future conflict. The new Danubian order precluded economic integration and generally retarded the establishment of democracies. The string of weak yet extremely nationalistic and quarelling states left a power vacuum to be filled first by Nazi Germany and then by the Soviet Union. The shortsighted peacemakers grossly violated the Wilson principle of self-determination and desecrated the American ideals of democracy. The European conflagration which followed the ill- conceived Versailles settlements reached across the Atlantic and drew the United States into yet another war. Significantly, the United States never ratified the Treaty of Trianon.

Despite the efforts of the Count Stephen Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary, to prevent the outbreak

of the war, Hungary nevertheless was unjustly blamed for the hostilities and compelled to sign the Treaty of Trianon. That treaty was the most severe of all of the post-war settlements — even more severe than the German and Bulgarian treaties. Hungary lost not only areas with mixed populations, but also purely Hungarian-inhabited regions, resulting in the transfer of more than 3 million Hungarians and over 70% of Hungary's former territory to foreign rule. The peacemakers ignored the recommendations of the United States concerning Hungary's frontiers. The American proposals were more favorable than the terms of the Treaty of Trianon and would not have left one out of three Hungarians outside of Hurigary. In addition, the principle of national self-determination would have prescribed plebiscites in the detached regions. With the exception of the Sopron region which voted to remain with Hungary, plebiscites were denied the affected populations. As a result, a geopolitical and economic unit which had exhibited remarkable stability for centuries was dismembered.

(-AMERICAN BOUNDARY RECOMMENDATIONS AND THE TRIANON BORDERS OF HUNGARY

LEGEND--------------PRE-WAR BORDERS Of HUNGARY (1914)

— O—«— AMERICAN BOUNDARY RECOMMENDATIONS------------ TRIANON TREATY BORDERS (JUNE 4. 1920)

(borderline omitted iwhere it coincides with the American boundary recommerdetions - —©- rim omitted where borders do not concern post-wer Hungary proper).

Map appears in Bela K. Király, Peter Pastor and Ivan Sanders, eds., War and Society in East Central Europe, Vol. VI, Essays on World War I: A Case Study on Trianon (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1982). Reprinted by permission from Atlantic Research and Publications.