Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

Hungary lost most of her hydraulic power, forests, paper-mills, cereals, potatoes, honey, silk-cocoons, coal, and everything else that went to make up the economic life of this Danubian region centered at Budapest. In the era of steam-power and world markets, Hungary, like other states, had developed as a whole, each region fitting in a scheme of things that made the different parts dependent upon one another. Commerce and manufacturers were concentrated at Budapest, which was equipped with transportation, warehouses, and banks to handle the business of the entire country. Fiume had been the common port for all the Hungarian provinces. Now in her shorn state, cut off from access to the sea, and with the former subject regions raising tariff-walls against her, what was left of Hungary, and especially the city of Budapest, seemed to be condemned to ruin.

But when one visits Hungary three years after the signing of the Treaty of Trianon and asks for an honest answer to the question, “Is the present Hungary a hopeless proposition, a state that cannot live?” one does not get a categorical affirmative. Nor have any leaders whom I interviewed declared that the payment of reparations was impossible, provided a definite and reasonable sum was finally agreed upon. When I probe, and try to get at the bottom of the grievances, I discover that my Hungarian friends are invariably comparing the present situation, and its calamities, with what Hungary used to be.

Like the Turks, the Hungarians won and maintained by superior force a privileged position in a vast country which they shared with other peoples. They were a dominant race, who tried to impose their language and culture on others. When they fought the Germans to retain their independence and arrived at the compromise of the Dual Monarchy, it did not occur to them that self-government was a privilege as precious and as advantageous to other peoples as to themselves. And, now that they have lost their dominant position in the same way in which they gained it, that is, by war, it is hard for them to reconcile themselves to a more humble station in life. They accepted the treaty, for they did not intend to commit national suicide. But after the power to impose their rule upon others has gone, they retain the curious feeling that they still ought to be considered as possessing the inalienable right to all the regions they once ruled!

One criticizes the Treaty of Trianon, not because one has sympathy with Hungarian grievances based upon national pride and interest, but because the frontiers as now drawn are unwise and impolitic if we are looking for a durable world peace and for an end to the intolerable burden of universal military service and heavy armaments. The millions of Hungarians, now aliens in adjacent territory, create a new irredentist problem so dangerous that the Succession States have had to form an alliance to meet it, and the alliance calls for the indefinite maintenance of standing armies to hold the Hungarians down. More than this, with an irredentist question keeping them apart, it is going to be difficult for the neighboring peoples, whose economic interests are interdependent, to reëstablish normal relations.

There is little fear of a fresh outbreak of Communism. That disease ran its course in the first months of the disaster, and the people are cured. Bela Kun and his friends gave a practical demonstration of the working of Communism that was convincing enough to satisfy the present generation of Hungarians! The aim of the Hungarian Government is to endeavor to bring about a commercial rapprochement with the former subject peoples in such a way as to free trade relations and exchanges as much as possible from the inconveniences of the new frontier barriers. Through passenger and freight trains, tariff reciprocity, abolition of passport formalities, good will on the part of those who make and enforce regulations of international intercourse—these are what Hungary needs to get on her feet again. The country is able to feed itself and to export cereals and cattle. Once trade relations are resumed with her neighbors on a reasonable basis, Hungary can get to work, balance her budget, and pay reparations. But will Rumania, Jugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia give Hungary a chance to revive? Will they consent to allow the people of the provinces they have taken to form once more the old habit of going to Budapest? There is the rub. The frontiers of Trianon unfortunately influence the Succession States to view the question of rapprochement from the point of view of political security.

Hungary now has within her narrowed borders a homogeneous population, and her unrivaled geographical position on the Danube remains. Most of the national hatreds and racial feuds that used to make the Budapest Parliament an arena of wild animals and cause Hungarian statesmen to tear their hair have been transferred to Belgrade and Prague. Less than half the population of Jugoslavia is Serbian of the Orthodox persuasion, and less than half the population of Czechoslovakia is Czech. The minority elements are already causing trouble. Because of their Hungarians and other foreigners, notably their Germans, the new states fear to take the steps toward economic agreements that are dictated by common sense. Political considerations outweigh material advantages.

The Hungarians, despite the oppression of non-Magyar elements, were good stewards. They developed the country materially with skill and energy, and the prosperity of Budapest is well deserved. Not because it was favored by legislation but because of its key position on the Danube did Budapest become a railway-center. The railway lines exist, and the city is equipped to serve the population of the whole region. The Succession States have neither the large cities in annexed territory nor the geographical position to do as well economically by the regions over which they are now ruling as Hungary did. And they suffer equally with her the loss of unhampered access to the sea. The Succession States are as much afraid of giving Budapest its old-time accessibility to the regions that used to depend upon it as the French are afraid of allowing Germany to rehabilitate herself by the free play of economic laws.

Unless Hungary finds, then, that she can get along alone she must try to form a union with Rumania or to overthrow by force the Treaty of Trianon.

The first possibility is advocated by many Hungarians, who argue that it is better for Hungary to look to the east than to the west. The one benefit of the disaster of 1918 was freedom from German overlordship. The Hungarians have too vivid a memory of being weighed down by Vienna and latterly by Berlin through Vienna to look forward with satisfaction or equanimity to a new Drang nach Osten. It is pointed out that the Rumanians need Hungarian friendship to make Transylvania and the Banat of Temesvár contented under Rumanian rule. Transylvania is shut off from Rumania by high mountains and looks naturally to the west. All the outlets from the Banat are to the west. Another argument in favor of a close understanding with Rumania is that the Rumanians are, like the Hungarians, an island of radically different nationality from the surrounding Slavs.

Rumania does not receive Hungarian overtures any too cordially. Nothing short of a Russo-Bulgaro-Turk combination would induce Rumania to advocate a revision of the Treaty of Trianon and the entry of Hungary either into the Little Entente or into an alliance and customs union with Rumania. That may come, of course, but it is not probable. Practical-minded Hungarians realize that Rumanians object to them for much the same reasons that they object to the Germans. The West knows how to impose political domination through cultural superiority. And as Berlin and Vienna are to Budapest, so Budapest is to Bucharest.