Hungary and Roumania online

outcome of a time-serving policy, but is a deeply
rooted conviction, based on the experiences of
many centuries and historical traditions. We well
know that in fature the splendour and influence of
Saint Stephen's Crown will assure the cultural,
economic and political development of Hungary's
Roumanians.

"We Roumanians of Hungary hold fast to our
desire to remain as heretofore under the rule of the
Holy Hungarian Crown, and it is for this that
thousands of our hopeful youth are bleeding. The
Roumanian people will fight to ensure the fulfil-
ment of this end with all the moral and material
weapons at their disposal."

Even all these declarations however fail to exhaust
the data proving that the Roumanians of Hungary
took part in the Great War with the same enthusiasm
and unselfishness as the Magyars and Hungary's
other nationalities, and this was not even changed
by Roumania's entering on the scene in 1916. Just
to complete the picture, we annex further state-
ments made by Roumanian nationalist M. P.-s in
Parliament.

Mgr. Miron Christea in a sitting of the Upper
House July 22 1917 gave a detailed account
of the courage shown by the soldiers of Roumanian
nationality on the different theatres of war and
quoted this courage as a proof that the Roumanians
had always and under all circumstances been
faithful to Hungary.

M. Nicolas Serban pointed out in the House of
Commons on July 22. 1917, that the common in-
terest of Hungarians and Roumanians compel them
at present and in the future to rely one upon the
other. The war was welcomed by the Rouma-
nians as an eff'ective means of dispersing by



Hungary aud Rnumania 41

their conduct therein all mistrust, with which up
till that time all the political and cultural efiorts of
the Roumanians were regarded by the Magyars.
The declaration of war on the part of the Rou-
manian Kingdom in no way afiected the behaviour
of the Roumanians of Hungary, for even during
the occupation of some parts of the country by
Roumanian troops very few traitors were to
be found. Even those cannot be found absolutely
disloyal who left the country t-ogether with the
beaten troops of Roumania, for they did not leave
of their own will, but were dragge(f away- by
force.

Stephen C. Pop at a meeting of the House of
Commons on July 27^^ testified to the fact that
he and his party had always lived on good and
friendly terms with the Magyars, and that they
desired to live so in future too. Their complaints were
never against the Magyar nation, but only against the
Government. He and his {)arty, when the Roumanian
troops broke in, made a voluntary declaration of loy-
alty. Gount Tisza accused him of not having signed
the protest against the Note of the Entente, addressed
to the U. S. A., wherein the deliverance of different
nationalities from a foreign yoke is put down as
being one of the aims of the war, but this accusation is
utterly without foundation, for such a signature
seemed perfectly unnecessary after his declaration
made in September 1916 in the House of Commons.



Until November 1918 not a single party of the
Roumanians in Hungary, none, at least of any
importance, viewed the war or Hungary's integrity
in any other manner than shown in the declarations
and statements quoted. All of them adhered to the
program that had been drawn up at a meeting of
the Roumanians of Hungary in 1881 as follows :

1. Transylvania's autonomy is demanded in ac-
cordance to the regulations accepted by the Pro-



42 B. Jancs6

vincial Diet of Nagyszeben in 1868 and sanctioned
by the Sovereign.

2. Roumanian shall be the official language in
the courts of law and in the administration on all
territories inhabited by Roumanians.

3. In the public offices of the counties and auto-
nomous towns inhabited by Roumanians, should be
employed, Roumanian officials or only such Magyars
as speak Roumanian perfectly.

4. The Nationality Act shall be be revised and
brought into line with Roumanian aspirations.

5. All laws preventing the Roumanians' national
development must be abolished.

6. The autonomy of schools and churches is to
be maintained.

7. Roumanian schools and cultural societies shall
be subsidised by the State, and the amount of
this help must be in proportion to the taxes-
paid by the Roumanians.

8. Elections must be regulated according to a
new law permitting everyone to participate in the
elections or extending this right at least to all
those who pay some sort of direct tax.

This program differed from the Nationality Act
only in so far as it derived all these rights not
from the personal rights of any citizen, but from
the natural rights of a nation living on an auto-^
nomous territory, the demand of this latter being
the program of the Roumanian politicians from the
beginning.

In opposition to the Roumanian Kingdom, the Rou-
manian population of Hungary adheres even to-day
to Transylvanian autonomy, but the latter as the
result of the historical and political development
of some few centuries can only be effected within
the boundaries of Hungary. The unity with Rou-
mania excludes the autonomy of Trans3dvania and,
without such, not only the development of the
non-Roumanian nationalities will be imperilled, but
even the Roumanians living in Hungary will lose



Hungary and Rou mania [ 4 3

those moral, cultural and economical qualities of
the race that are due to its separate development,
going on for centuries, which have thus become
characteristic traits and to which a whole world
of tradition and sentiment rs attached.

It was only after the military collapse of the
Central Powers and the occupation of Transylvania
by the Royal Roumanian troops in the autumn of
1918 that the leaders of the Roumanians of Hun-
gary altered their views, and came to a point of
view diametrically opposed as well to their histo-
rical past as to their political evolution. Either
they are lorony now^ or they were ivrony then.
The latter we cannot believe^ for we consider it a
moral impossibility that a nation should exist that
bases its national and political program merely
upon lies and that was capable of sustaini^ig such
lies for centuries toith a perfect ivant of faith, relia-
bility and appearance of truth.



Orecid Isopescu, Roumanian member of the Aus-
trian parliament, made the following declaration in
the name of all the Roumanians of the Monarchy;

"The four million Roumanians of the Austro-Hun-
garian Monarchy claim the right to form a seperate
state within the Monarchy. This they may the better
demand, since the newly formed state will attract
the Roumanian Kingdom and may influence her to
join the Monarchy. This mode of working will be
in harmony with our former attitude, for we never
endeavoured to separate from the Monarchy, but
to adhere to the Monarchy, though maintaining our
state independence."

It is characteristic of the political attitude of the
Roumanian leaders that Theodor Mihali, presi-
dent of the Roumanian National Party, conjointly
with John Hock, president ot the revolutionary
Hungarian National Council and William Mclczcr,
member of the parliamentary Saxon National Party,



44 B. Jancsd

published a common appeal to all the Transylva-
nian Hungarians, Saxons and Roumanians on No 7.
1. 1918, requesting them to renew intercourse
with one another, and to try with mutual trust and
understanding to maintain order and the security
of property and person.

The Karolyi Government communicated this ap-
peal to all the political and other authorities as
a proof of the mutual unterstanding between the
different nationalities, on the basis of which the
Wilsonian principles could be realised in the most
satisfactory way.

It is a conspicuous phenomenon, that in several
county councils — in Mdramaros and Ugocsa — '■
the Roumanian members of the council protested (in
the second half of November) against any attempt
to separate Transylvania from the Hungarian State.

The same tendency is observable in an open
letter published on November 24. 1916, by a
well known Roumanian advocate of Nagyvdrad,
John Felle, addressed to the president of the
Nagyvarad National Council, ' Aurelius Ldzdr, de-
claring that "he would join the council and re-
main true to them as long as they fought for
the Roumanians of Hungary and not for those
beyond the mountains". Mr. Pelle says that it may
be a fine idea to join Roumania but it is not cor-
rect since it is not founded on the well considered
decision of serious minds, but only on the wish of
dreamers. He is not afraid to say that if the union
were to be carried out "the Roumanians would be
ruined and it would be a very poor consolation
that it would inflict an incurable wound on the
Hungarians also".

A very significant part, we may say the majo-
rity of the RoLimanian working men, were against
the union with Roumania. Trajan Novae, a leading
member of the Roumanian National Party, two
weeks after the Gyulafehervar resolution for joining
Roumania, published an open protest at KolozsvAr.



Hungary and Roumania 45

— "It is not true — lie says — that they made
their decisiou with the cousent of the whole prole-
tariat. Those who spoke there in the name of the
proletarians had no mandate from them to declare
for separation from Hungary in their name. The
simple fact is that union was not carried by vote, it
was simply declared from the chair. The Rouma-
nian proletariat will not hear of a union with the
Roumanian Kingdom until there exists a ^v.^ni()cracy
similar at least to that declared in Hungary by the
Revolution of 31. October".

The feelings of the Roumanian-speaking villagers
of Transylvania can be best illustrated by the follow-
ing two cases :

Theodor Mijiali, being a landowner in Nagyilonda,
called the people of that place together (on Nov. 14.
1918) in order to inform them of the altered situation.
When he began to speak about the necessity of
joining Roumania the people stopped him, began
to throw stones at him, and even threatened him
in his house where he took refuge. He was ob-
liged to appeal to the Roumanian military guard
for help, and in consequence of their intervention
several of the offenders were wounded. The same
thing happened also to Alexander Vajda, another
important member of the Roumanian national party.

The Roumanian national political endeavours had
their strongest and almost only supporters among
the priests of the Orthodox Greek and Greek
Catholic Churches. But the idea of union caused
grave anxiety even in the souls of the majority
of the priesthood. The Greek Catholic priests who
were better informed of church-life in Roumania,
knew that there the Orthodox Religion is a State
Religion, therefore they felt anxious lest the Catholic
character of their Church should be lost. The
priests of the Orthodox confession — on the other
hand — were afraid of losing the autonomy of their
Church, for they were aware that the Roumanian
Greek Church, although boasting of being a State



46 B. Jancsd

Church, has no autonomy whatever, consequently
they knew that they too would have to give up the
autonomy they enjoyed hitherto and become the
tool of political power, similarly to the Orthodox
Church of Roumania in which, according to canon
law, they would simply be absorbed.

The natural motives for a union with Roumania if
not wholly absent from the minds of the Roumanian
politicians at the time of the collapse of the Central
European military forces were still so faint that
they could not have brought about a decision of
so much importance. Outside influences must have
been brought to bear upon them to give force to this
idea, and these outside influences came from two
quarters.

One. was the declaration of King Charles IV.
issued on 16*^ October 1918, in which he consented
to the transformation of Austria into a feder-
ation of different independent states created on
tbeir respective territories by each people, who
should take part in the organisation of the state
by means of their representative national coun-
cils.

The other was a contract, drawn up in 1916
by Roumania and the Allied Powers, which
was secretly sent to the Hungarian leaders of the
Roumanian National Party by Jonel Bratianu, prime
minister of the Government. It was noticed that Lan-
sing, state-secretary of the United States, consented
to it in President Wilson's name.

Two days after the publication of King Charles's
declaration, Alexander Vajda read a resolution of
the Roumanian National Party in the Hungarian
parliament, which declared that Hungary's Rou-
manian people wish, when deciding upon their
position in the State, to exercise their right inde-
pendently of any foreign influence. In this declaration,
while mention was made of a Roumanian National
Assembly which should have the sole right of
deciding upon the manner in which the new state



Hungary and Roumania 47

formation should be effected, there was not the
faintest alhision to a separation from the Hungarian
State or to a union with Roumania.

On the 31. October 1918 the rabble of the streets
overthrew the government with the assistance of
the so-called Hungarian National Council formed
a few days previously, and started Hungary on the
road to a ruin such as was never witnessed be-
fore in the whole history of the Hungarian Nation,
leading, after a short period of four and a half
months, to Bolshevism.

Soon after this several National Councils were
formed, to the detriment of the central power of
executive and lawful administration. During this
evolution the parliamentary Roumanian National Party
transformed itself into a Roumanian National Coun-
cil at Arad under the presidency of Stephen C.
Pop. On the fourth of November a Central Roumanian
National Council was formed for the territory of
the ancient (political) Transylvania. In connection
with these national councils militarv councils were
formed throughout Transylvania.

Hungarian public opinion evinced no mistrust
towards these new formations because, although
the Roumanians gave expression to their posi-
tion to act independently in the matter of sacred
right they were to hold in the State, not a word
>vas heard respecting a union with Roumania, or
separation from Hungary.

The Roumanian national councils openly mani-
fested their intention to cooperate on brotherly
terms with the Hungarian and Saxon councils for
the maintenance of public order. No objection there-
fore was raised when the Roumanian national
councils formed armed bodies, called Roumanian
National Guards, under Roumanian flags and officers
who took the oath before the Roumanian national
councils.

The Roumanian National Council at Kolozsvnr,
conjointly with the Kolozsvnr Hungarian Natio-



48 B. Jancs6

nal Council, had undertaken, in the beginning
of Isfovember, to keep order in the whole of
Transylvania. They agreed that the auxiliary
forces should be under the command of General
Siegler, who was appointed by the Hungarian Mili-
tary Command. The men of the Roumanian national
army were supplied with equipment and pay just
as the Hungarians by the Hungarian military autho-
rities.

It happened that in some places an oath was
required from our soldiers ot Roumanian birth in the
name of the Hungarian National Council by theHunga
rian military authorities. The Budapest Roumanian
National Council lodged a protest against this with the
Hungarian Minister of Foreis^n Affairs, who accepted
the protest with the greatest courtesy and gave
orders that the Roumanian soldiers should take the
oath of fidelity to the Roumanian National Councils.
At the same time the minister ordered that the
Roumanian soldiers should get the same pay as
those Hungarians who swore fidelity to the Hunga-
rian National Council.

During the first ten days of the Hungarian revo~
lution, it was the universally accepted opinion of the
whole country, and of the Government in particular,
that the Hungarian national question should be
solved according to the Wilsonian principles and
Hungary should be built up as a sort of confede-
ration similar to Switzerland, but without any serious
change regarding territorial extension. The attitude
of the nationalities, that of the Roumanians especially,
seemed to support this belief. External influences
were again responsible for the failure of the plan.

On November 7. 1918 Wilson's message to the
Roumanian representative at Washington was made
public at Jassv, according to which "the President
sympathises with the idea of the union of the Rou-
manians wherever they live, and according to
which the government of the United States will
not miss the opportunity of exercising its influence



Hungary a nd Roumnnia 49

for the Roumanian people to attain their national and
territorial rights, and to be saved from all foreign
interference".

This message was followed at Jassy and in other
towns by many noisy political demonstrations. On
such an occasion General Avarescu, Generalissimo
in the campaign of 1916 — 17, declared that the
realisation of the Roumanian national ideal for
which so much blood has been recently spilt, was
approaching its fruition.

It was public talk in Roumania that the King would
soon issue an order to the army to occupy Transyl-
vania and the eastern part of Hungary up to the
line determined in the treaty with the Allied Powers
in 1916 as the boundary line of Greater Roumania.

The armistice concluded between Count Karolyi
and Franchet D'Esperey in Belgrade set down as a
demarcation line the left bank ot the river Maros
and declared in the 1^* paragraph that even on the
territory to be occupied by the Entente troops
civil administration should remain in the hands of
the Hungarian authorities and that they should have
the right to maintain public order by means of the
gendarmerie and police force.

These provisions of the armistice made the
impression, both on the Hungarian and the Rouma-
nian public, that the Entente powers would not
deprive Hungary of those parts of the country which
are marked in the treaty of 1916. This conviction
led the Bucarest statesmen as well as the Rou-
manians of Hungary to the most daring irreden-
tism, carefully avoided previously.

The Roumanian National Council in an address
to the Hungarian Government (Nov. 9.) demanded
that on the basis of the popular right of self-de-
termination the imperium should be given over to
the Roumanian National Council in those 26 counties
in which the majority of the population are Rouma-
nians, right up to the line marked in the treaty of
1916 as the boundary of Greater Roumania, because

22—24. 4



50 B. Jancso

on this territory, they only could maintain order,
safety of persons and property. Should the Hunga-
rian Government not comply with this desire, they
would be obliged to declare before the world that
the rights laid down in Wilson's 14 points were
for them unattainable and, consequent^, if public
order could not be maintained on that territory,
all responsibility therefor would fall upon the Hun-
garian Government.

This declaration, which might reasonably be
taken for a threat, seems to refer to the 17**^ § of
the Belgrade treaty, in which it is stated that, in case
of disturbances occuring, the Entente troops may
occupy territories beyond the lines of demarcation.
It was to be read between the lines that the Rou-
manian National Council was sure that such dis-
turbances and even bloodshed would take place at
a moment's notice and thus the Roumanian royal
troops as an ally of the Entente Powers would
have a good pretext to occupy those territories.

Nothing can serve for a better proof of the utter
lack of irredentism or dreams" of a Greater Rou-
manian Kingdom among the Roumanian people,
than the fact that when almost every Roumanian
had arms in his hands and the Huugarian State
was in utter confusion, no disturbance, nor any
bloody revolution actually took place, in spite of the
newspaper rumours spread by irredentist agitators
in foreign lands. These disturbances did not occur
because the people simply never felt any of that
oppression with which the different English, French
and German pamphlets — written by Roumanians —
made the world resound.

The Kdrolyi Government, instead of refusing the
demand of the Roumanian National Council of
Arad already alluded to, was ready to take it into
consideration. It accepted the offer, and consequently
Oscar Jdszi, Minister of the Nationalities in the K^-
rolyi cabinet, went to Arad, where he. declared that the
Roumanian National Council might exercise dominion



Hungarif and Roumania 51

in all those districts and towns in which the Rouma-
nians were in the majority. J^szi consented further,
that in those phices where the Roumanians were in
minority their defence should be secured jyovision-
ally according to the rules laid down in Act
XLIV. ot 1868 (Nationality Act). He declared also
that this decision should be available only until the
Peace treaty be made, and that the situation cre-
ated by this agreement should not influence the
})osition to be taken by either of the parties at
the Peace Conference.

The Roumanians refused the offer, and tried to
explain their decision in a proclamation addressed
to the peoples of the World.

They said that since the Hungarian Government
was not inclined to permit the Roumanian nation
to exercise dominion on the territories where the
Magyars live in majority, it was impossible for
the Roumanians to exercise the natural right of dis-
posal on the territories inhabited by them. Thus
the Hungarian Government recurred to might against
right.

They argued that the ethnical situation on the
territories claimed by them, w^as not the- original
or the natural one for the class of oppressors, of
course Hungarians, had during the long run of cen-
turies purposely wedged in masses of Hungarian
population to divide the body of Roumanians. It
was the acknowledged aim of the Hungarian Go-
vernment since 1867 — they said — to destroy
the existence of the Roumanian nation. They created
settlements without having any right to do so in
order to magyarise the Roumanians, they sent hun-
dreds of thousands of Hungarian officials to Rouma-
nian territories, they prevented the Roumanians from
having their own industry, and compelled the popu-
lation of the towns to become Hungarian and thus
created a polyglot population for Roumanian terri-
tories, in order to annihilate the Roumanian people.

4*



52 B. Janes 6

Considering that since 1867 only one insignificant
settlement of 41,000 souls was established in Tran-
sylvania, which was not sufficient to alter the
character of a territory with six and a half million
inhabitants, farther that, as all historic data proves,
Roumanians had never lived in the towns said to have
been violently magyarised, the Hungarians considered
these declarations only as such falsifications as
they were accustomed to and as were used by the
Roumanians from time to time to mislead foreign
public opinion.

The fact, however, that the Roumanians by means
of armed force succeeded — without any right —
in extending their power over the parts inhab-
ited by Hungarians, and Roumanian adminis-
tration began the expulsion of Hungarian func-
tionaries and Hungarian citizens, and that under
any shallow pretext, settling Roumanians in their
place, shows that the open declaration of the
Roumanian National Council was nothing but an
introduction meant to be a justification of the acts
of violence and injustice to follow, made specially
inhuman by the manner in which they were carried
out. Their treatment of officials and their families
is unequalled and unknown in the history of civilised
peoples.

It is, however, worth noticing that in the
Roumanian proclamation no mention is made of
the intention of the Hungarian Roumanians to
separate from Hungary and join Roumania, they
simply emphasize their intention of creating an inde-
pendent and free state on the territory in which they
live. The only allusion to Roumania is that the
Roumanian nation of Hungary hopes and expects
help in this struggle for freedom from the whole
Roumanian race, with which it hopes to be one
in soul for ever.

In spite of this proclamation filled with such
a determined fighting spirit the Roumanian Natio-
nal Council was not above asking the tyrannical



Hungary and Roumania 53

Hungiirian Government, (not even acknowledged by
them) to provide for the use of iha Roumanian Natio-
nal Guard 160,000 rifles, 5,000 machine guns and