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The Treaty of Trianon: A Hungarian Tragedy - June 4, 1920

How Hungary Shrank: Ostensibly in the name of national self-determination, the Treaty dismembered the thousand-year-old Kingdom of Hungary, a self-contained, geographically and economically coherent and durable formation in the Carpathian Basin and boasting the longest lasting historical borders in Europe. It was imposed on Hungary without any negotiation by vengeful leaders who were ignorant or ignored the region’s history, and mercilessly tore that country apart. By drawing artificial borders in gross violation of the ethnic principle, it also transferred over three million indigenous ethnic Hungarians and over 70% of the country's territory to foreign rule.6/4/2007 - "Trianon: Tragedy, Dissolution, and Remedy." Frank Koszorus, Jr. and the AHF International Relations Committee release essay on treaty's 87th anniversary. "...FULL TEXT:

The Treaty of Trianon following the First World War was arguably the most severe of all the post-World War I settlements. Ostensibly in the name of national self-determination, the Treaty dismembered the thousand-year-old Kingdom of Hungary, a self-contained, geographically and
economically coherent and durable formation in the Carpathian Basin and boasting the longest lasting historical borders in Europe. It was imposed on Hungary without any negotiation by vengeful leaders who were ignorant or ignored the region’s history, and mercilessly tore that country apart.* By drawing artificial borders in
gross violation of the ethnic principle, it also transferred over three million indigenous ethnic Hungarians and over 70% of the country's territory to foreign rule. Following the war to make the "world safe for democracy," the Treaty even denied the affected populations the right to choose under whose sovereignty they would live.

Only the city of Sopron in western Hungary was allowed a plebiscite to decide its future, and it opted by a large margin to remain in Hungary. Although the peacemakers included provisions for the protection of minorities in various international instruments they insisted the successor states sign, the latter generally ignored their promises and the individual and minority rights of ethnic Hungarians were violated.

Below are selected statements relating to some of these issues that shed light on the context, attitudes and practices that affected Hungarians eighty-seven years ago and which still impact and to some extent poison the region, as evidenced by the Successor States’ refusal to grant their Hungarian historical communities the
right to autonomy. The last excerpt is another solution for a tragedy that affected the entire region.

  • Woodrow Wilson, the January 8, 1918 Fourteen Points Speech:

    “The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world…”

    “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.”

    “The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.”
    February 11 speech to Congress defining American war aims as a peace of "no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages."

    Statement in New York City on September 27 asserting that "The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standard but the equal rights of the
    several peoples concerned . . ."

    May 31, 1919 statement at the Peace Conference: "Nothing...is more likely to disturb the peace of the world than the treatment which might in certain circumstances be meted out to the minorities.”
  • Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge, Report on Mission to Hungary, January 19, 1919:

    “Thanks to this diversity in the character of its different regions, Hungary has been from the earliest times a singularly self-sufficing state.”
  • Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge on transferring three and three quarter million Hungarians to foreign rule:

    “To compel what has been since a thousand years a unified country to accept such an arrangement as permanent would be only to condemn it to a future hatred and strife with every probability of violent outbreak before many years have elapsed.”
  • Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, and Andre Tardieu, member of the French delegation, Council of Foreign Ministers proceeding on the future Hungarian-Romanian frontier:

    “Mr. Lansing asked why a more accurate ethnic line could not be followed. Mr. Tardieu explained that it would cut the railway line and suppress continuous communication. Mr. Lansing asked if anywhere west of the line there could be found a predominately Romanian population. Mr. Tardieu said that this might occur in certain isolated places.

    In reply to further questions, M. Tardieu said that some 600,000 Hungarians would remain under Romanian rule, while 25,000 Romanians would remain within Hungary. Mr. Lansing expressed the view that this distribution did not appear very just; in every case, the decision seemed to have been against the Hungarians. M. Tardieu said that any other adjustment would have all in favor of the Hungarians and correspondingly to the detriment of the Romanians.” (Emphasis added.)
  • Woodrow Wilson: “Nominally we are friends of the Hungarians and even better friends of the Rumanians.”
  • Georges Clemenceau: “The Hungarians are not our friends but our enemies.”
  • Resolution of the (Romanian) Assembly at Gyulafehervar/Alba Iulia, December 1, 1918:

    “Complete national freedom for the peoples jointly inhabiting. All peoples have the right to their own education and government in their own language, with their own administration, and by individuals chosen from among themselves.”
  • Sir George Clerk, Report to the Supreme Council on His Mission to Hungary, November 29, 1919:

    “. . .it seems unnecessary and uncivilized, and, I think, illegal, for the Roumanians to call for an oath of allegiance from university professors whose town and University have not yet been definitely handed over to them. But this is what the Roumanians did in the University of Kolozsvar in May last. The professors very rightly said that they were still Hungarian subjects and could not consider themselves released from their duties as such until the Peace Treaty had definitely allocated Kolozsvar to Roumania. The Roumanian answer was to turn the professors out of their posts, out of their houses, and to force them to work as labourers, to keep body and soul together.

    One distinguished Professor of Geography, who has a world wide reputation, was forced to hoe potatoes for a living and he gave his lectures to four pupils who hoed the rows on each side of him. He was then arrested, put in prison and made to clean latrines. He was finally allowed to leave with his family in a cattle truck, but at the sacrifice of his personal possessions and the fruits of his whole scientific life. . . .I can only say that. . . the neighboring States, our present Allies, need firm supervision and guidance to make them fit to enjoy the inheritance which has fallen to them through our sacrifice and effort.”
  • Memorandum, American Representatives on the Organization Committee of the Reparations Committee on the Hungarian Situation and the Effect of Rumania’s Appropriation of Values and Property in Hungary on the Other Allied and Associated Powers, September 23, 1919:

    “Roumania is reported to have stripped Hungary of all its seed grain, live stock, agricultural machinery, etc., with the result that the supplying of the minimum needs of the Hungarian population will shortly have to be borne by Roumania’s Allies at considerable sacrifice and financial cost to their respective Governments and peoples.”
  • Queen Marie on extensive looting by Rumanian troops occupying Hungary:

    “You may call it stealing if you want to, or any other name. I feel we are perfectly entitled to do what we want to.”
  • Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz, American Member of the Inter-Allied Military Mission to Hungary, Budapest, November 13, 1919:

    “Judging from the Roumanian occupation of Hungary, our little Latin Allies have the refined loot appetite of a Mississippi River catfish, the chivalrous instincts of a young cuckoo, and the same hankering for truth that a seasick passenger has for pork and beans.”
  • Count Apponyi, president of Hungary’s peace delegation, address to the Supreme Council, January 16, 1920:

    “In the name of the great principle so happily phrased by President Wilson, namely that no group of people, no population, may be transferred from one State to another without being first consulted, as though they were a herd of cattle with no will of their own, in the name of this great principle, an axiom of good sense and public morals, we request, we demand a plebiscite on those parts of Hungary that are now on the point of being severed from us. I declare we are willing to bow to the decision of a plebiscite whatever it should be. Of course we demand it should be held in conditions ensuring the freedom of the vote.”
  • Robert Lansing, May 1, 1919: “The feeling is that the principles, which the President laid down in the ‘Fourteen Points’ and in his speeches, have been destroyed by compromises and concessions, that a victor’s peace rather than a just peace is being sought, and the cupidity backed by threats of refusal to sign the Covenant [League of Nations] controls the situation.”
  • Georges Clemenceau: “I cannot say for how many years, perhaps I should say for how many centuries the crisis which has begun will continue. . . .”Yes, this treaty [Versailles] will bring us burdens, troubles, miseries, difficulties, and that will continue for long years.”
  • Geza Jeszenszky: “. . . it is easy to see that the federal solution to the problems of Central Europe was an alternative which all the peoples of the region can only regret not to have been realized.”
  • Richard Holbrooke: “As our American negotiating team shuttled around the Balkans in the fall of 1995 trying to end the war in Bosnia, the Versailles treaty was not far from my mind. Reading excerpts from Harold Nicolson’s Peacemaking 1919, we joked that our goal was to undo Woodrow Wilson’s
    legacy. . . .We were, in effect, burying another part of Versailles.”
  • Col. Ferenc Koszorus, Royal Hungarian Army, 1970 (Posthumously Promoted General by the Antall
    government following the collapse of Communism): Clemenceau’s foreign policy during 1918-20 tried to create security by force, but it definitely upset the balance of power, with the result that the climate of world politics became more uncertain during the following fifteen years than it was anytime
    before. Many small ultranationalist states fabricated upon the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – for some centuries a traditional pivot of the balance of power in Central Europe – were unable to exert an influence toward keeping the balance and promoting security. These new small states with their
    conflicting interests were too weak and offered an inviting challenge to the powerful aggressors, Hitler and Stalin. The Western Powers, on the other hand, could not permanently nurse the small states, and such a policy would have meant world war within the shortest space of time. Without adequate
    assistance, these small states proved unable to defend themselves.

    In our time, evolution points to the formation of large economic and political units. And it is evident, that after the birth of the idea of the federation of West European states, it would be imperative to unite many small nations in East Central Europe to form a powerful political, economic and military unit within the framework of a European United States. Such a Federation would guarantee peaceful
    symbiosis, freedom, economic prosperity in countries which in past decades had been fighting each other; it would be able to defend itself, and by so doing it would contribute to the maintenance of world peace.”

* As a consequence of Hungarian Defense Minister Bela Linder’s declaration that “he did not want to see any more soldiers,” President Michael Karolyi’s pacifist policies and his blind pro-French attitude, Hungary was virtually defenseless before the Paris Peace Conference. Karolyi’s disastrous policies and limitations contributed to the extent of Hungary’s dismemberment.

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At the time President Wilson said: “The proposal to dismember Hungary is absurd” and later Sir Winston Churchill said: “Ancient poets and theologians could not imagine such suffering, which Trianon bought to the innocent.” We are sad to report that they were right.

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Count Apponyi pleading to the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace ConferenceCount Apponyi pleading to the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference:

"In the name of the great principle so happily phrased by President Wilson, namely that no group of people, no population, may be transferred from one State to another without being consulted,- as though they were a herd of cattle with no will of their own,- in the name of this great principle, an axiom of good sense and public morals, we request, we demand a plebiscite on those parts of Hungary that are now on the point of being severed from us.  I declare we are willing to bow to the decision of a plebiscite whatever it should be.  Of course, we demand it should be held in conditions ensuring the freedom of the vote." [more on Count Apponyi]

At the time President Wilson said: “The proposal to dismember Hungary is absurd” and later Sir Winston Churchill said: “Ancient poets and theologians could not imagine such suffering, which Trianon brought to the innocent.We are sad to report that they were right.


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Ethnic Distribution in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1910 (Hungarians shown in red)

Ethnic Distribution in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1910 (Hungarians shown in red)
[download extra large image 4962x3509]
[download large image 1000x707]

Hungarian populations declined significantly after forced removals such as the Benes Decrees and other pograms, the effects of WWI, and Trianon in 1920. With continued pressure and discriminative policies such as the 2009 Slovak Language Law, this trend continued over the past 90 years.

Hungarian populations declined significantly after forced removals such as the Benes Decrees and other pograms, the effects of WWI, and Trianon in 1920. With continued pressure and discriminative policies sucha s the 2009 Slovak Language Law, this trend continued over the past 90 years.

  • In Upper Hungary (awarded to Slovakia, Czechoslovakia): 1,687,977 Slovaks and 1,233,454 others (mostly Hungarians - 886,044, Germans, Ruthenians and Roma) [according to the 1921 census, however, there were 1,941,942 Slovaks and 1,058,928 others]
  • In Carpathian Ruthenia (awarded to Czechoslovakia): 330,010 Ruthenians and 275,932 others (mostly Hungarians, Germans, Romanians, and Slovaks)
  • In Transylvania (awarded to Romania): 2,831,222 Romanians (53.8%) and 2,431,273 others (mostly Hungarians - 1,662,948 (31.6%) and Germans - 563,087 (10.7%)). The 1919 and 1920 Transylvanian censuses indicate a greater percentage of Romanians (57.1%/57.3%) and a smaller Hungarian minority (26.5%/25.5%)
  • In Vojvodina 510,754 Serbs and 1,002,229 others (mostly Hungarians 425,672 and Germans 324,017)
  • In Vojvodina and Croatia-Slavonia combined (awarded to Yugoslavia): 2,756,000 Croats and Serbs and 1,366,000 others (mostly Hungarians and Germans)
  • In Burgenland (awarded to Austria): 217,072 Germans and 69,858 others (mainly Croatian and Hungarian)

About the Treaty
by Bryan Dawson

How Hungary Shrank, stranding millions across artificial bordersOne thousand years of nation building successfully delineated groups based on culture, religion, geography, and other attributes to create the countries with which we are so familiar. While some Western European nations would continue power struggles and princely battles and civil wars, Hungary, founded in 896, was a peaceful multi-ethnic state for a 1000 years and her borders were unchanged. Until 1920...

The Treaty of Trianon in 1920... in the aftermath of WWI, was extremely harsh on Hungary and unjustifiably one-sided. The resulting "treaty" lost Hungary an unprecedented 2/3 of her territory, and 1/2 of her total population or 1/3 of her Hungarian-speaking population. Add to this the loss of up to 90% of vast natural resources, industry, railways, and other infrastructure. This was done to a nation whose borders were established over a thousand years earlier (896 A.D.) and one who, as the "Saviors of Christianity," lost millions of lives defending the rest of Europe from numerous invasions from the likes of the Mongolian Tatars and the Ottoman Turks.

Hungary, a reluctant player in WWI, paid a price no other modern nation had ever before been subjected to. The French, long hungry to stall rapid economic advancement in German and Hungarian lands and despite American protests and calls for plebiscites, sent their troops to Northern Hungary in violation of the cease fire, and then pushed through the Treaty of Versailles (Trianon).Hungary, along with Germany and Austria, experienced rapid economic expansion during the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th. This challenge alarmed France and Russia. Each needed a way to stave off German-Hungarian economic competition. With the advent of WWI, France had her chance and began fostering anti-Hungarian sentiment among non-Magyar speaking Hungarian nationals. It is important to note that for over a thousand years, Hungary never experienced ethnic civil war. France, eager to weaken Hungary, offered to reward those nations and groups that assisted them in the war with large pieces of territory. The "Little Entente" of Rumania (who switched sides in the last minute), Czechoslovakia, and Serbia took that opportunity and got very lucky.

The United States has never ratified this treaty. At the time President Wilson said: “The proposal to dismember Hungary is absurd” and later Sir Winston Churchill said: “Ancient poets and theologians could not imagine such suffering, which Trianon bought to the innocent.” We are sad to report that he was right.

The French, despite American protests and calls for plebiscites, sent their troops to Northern Hungary in violation of the cease fire, and then pushed through the Treaty of Versailles (Trianon). Although Rumania, herself created only in 1862, switched to the French side almost at the very end of the war, she gained all of Transylvania and majority of the Banat, but claimed the river Tisza. The Czechs were awarded all of Northern Hungary (now Slovakia), despite equal numbers of Hungarians and Slovaks in the region, to create Czechoslovakia. The Serbs got Southern Hungary (Vojvodina), Slavonia, and Croatia (confederated with Hungary for 700 years) to create the unlikely "Yugoslavia," which, like Czechoslovakia, effectively, no longer exists. Perhaps most amazingly, the Austrians who were responsible for getting Hungary into the war in the first place, got Western Hungary (Burgenland).

Ethnic Map of Slovakia - 1910 vs 1991 showing population decline

The dictators in these successor states began to foster nationalism and teach a less-than-accurate history to help bring legitimacy to their regimes. These claims are based on some seriously unfortunate state propaganda-cum-history about an ancient Roman province called Dacia. In Rumania, this revised history, accelerated by Ceaucescu, has become the accepted state historical doctrine even today, making the process of reconciliation much more difficult. In the newly formed Czechslovakia, Eduard Benes and his infamous "Benes Decrees" forcibly expelled tens of thousands of Hungarians and confiscated personal and church properties. See the additional steps the Slovak Government has taken against the Hungarian minority. AHF's efforts to guarantee anew the rights of the Hungarian "minorities" continue.

Though the United States recommended a slightly more liberal approach in regards to Hungary, it did not prevail. The "self-determination of the nationalities" posited by President Woodrow Wilson resulted in only one plebiscite in Sopron, in Western Hungary. The vote was overwhelmingly pro-Hungarian and Sopron remained within the new borders. Oddly enough, although Austria was also a loser in the war, she also received a part of Hungary, and Sopron became a border city.

1938 Slovakia - Hungary
The dismemberment and instability brought economic collapse and governmental crisis. The Rumanians, also in defiance of the armistice agreement with their new-found French allies, took advantage of the turmoil in Hungary and moved troops into the defenseless nation and occupied Budapest and beyond. To this day, the Greater Rumania Party and other in Rumania still claim territory that includes the river Tisza and even Budapest. A mini-communist takeover, a republican government, finally gave way to Royalist Admiral Miklos Horthy who took over as "Regent" of Hungary and brought some stability back to the country. The new government got to work on trying to revise the unjst treaty. Sadly, the US with its growing isolationist stance, pulled out of the League of Nations and Western Europe wanted no part in re-opening the case. France was focused on making sure Germany was punished. The Hungarians got a sympathetic ear from only Italy and Germany. This tragic alliance initially gained Hungary part of her northern territory from Czechoslovakia and Northern Transylvania from Rumania. But this alliance would only to plunge her into another disaster and occupations by first Nazis and later Soviet communists. Her land was again taken. One part of northern Hungary was then transferred from Czechoslovakia and became part of the Soviet Union and is today part of the Ukraine.

Although Rumania, herself created only in 1862, switched to the French side almost at the very end of the war, she gained all of Transylvania and majority of the Banat. The Czechs were awarded all of Northern Hungary (now Slovakia), despite equal numbers of Hungarians and Slovaks in the region, to create Czechoslovakia, the Serbs got Southern Hungary (Vojvodina) and Croatia to create the unlikely "Yugoslavia," which, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exists. Perhaps most amazingly, the Austrians who were responsible for getting Hungary into the war in the first place, got Western Hungary (Burgenland).The maps here not only show graphically the extent to which the Treaty of Trianon dismembered Hungary, it shows how much Hungarian-majority areas were arbitrarily "reassigned." Hungarians today are the one of the largest minorities in Europe and face oppression and violence. Numbering in the millions, Hungarian minorities are second only to the Russians who became "minorities" with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Hungarians live under harsh persecution in the new states created by the treaty. The Helsinki Watch Committee called Romanian efforts to "purify" Transylvania as "Cultural Genocide." Read the Treaty in full text

Additional AHF Links on Trianon

External Links on Trianon


Related Downloads

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  • Hungary's Accession to NATO: An expanded report - 7/17/2007
  • "NATO Enlargement" by Frank Koszorus Jr. March 29, 2004 - Remarks on the Occasion of the Enlargement of NATO, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. [download]
  • AHF Memorandum on Romanian President Iliescu Visit - 10/24/2003
  • "Nato Enlargement And Minority Rights: Prerequisites To Security" by Frank Koszorus, Jr. , April 2003 - A memorandum that was submitted to Robert A. Bradtke, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Heather A. Conley, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs during a roundtable discussion on "NATO Enlargement and the Current State of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance." This submission follows several other intiatives, including submissions to Lord Roberston, Secretary General of NATO. [download]
  • “Nato Enlargement: Promoting Western Values, Strengthening The Alliance” by Frank Koszorus, Jr. , April 29, 2003 - A Statement Before The United States Senate Committee On Foreign Relations.
    [download]
  • "U.S. Senate Unanimously Ratifies Nato Treaty; Senators Raise Rights Of Minorities: Federation Supports Efforts Aimed At Encouraging Romania And Slovakia To Respect Rights Of Hungarian Minorities And Restore Communal Properties" - Press Release by Zoltan Bagdy, May 9, 2003 [download]
  • An Essay on the foundations of Rumanian Identity, Nationalism and Ethnic Cleansing - CONCEPTUAL CONFUSIONS CONCERNING THE ROMANIAN IDENTITY: NEAM AND POPOR AS EXPRESSIONS OF ETHNO-NATIONALISM (PART 3) - "...the motivation and the goal was common: racially determined mass murder." (Appeared in RFE/RFL Newsline, 6/5/2005 By Victor Neumann, professor of history at the West University of Timisoara, Romania.) [download]
  • Transylvanian Monitor #14: Property Restitution.

Congressional Resolutions & Records

  • H.RES 191 - A RESOLUTION urging the "prompt and fair restitution of church properties by Romania and Slovakia - TOM LANTOS / TOM TANCREDO (April 6th 2005) in the House of Representatives [download]
  • A RESOLUTION REGARDING THE ISSUE OF TRANSYLVANIAN HUNGARIANS -- HON. DONALD E. `BUZ' LUKENS (Extension of Remarks - February 26, 1990) in the House of Representatives [download]
  • VIOLENCE IN TRANSYLVANIA -- HON. DON RITTER (Extension of Remarks - March 22, 1990) in the House of Representatives [download]

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