169 Béla Pomogáts Failed strategies Abstract There has been no courageous and convincing agreement over Tran- sylvania’s fate between Hungary and Romania: sincerity was lacking in most participants. There were even less of those who felt that the age-old disagreements should have been solved by such compromise as would have given full national self government to the Romanians of Transylvania and would not destroy the autonomy of its Hungar- ians either. It seems that literature could sometimes suggest a more acceptable political reality than the complicated arguments of politi- cians: the situation of Transylvania before World War I. as well as the dangers threatening the region were most creditably revealed by Endre Ady both in his political writings and his poetry. It is my experience strengthening my belief that there have been very few in Hungary who have been willing or able to actually serve the interests of the country and even less who have been able to do so realising the political realities and adapting to them. Probably the representative of other East Central European nations could draw similar conclusions; however, if we consider that it is success that justifies national strategy and willingness to act, the Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Serbian and even the Polish intelligentsia were more deliberate and effective in handling their respective countries’ affaires than Hungarians. This was so in the decade preceding the Trianon decisions, the fall of the old Hungary when there were only few so thoughtful to have tried preventing the perils awaiting the country while considering the political realities of the world and of Central Europe and most importantly their possible geopolitical consequences. 170 Béla Pomogáts Failed strategies 171 There were exceptions of course; among those in power there 2 million Hungarian soldiers in arms, a new army could have been was István Tisza who tried to consolidate the country’s situation by organized, as Aurél Stromfeld organized his ‘red army’ which recap- such a conservative strategy that it was doomed from the beginning; tured the towns of Kassa, Eperjes, Bártfa in the Upland, which of on the side of the opposition Mihály Károlyi who had no effective course at the time defended the country and not the ‘proletarian influence upon politics till the autumn of 1918; or even Oszkár Jászi, dictatorship’. It also has to be mentioned that the February 1918 who offered strategic steps to consolidate historical Hungary, was regulation of the Bucharest peace had not required the Romanian without the necessary political power and when he finally obtained army to lay down their arms into the hands of the central powers; it, it was too late. In the non-political sphere the scholar Benedek it was with the help of those arms the Romanians occupied Tran- Jancsó was such an exception who kept warning that the Hungarian sylvania and parts of eastern Hungary. In the history of wars it is Transylvania was in danger; and Endre Ady too (being a poet and unusual on the part of the winners to allow the losers keeping their Transylvanian) who probably was the most sensitively aware of the weapons. The Hungarian political leaders were unable to consoli- fate of the country but neither he could have foreseen what was date the still available army and use it for the protection of the actually to happen. The Hungarian public was deluded by the illu- country. Béla Kun called back the troops re-occupying the Upland sion of the millennium, busy with the strife with Austria and dreams in the hope of gaining points of merit for it at the peace conference about Hungary as a great power; nobody was ready to notice the (strange that a communist leader had such illusions about powers approaching dangers thus the country was led toward is fall failing representing capitalism). mental, political and military defence and it was a miracle that it has Let’s not fall into the trap of wishful thinking what would have survived at all. happened if the politicians had chosen a different strategy. However, The fate signed at Trianon has frequently been claimed sometimes history offers possibilities for a choice of political develop- unavoidable; in his emigration Lajos Kossuth referred to the ments and it is worth analysing what ways were still open. There is Austrian - Hungarian compromise of 1867 as the doom of Hungary the example of Turkey. There was a completely beaten humiliated in his ‘Cassandra Letter’. Unlike his great opponent Görgei, he Ottoman Empire; Mustafa Kemal Atatürk organized a new army, was fortunate and did not live to see the war which fulfilled his renounced the earlier treaty and was able to enter into a new one prophecy. Others have believed that the greed of the newly formed under more favourable conditions preserving all the Turkish regions neighbouring countries to gain territories could not have been fent in Anatolia. It is not probable that the French generals would had off, there were not anymore Hungarians to conscript and resist- been ready to send their armies into battle for Czechoslovakian, ance would have led to even greater loss of territory; had it not Romanian and Serbian territorial claims. Though there was some been for the decision of the peace conference but for sheer military resistance, e.g. Mihály Károlyi appearing in Szatmár, the battles of force, Debrecen would have remained under Romanian occupation, the Sekler troops, Stromfeld’s north-eastern campaign, an organized, Miskolc under Czechoslovakian, Pécs under Yugoslavian. overall resistance was lacking and it makes one wonder how inevi- All these statements are arguable. First of all after 1867 there table was the neglect. was the possibility to found a nation-building strategy to consolidate the achievements of Deák and Andrássy, e.g. through compromises Preludes to Trianon in nationality policy; its possibility was given by the nationality law of 1868 which was - as has been severally pointed out – the most At the time of the developments leading to Trianon it was the tolerant nationality law in contemporary Europe. Then it could and general Hungarian public opinion that before the defeat in World must have been possible to withstand the occupation of the mili- War I no one could have foresee what was to come. The essay of tary forces of the Little Entente; in October 1918 there were still Iván Bertényi Jr. mentions how István Tisza was surprised when 170 Béla Pomogáts Failed strategies 171 There were exceptions of course; among those in power there 2 million Hungarian soldiers in arms, a new army could have been was István Tisza who tried to consolidate the country’s situation by organized, as Aurél Stromfeld organized his ‘red army’ which recap- such a conservative strategy that it was doomed from the beginning; tured the towns of Kassa, Eperjes, Bártfa in the Upland, which of on the side of the opposition Mihály Károlyi who had no effective course at the time defended the country and not the ‘proletarian influence upon politics till the autumn of 1918; or even Oszkár Jászi, dictatorship’. It also has to be mentioned that the February 1918 who offered strategic steps to consolidate historical Hungary, was regulation of the Bucharest peace had not required the Romanian without the necessary political power and when he finally obtained army to lay down their arms into the hands of the central powers; it, it was too late. In the non-political sphere the scholar Benedek it was with the help of those arms the Romanians occupied Tran- Jancsó was such an exception who kept warning that the Hungarian sylvania and parts of eastern Hungary. In the history of wars it is Transylvania was in danger; and Endre Ady too (being a poet and unusual on the part of the winners to allow the losers keeping their Transylvanian) who probably was the most sensitively aware of the weapons. The Hungarian political leaders were unable to consoli- fate of the country but neither he could have foreseen what was date the still available army and use it for the protection of the actually to happen. The Hungarian public was deluded by the illu- country. Béla Kun called back the troops re-occupying the Upland sion of the millennium, busy with the strife with Austria and dreams in the hope of gaining points of merit for it at the peace conference about Hungary as a great power; nobody was ready to notice the (strange that a communist leader had such illusions about powers approaching dangers thus the country was led toward is fall failing representing capitalism). mental, political and military defence and it was a miracle that it has Let’s not fall into the trap of wishful thinking what would have survived at all. happened if the politicians had chosen a different strategy. However, The fate signed at Trianon has frequently been claimed sometimes history offers possibilities for a choice of political develop- unavoidable; in his emigration Lajos Kossuth referred to the ments and it is worth analysing what ways were still open. There is Austrian - Hungarian compromise of 1867 as the doom of Hungary the example of Turkey. There was a completely beaten humiliated in his ‘Cassandra Letter’. Unlike his great opponent Görgei, he Ottoman Empire; Mustafa Kemal Atatürk organized a new army, was fortunate and did not live to see the war which fulfilled his renounced the earlier treaty and was able to enter into a new one prophecy. Others have believed that the greed of the newly formed under more favourable conditions preserving all the Turkish regions neighbouring countries to gain territories could not have been fent in Anatolia.