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Aftermath

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On the 2nd of August 1919, Béla Kun fled Hungary towards the Austrian border and eventually reached the Soviet Union. A socialist government under the leadership of Gyula Peidl was installed in Budapest with the help of some representatives of the Allies, but it was short-lived. Power was taken then by a faction trying to instate Archduke Josef as head of state and István Friedrich as prime minister. However, the Allies would not accept a Habsburg as head of state and hence a new government was needed. The Romanians occupied all Hungary, with the exception of a piece of land around the Lake Balaton. There, a group formed around Admiral Horthy, and supplied with arms by the Romanians[1], was organizing the new Hungarian Army, preparing to take over after the Romanians would eventually leave. Horthy's supporters included some far-right nationalist elements[2], the semi-regular white guards, who were the main perpetrators of persecutions, including violence, against former bolsheviks and against the Jewish-Hungarian population, whom they perceived as communist en masse, due to the disproportionate participation of its members in the communist administration[3][4]. This prompted Horthy's National Army[5] and the Romanian troops to take steps towards protecting the Hungarian Jews. Initially, the Romanians also took over police and administration duties in the regions under their control. Later, under Entente pressure, they relinquished these tasks to the reorganized Hungarian administration and police, but obstructed them, for example by failing to return enough weapons to arm the police[6], as it happened in Budapest, where only 600 carbines were returned to arm 3700 policemen. The Romanians took care of feeding the population of large Hungarian cities in the first month after the fighting ceased, as their supply infrastructure collapsed because of the war[7][8][9].

Reparations or looting?

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The Entente was discontented with the Romanian conduct during much of its conflict with Hungary. The reason for this was that on many occasions Romania acted out of its own free will, following what it considered to be its best interest. However, in doing so it placed itself outside the framework the Entente tried to established in its agreements with Hungary. The Entente was deeply displeased with the Romanians advancing up to the Tisza river during Phase II of the conflict and even though happy to get rid of the Hungarian bolsheviks[10], it did not sanction the Romanian occupation of Hungary proper[11], nor the Romanians imposing war reparations and requisitioning these on their own. The Entente thought that Hungary should pay war reparations in common with the Central Powers and pressured Romania to accept the supervision of an Inter-Allied Military Mission to superintend the disarmament of the Hungarian army and to see that the Romanian troops withdraw[12][11].

The committee of this mission included Generals Harry Hill Bandholtz for the US, who wrote a detailed diary about the events[13], Reginald Gorton for Great Britain, Jean César Graziani for France, and Ernesto Mombelli for Italy, whose secretary[14] and former military representative of the Supreme Council in Budapest[11] Lieutenant-Colonel Guido Romanelli was accused of being biased against the Romanians and replaced[3]. In general, the relationship between the Romanians and at least some[15] of the Allied representatives in Budapest was poor from the very moment the Hungarian capital fell. It was pledged by mutual distrust and lack of understanding, being even described as hostile by some modern scholars[16]. For example, one of the first things the Mission did was to ask the Romanians, among others, not to conduct any requisitioning on their own and return what they have already taken, including also military assets that were captured from the Hungarian army on the field of battle[17].

The tensions between Romania and the Entente run even deeper. The Entente was no longer sympathetic towards the wishes of the Romanians to be awarded territories far beyond the line of the towns Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti) - Oradea (Nagyvárad) - Arad (Arad) and up to the Tisza river. These were promised to Romania upon entering the war in the Treaty of Bucharest (1916), mainly for military reasons, the Tisza constituting a natural obstacle. However, the promises were irreconcilable with Wilson's policies of self determination, because these territories had an almost-homogeneous Hungarian population, and thus their fulfillment would have lead to the inclusion of a very large region with a clear majority of Hungarians in Romania.

Under the leadership of prime-minister Ion Brătianu, the Romanians, besides continuing their requisitioning, also insisted on the promised Tisza border and refused to sign the peace treaty with Austria. In response, the Entente practically eliminated Romania from the set of countries receiving reparations from Germany and on 15 November the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference sent the Romanians a note asking them to stop the requisitioning return the goods already taken and leave the Hungarian territory. At the same time, it started applying more pressure for a change in the Romanian attitude, by threatening in the same note with the exclusion of Romania from the group of allied countries[18] upon non compliance.

In the end, Bratianu had to leave, Romania received virtually no reparations (i.e., only one percent of the total) from Germany[19] and limited amounts from Bulgaria and Turkey. However, it signed the peace treaty with Austria and was allowed to keep everything it took from Hungary, while it renounced its claims for getting all the land it was promised in 1916 and accepted a new agreement that lead directly to the borders as we know them today.

The Romanians requisitioned goods in self-imposed quotas, which they regarded as war reparations, on the basis of the armistice they've signed with the Hungarians, and, as already pointed before, without the blessing of the Entente. The Hungarians considered this to be looting, since from their point of view, the seizures were arbitrary and were only post factum secured by a peace treaty. The terms of the Romanian-imposed armistice were harsh on Hungary. In imposing such severe clauses, the Romanians followed two objectives[12]: they tried to ensure that Hungary will be in no position to become a threat militarily at least within the near future and they sought retribution for Romania's plundering by the Central Powers during WWI[20][21]. While the situation evolved, a role was played also by the fact that being denied access to what the Germans payed as war reparations towards the Entente and receiving very few from Bulgaria and Turkey, the Romanians sought compensation for their entire war effort in what they would take from Hungary. Also, in the end, by the treaties of St. Germain and Trianon, Romania had to pay a "liberation fee" of 230 millions gold francs towards Austria and Hungary respectively and had to take over a share of the public debt of Austria-Hungary corresponding to the size of the former Austria-Hungary territories it now incorporated[19].

When the Romanian troops finally departed Hungary at the beginning of 1920, they took extensive booty[22], including food, ore, means of transportation, and factory equipment. The Hungarians had to cede all war materials, excepting those weapons necessary for the troops under Horthy's command. Furthermore, they had to hand over to the Romanians their entire armament industry, 50% of the rolling stock of the Hungarian railroad (i.e., 800 locomotives and 19.000 cars), 30% of the livestock, 30% of all agricultural tools, and 35,000 wagons of cereals and fodder. Also, all the goods identified as booty taken from Romania after the Peace of Bucharest in 1918 were confiscated. Hungary had to pay as well for the expenditures of the occupation troops[23].

Because Romania acted outside the will of the Entente and because of the share volume of goods it requisitioned, several modern scholars and contemporary members of the Allied Committee[24] describe this as looting[25][20]. They emphasize as well the indiscriminate nature of the Romanian seizures with the example of them confiscating the telephones and typewriters from the government office in Budapest[23] and requisitioning private automobiles[26]. Although public enterprise in occupied Hungary bore the brunt of the Romanian-imposed reparation quotas, where these were not enough, the Romanian occupation authorities requisitioned the rest from privately owned enterprises, including farms[27] (as for example in the case of cattle, horses and even grain) either directly[12] or by constraining the Hungarian authorities[17] to do so. This pledged the relationships between the Hungarian population and the occupation army, which otherwise started well, the Hungarians being satisfied to get rid of the Bolshevik yoke[7]. The requisitions of the Romanian occupation authorities also led to a large number of complaints filed by the Entente-imposed supervision body[3], which further afflicted the relationship between the Romanians and the Inter-Allied Military Mission.

Epilogue

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The entire Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919 was waged over a period of nine months. The Romanians lost 188 officers and 11,478 soldiers, out of which 69 officers and 3,601 soldiers dead. The Romanians started retreating from Hungary in November 1919. Between February 14 and March 28, 1920 all Romanian Army units left the Hungarian territory.

  1. ^ C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 612
  2. ^ Bodo, Béla, Paramilitary Violence in Hungary After the First World War, East European Quarterly, June 22, 2004
  3. ^ a b c C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 616
  4. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 80/86
  5. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 120 [1]
  6. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 52 [2]
  7. ^ a b C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 613
  8. ^ A.Webb, The Routledge companion to Central and Eastern Europe since 1919, Routledge; 1 edition (May 28, 2008) [3]
  9. ^ D.F. Busky, Communism in History and Theory: The European Experience, Praeger Publishers (September 30, 2002) [4]
  10. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. xxii[5]
  11. ^ a b c Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. xxviii [6]
  12. ^ a b c C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 614
  13. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966
  14. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 32 [7]
  15. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 45 [8]
  16. ^ Peter Pastor, [9], Revolutions and interventions in Hungary and its neighbor states, 1918-1919, Social Science Monographs, 1988 p. 313
  17. ^ a b C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 615
  18. ^ C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 635
  19. ^ a b C. Kiriţescu: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României, Vol. II, ed. Romania Noua, 1923, pp. 646
  20. ^ a b A Country Study: Romania. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.
  21. ^ Meddling in Middle Europe: Britain and the 'Lands Between', 1919-1925 [10], Miklos Lojko Central European University Press, 2006
  22. ^ Louise Chipley Slavicek, The Treaty of Versailles, Infobase Publishing, 2010, p. 84
  23. ^ a b Cecil D. Eby, Hungary at war: civilians and soldiers in World War II, Penn State Press, 2007, p. 4
  24. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 131 [11] pp. 38 [12]
  25. ^ Glen St. John Barclay, 20th century nationalism, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 26
  26. ^ Margaret MacMillan: Paris 1919, Six Months that Changed the World, Random House, New York, 2002, pp. 268 [13]
  27. ^ Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz: An Undiplomatic Diary, AMS Press, 1966, pp. 128 [14]
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