HUNGARY
_Budapest, Tuesday, December 29th._ I left Vienna at nine o'clock this
morning and reached Budapest at two. I had tea with Mrs. Gerard, who
is in Budapest visiting her sister, Countess Sigray. I called at the
home of Count Albert Apponyi to leave my card and letters of
introduction. I dined with Mrs. Gerard and the Count and Countess
Sigray.
* * * * *
The great Hungarian plain, bounded by the Carpathians on the east and
by the Danube and the Save on the south has been inhabited by the
Hungarian people for more than a thousand years. The inhabitants of
this plain number about sixteen millions at the present time. They
pride themselves upon the fact that they have maintained their
national entity since the Ninth Century, although they have stood
alone and exposed in the middle of Europe, without any of the
geographical advantages which accrue from a situation of insular
isolation such as has been enjoyed by the English.
The world in general insists in thinking of Hungary as an Austrian
province and in counting Austria-Hungary one country, whose name has
been hyphenated with the sole purpose of inconveniencing conversation
in foreign countries. As a matter of fact, Hungary and Austria are two
distinct nations, inhabited by antagonistic races who speak different
languages and hold different ideals. The Hungarians are of Magyar
descent and speak a beautiful, musical language, while the Austrians
are a mixture of many races whose common tongue is a borrowed,
unclassical German. Each country has its own government, its own
parliament, and its own cabinet officers. The Hungarian nobility
regard the Austrian nobles as mere upstarts. Nothing is so displeasing
to a Hungarian as to be called an Austrian, or to be told that
Austrians and Hungarians are one and the same people.
Surrounded by three powerful enemies, the Turks, the Austrians, and
the Slavs, they have not succeeded in continuously maintaining their
liberty during the ten centuries of their existence as a nation. They
came under the domination of the Turks during the sixteenth century,
but under the leadership of Prince Eugene they with the assistance of
Austria succeeded in liberating themselves in 1716. In 1848 they were
subjugated by Austria assisted by Russia and ever since that time have
looked forward with confident anticipation to the day when they may be
strong enough to become again an independent nation. The diplomats,
statesmen, and scholars of their noble families have labored so
astutely and successfully towards this end, that the state of bondage
which succeeded the conquest of 1848 has gradually and by successive
moves been lightened, until today their relations with Austria may be
approximated by the statement that Franz Josef, King of Hungary,
happens to be at the same time Emperor of Austria, and that the two
nations have a close defensive and offensive military alliance. In
order to promote the efficiency of this alliance, their War and
Foreign Relations ministries are united into single organizations.
There is one Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, but there
are separate Ministers of Education, Agriculture, etc. History shows
that the salvation of Hungary has often depended upon the ability of
her leaders to play their three powerful neighbors against one
another.
In the present war they are making use of alliances with Austria and
Turkey, the two most decadent of their three historic enemies, in
order to stem the onrush of Russia, their third and most powerful
antagonist. They are a people ever faithful to their alliances even to
the point of unselfishness.
* * * * *
_Thursday, December 31st._ Budapest is one of the most beautiful
cities I have seen. The great Danube, deep, magnificent, and
rapid--500 yards wide--flows by, with Buda on its right bank and Pest
on its left. Great hills sheer out of the water and on them are the
government buildings and the Royal Palace. The humbler structures
cluster in the valleys between the hills. Most of the architecture of
the town is very good and the worst of it is better than the average
elsewhere. The river, spanned by four handsome bridges, is skirted on
either side by drives and official buildings; museums and expensive
hotels face these drives. The city is in every way very modern, with
broad avenues, excellent street-car systems, and clean, well-lit
streets.
* * * * *
_Friday, January 1, 1915._ I spent today in sightseeing,--the first
day in several weeks that I have been free from social engagements. I
took a guide from the hotel in order to waste no time and miss no
sights that one ought to enjoy. We went to the public market, the
Industrial Museum, the Art Museum, the public park, and the Cathedral.
My guide was a most convulsing person. He was supposed to speak
"perfect English," but achieved some extraordinary effects. Would you
know what "sinkim pork" might mean? He said, "everyone eats it on New
Year's Day," and so I perceived it to be "sucking pig."
Some provisions have gone up in price; flour is doubled in value and
the government has had to fix a maximum legal price. Meat and game are
cheaper than usual, perhaps because many people are killing and
selling their animals to save the grain which would otherwise have to
be used to feed them.
The utter ignorance of the people concerning everything that is
happening outside of Vienna and Budapest is amazing. The government
has somehow convinced the people that everything in the war is going
wonderfully well, and this in the face of the unsuppressible facts
that there are at present no Austrians in Serbia and that the Russians
hold all Galicia and have been through the Carpathians.
* * * * *
_Saturday, January 2d._ The German comic paper Simplicissimus recently
made a cartoon comment on the Austro-Hungarian army and the whole
issue was suppressed by the censor in Austria and Hungary. The drawing
showed a group of three Austrians, a general, an officer, and a
private. The soldier had a lion's head, the officer an ass's head, and
the general had no head at all.
Austria and Germany have not as yet produced one "great man." The
Allies have two--Joffre and Kitchener and possibly a third in
Delcassé.
The Austrian Emperor is a little man, slightly stooped, rather
shriveled-up and possessed of a pair of keen, shrewd eyes. He is an
able follower of the Emperor Ferdinand who once replied to the
statement that a certain one of his subjects was a patriot by saying:
"I don't care if he's patriotic for the country, but is he patriotic
for me?" Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin
in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of
failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is
forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has
relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable
case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies in the
battle of Sadowa.
* * * * *
_Sunday, January 3d._ I have managed to get in a good deal of reading
on boats, trains, and at odd moments since I left Paris, and it has
enlarged my comprehension of this war. I have carefully studied every
book on the war and subjects related to it. I have read several times
each the books of Bernhardi, Nietzsche, and Steed's "Hapsburg
Monarchy."
* * * * *
_Monday, January 4th._ In Hungary there are few princes or dukes; the
highest nobles are counts, whose titles retain something of the old
significance of hereditary rulers of a "county." The serfs have only
recently been liberated and to all intents and purposes the feudal
system still exists, in spirit if not in form. Among the counts in
Hungary, several stand out conspicuously above the rest; among them
are the Karolyis, the Apponyis, the Hunyadis, and the Wenkheims, all
of whom are interconnected by marriage and close social relations.
These people maintain themselves on their vast estates like rulers of
small principalities.
At the request of the Countess X. I had written to her mother, the
Countess W., before leaving Vienna, and found her answer awaiting me
at the Consul's office when I arrived in Budapest. I learn that she
also communicated with Count Berchtold, the Prime Minister of the
Empire, with Count Szecsen, ex-Ambassador to France, and with the
Hungarian Premier, so that in case I missed her letters (she sent me
one to Vienna and one to Budapest) these gentlemen would see to it
that I went to visit her, as she wished to thank me personally for
what I had been able to do for her daughter, and also to hear direct
news of her grandchildren.
I left Budapest early this afternoon and arrived after dark at
Békéscsaba, which is about half-way to Belgrade. I was met by a
majordomo who appropriated my luggage and led me to a private car on a
private railroad belonging to the Countess. We started immediately and
ran in about twenty minutes to the gate of the estate where she
usually resides. Here I was carefully transferred into a waiting
carriage and was tenderly tucked into numerous fur rugs by two or
three strong men. The two splendid horses turned through the gates for
a ten-minute drive across a beautiful park to the castle--and such a
castle! It is equal in size and charm to some of the famous French
châteaux along the Loire which I studied last spring.
I was carefully unpacked again under a splendid porte-cochère and
ushered by numerous flunkies into the presence of the Countess. She
received me in a tremendous room with a lofty ceiling, and in a
preliminary talk of an hour she took off the first keen edge of her
appetite for news.
My bedroom is perfectly huge and has two ante-rooms--for the personal
servants whom I do not possess. We dined at eight, there being at the
table, besides the Countess, a daughter and her companion, a
Frenchwoman. During dinner the Countess mentioned that the war
necessitated frequent readjustments in the management of her estates;
that the military authorities had recently taken another five hundred
of her men for service in the army. She asked me if I enjoyed hunting
and, upon receiving an affirmative answer, said that she would send me
for an hour or two with the pheasants in the morning. She warned me
that the shooting would be poor because no care had been taken of the
preserves since her sons departed for the war.
* * * * *
_Békéscsaba, Tuesday, January 5th._ I was awakened at nine by a valet
who came in, opened the blinds, shut the windows, brought the
breakfast specified by me last night, and assisted me to bathe and
dress.
At ten I paid my regards to the Countess and then the chasseur-en-chef
who was to take me for the morning's sport was presented to me. I
climbed into a shooting wagon, which then drove across fields some
twenty minutes to a woody country. I was provided with two beautiful
little English "16-bore," one of which was carried by a loader who
walked always behind my right elbow. The game was pheasants,
partridges, and hares, the latter perfectly enormous, being thirty
inches long when held up by the feet. While hunting I was followed at
a respectful distance by the shooting wagon in which I was expected to
ride when going farther than fifty yards, and by another wagon which
was to carry the game I was expected to kill. The game was all natural
wild game, not the domesticated kind of the English system. The
chasseur had with him a dozen peasant boys as beaters. I "walked up"
and "flushed" game myself, except when there was a particularly good
bit of cover; then I was conducted ahead with many bows to a
well-selected spot, whereupon the beaters in a line began at a
distance of a hundred yards and "worked through," knocking their
sticks together, a process that several times resulted in my being
absolutely overrun by a burst of pheasants flushing from all
directions, flying at all heights and angles and traveling like
bullets. In two hours I killed seventy-three pheasants and partridges
and twenty-three hares, and this in spite of the fact that my shooting
was erratic. Thus at one spot I killed eight pheasants with as many
shells without changing my feet (it was there that the loader was
useful) and then a few minutes later missed five running.
At noon the young Countess drove out with her French companion to join
me. She watched the shooting until half after twelve and then drove me
home for luncheon. It is the custom for the men who start shooting
early to be sought out and brought home to luncheon by the ladies, or
to be joined by them for lunch in the woods in case of an all-day
shoot. The game is shot only by the nobles and their guests and there
seem to be no Robin Hoods among the devoted peasantry.
If this shooting to which I had been treated was considered by the
Countess to need an apology, I was curious to ascertain what she
called really good hunting, and so I propounded the question. She
replied quite seriously that the best shooting to be had upon her
estates was hare shooting and that on a good day five guns were
usually expected to kill four thousand between the hours of ten and
three.
* * * * *
To an American it is very extraordinary to see feudalism in full
swing; to have every person whom one meets anywhere, stop, raise his
hat, and make a deep obeisance; to have even the slightest word or
request to anyone answered with a low bow and an instantly bared head.
It is still more surprising to realize how sincere and devoted is all
this homage. Everyone for miles around acts in this same way to the
Countess, to her daughter, and, of course, to any of their guests. To
an American it all seems several hundred years out of date.
* * * * *
_Wednesday, January 6th._ There were guests for dinner tonight, nobles
from neighboring estates. One of the men is about to start on an
automobile trip to the Serbian and Carpathian fronts. He is to be away
some four or five days, leaving on Monday. He begged me to go with him
but I resisted the temptation, for I am now forty-nine hours' travel
from London and must soon be turning my face westward.
I went to mass this morning in the little plaster church of a village
near the castle. The acolytes were small peasant boys, and whenever
they knelt down they turned toward the congregation prodigious
boot-soles studded with a surprising array of shiny hobnails.
* * * * *
_Thursday, January 7th._ In bidding me good-bye last night, the
Countess took my hand in both of hers and before the assembled dinner
party thanked me for my services to her daughter and said she
appreciated my having given her two days of my valuable time;--all of
which she did in so gracious and charming a manner that I not only was
not embarrassed, but felt it was reward enough for any _two_ trips to
the front.
Nearly all my conversations since entering Austria-Hungary have been
carried on in French, since it is spoken by virtually everyone with
whom I have come in contact. In Hungary all the people of consequence
speak four languages, Hungarian, German, French, and English, but
French is generally preferred to English by all except those to whom
English is the native tongue.
I left Békéscsaba at nine this morning and arrived in Budapest early
in the afternoon.
* * * * *
_Budapest, Friday, January 8th._ I lunched today with Consul-General
Coffin and dined with Countess Sigray.
* * * * *
_Saturday, January 9th._ Yesterday on my arrival in Budapest I found
awaiting me an invitation from Count Albert Apponyi to visit him at
his castle at Eberhard, near Pozsony. I left Budapest at eight,
reached Pozsony about eleven, and drove to Eberhard, where I was
received by the Count.
I was extremely impressed on meeting Count Apponyi. I had anticipated
something unusual, but he was quite beyond my expectations. He is
about six feet three inches tall, has a splendidly erect carriage, and
is a most impressively handsome man. He has a broad well-shaped
forehead sloping back steeply, splendid blue-gray eyes, the biggest
thinnest nose in the world, enormous nostrils, a strong sensitive
mouth, and a grayish square-cut beard. The "grand old man of Hungary"
looked up to his title.
He has been a member of the Hungarian Parliament for forty-two years
and has several times held ministerial portfolios. His progressive
ideas have usually landed him in the position of leader of the
opposition. He has invariably been Hungary's representative at all
international meetings, peace conferences, and inter-parliamentary
unions. He is a decade ahead of his day and generation, being probably
the most progressive man in all Hungary. This, coupled with his
blood, his magnificent appearance, and his wonderful education, make
him an extraordinary power in the affairs of the kingdom. He has twice
been in America. He has several times visited ex-President Roosevelt
at the White House and at Sagamore Hill, and the Colonel has been a
guest here at Eberhard. The Count also knows intimately such men as
Lowell, Untermyer, Butler, and Taft, and appreciates their
ideas,--"the American idea" as he calls it. It is no wonder that the
other less advanced Hungarian nobles criticize his ideas and methods.
The Count's French is exquisite, and he speaks English as I have
seldom heard it spoken,--as the cultivated Frenchman speaks
French,--with purpose, with science, as an art. His enunciation is
wonderful and he instinctively picks out words to aid rhythm and
enunciation. Of his native language, Hungarian, and of his German, I
am not capable of judging.
I admired the Count's library. Three sides of the big room were
covered with filled shelves, which lapped over into the rooms on
either side. Such a conglomeration of books;--leather bindings,
cloth, paper, stacks of pamphlets, all jumbled together and yet in
order. The books were indiscriminately in French, German, Hungarian,
Latin, Italian, English, and Greek, all languages which the Count
knows with great thoroughness. In reply to my admiring comment, he
looked around the library a bit sadly, I thought, and said slowly:
"Yes, it means much to me. It has grown out of my life."
The Apponyi castle has stood in its present shape for over two hundred
years. Like all contemporaneous residences of feudal chiefs, it was
built primarily for defense and this determines its general structure.
It is square with a great court in the center, in the middle of which
is a well-house. The castle walls are of stone nearly three feet
thick, plastered over with cement and painted white. It is two stories
high with a steep ungabled roof and is virtually guiltless of
architecture. The only entrance to the building is through an archway
leading under the front face into the interior court. No outside
windows existed in the original structure but many have since been cut
into it. The castle reveals many signs of age. The floors in all the
halls and rooms, except those of the salons, are of stone, and little
uneven hollows on their surfaces show where the feet of many
generations have left their mark. The libraries and salons, six or
seven in number, were remodeled some time during the last century and
are remarkably fine.
At present one side of the castle has been converted into a hospital
and here some twenty-five wounded Hungarian soldiers are cared for.
At luncheon there were as guests the Count and Countess Karolyi
Hunyadi and two of their sons, and the Countess Herberstein, whose
husband is a general in the army.
* * * * *
_Sunday, January 10th._ I had the honor of a very interesting walk and
talk with Count Apponyi this morning. Among other things he said: "I
sometimes let my younger daughter (aged 12) play with the children of
the peasants on the place. It gives her an understanding of life, and
besides, there is no one of her own age and rank in this part of the
country." This for a Hungarian nobleman is an extremely democratic
remark.
The mass in Count Albert's private chapel was most interesting. The
chapel is built into the castle as a part of it. The family assembled
in a little oratory or balcony giving off the second-floor hall. From
this oratory one looked down upon the service and upon the peasants
crowded together below. It was glassed in so that one viewed the
spectacle through windows, so to speak. These had two panes which
could be opened if one desired to hear more clearly the service or
sermon.
* * * * *
In a long conversation, Count Apponyi, in answer to my questions, made
the following statements as to Hungary's attitude in the war, which he
defined as being a conflict between Orientalism and Occidentalism:
"You who live in America do not have to consider or define the
differences between Occidentalism and Orientalism. You are
geographically isolated from Orientalism and are so axiomatically
Occidental that the issue is not yet a vital one for you. You do not
have to search for concepts and definitions in this regard. The same
would be true of the Chinese who are so extremely Oriental--who are so
near the South Pole, so to speak--as to find thinking about the matter
unnecessary. They take their Orientalism as a matter of course, as do
you your Occidentalism.
"But we of Hungary who are on the geographical frontier of
Occidentalism, who are, in these present centuries, Occidentalism's
contenders in the everlasting battle between East and West, and who
find ourselves at death-grips with Russia, the present-day aggressive
representative of Orientalism, we, I say, have need to consider such
matters and to find concepts upon which to build.
"Thus I, as a Hungarian, have my definitions, my lines of demarcation
between the two. My definitions of Occidentalism are four in number.
Any nation which fails in one or more of them is on the Oriental side
of the line. The four items are:
"(1) _The distinction between spiritual and temporal
power--the mutual independence of Religion and Government._
The form of religion or the form of government does not and
cannot decide the question. Thus in Russia the Greek
Christian Church is Oriental because it makes itself one
with the State and is used by the State as a club to keep
the subjects of the State in political subjugation.
"(2) _The recognition of the equal value of woman and man._
Occidentalism feels that woman and man are different but
does not feel that man is superior to woman. Discussions of
the _differences_ between man and woman sometimes occur in
Occidental countries as was the case in the late disputes in
England as to woman's fitness for politics. There was no
implication that man was an animal superior to woman. In
Occidentalism woman and man are considered equal before the
law and in the eyes of God, while in Orientalism women are
often little better than slaves and in some eastern
religions are not supposed after death to go to heaven.
"(3) _The recognition of the rights of the individual._ All
individuals are considered equal before the law. The
individual is not a means to some end--he is an end in
himself. This is laid down in its spiritual aspect in
Christianity and in every form of Christianity. The
difference consists in this: that in Occidental Christianity
it acted as a germ--as the principle of an evolution which
led through a painful ascension of numberless steps to the
idea of juridical and social equality. In Oriental
Christianity the germ remained secluded in the spiritual
sphere, without taking effect in the secular order.
"(4) _The recognition of the dignity of labor._ In
Occidentalism there is none of the feeling that to labor is
unworthy; there is none of the feeling that to labor is the
part of slaves and lower creatures. Christ was a carpenter
and the son of a carpenter; he chose his disciples from
amongst fishermen and laborers and laid down the rule that
labor enhances the dignity of man.
"These four items contain the elements of all progress and that is why
Occidentalism alone is really progressive. Whatever progress is
achieved by Orientals consists in adopting certain technical results
of Occidental evolution. This does not mean that Oriental nations
cannot be strong and powerful, for many of them have at times been
powerful. While they _are_ powerful, their policy is necessarily one
of aggression, because their energy is not able to assert itself in
internal progress and must, therefore, find an outlet in foreign
aggression. Note Russia. In history you will find that the cessation
of aggressiveness in an Oriental nation has always meant either the
beginning of decay or, as was the case of Hungarians in the 11th
century, of an evolution toward Occidentalism. In the 11th century the
Hungarians were Oriental--now they are Occidental. That may follow in
Russia too if she is defeated in the present war. Paradoxical as the
statement seems, defeat contains brighter prospects for her than
victory. For nations at large the victory of Russia would mean the
advance of the inferior Eastern type of civilization at the expense of
the superior Western one, a calamity not to be considered without
shuddering."
He continued: "Turkey is no longer an aggressive representative of
Orientalism. She is even trying under the 'Young Turks' to become
Occidental. Her 'Young Turks' are laboring for results which would
include all my four definitions of Occidentalism. Her participation in
the present war does not fall under the head of East versus West, but
is inspired simply by consideration for her own safety as an Asiatic
power and as the guardian of Constantinople. In a general sort of way,
there is no formula that covers the whole ground of all the phenomena
of any great action. There is always an intersection of motives. As
between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the present war is a struggle of
the East in its Russian form against the West, but two other forces
are at work which, although they do not concern us in the least,
combine with this one. These are the Anglo-German trade rivalry and
the Franco-German race antipathy."
Since I have been in the countries of the Dual Alliance I have been
anxious to secure a clear and reasonable declaration of the motives
which actuate the leading men in the nations comprising it. It was not
possible to obtain such an explanation in Germany, because people
either frankly admitted that Germany's purpose was to become through
military aggression the dominant power of the world, or they flew into
such a rage at the mere question that nothing they said was either
reasonable or consecutive. Even the carefully prepared literature of
the Imperial Foreign Office failed to impress me as logical or
sincere. It was, therefore, a pleasure to obtain from the Count a
statement of what may be called the Hungarian point of view.
Somewhat later in the day I asked the Count what his answer was to the
statement so often repeated by the Allies, that the sovereigns of the
Dual Alliance forced war upon their people. He replied:
"The German, Austrian, and Hungarian people were not driven into the
war by their sovereigns, and could not have been so driven. They
approve the war because they realize its necessity as a defense. They
wished to avoid it as did their sovereigns. They were all compelled to
accept it as the only means of defense against an aggression cynically
planned and carefully prepared."
* * * * *
_Monday, January 11th._ I had intended to leave on an early train this
morning, but when I broached the subject the Count would not permit it
and insisted that I stay until tomorrow afternoon, when he is called
to Budapest by government duties.
* * * * *
_Tuesday, January 12th._ After breakfast it snowed a few minutes. A
little later it commenced to snow in earnest,--great, fat, lazy flakes
falling out of a leaden sky. From one of the castle windows the Count
and I watched them against the background of some fir trees in the
garden below. "That is good," said Count Apponyi. "That will be good
for my wheat-fields just sprouting. It will cover them and keep them
warm. I have now long been hoping for the snow, which is overdue."
Some moments later I said, "The falling snow is for me one of the most
beautiful motions in nature." He replied: "To me falling snow always
suggests Patience. A flake of snow? _Ce n'est rien!_ (with a gesture).
But it falls and falls, never hurrying, each little flake a distinct
entity, and at last it makes the world beautiful--and it also covers
my wheat-fields."
* * * * *
The Hungarian nobles receive an education very different from ours. If
anything, it leads to greater individuality. From infancy they learn
four languages--their native one, and German, French, and English. To
this is added an elaborate knowledge of courtesy, custom, precedence,
and manners which is taught them from childhood. The boys are also
trained to ride and shoot. They are sent to school between the ages of
thirteen and seventeen, where they learn Latin very thoroughly and get
a smattering of other things. They almost unconsciously absorb the
knowledge of managing the great estates which constitute their
wealth. They have a taste for reading and prefer rather serious
literature. With a perfect knowledge of Latin, English, German, and
French, nearly all masters are open to them in the original. They miss
only a few: Dante, Cervantes, and the ancient Greeks, although the
more scholarly ones like Apponyi know Greek. Since they have much
leisure, they often possess by the time they are thirty an
extraordinarily interesting amount of knowledge. In Hungary everyone
from peasants to counts is musical.
We took lunch today in the perfectly splendid old castle of the
Karolyi Hunyadis at Ivanka. The other guests were the Countess
Herberstein and an Austro-Hungarian General of Division, whose name I
did not catch. Count Apponyi and I drove over together from Eberhard
and after luncheon took the train from the neighboring station of
Pozsony Ivanka. I was received with the most extravagant cordiality by
the Hunyadis on account of services which I had been able to render to
members of their family in the course of my work at the Embassy in
Paris.
The Hunyadi castle was really as fine or finer than some of the
smaller ones which I visited along the Loire last spring, and it was
the more impressive because it was "alive"--inhabited--and furnished
with the most magnificent appointments. The stair-hall particularly
recalled some of those splendid old French ones, being in the same
sort of yellow Caen stone.
While we were waiting for a train today, Count Apponyi informed me
quite seriously that Hungary was not the least feudal, either in
theory or practice.
The Hungarians harbor no animosity against Britain and France and
really deserve the chivalrous friendship of these two nations. They
are the only people in the present conflict who, in the heat and
excitement of war, have on all occasions behaved like good sportsmen.
When trains of Russian prisoners arrive at Hungarian stations, the
people manifest no hostility, but greet them with kindness and
sympathy and offer them food and flowers. The populace has not
molested alien enemies, and their government has not indulged in
wholesale internments of enemies' subjects. In Hungary I found British
horse trainers, English tutors, and French governesses going
tranquilly about their peaceful occupations. English tailors
advertised their business in the Hungarian newspapers, and their
clients went to them as readily as they would have gone in peace
time. French chefs and servants were, as a matter of course, retained
in the employ of noble families, and were treated with unvarying
consideration and sympathy by their Hungarian fellow-servants. This
attitude has been steadfastly maintained in spite of the wholesale
imprisonment by the Allies of such Hungarian subjects as were left
within their territory at the opening of hostilities. Of the nations
which I have studied Hungary is the only one involved in the present
conflict which has not stooped to reprisal and retaliation.
It was a curious demonstration of the difference in the national
temperament of the Teutonic and Magyar races to mark how diametrically
opposed was the manner in which the two peoples regarded the efforts
of the American Embassy in Paris to safeguard their respective
subjects. As I, during the earlier weeks of the war, had been closely
associated with these efforts, everyone I met had something to say to
me upon the matter.
[Illustration: EBERHARD--ONE OF COUNT APPONYI'S VILLAGES]
Throughout Germany there was universal complaint and criticism of the
methods of treating the German subjects who, at the beginning of the
war, had been interned in France. I was constantly obliged to hear
accounts of how many people had been crowded into one building, how at
first only straw was provided for bedding, and how scarce and poor was
the food which was furnished. The censure was primarily for the French
nation, but the comments conveyed no sense of obligation to our
Embassy staff, who had worked so untiringly to alleviate these
conditions, which, moreover, resulted from no mal-intent on the part
of the French, but were simply the inevitable consequences of the
sudden oncoming of war. Every national resource of the French Republic
was devoted to quick mobilization, upon which the fate of the nation
hung, and until that operation had been accomplished, little time or
thought could be devoted to alien citizens.
On entering Hungary I braced myself to endure the same hostile
attitude. To my intense surprise I was everywhere welcomed with great
cordiality and received as a sincere friend and protector of the
Hungarian people who had been interned in France. The great families
of Hungary sent me invitations to visit them on their estates, they
threw open their most exclusive clubs, offered me opportunities to
view the fighting on the Russian front, and treated me like one of
themselves. Of expressions of appreciation and gratitude there was no
limit, and they greatly over-emphasized my services. Not only were the
nobles thus demonstratively grateful, but in nearly every village and
town to which I went I found inhabitants who had returned from
internment in France to relate how helpful Monsieur Wood at the
American Embassy had been to them. Often I remembered neither the
individuals nor the incidents they so gratefully dwelt upon, but the
general atmosphere of friendliness thus created was like springtime
after frost.
In Germany, even after establishing my identity, I have by citizens or
German Secret Service men been the object of grossly insulting
remarks. In Hungary no one even asked what was my personal bias on the
present war, but everyone remembered only the services which the
Embassy of neutral America had in France rendered to any Hungarian
subject who needed assistance. If the other nations of the Dual
Alliance possessed the generosity and courtesy of the Hungarians,
people outside the war would find it easier to be neutral in sentiment
as well as in deed.