At the beginning of the War the dominant Magyars of the Banat had as
little uncertainty about the result as Count Julius Andrassy professed
to have at a later period. "Victory must come to our troops," he said,
"because they are better organized and more efficient, and because
they are, above all, filled with unexampled enthusiasm, which makes
heroes of them all." The enthusiasm which, for instance, caused the
mob at Velika Kikinda to shout "Eljen a haboru!" ["Long live the
War!"] while they fired revolvers in at the windows of an
unilluminated house because it was the house of a Serb, a son-in-law
of the well-known banker, Marko Bogdan, without stopping to ascertain
that he was at the front fighting against Serbia, might be dismissed
as a folly on the part of the crowd if it were not so characteristic
of the whole Magyar administration. The "subject nationalities" were
to be enrolled in the Magyar host and treated, at the same time, with
contumely. At Ver[vs]ac Dr. Slavko Mileti['c],[104] son of the famous
patriot, was suspected not only of cherishing Serbian sympathies,
which was natural, but of committing a felony. The authorities
believed that in his medical capacity he was exempting people from
their military service, and not for the advantage of the Serbian cause
so much as for that of his own pocket. Several detectives were
therefore put to bed in one or two of the wards of the military
hospital; and the upshot of it was that three other doctors--all of
them Magyars--who had given way to these practices, committed suicide;
the chief of the hospital poisoned himself, one of the staff shot
himself, and the third culprit hanged himself in prison. Dr.
Mileti['c] had previously been kept for three and a half months under
the shadow of a conviction for high treason: one Bonchocat, a
Roumanian who did not understand the Serbian language, asserted that
the doctor, at a meeting held two weeks before the Archduke's
assassination, must have known that war was brewing, since--so said
Bonchocat--he had not confined himself to Serbian ecclesiastical
affairs, which was the object of the meeting, but had uttered the
remark that if the Austrians had bayonets the Serbs had axes. Although
Bonchocat was a man condemned to nine years' penal servitude for
murder, and although the doctor only called on his own behalf two
witnesses who were not Serbs, but the head of the frontier police and
the head of the town police, he was nevertheless kept in suspense for
three and a half months. Afterwards, owing to the lack of Magyar
doctors, he was begged to be the State doctor for the town. Similarly
the Orthodox priest, Radulovi['c], of Pan[vc]evo, was transported to
Arad and interned there for no other reason than his nationality,
whereas his son, a first lieutenant of the Hungarian Honved, was
expected to be very loyal. When certain rumours came to the son's
ears--he was then serving on the Russian front--he inquired, and was
told that his father had merely been warned. Presently he learned the
truth, and in consequence deserted to the Russians and became a member
of the Yugoslav brigade. Thus it will be seen that the Magyar unwisdom
was on a par with that which they had shown in days of peace.
Unfortunately for their State the Magyar politicians were less honest
than the Magyar peasants, so that the de-nationalizing process met
with pretty firm resistance. What can be said for the honesty of a
legal decision which laid it down that as two Serbian philanthropists,
Barajevac and Sandulovi['c], at Pan[vc]evo had not specially mentioned
that the funds they had bequeathed for a school were to be for a
Serbian school--(this the benefactors had assumed as a matter of
course)--they must be used for a Magyar establishment? Save for the
officials there were practically no Magyars in Pan[vc]evo. And when
the War began the remainder of the fund was invested by the Magyars in
their War Loan! It is curious, by the way, to see what methods were
employed to make the Loan successful. Fathers were frequently told
that if their subscription was adequate their sons at the front would
duly be granted leave. The Slovak village of Kova[vc]ica in the Banat
was compelled to put three million crowns into War Loan, the Magyar
notary making a list of the amounts which every person had to pay
under penalty of being sent to the front; if he was too old for this
he was threatened with internment. Kova[vc]ica, a few years before the
War, had shown the Magyar fitness for governing an alien people. The
population consisted of 5200 Lutheran Slovaks and 200 miscellaneous
persons--Jews, Magyars and Germans. Nevertheless it was ordered that
the church services must be in the Magyar and not in the Slovak
language. When the parishioners objected, the police, with sticks and
guns, expelled them from the large, lofty church, and 83 of them were
sentenced to various periods of imprisonment. Serbian barristers
defended them gratuitously, but the judge had himself taken an active
part in turning the people out of the church; and presently the
barristers were told that they had themselves been convicted--Dr.
Du[vs]an Bo[vs]covi['c] for one year, on the ground that he had had
the napkins at a banquet decorated with the Serbian colours; Dr.
Branislav Stanojevi['c] for three years, because his visits to
Belgrade, where his parents and his brother were living, stamped him,
said the Magyar judge, as a traitor. The total number of Magyars at
Kova[vc]ica was ten, and for a time they came to hear their language,
which had thus been compulsorily introduced. Handbills were sent round
to summon the Magyars from neighbouring villages, but gradually this
congregation grew smaller and smaller. When two Magyars attended, then
the pastor gave them a sermon; if only one was present he confined
himself to prayers. The Magyars had seen to it, by the way, that there
should not be much sympathy between the pastor and his bishop: of this
diocese about three-quarters were Slovaks and one-quarter Germans and
Magyars; but the Government vetoed the choice of Dr. Czalva, who was
disqualified for being friendly to the Slovaks--his father and
grandfather had both been bishops of that same diocese--and a certain
Dr. Raffay was appointed, who spoke nothing but Magyar and some words
of German.... However, by taking in this way a few examples of Magyar
methods, one may be accused of having chosen merely those which
illustrate one's theme. It would be hazardous to draw conclusions as
to Magyar officers in general because a certain Lieutenant Chaby, who,
during the War, found himself quartered on a Serbian family of the
name of Stejvovi['c] at Priboj in the Sandjak, behaved differently
from his predecessor, an Austrian colonel. This Austrian had been well
satisfied, but the lieutenant's first night was so disturbed that he
fined his hosts sixty crowns for giving him a bug-ridden bed.
Nevertheless, if large numbers of Austrian colonels and Magyar
lieutenants had acted in a similar fashion we should be justified in
deducing that several characteristics, be they good or bad, are
possessed by the average Magyar subaltern. And the catalogue of Magyar
limitations in the Banat, both prior to and during the War, is so
voluminous that one would have thought them to be not worth
discussing; if one restricts oneself to a few it is in order to avoid
being tedious, and if they are ineffective among the resolute
pro-Magyars of this country, then one must resign oneself to leaving
these gentlemen unconvinced. They will argue that stupidity is
universal, and that the Magyar authorities should not be called in
question for their treatment of the priest of Crvna Crkva, a village
with 1108 inhabitants--1048 Serbs, 34 Slovaks, 17 Germans and 9
Magyars. This intelligent man--he is a noted player of a complicated
card game--was indicted for high treason, because on hearing that the
Emperor William was alleged to have undertaken to slaughter every
Serb, the priest remarked that the Emperor should have added, "if God
wills it." But near the village of Zlatica there was, at the beginning
of the War, one Adam Rada, who was charged with making signals to the
Serbs across the Danube by means of lights, and this although the
situation of Rada's mill made such a thing impossible. Before being
executed he was led ceremoniously through the village, his coffin
being carried in the procession. This coffin was so small that Rada's
feet had to be cut off. The grave was guarded by a soldier, who kept
the family away from it; Rada's servant was in the hands of the
police--after having been thrashed in order to compel him to give
hostile evidence, he was convicted to six years' imprisonment. But the
lack of evidence does not appear to have weighed very strongly with
the Magyar judges. "It is quite true," said one of them in 1915 in the
town of Bela Crkva, during the trial of a young priest, Voyn
Voynovi['c], "that there are witnesses who say he did not utter
certain words in 1913, and no witnesses who say that he did; but I am
convinced that he uttered them." The ferocity of the punishments may
be seen from the example of Alexa Petkovi['c] of Pan[vc]evo, the
father of nine, who was condemned to hard labour for nine years
because his twelve-year-old son, during the War, is alleged to have
said to him: "Father, don't accept German money; it won't have any
value." At the same place, in 1914, the Serbian peasants were brought
in from the village of Bort[vs]a; there was no proof that they were
traitors, but they had been denounced and they were sentenced to be
shot. With a military escort they were promenaded through the town,
each one of them having to hold a Hungarian flag. At the scene of
execution the Hungarian elite, together with their wives and
daughters, were assembled. And after the bodies had been thrown on to
a cart they were flogged, for some unknown reason, by one Blajek, a
detective, while the audience cried "Eljen!" ["Hurrah!"]. But the War
brought to an end the bad old days of a tyrannous minority. It will be
shown, in a year or two, when a proper census is taken, that the
Magyars were always much more in a minority than they ever admitted.
Instead of nine millions out of the eighteen millions--which was the
pre-war population of Hungary--it will be found that the Magyars
themselves numbered barely six millions, though in their efforts to
obtain recruits they charged only one crown and afterwards nothing at
all for a naturalization paper. The day has gone by when a father
could be interned for being a Serb, while his son, an assistant
notary, was reckoned a Magyar--only Magyars being eligible for that
office. The day has gone when the Buda-Pest Government could order its
officials while taking a census to swell the Magyars' numbers as much
as possible: the officials at Subotica confessed on oath, after the
War, that they had received orders to this effect. One of their
practices was to put down as "uncertain" those Serbian children who
were too young to speak. Even those who were most willing to be
absorbed into magyardom were often indigested: one finds in the
statistics cases of converted Jews who, being asked to state their
religion and nationality, replied to the former question "Catholic"
and to the latter "Jew."