and, feeling secure on the Rumanian front, where the Allies held the
invading troops immobilized, attacked the Slovaks and overran their
country. For Bolshevism is by nature proselytizing. The Prague Cabinet
was dismayed. The new-born Czechoslovak state was shaken. A catastrophe
might, as it seemed, ensue at any moment. Rumania's troops were on the
watch for the signal to resume their march, but it came not. The
Czechoslovaks were soliciting it prayerfully. But the weak-kneed
plenipotentiaries in Paris were minded to fight, if at all, with weapons
taken from a different arsenal. In lieu of ordering the Rumanian troops
to march on Budapest, they addressed themselves to the Bolshevist
leader, Kuhn, summoned him to evacuate the Slovak country, and
volunteered the promise that they would compel the Rumanians to
withdraw. This amazing line of action was decided on by the secret
Council of Three without the assent or foreknowledge of the nation to
whose interests it ran counter and the head of whose government was
rubbing shoulders with the plenipotentiaries every day. But M.
Bratiano's existence and that of his fellow-delegate was systematically
ignored. It is not easy to fathom the motives that inspired this
supercilious treatment of the spokesman of a nation which was
sacrificing its sons in the service of the Allies as well as its own.
Personal antipathy, however real, cannot be assumed without convincing
grounds to have been the mainspring.
But there was worse than the contemptuous treatment of a colleague who
was also the chief Minister of a friendly state. If an order was to be
given to the Rumanian government to recall its forces from the front
which they occupied, elementary courtesy and political tact as well as
plain common sense would have suggested its being communicated, in the
first instance, to the chief of that government--who was then resident
in Paris--as head of his country's delegation to the Conference. But
that was not the course taken. The statesmen of the Secret Council had
recourse to the radio, and, without consulting M. Bratiano, despatched a
message "to the government in Bucharest" enjoining on it the withdrawal
of the Rumanian army. For they were minded scrupulously to redeem their
promise to the Bolshevists. One need not be a diplomatist to realize the
amazement of "the Rumanian government" on receiving this abrupt behest.
The feelings of the Premier, when informed of these underhand doings,
can readily be imagined. And it is no secret that the temper of a large
section of the Rumanian people was attuned by these petty freaks to
sentiments which boded no good to the cause for which the Allies
professed to be working. In September M. Bratiano was reported as having
stigmatized the policy adopted by the Conference toward Rumania as being
of a "malicious and dangerous character."[149]
The frontier to which the troops were ordered to withdraw had, as we
saw, just been assigned to Rumania[150] without the assent of her
government, and with a degree of secrecy and arbitrariness that gave
deep offense, not only to her official representatives, but also to
those parliamentarians and politicians who from genuine attachment or
for peace' sake were willing to go hand in hand with the Entente. "If
one may classify the tree by its fruits," exclaimed a Rumanian statesman
in my hearing, "the great Three are unconscious Bolshevists. They are
undermining respect for authority, tradition, plain, straightforward
dealing, and, in the case of Rumania, are behaving as though their
staple aim were to detach our nation from France and the Entente. And
this aim is not unattainable. The Rumanian people were heart and soul
with the French, but the bonds which were strong a short while ago are
being weakened among an influential section of the people, to the regret
of all Rumanian patriots."
The answer given by the "Rumanian government in Bucharest" to the
peremptory order of the Secret Council was a reasoned refusal to comply.
Rumania, taught by terrible experience, declined to be led once more
into deadly peril against her own better judgment. Her statesmen, more
intimately acquainted with the Hungarians than were Mr. Lloyd George,
Mr. Wilson, and M. Clemenceau, required guaranties which could be
supplied only by armed forces--Rumanian or Allied. Unless and until
Hungary received a government chosen by the free will of the people and
capable of offering guaranties of good conduct, the troops must remain
where they were. For the line which they occupied at the moment could be
defended with four divisions, whereas the new one could not be held by
less than seven or eight. The Council was therefore about to commit
another fateful mistake, the consequences of which it was certain to
shift to the shoulders of the pliant people. It was then that Rumania's
leaders kicked against the pricks.
To return to the dispute between Bucharest and Paris: the Rumanian
government would have been willing to conform to the desire of the
Supreme Council and withdraw its troops if the Supreme Council would
only make good its assurance and guarantee Rumania effectually from
future attacks by the Hungarians. The proviso was reasonable, and as a
measure of self-defense imperative. The safeguard asked for was a
contingent of Allied force. But the two supreme councilors in Paris
dealt only in counters. All they had to offer to M. Bratiano were verbal
exhortations before the combat and lip-sympathy after defeat, and these
the Premier rejected. But here, as in the case of the Poles, the
representatives of the "Allied and Associated" Powers insisted. They
were profuse of promises, exhortations, and entreaties before passing to
threats--of guaranties they said nothing--but the Rumanian Premier,
turning a deaf ear to cajolery and intimidation, remained inflexible.
For he was convinced that their advice was often vitiated by gross
ignorance and not always inspired by disinterestedness, while the orders
they issued were hardly more than the velleities of well-meaning gropers
in the dark who lacked the means of executing them.
The eminent plenipotentiaries, thus set at naught by a little state,
ruminated on the embarrassing situation. In all such cases their
practice had been to resign themselves to circumstances if they proved
unable to bend circumstances to their schemes. It was thus that
President Wilson had behaved when British statesmen declined even to
hear him on the subject of the freedom of the seas, when M. Clemenceau
refused to accept a peace that denied the Saar Valley and a pledge of
military assistance to France, and when Japan insisted on the
retrocession of Shantung. Toward Italy an attitude of firmness had been
assumed, because owing to her economic dependence on Britain and the
United States she could not indulge in the luxury of nonconformity.
Hence the plenipotentiaries, and in particular Mr. Wilson, asserted
their will inexorably and were painfully surprised that one of the
lesser states had the audacity to defy it.
The circumstance that after their triumph over Italy the world's
trustees were thus publicly flouted by a little state of eastern Europe
was gall and wormwood to them. It was also a menace to the cause with
which they were identified. None the less, they accepted the inevitable
for the moment, pitched their voices in a lower key, and decided to
approve the Rumanian thesis that Neo-Bolshevism in Hungary must be no
longer bolstered up,[151] but be squashed vicariously. They accordingly
invited the representatives of the three little countries on which the
honor of waging these humanitarian wars in the anarchist east of Europe
was to be conferred, and sounded them as to their willingness to put
their soldiers in the field, and how many as to the numbers available.
M. Bratiano offered eight divisions. The Czechoslovaks did not relish
the project, but after some delay and fencing around agreed to furnish a
contingent, whereas the Jugoslavs met the demand with a plain negative,
which was afterward changed to acquiescence when the Council promised to
keep the Italians from attacking them. As things turned out, none but
the Rumanians actually fought the Hungarian Reds. Meanwhile the members
of the American, British, and Italian missions in Hungary endeavored to
reach a friendly agreement with the criminal gang in Budapest.
The plan of campaign decided on had Marshal Foch for its author. It was,
therefore, business-like. He demanded a quarter of a million men,[152]
to which it was decided that Rumania should contribute 120,000,
Jugoslavia 50,000, and Czechoslovakia as many as she could conveniently
afford. But the day before the preparations were to have begun,[153]
Bela Kuhn flung his troops[154] against the Rumanians with initial
success, drove them across the Tisza with considerable loss, took up
commanding positions, and struck dismay into the members of the Supreme
Council. The Semitic Dictator, with grim humor, explained to the
crestfallen lawgivers, who were once more at fault, that a wanton breach
of the peace was alien to his thoughts; that, on the contrary, his
motive for action deserved high praise--it was to compel the rebellious
Rumanians to obey the behest of the Conference and withdraw to their
frontiers. The plenipotentiaries bore this gibe with dignity, and
decided to have recourse once more to their favorite, and, indeed, only
method--the despatch of exhortative telegrams. Of more efficacious means
they were destitute. This time their message, which lacked a definite
address, was presumably intended for the anti-Bolshevist population of
Hungary, whom it indirectly urged to overthrow the Kuhn Cabinet and
receive the promised reward--namely, the privilege of entering into
formal relations with the Entente and signing the death-warrant of the
Magyar state. It is not easy to see how this solution alone could have
enabled the Supreme Council to establish normal conditions and
tranquillity in the land. But the Duumvirate seemed utterly incapable of
devising a coherent policy for central or eastern Europe. Even when
Hungary had a government friendly to the Entente they never obtained any
advantage from it. They had had no use for Count Karolyi. They had
allowed things to slip and slide, and permitted--nay, helped--Bolshevism
to thrive, although they had brand-marked it as a virulent epidemic to
be drastically stamped out. Temper, education, and training disqualified
them for seizing opportunity and pressing the levers that stood ready
to their hand.
In consequence of the vacillation of the two chiefs, who seldom stood
firm in the face of difficulties, the members of the predatory gang
which concealed its alien origin under Magyar nationality and its
criminal propensities[155] under a political mask had been enabled to go
on playing an odious comedy, to the disgust of sensible people and the
detriment of the new and enlarged states of Europe. For the cost of the
Supreme Council's weakness had to be paid in blood and substance, little
though the two delegates appeared to realize this. The extent to which
the ruinous process was carried out would be incredible were it not
established by historic facts and documents.
The permanent agents of the Powers in Hungary,[156] preferring
conciliation to force, now exhorted the Hungarians to rid themselves of
Kuhn and promised in return to expel the Rumanians from Hungarian
territory once more and to have the blockade raised. At the close of
July some Magyars from Austria met Kuhn at a frontier station[157] and
strove to persuade him to withdraw quietly into obscurity, but he,
confiding in the policy of the Allies and his star, scouted the
suggestion. It was at this juncture that the Rumanians, pushing on to
Budapest, resolved, come what might, to put an end to the intolerable
situation and to make a clean job of it once for all. And they
succeeded.
For Rumania's initial military reverse[158] was the result of a
surprise attack by some eighty thousand men. But her troops rapidly
regained their warlike spirit, recrossed the river Tisza, shattered the
Neo-Bolshevist regime, and reached the environs of Budapest.
By the 1st of August the lawless band that was ruining the country
relinquished the reins of power, which were taken over at first by a
Socialist Cabinet of which an influential French press organ wrote: "The
names of the new ... commissaries of the people tell us nothing, because
their bearers are unknown. But the endings of their names tell us that
most of them are, like those of the preceding government, of Jewish
origin. Never since the inauguration of official communism did Budapest
better deserve the appellation of Judapest, which was assigned to it by
the late M. Lueger, chief of the Christian Socialists of Vienna. That is
an additional trait in common with the Russian Soviets."[159]
The Rumanians presented a stiff ultimatum to the new Hungarian Cabinet.
They were determined to safeguard their country and its neighbors from a
repetition of the danger and of the sacrifices it entailed; in other
words, to dictate the terms of a new armistice. The Powers demurred and
ordered them to content themselves with the old one concluded by the
Serbian Voyevod Mishitch and General Henrys in November of the preceding
year and violated subsequently by the Magyars. But the objections to
this course were many and unanswerable. In fact they were largely
identical with the objections which the Supreme Council itself had
offered to the Polish-Ukrainian armistice. And besides these there were
others. For example, the Rumanians had had no hand or part in drafting
the old armistice. Moreover it was clearly inapplicable to the fresh
campaign which was waged and terminated nine months after it had been
drawn up. Experience had shown that it was inadequate to guarantee
public tranquillity, for it had not hindered Magyar attacks on the
Rumanians and Czechoslovaks. The Rumanians, therefore, now that they had
worsted their adversaries, were resolved to disarm them and secure a
real peace. They decided to leave fifteen thousand troops for the
maintenance of internal order.[160] Rumania's insistence on the delivery
of live-stock, corn, agricultural machinery, and rolling-stock for
railways was, it was argued, necessitated by want and justified by
equity. For it was no more than partial reparation for the immense
losses wantonly inflicted on the nation by the Magyars and their allies.
Until then no other amends had been made or even offered. The Austrians,
Hungarians, and Germans, during their two years' occupation of Rumania,
had seized and carried off from the latter country two million five
hundred thousand tons of wheat and hundreds of thousands of head of
cattle, besides vast quantities of clothing, wool, skins, and raw
material, while thousands of Rumanian homes were gutted and their
contents taken away and sold in the Central Empires. Factories were
stripped of their machinery and the railways of their engines and
wagons. When Mackensen left there remained in Rumania only fifty
locomotives out of the twelve hundred which she possessed before the
war. The material, therefore, that Rumania removed from Hungary during
the first weeks of the occupation represented but a small part of the
quantities of which she had been despoiled during the war.
It was further urged that at the beginning the Rumanian delegates would
have contented themselves with reparation for losses wantonly inflicted
and for the restitution of the property wrongfully taken from them by
their enemies, on the lines on which France had obtained this offset.
They had asked for this, but were informed that their request could not
be complied with. They were not even permitted to send a representative
to Germany to point out to the Inter-Allied authorities the objects of
which their nation had been robbed, as though the plunderers would
voluntarily give up their ill-gotten stores! It was partly because of
these restrictions that the Rumanian authorities resolved to take what
belonged to them without more ado. And they could not, they said, afford
to wait, because they were expecting an attack by the Russian Bolsheviki
and it behooved them to have done with one foe before taking on another.
These explanations irritated in lieu of calming the Supreme Council.
"Possibly," wrote the well-informed _Temps_, "Rumania would have been
better treated if she had closed with certain proposals of loans on
crushing terms or complied with certain demands for oil
concessions."[161] Possibly. But surely problems of justice, equity, and
right ought never to have been mixed up with commercial and industrial
interests, whether with the connivance or by the carelessness of the
holders of a vast trust who needed and should have merited unlimited
confidence. It is neither easy nor edifying to calculate the harm which
transactions of this nature, whether completed or merely inchoate, are
capable of inflicting on the great community for whose moral as well as
material welfare the Supreme Council was laboring in darkness against so
many obstacles of its own creation. Is it surprising that the states
which suffered most from these weaknesses of the potent delegates should
have resented their misdirection and endeavored to help themselves as
best they could? It may be blameworthy and anti-social, but it is
unhappily natural and almost unavoidable. It is sincerely to be
regretted that the art of stimulating the nations--about which the
delegates were so solicitous--to enthusiastic readiness to accept the
Council as the "moral guide of the world" should have been exercised in
such bungling fashion.
The Supreme Council then feeling impelled to assert its dignity against
the wilfulness of a small nation decided on ignoring alike the service
and the disservice rendered by Rumania's action. Accordingly, it
proceeded without reference to any of the recent events except the
disappearance of the Bolshevist gang. Four generals were accordingly
told off to take the conduct of Hungarian affairs into their hands
despite their ignorance of the actual conditions of the problem.[162]
They were ordered to disarm the Magyars, to deliver up Hungary's war
material to the Allies, of whom only the Rumanians and the Czechoslovaks
had taken the field against the enemy since the conclusion of the
armistice the year before, and they were also to exercise their
authority over the Rumanian victors and the Serbs, both of whom occupied
Hungarian territory. The _Temps_ significantly remarked that the Supreme
Council, while not wishing to deal with any Hungarian government but one
qualified to represent the country, "seems particularly eager to see
resumed the importation of foreign wares into Hungary. Certain persons
appear to fear that Rumania, by retaking from the Magyars wagons and
engines, might check the resumption of this traffic."[163]
What it all came to was that the Great Powers, who had left Rumania to
her fate when she was attacked by the Magyars, intervened the moment the
assailed nation, helping itself, got the better of its enemy, and then
they resolved to balk it of the fruits of victory and of the safeguards
it would fain have created for the future. It was to rely upon the
Supreme Council once more, to take the broken reed for a solid staff.
That the Powers had something to urge in support of their interposition
will not be denied. They rightly set forth that Rumania was not
Hungary's only creditor. Her neighbors also possessed claims that must
be satisfied as far as feasible, and equity prompted the pooling of all
available assets. This plea could not be refuted. But the credit which
the pleaders ought to have enjoyed in the eyes of the Rumanian nation
was so completely sapped by their antecedents that no heed was paid to
their reasoning, suasion, or promises.
Rumania, therefore, in requisitioning Hungarian property was formally in
the wrong. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that she, like
other nations, was exasperated by the high-handed action of the Great
Powers, who proceeded as though her good-will and loyalty were of no
consequence to the pacification of eastern Europe.
After due deliberation the Supreme Council agreed upon the wording of a
conciliatory message, not to the Rumanians, but to the Magyars, to be
despatched to Lieutenant-Colonel Romanelli. The gist of it was the old
refrain, "to carry out the terms of the armistice[164] and respect the
frontiers traced by the Supreme Council[165] and we will protect you
from the Rumanians, who have no authority from us. We are sending
forthwith an Inter-Allied military commission[166] to superintend the
disarmament and see that the Rumanian troops withdraw."
It cannot be denied that the Rumanian conditions were drastic. But it
should be remembered that the provocation amounted almost to
justification. And as for the crime of disobedience, it will not be
gainsaid that a large part of the responsibility fell on the shoulders
of the lawgivers in Paris, whose decrees, coming oracularly from
Olympian heights without reference to local or other concrete
circumstances, inflicted heavy losses in blood and substance on the
ill-starred people of Rumania. And to make matters worse, Rumania's
official representatives at the Conference had been not merely ignored,
but reprimanded like naughty school-children by a harsh dominie and
occasionally humiliated by men whose only excuse was nervous tenseness
in consequence of overwork combined with morbid impatience at being
contradicted in matters which they did not understand. Other states had
contemplated open rebellion against the big ferrule of the "bosses," and
more than once the resolution was taken to go on strike unless certain
concessions were accorded them. Alone the Rumanians executed their
resolve.
Naturally the destiny-weavers of peoples and nations in Paris were
dismayed at the prospect and apprehensive lest the Rumanians should end
the war in their own way. They despatched three notes in quick
succession to the Bucharest government, one of which reads like a
peevish indictment hastily drafted before the evidence had been sifted
or even carefully read. It raked up many of the old accusations that had
been leveled against the Rumanians, tacked them on to the crime of
insubordination, and without waiting for an answer--assuming, in fact,
that there could be no satisfactory answer--summoned them to prove
publicly by their acts that they accepted and were ready to execute in
good faith the policy decided upon by the Conference.[167]
That note seemed unnecessarily offensive and acted on the Rumanians as
a powerful irritant,[168] besides exposing the active members of the
Supreme Council to scathing criticism. The Rumanians asked their Entente
friends in private to outline the policy which they were accused of
countering, and were told in reply that it was beyond the power of the
most ingenious hair-splitting casuist to define or describe. "As for
us," wrote one of the stanchest supporters of the Entente in French
journalism, "who have followed with attention the labors and the
utterances, written and oral, of the Four, the Five, the Ten, of the
Supreme and Superior Councils, we have not yet succeeded in discovering
what was the 'policy decided by the Conference.' We have indeed heard or
read countless discourses pronounced by the choir-masters. They abound
in noble thought, in eloquent expositions, in protests, and in promises.
But of aught that could be termed a policy we have not found a
trace."[169] This verdict will be indorsed by the historian.