The Phoenix Land (27 page)

Of course the secret was not kept. By the afternoon of the same day all Budapest knew it and, as was their habit, the good people of Budapest at once made a joke of it. They said that one of the Regent’s aides-de-camps with the unusual name of Magosházi
60
, was heard to say in a thick Hungarian accent as he escorted the king down the palace staircase:
‘Majestät, das war überflüssig
’ – ‘This was unnecessary, your Majesty!’

The remaining details of the intended
putsch
were not in the least humorous.

Karl stubbornly refused to go further than Szombathely. He had promised to leave Hungary, but now he did not want to go, no doubt fearful of the scene his wife would make if he returned empty-handed, for it was well-known that Queen Zita could be a dragon when roused. Karl therefore had to invent excuses for his departure, excuses that would account for his lack of success. Accordingly, he announced that he had caught cold in the open car and was now forced to keep his bed. The principal ministers – Teleki, Bethlen, and Apponyi – rushed to Szombathely to reason with him, as the situation was becoming dangerous.

Already on the afternoon of his arrival the Great Powers had sent a protest to Budapest and, while Karl lingered at
Szombathely
, increasingly menacing messages arrived daily demanding that the ex-king should leave Hungary at once. But when he finally agreed to leave further difficulties arose. The Swiss
government
refused to accept him. They were angry that Karl had broken his imperial word, for when that hospitable country had given him a warm welcome in 1918 it had made only one
condition
, which was that if the king wished to leave Switzerland he must first notify the government in Bern. Karl had made light of this and furthermore the ‘court’ at Prangins, explaining why he had not been seen on his customary walk, had lied and said that he was ill in bed. And this was not all. The Socialists in Austria declared that they would not permit their former emperor to pass through Austrian territory, while the railways threatened to go on strike if this was allowed. Eventually, after much pressure from the Great Powers all was settled and Karl, under the
auspices
of the western allies, was escorted out of Szombathely, and Hungary was rid of the dangers this childish prank might have provoked.

As it was, the Teleki government was forced to resign.

On the afternoon this happened I heard the news that Horthy had asked István Bethlen to form a new cabinet. Bethlen had been head of the Refugee Bureau since its creation a year before. This had been the first official position he had ever accepted even though from the first years of the century until 1918 he had been
a member of parliament, belonging to the Apponyi Party. His word carried a certain weight, although he had always remained a backbencher. Although he spoke in the House only rarely he was known for the seriousness and objectivity of what he had to say; and because he scrupulously avoided rant and bombast he was fundamentally different from the demagogues by which he was surrounded. Tisza, at the end of his term as prime minister, had wanted to strengthen his government by the inclusion of some opposition members and offered him a portfolio – and later, if I remember correctly, so had Esterházy – but Bethlen would never accept. The same thing happened again when Horthy wanted him to be prime minister: firstly when the Károlyi-Huszar and later the Simonyi-Semadám governments resigned. On both these occasions Bethlen replied that the time was not yet ripe.

I once wrote a short character sketch of István Bethlen for the
Nouvelle Revue Française
in which I compared his political career to the evolution of life on our planet from amphibian creatures of the sea to four-limbed mammals on dry land. Bethlen managed not to be conspicuous at either stage. As an amphibious lizard he neither grew to monstrous proportions like the dinosaurs, nor did he develop protective armour plating or rows of
needle-sharp
spines; he did not grow enormous hind-legs like the Brontosaurus nor anticipate the dachshund-like ichthyosaurus. As a mammal he neither grew short horns nor spreading antlers; he did not elongate his nose to a trunk nor reduce his toes to hooves like the gazelles or to shovel-shaped extremities like the primitive sloths. His teeth never became fearsome fangs. Bethlen’s evolution was never confined to any one special
direction
. He kept five fingers on his hands and five toes on his feet, and his teeth remained even; and so, having no special
distinguishing
marks, he remained, among the mammoths, cave-bears and sabre-toothed tigers, a small defenceless but highly
intelligent
if modest member of the animal kingdom. He merely awaited his destiny wishing neither to be classed as a wanderer on the prairies nor one dwelling in swamps. And so, when the third era dawned, and his time had come, he was able to become the lord of all creatures because he owed allegiance to none.

For István Bethlen this time came in the spring of 1921.

It was a well-chosen moment, and for the next ten years he controlled the destiny of Hungary until, by his own choice, he relinquished power much to the disappointment of the majority and the chagrin of parliament. During those ten years he found himself having to cope with many a dire crisis that would have taxed the powers of lesser men. A month after accepting office he was faced with the dispute over the rape of the Burgenland, and then came King Karl’s second
putsch
. This was a far cry from the light-opera farce of the first, for it was aggravated not only by dissention in the army and a revolt by the gendarmerie but also by the threat of armed intervention from abroad. Then came the affair of the forged French francs
61
to be followed by scarcity of jobs and the steep rise in wheat prices. All of these problems would have defeated a man of lesser calibre. In the world crisis of 1931 he resigned, too tired to fight yet another battle.

Bethlen and I were linked by a long-standing personal
friendship
that had originated in our childhood. Later he married a close relative of mine. From the autumn of 1919 he had lived close to us, and I often used to lunch or dine at his house. Our opinions were the same on most matters and so, when faced with any special political problem, he would usually discuss it with me. Because of this, I found it quite natural that he should
telephone
me in the afternoon he accepted office, assuming that he wanted to discuss some aspects of his new responsibilities. So when it appeared that he was asking me to be his minister for foreign affairs it came as a complete surprise.

Unexpected though this was, it came as a logical consequence of the work I had been doing in the previous two years. As I have written elsewhere I went abroad in December 1918, with the full knowledge of Mihály Károlyi, on a mission for István Bethlen, then head of the Szekler National Council, to try to work towards obtaining for Hungary a more favourable and just peace treaty than seemed likely to be our lot at the time. I spent some six months at The Hague, and when I returned I was sent off again, this time as an official representative of the Hungarian government. In January 1920 I found myself sent to London at
the same time as Apponyi and Bethlen were despatched to Paris as the Hungarian representatives at the peace conference.

Once in London I was able to make a number of useful
contacts
within influential political circles and managed to win some of them over to our view that a punitive and unfair treaty with Hungary was in no one’s interests. Among these men was Lord Asquith, the former prime minister, and I look back with
gratitude
to the goodwill and understanding of Lord Bryce, Robert Cecil, Lord Newton and Montague, to the help of Mr Bowie, chief secretary of the Unitarian and Presbyterian churches, and to Webster McDonald, one of the leaders of the Scottish Presbyterian church. I also made contact with the Socialist Party. I received energetic support from the Unitarian and
Presbyterian
leaders and also from Sir Lucian Wolf, principal secretary of World Jewry, who himself wrote proposals for settling the
problem
of the ethnic minorities and which were entirely his own idea. Despite the fact I was still technically an ‘enemy alien’, I was received by the recently appointed foreign minister, Lord Hardinge, who accepted from me various memoranda
concerning
these and other problems.

I was able also to gather some support in the City, the centre of all business in the British Empire, as a result of my bringing from Hungary the power to negotiate concessions to drill for oil on Hungarian soil. My talks in the City were mainly with the chairman of Anglo-Persian Oil, Lord Snowden, and his agency. For me, this entailed much hard study for I had no business experience and knew nothing about the exploitation of oil deposits. Somehow I managed to master enough of the subject to be able to discuss the matter with some degree of sense. Frederick Picker, who came with me as an oil expert, was my mentor and as a result we became great friends. In the autumn of 1920 we were able to settle the details of an oil-drilling contract with Anglo-Persian, and on my second visit an agreement was signed with the Hungarian government.

The contract was for drilling in the district of Somogy-Zala where, oil actually was discovered later at Lispe. Unfortunately, the Anglo-Persian exploratory drills found nothing, and the
contract
was allowed to lapse. I write ‘unfortunately’ because had
English capital remained invested in Hungary it might well have been of much help in our handling of foreign affairs.

This was a very exhausting time for me especially, as János Pelényi, later our ambassador in Washington and for many years a most helpful colleague who had come to London with me from Holland, was sent shortly afterwards to America. I then found that everything had fallen on my shoulders.

Only those who have tried it will know what it is like to find oneself alone, the unofficial envoy of a small country that has just lost a war, in the still hostile capital of the victor. To get anyone even to speak to me entailed endless hard work, attention to detail and, above all, tact.

Here I must pay a tribute to a most gracious lady who really deserves to have been mentioned before all others. From the day I arrived in England I never met a cleverer nor a more enthusiastic supporter of all things Hungarian than Rose Wertheimstein, the Hungarian-born wife of Charles Rothschild. Her help was invaluable as for many years she had held a unique position in London. This was doubly true at the time of my visit since, as a result of her husband’s illness, she was running the affairs of the Rothschild Bank herself. Then, and later, we could always depend on her help in any matter concerning Hungary.

In her house I almost felt I was breathing the air of my own home; and the lion’s share in any success I may have achieved in my mission was thanks to her advice and help and to her
mediation
on my behalf. She died just as the clouds of war were once more gathering over Europe, and so these few words of mine must be my epitaph for her. The tears form in my eyes every time I think of her.

As a result of my time in London, and of the firsthand knowledge of English foreign policy I was then able to obtain, I found nothing but cordiality in Anglo-Hungarian relations; and this feeling endured all the time I was foreign minister. Nothing, however, could change the harsh conditions that had been
written
into the peace treaty. Even so the propaganda we were able to make seems to have filled our enemies with some apprehension. Tilea, the last envoy sent by King Carol of Romania to London, wrote in his recent autobiography that it was my propaganda
which had made necessary the visit to London at that time by the Romanian prime minister, Vajda-Vojvod. To read this many years later gave me great pleasure, for the most flattering
appreciation
can be gleaned from what our enemies write about us. While in London I was unable to get in touch with our delegates to the peace conference in Paris. They were kept in strict
seclusion
at Neuilly, and communication with them was only possible on the few occasions when I found some trustworthy traveller who would take my reports to Budapest, whence they were
forwarded
to Neuilly. In fact, I was only able to do this twice, for confidential reports could not be entrusted to amateurs because of the great risk of their going astray. Also I was able only to summarize my discussions with the politicians in England
without
mentioning their names, since if ever these were indiscreetly leaked I would find every door closed against me. Because of this, it was only my discussions with the church leaders that could be reported in full, and so it soon became vitally important that I should go to Paris myself.

The French authorities treated me with far more rigour than their English counterparts. I was able only to get permission for a few hours’ stopover between the arrival of the Calais express in Paris and the departure of the Trans-European the same evening. That I was able to get in touch with Bethlen during this brief time I had to thank my good friend Andor Adorján, who was then living in Paris with his French wife and editing, I seem to recall, some works of lithography. Even though it is hardly pertinent to the tale I have to tell, I feel impelled to describe this meeting in some detail because its circumstances turned out to be so hilarious. It was the most absurd anecdote of my entire diplomatic life.

I arrived in Paris about noon and found Adorján waiting to meet me on the platform. As we drove to the Hotel Continental he outlined his plan.

All the delegates to the peace conference were forbidden to come into the centre of Paris and were not allowed to contact anyone apart from their own colleagues
62
. They were, however, allowed to walk in the Bois de Boulogne. And so it was arranged that Bethlen and I should meet there, at three in the afternoon, on
a prearranged bench half-hidden in a thicket. It was easy to keep watch on the paths leading to this bench, so if any unknown person was seen approaching, someone would whistle a warning and we would have time to separate. Adorján and Pál Teleki agreed to be our watchdogs; and all seemed fine and dandy. It was now that a malicious Fate intervened. Adorján and his wife gave me a sumptuous lunch in the hotel. They knew from the time we had spent together at The Hague in 1919 that I was very fond of oysters and, to my great joy, had ordered a couple of dozen.
Stupidly
I forgot that oysters should really only be eaten in the cold weather of winter and not in a warm April. The pink-coloured
Marennes
looked a little suspicious, but I ate a few so as not to offend my host. Afterwards we went to the Adorján’s flat, and we had barely arrived when I began to feel so sick I nearly fainted. Even a small volcano was nothing compared to me at that moment and, as it seemed impossible for me to go on to the Bois de Boulogne, Adorján drove off by himself to warn Bethlen that I would not be coming. Hardly had he left than I began to feel better, so I decided to follow him. Luckily his wife knew where we were to meet, and so we boarded a taxi and set off. Perhaps it was the jolting of the taxicab that started me off again, but
whatever
it was we had to stop twice to obey the commands of my internal volcano. Somehow, thank God, we arrived in time.