ENTER HUNGARY
Commonwealth and Foreign
FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
[By a pact initialled at Bled, in Yugoslavia, on Tuesday, Hungary and the three Little Entente States— Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia—bound themselves never to use force against one another, and the right of Hungary to rearm was recognised] Budapest.
AT long last Hungary is coming into the political picture. For twenty years since the War the history of Hungary has been one of arrested development, in domestic and foreign affairs. At home the short-lived democratic and Bolshevist regimes which sprang out of the War were quickly swept away and succeeded by a reactionary aristocratic regime, which so completely restored the state of affairs prevailing before 1914 that the World War seemed to have come and gone without leaving a trace on the life of Hungary. Abroad, Hungary ardently aspired to recover her lost territories, but was held in At iron grasp by the three countries of the Little Entente, whose only point of complete agreement was that they would in common resist any attempt by Hungary to regain these lands. Thus Hungarian political life, inside the country and at its frontiers, was repressed ; neither domestic progress nor territorial expansion seemed possible.
Now there is a change, an awakening of political thought induced by the stirring of the giant Germany. Germany has already altered the European map once this year, and by so doing has become the neighbour of Hungary. Some new change in the map may come of the German-Czechoslovak struggle, and the territory forfeited to Czechoslovakia is that which the Hungarians, particularly. mourn. Inevitably these events produce a vibrant reaction in a country bred for twenty years to think of frontier changes, to yearn for the restitution of its lost lands. But domestically, too, the approach down the Danube of the great National Socialist Reich stirs the minds of men in Hungary. Communism—which in any event made the fatal mistake of attempting to transfer the big estates from the big landowners to the State, instead of to the peasants—was driven out by fire and sword. Socialism has been suppressed.
In what direction is that mass of muzzled opinion now to move which yearns to make up the time lost in the years of reaction, to begin social reforms, to improve the lot of the workers and the health and housing of the people, to give land to the millions of landless peasants who now sell their labour against payment in kind and seldom see a coin ? The answer is, in the direction of National Socialism. The workers have heard of the higher wages paid in the Hitlerist Reich, of the abundant chances of em- ployment, of the improved conditions in the factories, of the Kraft durch Freude excursions ; the peasants are promised land by the National Socialist spokesmen. Frontier revision ? Only collaboration with the mighty Reich can bring us that, argue the National Socialists. And then there are the Jews, numerous, prosperous and powerful in Budapest, where dire poverty lurks in the outskirts. We will redress the undue preferment of the Jews, the National Socialists promise.
Thus there is, underground, a potentially strong National Socialist movement in Hungary, though the outward signs of it are few. Nominally legal, State servants, persons in Jewish employ, and peasants in villages where every man comes under the watchful eye of the gendarme, with his feathered hat, as yet hesitate openly to associate with it, but there is no doubt that the private sympathies of very many are with it. The " Leader," Major Franz Szalasi, is spoken of in the same terms of adulation that are wont to be used about his opposite numbers in other countries, and great efforts were made to get him out of prison.
The relation between Hungarian National Socialism and German National Socialism is a most piwzling and difficult thing to estimate. The " Hungarists " are always at pains to disclaim all connexion with any other concern, and need to do this, because the Hungarians are jealous of their inde- pendence. They are naturally influenced.by German National Socialist ideology, .which is the source of their own theories, but insist that they want an independent Hungarian National Socialist State, and think they could ensure this. But they have many problems. After all, there is a very large German minority in Hungary, established here for centuries, but these people have retained their language and traditions and sometimes do not even. speak Hungarian, and it is difficult to see how, in awakening National Socialism within them, race- consciousness can be prevented from awakening simul- taneously. The National Socialist or Fascist greeting (with the upraised arm) is in some of these German districts already accompanied by " Heil, Hitler ! " and the Hungarian National Socialist organisers have to try and induce those who use it to change to " Heil, Szalasi I " Hungarian, National Socialism would have no hope what- ever of coming to power if the struggle were a purely domestic one. The Government of M. Bela de Imredy is master in its house, and in deference to the spirit of the times is doing a few of the things which the National Socialists would like to have in large portions : accelerated rearmament, a moderate measure of restriction against the Jews, a promised land reform, dopolavoro, labour camps, a contemplated Propa- ganda Ministry, and so on.
But just as the German seizure of Austria and the Czecho- slovak mobilisation on March I th and May zoth was like an electric shock to Hungary and sent the hopes of Hungarian National Socialists rocketing sky high, so must any further developments of the same kind strengthen them and revive uneasiness among their enemies.
If the German Government were content to see a friendly Government of the Right in Hungary, nothing • could ever bring the Hungarian National Socialists to power. But an interesting situation would develop if at any time the Reich were to feel that the Budapest Government , was not compliant enough for its liking, and were for that reason, to cast a friendly eye at the Hungarian National Socialist movement.
Admiral Horthy, the Regent, who has been so lavishly honoured in Germany this week, thus finds himself in a position which has points of resemblance with that ofrresident von Hindenburg in Germany in 1932. He, too, is a former commander-in-chief in the Great War, with great prestige among his people. He, too, is faced with the problem of harnessing and disciplining a strong National Socialist move- ment, the pressure of which, though it is so little seen, certainly is felt by the country's rulers. Admiral Horthy went to Germany on the 9ooth anniversary of the death of Saint Stephen, the first King of Hungary to be crowned, with a crown specially sent to him by the Pope. In the intervening 90o years the Hungarians halie often been submerged by the waves of conquest and alien domination, but have always at the end emerged masters their little but ancient kingdom. Noir that the map of Europe is breaking up again they, with the memories strong within them of so many storms survived, are on the alert. The balance of power in South-Eastern. Europe may be materially affected by the way they decide to lean.-
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