This week, 70 years ago, the result of the Second Vienna Award was announced. Although this award resolved little, it arose from one of the Treaties imposed upon the defeated Countries after World War I. Much has been written about the problems caused by the Treaty of Versailles, which was imposed upon the defeated German Nation after World War I. However that was not the only Treaty that caused problems.
After “The War To End All Wars,” the Austro-Hungarian Empire was separated into three Nations - Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary. Other parts were distributed to Poland and the Kingdoms of Yugoslavia and Rumania. This was accomplished by the Treaty of St. Germain with Austria and the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary. The Treaty was so named because it was executed in the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, France, on June 4, 1920.
When World War I began, the Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph I, was also the King of Hungary, and each Nation had its own Parliament, as well as its own territory. In addition, the Emperor was also the King of Bohemia and Moravia, and of Croatia, which also had its own Parliament. Pursuant to the Treaty of Trianon, Transylvania was transferred from Hungary to Romania. Since 1003 Transylvania had been a part of Hungary, except for a period of 100 years when it was ruled by the Turks. In 1916, after being promised Transylvania, in The Treaty of Bucharest, the Kingdom of Romania entered the War on the side of the Allies but was quickly defeated. However, since the Allies ultimately prevailed, Romania received the promised reward for its trouble.
The Treaty of Trianon left the Kingdom of Hungary bereft of two-thirds of its territory and inhabitants. It lost five of its ten most populous cities.
At the time, Transylvania was an area of 102,200 square kilometers. The population of Transylvania, in 1920, exceeded 5,200,000, of which a little more than half were Romanians, with a third being Hungarians, and Germans comprising 10 percent.
With the incorporation of Transylvania into the Kingdom of Romania came “Romanianization.” In addition, the large estates of the Hungarian nobility were expropriated and the lands distributed to Romanian peasants.
In the summer of 1940, the Kingdoms of Hungary and Romania appeared headed toward war, as Hungary sought to emulate Germany and continue its efforts to undo the Treaty of Trianon, which had begun two years earlier with the First Vienna Award. The armies of both Kingdoms began to mass along their common border. The German Führer realized that such a war would block Germany from her main source of oil at the Romanian oil fields of Ploiesti. Such a war might also encourage the Soviets to occupy all of Romania.
On July 26, Romania’s Prime Minister, Ion Gigurtu and its Foreign Minister, Mihai Manoilescu, met the German Führer and the Reich’s Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, at the Berghof in Obersalzberg, Germany. The Romanians were “advised” to reach an accommodation with Hungary. The following day, the two Romanians met the Italian Duce and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, in Rome, who reinforced the German “advice.”
On August 16, 1940, negotiations were begun in the border town of Turnu Severin, Rumania. However, the negotiations resolved nothing and by August 28th the situation had become so threatening that, on September 1st, the Germans readied eight divisions to seize the Romanian oil fields in the event of war between the two kingdoms.
Meanwhile, the Hungarians and Romanians were ordered to submit to an Arbitration to be conducted by German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano. The Arbitration took place at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna.
The Belvedere Palace had been built, in the early Eighteenth Century, by Prince Eugené of Savoy. The Prince had been one of the great European military commanders serving the Austrian rulers. The House of Savoy later became the royal family of Italy. The German Heavy Cruiser, Prince Eugen, which accompanied the Bismarck on its fateful cruise, was named for the Prince. The Palace now serves as an art museum.
This was the second time the Hungarians had participated in an arbitration presided over by the Italian and German Foreign Ministers at the Palace in Vienna. The result of the First Vienna Award, in 1938, was favorable to the Hungarians. Then the other party was Czecho-Slovakia, and the Kingdom of Hungary received a substantial chunk of Slovakia, which, like Transylvania, had also been a part of the Kingdom of Hungary prior to the Treaty of Trianon.
When the Arbitrators announced the award on August 30, 1940, the Romanian Foreign Minister, Mihai Manoilescu, fainted, falling across the table on which the Agreement was being signed. He only regained consciousness after physicians had administered camphor.
Approximately half of Transylvania was transferred from the Kingdom of Romania to the Kingdom of Hungary. It was known as Northern Transylvania and comprised a little more than 43,000 square kilometers, with a population of about 2,500,000, with a little more than half being Hungarian. Most of the rest were Romanian. Rumania was given fourteen days to evacuate Northern Transylvania.
On September the 5th, the First Hungarian Army, under the command of Lt. General Vilmos Nagi, crossed the border. The transfer was not without incident. On September 9, in the village of Tresnea, between 87 and 263 people were killed by Hungarian soldiers, in what has come to be known as “The Massacre of Tresnea.” Another incident occurred at the village of Ip, on September 13, when 158 were killed. At the same time, as the Royal Romanian Army left, it destroyed some installations and documents.
On September 10, 1940, astride a white charger, General Nagi led his army into the City of Marosvásáhely. Today, it is the 16th largest city in Rumania with a population of 145,000. In Rumanian, the city’s name is Târgu Mures. For his work in protecting the Jews of Hungary, the General was named one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1965, and his name can be found on the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, along with that of Oskar Schindler, of “Schindler’s List.”
His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, Admiral Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya, for the second time in as many years, took the salute from soldiers of the Royal Hungarian Army as they marched through the capital of lands that were formerly, and now once again, part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In this case, the city was Cluj. The Hungarian name was Kolozsvár. The population was 114,000, of which 85 percent were Hungarian. Today, the population is 309,000, of which less than 20 percent are Hungarian. Of note for basketball fans is the fact that former Washington Bullet, 7' 7" Gheorghe Muresan, was from Cluj.
The first time in which His Serene Highness had reviewed the troops, in a recent addition, had been after the First Vienna Award, when the Admiral reviewed the troops as they marched through Kosice. In Hungarian, it is known as Kassa, which today has a population of almost 250,000 and is the second largest city in Slovakia, behind the capital of Bratislava.
Although the Second Vienna Diktat, as the Romanians dubbed it, avoided a war between the Kingdoms of Romania and Hungary, it dampened relations between the German Reich and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Foreign Commissar, Vyacheslav Molotov, accused the Germans of violating Article Three of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which called for consultation, and of presenting the Soviet Union with “accomplished facts” which conflicted with German assurances that “questions of common interest” would be shared. This was met by a long memorandum on September 3rd, authored by the Reich’s Foreign Minister, which denied that Germany had violated the Pact and accused the Soviet Union of having violated it itself by incorporating the Baltic States and the Romanian Provinces of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina without consulting the Germans. The Soviets responded on September 21st in writing, accusing the Germans of having broken the Pact, warning that the Soviet Union still had many interests in Rumania, and suggested that if the provision calling for consultation involved, “...certain inconveniences and restrictions...,” that the Soviets were ready to amend or delete this clause.
Even though the Second Vienna Award did avoid fighting between two of the Reich’s future allies in the coming war with the Soviet Union, in reality, it only postponed it for four years. During the war with the Soviet Union, the Germans had to be careful to keep the armies of the two countries separated by an army of a third country, such as Italy, as they preferred to fight each other, rather than their common enemy, the Red Army.
In August of 1944, the Kingdom of Rumania switched sides and joined the Red Army in the war against the remaining Axis countries of Slovakia, Hungary and Germany. More than 500,000 Romanian soldiers, divided into the First and Fourth Armies, commanded by Generals Nicolae Macici and Gheorghe Avramescu, respectively, joined the Red Army in the invasion of, first, Hungary, and then Slovakia. This fighting cost the Romanians 167,000 casualties, of which 64,000 were deaths. This was in addition to the 306,000 Romanian soldiers who had died fighting the Red Army the previous three years and the 75,000 who died during the Soviet occupation.
After the dust settled, Rumania recovered Northern Transylvania, but lost, again, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertza Region to the Soviet Union. This was all confirmed by the 1947 Treaty of Paris.
Hungarian military deaths, in WWII, totaled more than 300,000, of which 110,000 were conscripted from the populations acquired in the two Vienna Awards. In addition, civilian deaths totaled 80,000. These numbers do not include the 28,000 Gypsies and 400,000 Jews who were murdered.
Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.
NEXT WEEK: THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC
