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THE CASE OF HUNGARY'S WAR GUILT

BY ERNEST LUDWIG

Former Consul-General of Austria-Hungary and Hungary

WHEN I say war guilt I have not in mind the orthodox, so-called official war guilt of the former Central Powers which has found its way into the parchment of the peace treaties. In Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Hungary, no doubt also in the United States, all facts surrounding the origin of the World War are more or less systematically gathered and coördinated to permit of a scientific and objective review of the war guilt of the former belligerent nations. If this work is carried on, in a dispassionate way, it will be found that under the former existing system of secret diplomacy every Government is to some extent at least a sharer of the burden of the war guilt. The recognition of this fact will greatly contribute to a détente of the still strained relations between the European nations.

An important item bearing on the war guilt question of the former Dual Monarchy and consequently also of Hungary is the report of the Austro-Hungarian Envoy, Baron Wiesner, of July 13, 1914, telegraphed from Sarajevo to Vienna, which has given rise to misinterpretation. Baron Wiesner was at that time connected with the Legal Department of the Vienna Foreign Office. This report has been mutilated and certain parts which were arbitrarily separated from other parts came somehow into the possession of the American Peace Delegation, which consequently construed this report as a primary admission of AustriaHungary's war guilt. For all we know it may have influenced the minds of President Wilson and others against the former monarchy and Hungary, because it may have suggested that we deliberately started the war with Serbia in order to bring about a general war which might have favored the alleged militaristic ambitions of the Central Powers. Even if Hungary would have

been guilty of willing the war with Serbia,—which it was not, as it is proved that through its then Prime Minister, the late Count Stephan Tisza, it steadily opposed it in the Ministers' Councils,— there can be no doubt that the Dual Monarchy and Germany displayed their best diplomatic efforts to localize the war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, emphasizing at the same time that the Monarchy had no idea of either annexing Serbian territory, or of crushing Serbia's sovereignty. The extension of the war area to other European countries was contrary to our wishes and efforts, and this is particularly true of Hungary, which from the outset opposed war in general and particularly a war of annexation. It is reported that Germany after her admission to the membership of the League of Nations will at once try to introduce the subject of war responsibility. I do not know whether this is really the official intention of Germany, but assuming for the sake of argument that it is, why should such a move be opposed by the Entente Powers? It is their interest, just as much as ours, that this issue should be cleared once for all. Here is the text of the report:

The Greater Serbian Propaganda in Bosnia and Herzegovina is carried on from Serbia both by the press and by Clubs and other organizations. It is the conviction of all competent circles that this is being done under the patronage and with the knowledge and approval of the Serbian Government.

The material which was submitted to me by the civil and military authorities can be qualified as follows: The material antedating the time of the murder gives no clue as to whether the propaganda was promoted by the Serbian Government. There is sufficient, although sparse, evidence on hand in substantiation of the assumption that this movement is nourished from Serbia by Clubs and tolerated by the Serbian Government.

Now comes the extract which was separated from the balance of the text:

Re the murder itself: The knowledge of the Serbian Government of the plotting of the murder and its preparations and of the supply with arms is not supported by anything and cannot even be assumed. There are on the contrary certain reasons to assume that this was out of the question.

Here the extract ends:

Through the depositions of the inculpated parties it is uncontestably shown that the murder was decided upon in Belgrade and was prepared with the help

of the Serbian Officer of the State Railways, Ciganovic, and Major Tankosic, who likewise supplied the bombs, brownings, ammunition and the Cyankali. The co-operation of the Secretary of the Narodna Odbrana, Pribicevic, is not established. The origin of the bombs from the Serbian Army Depot in Kragujevac is uncontestably and objectively established, but there are no proofs to show that they were now taken ad hoc from the said Depot, as the bombs may also have originated from the supplies of the Komitatschis in the war.

Based on the depositions of the inculpated parties it is hardly doubtful that Prinzip, Ciganovic and Grabez supplied with bombs, and arms on the instigation of Ciganovic were smuggled over the Serbian frontier in Shabatz and Losnica by the Serbian authorities in a mysterious way. These organized transports were led by the captains of the frontier in Shabatz and Losnica and were carried through by the guards of the frontier tax and customs service. Even if it is not established whether or not these latter knew about the purposes of this expedition, they should have nevertheless been able to assume that a mysterious mission was to be carried out.

The balance of the report contains data concerning the organization of the Narodna Odbrana and Baron Wiesner's propositions:

1) The Government should insist that no Serbian authorities should be allowed to smuggle persons and material over the boundary line; 2) The Captains of the Frontier stations in Shabatz and Losnica as well as all other tax and customs officers involved should be dismissed from service; 3) Proceedings should be started at once against Ciganovic and Tankosic.

The New York Times some time past published a communiqué of Baron Wiesner dated from Berlin, but I thought that the complete publication of the above report would serve a useful purpose, as the author of it used all possible efforts to bring it to the general attention of the public.

From the minutes of the two Ministers' Councils of July 7 and 19, 1914, and the three memoranda of Count Tisza, it can be proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the Hungarian Premier had done all in his power to prevent the outbreak of the hostilities with Serbia and consequently of the World War, and having been Hungary's official Representative at that time this evidence should absolve Hungary as far as the war guilt is concerned. However, the latter country has repeatedly been charged abroad with having endeavored in the past to ruin Serbia both politically and economically. These endeavors are said to have been known by Serbia and that was the reason of the Serbian propaganda for the disruption of the Monarchy. This is contrary to facts. In

1870 Count Andrássy made the official offer to Serbia that he would secure for her Bosnia, Herzegovina and Old Serbia, all of which belonged at that time to Turkey, provided Serbia would pledge her neutrality in case Austria-Hungary should become involved in a war. The then Premier of Serbia, Ristitch, rejected this offer, although he later in his memoirs admitted that this offer had been made in good faith.

In 1878 at the Congress of Berlin the same Count Andrássy managed to get Serbia a considerable extension of its territory, including Nisch and the district of Pirot which Russia had originally intended for Bulgaria. Austria-Hungary was assigned a mandate by the Great Powers to take possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which assignment was vehemently opposed by the Hungarian House of Parliament. Mr. von Széll, the then Minister of Finance, resigned in sign of protest. Mr. von Szilágyi, Minister of Justice, and Count Apponyi made very strong speeches against this mandate. As the assignment had been made to both Austria and Hungary, the latter's opposition was of no avail.

In his book The Cataclysm of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1920, Dr. Frederic Kleinwächter made the charge against Hungary "that there is certainly a grain of truth in the statement oft made that the war against Serbia has been a war for the Serbian pigs". "Hungary" so it was claimed-"did not permit Serbian competition in the matter of pigs, and through its partly open and partly concealed tariff policy practically rendered the importation of Serbian pigs impossible." This charge-which by the way was not a Serbian, but an Austrian charge—was wrong. The Monarchy had concluded a treaty of commerce with Serbia in 1882, which was later on renewed until 1893 and continued in force until 1906. In this treaty the entire customs area of the Monarchy was free for the importation of Serbian raw materials and cattle, pigs, etc., practically without any limitation. No other state enjoyed a lower rate of tariffs from the Monarchy than Serbia. To compensate these tariff reductions, Serbia granted some preferential tariffs for the importation of Austrian industrial articles. This treaty had been therefore made at the expense of Hungary, which is an agricultural country, while

Serbia and Austria had the best of it. After 1905 Hungary did not wish to maintain this one-sided tariff situation. This was her natural right, as no State can be forced to have altruism prevail in its tariff policy. That would be suicidal. In 1906 a customs war broke out between Serbia and the Monarchy. This was after the murder of King Alexander, when King Peter was the ruler of Serbia. The customs war was declared by Serbia, and a boycott was declared by Serbia against the entire imports from the Monarchy. Nevertheless the Monarchy and particularly Hungary tolerated the smuggling of Serbian cattle and pigs by way of Croatia to Vienna. This was done to ease the strained relations between the two countries. In the course of 1906 Count Goluchowsky, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggested to Mr. Vujic, the Serbian Envoy in Vienna, that he could secure good terms for a treaty, if the negotiations be inaugurated at once. Serbia declined and contracted a Customs Union with Bulgaria instead. When the Monarchy later on requested Serbia to make slight alterations in the text of this Union in order to enable the conclusion of a treaty of commerce with us, Serbia again refused. Thereupon Hungary and Austria made their tenyear Ausgleich agreement, providing for a maximum contingent of 120,000 pigs, 100,000 sheep and 50,000 cattle from the Balkan countries. This was a concession that Hungary had to make to Austria. Later on the treaty of commerce with Roumania was concluded, which reduced the available Balkan contingent. The result of Serbia's dilatory tactics was naturally that we could now not grant Serbia any longer a larger contingent than the one specified above, as we had exhausted it in our treaty with Roumania. In 1908 a provisional tariff arrangement was adopted between the Monarchy and Serbia. After the annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina' this provisional arrangement was again discontinued. Finally in 1910 a new treaty of commerce was concluded. In this treaty some of the old tariff schedules were

This, by the way, had been instigated by a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechish origin, Count Lexa, known as Count Lexa-Aehrenthal, and was again violently opposed by the Hungarian statesmen, although the measure of annexation itself was adopted in conformity with international law and the Monarchy even paid Turkey, the rightful owner, a fair ransom, after having invested untold millions of gold crowns in building roads, railroads, schools, etc., on Bosnian territory.

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