File No. 864.56/12.

Ambassador Kerens to the Secretary of State.

Sir: Referring to the department’s instructions No. 13 of the 13th of May, 1910, relative to military service and the emigration laws of Hungary, I have the honor to send you herewith a copy and a translation of note received by this embassy from the foreign office regarding the matter in question.

The Hungarian emigration law of 1909 in no way alters the military law of 1889 (Gesetz vom 11. April 1889, betreffend die Einführung eines neuen Wehrgesetzes) which was passed simultaneously by the Legislatures of Austria and of Hungary and which regulate all things effecting enlistment in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. It regulates the enlistment both in the Austrian landsturm and landwehr and in the Hungarian honvedseg and népkölés, as well as in the common army and navy.

According to the terms of this law a man is liable to be taken for military service after the 1st of January of the calendar year in which the man in question reaches his twenty-first year and ends with the 31st of December of that year in which the man in question ends his thirty-sixth year.

I inclose a copy of the military law of 1889, which is in all points a counterpart of the Hungarian law of 1889.

I think that it may be taken for granted that a man who emigrates in contempt of the Hungarian emigration law of 1909 will on his return to Hungary be punished according to the terms of that law, but he can not be forced to serve in the army in view of the treaty of naturalization of 1871, unless he has broken the military law of 1889 before his emigration.

I have, etc.,

R. C. Kerens.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador Kerens.

In answer to the much-esteemed note of the 27th of May, 1910, No. 15, the undersigned has the honor to inform his excellency, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America, Mr. It. C. Kerens, that paragraphs 7 and 38 of Article No. VI of the Hungarian law of the year 1889 refer to the time for presentation for military service referred to in Article II, Point I of the treaty of 1870. The time for presentation for military service of a Hungarian subject begins on the 1st of January of the year in which he will reach his twenty-first year and ends on the 31st of December of the year in which he has already reached his twenty-third year.

Should, however, the person liable to present himself for military service for some reason or other not have done so, he can subsequently be called upon to fulfill the same until the 31st of December of the year in which he has already reached his thirty-sixth year—namely, as set out in the above-referred-to paragraph 38.

The undersigned takes this occasion, etc.,

(For the minister.)
Rhemen.