711.00 Statement July 16, 1937/56: Telegram (part air)

The Chargé in Hungary ( Travers ) to the Secretary of State

36. Department’s circular telegram July 17, 5 [2] p.m. Following note verbale dated July 23rd received from Foreign Office.

“The Royal Hungarian Government is glad to note that the Government of the United States—starting from the correct standpoint, [Page 707] id est, that tensions and disquieting symptoms appearing in any part of the world necessarily affect the interests of all the other countries—shows an interest in the political and economic problems of distant regions and therefore also in those of the Danube basin.

The Hungarian Government notes with appreciation and approval those principles which Secretary of State Hull for the sake of preserving world peace deemed necessary to enunciate in this statement and to bring the same to the knowledge of public opinion throughout the world, and the more so since the Hungarian Government recognizes in several instances the principles of its own policy. For this very reason the Royal Hungarian Government is pleased to fulfill the request for its reactions concerning the principles involved. It goes without saying, however, that it considers these principles primarily from the point of view of the peculiar problems of Hungary and of the Danube valley in which Hungary politically and economically is eminently interested.

According to the statement it is believed desirable that problems arising in international relations should be solved by peaceful negotiation and agreements and it is emphasized at the same time that the principle of the sanctity of agreements does not exclude, should the need therefor arise, the modification of certain treaty provisions.

The Hungarian Government has nothing to add to this desideratum, the Hungarian Government has never made it a secret that it does not consider as final the situation created in the Danube valley by the peace treaties and that it is aiming at the just and equitable change thereof. It has never failed, however, to emphasize that it intends to carry out its aim exclusively by peaceful means and by what appears to the Hungarian Government unavoidable peaceful evolution, and by having recourse to the means expressly guaranteed in Article 19 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.15

Another paragraph advocates the sanctity of treaties and the observance of international agreements. This principle the Hungarian Government accepts in its entirety, the more so because it has never given in this respect reason for complaint, which can be proven by the fact that it has always respected and carried out even those heavy obligations which it was forced to accept in the treaty of Trianon.16 The Hungarian Government in stating this with the calmest conscience regrets to state on the other hand that those states which benefitted by the treaty of Trianon did not take the same standpoint and repeatedly disregarded such treaty agreements as were exceptionally disadvantageous to them. It is a well known fact that the states in question did not respect from the beginning those international agreements by which they were called upon to insure the rights of the Hungarian minorities living in former Hungarian territories turned over to them by the treaty of Trianon.

The very same states consecutively sabotaged and even sabotage today the few provisions of the treaty of Trianon which are favorable to Hungary as for instance Article 250 which was intended to protect [Page 708] by means of courts of arbitration the material interests of Hungarian citizens in the territory of the succession states.

As concerns the necessity for the restriction of armaments and the necessity for disarmament the Hungarian Government wishes to emphasize that—as it must be known to the Government of the United States—the one-sidedly disarmed Hungary has tried sincerely ever since the close of the World War to promote also on its part the practical carrying out of the promises contained in the peace treaties and the Covenant of the League of Nations concerning general disarmament, and quite certainly Hungary cannot be blamed for the fruitless efforts spent in that direction by the Disarmament Conference.17

Hungary until now has not followed the example of Germany and Austria which states as is known have unilaterally declared null and void those provisions of the peace treaties which restricted—visualizing a general disarmament—their armaments. Hungary not wishing to expose the already overheated international atmosphere to another test, has refrained until now from such unilateral moves, although it cannot be disputed that it has regained its free hand in this field partly on account of the fiasco of the Disarmament Conference and partly on account of the grand scale rearming in the whole world—especially in the Little Entente states surrounding Hungary, in strong opposition to the text and spirit of Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations—and could rightly claim military equality on legal as well as on moral principles.

As concerns the economic aspects of the statement the Hungarian Government declares that on its part it will support with the greatest willingness all efforts for the improvement of the economic situation of the world either by the gradual elimination of the restrictions of international trade or by the enforcement of any other suitable means.”

Baron Apor18 told me he had nothing to add to the above.

Travers
  1. Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, Vol. xiii, pp. 69, 92.
  2. Signed June 4, 1920, Treaties, Conventions, etc., Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1910–1923 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1923), Vol. iii, p. 3539.
  3. Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments which first met at Geneva in 1932; see Foreign Relations, 1932, Vol. i, pp. 1 ff., and successive years thereafter.
  4. Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs.