Chapter II: The Nationalities and the Magyars

We must now examine the relations between the Magyars and the other nationalities in Hungary rather more closely. At the census of 1910 the official Hungarian Government figures as to distribution of population in nationalities were as follows:--

Nationality. Number.

Magyars 10,050,575
Germans 2,037,435
Slovaks 1,967,970
Rumanians 2,949,032
Ruthenes 472,587
Croats 1,833,162
Serbs 1,106,471
Other races 469,255
----------
Total 20,886,487
----------

It will be advisable to supplement these figures by others, showing the apparent increase in the proportion of Magyar to non-Magyar inhabitants in Hungary, excluding Croatia-Slavonia, where the proportion has remained nearly constant for many years, owing to the peculiar conditions prevailing in that province, which will be mentioned later.

In the table[7] given on page 34 the first column denotes the year of the census from which the data are extracted, the second the total population to the nearest thousand of Hungary, excluding Croatia-Slavonia, the third and fourth the percentages of Magyars and non-Magyars respectively in that population, as returned by the Magyar officials.

-----------+-------------------+-------------+---------------
Year. | Total Population. | Magyars, | Non-Magyars,
| | per cent. | per cent.
-----------+-------------------+-------------+---------------
1787 | 8,003,000 | 29 | 71
1869 | 13,579,000 | 44·4 | 55·6
1890 | 15,163,000 | 48·5 | 51·5
1910 | 18,265,000 | 53·1 | 46·9
-----------+-------------------+-------------+---------------

At first sight it would appear that the Magyars were to some extent justified in their policy of Magyarisation. The percentage of other races in Hungary was steadily decreasing, while that of the Magyars was increasing correspondingly. They might have argued, as indeed they did, that the other races were effete and moribund, and were rapidly being displaced by the higher and more virile civilisation of the Magyars. But this conclusion is erroneous. It is beyond the bounds of credibility that so rapid an increase in the Magyar percentage could be due to natural causes alone. The non-Magyar races were for the most part an agricultural and pastoral people, with a birth-rate well up to the average. This decrease is all the more remarkable because the Slavs and Rumanians were in occupation of the soil long before the Magyar invasion of 891, and have always been profoundly attached to their mother-tongue and their national traditions. It is also a fact that the percentage of Magyars has only increased since the time when they determined to make Hungary a purely Magyar State.

But the official Hungarian figures, compiled as they were by Magyar enumerators, must be regarded with considerable suspicion. The Magyars, wishing to justify their policy as far as possible in the eyes of the world, made every effort to demonstrate that they possessed a majority in the country. It is notorious that the census officials, acting in accordance with confidential instructions issued by the Government, entered as Magyars large numbers of those Slovaks, Ruthenes, Croats, Serbs and Rumanians who spoke Magyar. Prominent Magyars have admitted as much. Count Apponyi himself, in proposing the health of the chief Censor, who had been in charge of the census, at a banquet at Budapest in 1910, said: “_Our honoured colleague combines in himself the poet and apparently the most prosaic statistician. But this incompatibility is only apparent, for having collaborated with him for many years, I know that his acute mind has enabled him to introduce into the figures of his statistics a similar sentiment, to arrange these figures in such a way that the poetry of patriotism is apparent in them at the first glance._” This is probably the most remarkable compliment ever paid to a statistician, more especially to one connected with such a vital matter as a census. It may be suggested that a Government having no axe to grind, would prefer that the “poetry of patriotism” was not so obvious in its official returns. This observation on the part of the man who was at the time Minister of Education is an eloquent proof of the fact that official statistics were shaped to suit the ends of the Magyar race, and that they could not be relied upon to show the true numerical proportion of the various nations included in the realm of St. Stephen.[8]

This tendency in the official figures makes it impossible to gauge the true proportions of the various races. It is certain, however, that the figures shown for the Magyars are too large, while those shown for the non-Magyars are too small. According to Professor Niederle, in his book _The Slav Nation_, the Slovaks in 1900 numbered 2,600,000, instead of the 1,991,402 returned in the census of that year, while the Ruthenes were some hundred and fifty thousand more numerous than was reported. The Magyar socialist leader, Deszo Bokanyi, declared in a speech delivered at Szeged in August 1917, that there were not more than eight millions of Magyars in Hungary, and that it was even doubtful whether they reached that figure. He added that it was well known that the official statistics gave every opportunity to jobbery.

Another factor which helps to explain the increase in the Magyar percentage shown in the official figures is the emigration from Hungary to America, which was on the increase during the years before the War. The number of emigrants from Hungary in the year 1906 reached the alarming total of 178,170, or approximately 1 per cent. of the total population. Of these emigrants the greater number were of non-Magyar nationality, the Magyar emigrant forming less than one-third of the whole.[9]

Grünwald, in the work already quoted, declares that Magyar policy towards these non-Magyar races. “The awakening of a national conscience among the non-Magyar races constitutes a danger to the Magyar State. The only possible culture in Hungary is the Magyar. _It is impracticable to win the Slovaks to the idea of a Magyar State by kindness. The only means which remains to us is to exterminate them utterly._ If the Magyars desire to survive, it is necessary that they should strengthen themselves by the assimilation of the non-Magyar races.” So notorious did this policy become throughout Europe that even men like Björnson, the eminent Norwegian poet and publicist, who from his well-known sympathy towards pan-Germanism might have been expected to approve of the parallel pan-Magyarism, were moved to protest against it. In the course of an article contributed to the _Neue Freie Presse_ of Vienna (November 15, 1907), Björnson used the following words:--

“You have certainly read the story of Peter Maupertuis, and of the celebrated proposition which he made to Frederick the Great, of the advice which he gave in order to ensure that the people should speak Latin? The king was to enclose part of the country within an insurmountable wall. This having been done, a large number of young children were to be taken from their parents and immured behind this wall, where they would only hear Latin spoken, nothing but Latin, from morning to night. This extraordinary proposition was fully appreciated at the time by Voltaire, as you know. It is, however, to the Magyars, that original people, that chance has reserved its execution. The Magyars have built this wall; it is the Hungarian frontier, rendered impassable by the famous valour of the Magyars. Teachers exist also, the partisans of Greater Hungary. Armed with book and law, with whip and rifle, these masters introduce Magyar into the schools, a language with which I am not acquainted, but which, I am told, resembles Turkish and is consequently far superior to Latin.

“The motive behind this action is perfectly simple. There are not enough Magyars; the Magyars are in the minority in their own country. They are not very prolific, Heaven knows why. _It follows, therefore, that Magyars must be manufactured. This is the chief Hungarian industry._ It is a peculiarity of the partisans of Greater Hungary that everything they are or do is the finest in the world. I have recently learnt from a Magyar Government paper that the Slovaks are with regard to the Magyars in the same relation as the Esquimaux are to the Norwegians. But these Esquimaux of Hungary have produced a number of great men, such as Petofi and Kossuth. These Esquimaux of the Great Magyars are thus far superior to the other Esquimaux.”[10]

We may examine the methods of this “_chief Hungarian industry_,” as Björnson so aptly styled it.

The Slovaks, despite lively opposition on the part of the Magyars, succeeded in establishing three “gymnasia” (secondary classical schools, intended as preparatory to the Universities), and a society for the study of their national literature, the Slovenska Matica. But the existence of these schools was contrary to the policy of the Magyars. They closed the schools in 1874, and a year later, by methods which were acknowledged at the time to be contrary to the principles of justice or equity, they dissolved the Slovenska Matica, confiscating the funds of which it had become possessed. The buildings themselves they turned into Government offices. Since the closing of these establishments the Magyars have been obstinately opposed to the founding of the gymnasia which the Slovaks have desired to establish at their own expense. The Slovaks were therefore deprived of any secondary school in which teaching might be carried out in their mother-tongue. According to the last official census before the War, Slovakia, inhabited by a compact Slovak population, possessed thirty-three establishments of all sorts in which secondary education was imparted, in every one of which Magyar was the language of instruction.

All Slovaks, therefore, who were desirous of availing themselves of secondary educational facilities, were compelled to attend the Magyar secondary schools. The secondary schools, then, were the machinery employed in the factories where the great Hungarian industry was carried on. But even when the Slovak youth had entered the machines, it was subject to persecution. If the Magyar authorities discovered that the Slovak pupils endeavoured to keep up their knowledge of their own language, or were even in possession of books written in Slovak, they were immediately expelled from school.

Nor were the secondary schools the only agencies employed by the Magyars in manufacturing countrymen for themselves. The lot of Slovak elementary school children was no better. Under the Tisza Government, which did not come to an end until May 1917, the elementary schools in the Slovak areas of the country contained 266,107 Slovak pupils, of whom 18,312 only could be accommodated in the so-called Slovak schools, and even in these, in conformity with the Education Act of Count Apponyi, the Magyar language was taught for eighteen hours a week. The total hours of instruction per week in these schools was on the average twenty-four. There were, besides, 978 schools, at which 86,363 Slovak children attended, where the sole language used was Magyar, and 899 schools, attended by 89,299 Slovak children, in the two lowest classes of which the Slovak language was allowed as an auxiliary tongue. Under the Esterhazy Government, which followed that of Tisza, it was ordained that the elementary schools were not to use any language but Magyar, even as an auxiliary, and a little later that Magyar was to be used as the language of instruction even in the Church schools.

But the great Hungarian industry began even before the non-Magyar child reached elementary school age. “The Government fully recognised the value of the primary school as a political instrument, but, possessing a more intimate knowledge of the prevailing educational and administrative chaos than was vouchsafed to the general public, they were tempted to resort to still more drastic measures. Twelve years’ experience had taught them what the common sense of pedagogic specialists had foretold from the beginning--that a language so difficult as the Magyar can only be effectually acquired in a Magyar atmosphere, and that Slav or Rumanian village children, who perhaps only attend school for half the year and during the remaining six months seldom hear a syllable of Magyar spoken around them, are hardly likely to make any real progress in the language, unless the teaching staff is multiplied twenty-fold. An ingenious device was invented to cope with this practical difficulty, which exists even when there is no reluctance on the part of pupils and parents.... In 1891, therefore, a Bill was introduced by Count Csaky for the compulsory erection of Infant Homes (kindergarten and asiles) throughout the country. The ostensible aims of the new law were (_a_) to place under proper supervision young children whose parents were not in a position to give them personal attention, and (_b_) to promote their physical development and inculcate habits of cleanliness and intelligence.... Another aim is regarded by Hungarian statesmen as infinitely more important than the reduction of infant mortality and the appalling over-crowding and lack of medical treatment to which the mortality is mainly due. This aim is the Magyarisation of the coming generation of non-Magyars. Lest I should be accused of exaggeration, I prefer to use the inimitable words of an official Hungarian publication.”[11] The publication referred to by Dr. Seton-Watson is _L’enseignement en Hongrie_, published by the Hungarian Ministry of Religion and Public Instruction in 1900. According to this publication, since 1867 the kindergarten movement had lost more and more its humanitarian character, and its important side became daily more apparent. The provision regarding language made of the question of the teaching of the children a factor in political culture. This circumstance possesses all the more importance as it becomes more and more evident that infancy is the most favourable age for the teaching of the Hungarian (i.e. Magyar) language.... The completely national mission of our establishments for infant teaching is what distinguishes them above all from similar institutions abroad. Such a bare-faced admission is rare even among the cynical declarations of the Magyars.

With the exception of 656,324, who were domiciled in Hungary proper, the Serbs and Croats were mainly to be found in Croatia-Slavonia. In accordance with the Hungarian-Croatian agreement of 1868, which was ratified by the respective Parliaments of Budapest and Zagreb, Croatia-Slavonia was nominally an independent State. “In theory the viceroy, or _ban_, of Croatia-Slavonia is nominated by the Crown, and enjoys almost unlimited authority over local affairs; in practice the consent of the Crown is purely formal, and the _ban_ is appointed by the Hungarian Premier, who can dismiss him at any moment.... Electors must belong to certain professions or pay a small tax. The privileged members are the heads of the nobility, with the highest ecclesiastics and officials. (These privileged members formed about half of the national assembly, or parliament, of Croatia-Slavonia and were not subject to election, holding their seats _ex officio_.) As a rule they represent the “Magyarist” section of society, which sympathises with Hungarian policy. The chamber deals with religion, education, justice and certain strictly provincial affairs; but even within this limited sphere, all its important enactments must be countersigned by the minister for Croatia-Slavonia, a member, without portfolio, of the Hungarian Cabinet. At the polls, all votes are given orally, a system which facilitates corruption; the officials who control the elections depend for their livelihood on the _ban_, usually a Magyarist; and thus, even apart from the privileged members, a majority favourable to Hungary can usually be secured.”[12]

Although the legal status of Croatia-Slavonia was that of a sovereign state, the Magyars never hesitated to violate that sovereignty. The law of 1907 concerning the railways is an example, for by it the Magyars sought to impose their language upon Croatia-Slavonia. The Serbo-Croats protested loudly against this violation of their national rights and of the sacred obligations of the treaty. In reply the Hungarian Government instituted a reign of terror in Croatia-Slavonia under the pretext of pacifying the country. Serbo-Croats were imprisoned on the grounds that they had conspired with Serbia against the Hungarian State. The notorious trial for high treason of fifty-three Serbo-Croats at Zagreb (Agram) in 1907 is a prominent example of Magyar persecution.

Again, it is possible to quote a Magyar authority in condemnation of Magyar policy. Count Joseph von Mailath, a well-known Magyar statesman and a member of the Hungarian House of Magnates, produced a book entitled _Rural, Social and Political Hungary_, intended as a panegyric of the Magyar national policy. In this book he writes as follows: “I think it preferable to put forward the political side of the Croatian question, for this question is first of all a question of power; the point is above all to know who is the strongest. To maintain the Hungarian character of the railways of the Hungarian State, _to assure, if necessary, by force and at a pinch even by fire and sword the supremacy of the Hungarian language_ on the Croatian lines of these railways, is for Hungary a question of life or death; indeed, we cannot reach our port of Fiume except by passing through Croatia. It is essential that we should be masters of the route to Fiume even if right were not on our side.” In fact, right must give way to expediency where Magyar interests are concerned. Necessity knows no law.

As the Croats and Serbs were more or less segregated in Croatia-Slavonia, so the Rumanians within the domains of the Crown of St. Stephen were concentrated in Transylvania. “The population (of Transylvania) in 1900 numbered 2,456,838. Until 1848 the chief influence and privileges, as well as the only political rights, were divided among the three ‘privileged nations’ of the Hungarians, Szeklers and Saxons. The first are the descendants of the Magyar conquerors. The Szeklers are of disputed origin, but closely akin to the Magyars. The Saxons are the posterity of the German immigrants brought by King Geza II (1141-61) from Flanders and the lower Rhine, to cultivate and repeople his desolated territories.... The Hungarians and Szeklers together number 814,994, and the Saxons 233,019, but by far the most numerous element, though long excluded from power and political equality, is formed by the Rumanians, 1,397,282 in number, who are spread all over the country.... The efforts of the Rumanian inhabitants to secure recognition as a fourth ‘nation,’ and the opposition of the non-Magyar population to a closer union with Hungary, led to troubles early in the nineteenth century, culminating in 1848. In 1849 Transylvania was divided from Hungary by an imperial decree, and became an Austrian crownland; but in 1860 Transylvania became an autonomous province, with a separate Diet, and a high executive power of its own. The Diet assembled in Nagy-Szeben in 1863 decreed the complete separation from Hungary, the union with Austria, and the recognition of the Rumanians as the ‘fourth nation.’ But the Hungarian Government did not recognise this Diet, and the Diet assembled at Kolozsvar in 1865, in which the Hungarians had the majority, decreed again the union with Hungary. By the Compromise of 1867 Austria granted the union of Transylvania with Hungary, which was completed in 1868. Transylvania lost every vestige of autonomy, and was fully and completely incorporated with Hungary. Since that time the Magyarisation of the Principality has steadily been carried through, in spite of the bitter protests and discontent of both Saxons and Rumanians. A Hungarian university was founded at Kolozsvar in 1872; and Hungarian is recognised as the official language.”[13]

A single example must serve to show the methods which the Magyars employed in their treatment of the Rumanian population. In 1892, the Rumanian National Party addressed a petition to the king. This document called in question the legality of the annexation of Transylvania to Hungary. It also set out the grievances of the Rumanians against the Magyars. The Hungarian Government refused the Rumanian deputation the right to approach the king, but the National Party published the text of the petition. This action roused the ire of the Magyars, who prosecuted the authors of the document and those who were concerned in its publication, accusing them of “inciting to revolution against the Magyar race.” As a result of these prosecutions, fifty Rumanians were condemned to terms of imprisonment varying from two to five years. Their sole crime had been that they had taken the liberty of drawing attention to their grievances against the Magyars, and had declared the facts of their oppression by the dominant race.

In the attempt to extirpate the national existence of the Rumanians of Transylvania, the Magyars followed their usual policy of depriving them of educational facilities. Alarmed by the sympathy shown for Rumania during the War, the Government ordered the closing of the Rumanian normal schools in Transylvania. Some days later, Count Apponyi, then Minister of Education, issued the following circular with reference to the schools maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church: “In view of the maintenance of the security of the Magyar State and the Magyar nation, the Minister of Education has decided to convert all the Rumanian national schools in the counties bordering on Rumania into Magyar Government schools, in order to put an end to the anti-Magyar movement originating in neighbouring Rumania. This result can be achieved if the Rumanian schools pass into the hands of the Magyar Government. The Minister finds himself compelled to take this step in consequence of the fact that at the time of the invasion of Transylvania by the Rumanians, many teachers and pupils displayed signs of hostility towards the Magyar State.”

Referring to this circular, one of the Rumanian newspapers published in Transylvania remarked that the Minister of Education was profoundly mistaken if he supposed that the conversion of Rumanian schools into Magyar schools would in any way affect the patriotic spirit of the Rumanians. Liberty rather than oppression would foster the spirit of patriotism. The _Budapesti Hirlap_ stigmatised the remark of the newspaper in question as unheard-of insolence. “It is liberty which gave the Rumanians the opportunity for their traitorous conduct, which, in its turn, provoked the ministerial edict.” The _Budapesti Hirlap_ went on to express the hope that Count Apponyi would devote all his energies to the carrying out of his edict, with the object of putting an end to the anti-Magyar agitation which menaced the existence of the Magyar State.

It will be convenient to conclude this chapter with a short account of the relations between the nationalities of Hungary up to the time of the Ausgleich. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, when the Turks were almost entirely driven from Hungarian soil, Hungary was inhabited by scarcely two million people, of whom scarcely half a million were of Magyar nationality. Thus the Magyars, forming only a quarter of the population, were not in a position to play the leading part in the country. The Austrian administration, which always retained the decisive vote in the internal affairs of Hungary, was not disposed to favour the Magyars beyond the other nationalities. It was only in the reign of Charles VI (1685-1740) that the Hungarian administration was set up and Hungarian courts were allowed. In the eighteenth century Latin had not ceased to be the official language of all the Hungarian nationalities. The Magyar tongue, being then only in the first stages of its literary development, could not have replaced it, even had the Magyars been capable of exercising the preponderating influence in the country. In the fifteenth century attempts had been made at the time of the Hussite struggle to make use of it as a written language; its development was encouraged by the Reformation in the sixteenth century. But these revivals were followed in the seventeenth century by a period of decline. Only in Transylvania did the Magyar tongue achieve any success, where as early as 1565 it was already the language of several of the county assemblies. But when the Hapsburg dynasty acquired Transylvania at the end of the seventeenth century Magyar was no longer encouraged as an official language, and Latin was again introduced as the language of legislation and administration.

The renaissance of the Magyar language did not begin until the reign of Maria Theresa. But in spite of the brilliant beginnings of a new Magyar culture, whole blocks of the population remained strangers to Magyar ideals. It was not until the “uncrowned king,” Joseph II, directed the Hungarian administration in 1784 to use German in lieu of Latin that the national conscience of the Hungarian nobility was aroused. The Magyar tongue began to regain its ascendancy, Latin gradually lost its hold, and the use of the Magyar crept into the administration of the State and into the courts of justice. In 1840 Magyar had become the sole official language of the Government and the Diet, to the exclusion of all the other national languages of Hungary. Magyar jingoism, not content with the successes achieved in Hungary itself, endeavoured to enforce its language even on the Croats, notwithstanding the special position occupied by the latter.

The Magyars developed rapidly a presumptuous arrogance and a brutal tyranny. They alone were the chosen race; the non-Magyars, and especially the Slovaks, might think themselves fortunate in being allowed to merge themselves into the noble Magyar nation. _Tot nem ember_, the Slovak is not a man, was the common expression of Magyar pride, which Count Szechenyi, “the noblest of the Magyars,” inveighed against in a lecture before the Hungarian Academy. “_I do not know a single Magyar_” he said, “_who, though his hair be white as snow or his face lined by experience or by the struggle of life, who does not at once become an irresponsible madman, or at least a man without conscience, devoid of the feelings of honour or justice, as soon as our nationality or our language is in question. In such moments our compatriots lose their mental balance, the most far-seeing become blind, and the most reasonable forget the everlasting commandment, ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’_”

But Szechenyi’s words fell on deaf ears. The Magyars lost all sense of proportion, and alienated the other nationalities by suppressing their native tongues and replacing them by their own. Although Magyarisation made rapid strides, it seemed to the Jingoes that its progress was still too slow. They desired to Magyarise the whole country in the course of a few years, a desire which evinced itself in outbursts of indignation against the Throne, whose occupants endeavoured to moderate their fanatical zeal, and who, in the beginning at least, took the non-Magyar nations under the wing of their feeble protection. By 1848 the Magyar crusade reached its height. The pusillanimous king and all his entourage with him abandoned their efforts in the face of the insatiable greed of the Magyars. On April 11th of that year the new constitutional laws were sanctioned, giving Hungary her independence and dividing the monarchy into two halves. The new Constitution dealt a blow at all the non-Magyar nationalities, especially the Croats, whose country became a mere province of Hungary. A desperate struggle began between the nationalities and the Magyars, leading to the Magyar revolt against Vienna. It was only in July 1849 that Kossuth declared himself willing to sanction the law guaranteeing their free development to all Hungarian nations. The battle of Villagos and the capitulation of Gorgei put an end to the revolution, and an era of Germanism began throughout the whole monarchy, strangling every nationality except the Germans. The Magyars rid themselves gradually of their unhealthy megalomania. When Kossuth was exiled in 1859 he endeavoured to found on alien soil a confederation of the three Danubian States--Hungary, Serbia and Moldavia--with Wallachia, thus showing a different outlook towards those nations from the one he had assumed the year before. The Magyars were to be reconciled with the Serbs and Rumanians, and all citizens, irrespective of their nationality or religion, were to enjoy equal rights and liberties. This was the attitude of a representative Magyar at a time when the Magyar race was undergoing political eclipse.

The policy of absolutism brought the monarchy to the verge of ruin, and led to the disastrous war in Italy. Following the defeats sustained in 1859, the Court of Vienna sought new means of retrieving its position. It was decided to admit the people to a share in the deliberations of the Empire, and after a short time negotiations were set on foot in both Hungary and Croatia. These negotiations were hastened by the Austrian defeat at the hands of the Prussians at Königgrätz in 1866. The skill of Beust composed the quarrel between the Magyars and the Crown, and recommended the division of the monarchy into two autonomous halves. The Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary were to have equal rights of aggrandisement at the expense of the other nationalities. Each was to be allowed elbow room in his own country in order to deal with its internal affairs. The Germans were to have the right to oppress the non-German races of Cisleithania, while the Magyars were to exercise the same right towards the non-Magyar nations of Transleithania. Dualism was agreed to, and the monarchy assumed the form it retained until the end of the War.

Beust and the Emperor Francis Joseph had perpetrated a glaring act of injustice towards the subject nationalities. Two nations alone profited by the new regime of Dualism. They alone could enjoy liberty in the spheres of politics, economics and culture, while the other nations were relegated to the rank of their vassals. The Hungarian nationalities were delivered to the mercies of the Magyars, and heavy as had been the German yoke, the nationalities soon discovered that that of the Magyars was far heavier. In an instant the Magyars cast off the mask of liberalism and showed themselves once more in their true rôle of brutal oppressors. The Law of Nationalities of 1868 was passed indeed, but only to serve as a veil for their true policy, but they never fulfilled the least of its promises, which they violated from the very inception of Dualism. But their persecution of the nationalities only reached its height during the administration of Coloman Tisza.

From the time that he assumed office, it was as though the Law of Nationalities had never existed. “For the Hungarians the very existence of the State was menaced while the Magyars were not in the majority and so long as the other nations were not assimilated, willy-nilly. To this end they devised every expedient to spread the Magyar element and to wipe out the other nations. On this principle everything worked to build up the Magyar State; the Hungarian Government and administrative officials, the Church, Members of Parliament, newspapers, societies, schools, kindergartens, the intellectuals and particularly the Jews. The Administration played the chief part in this policy of Magyarisation, having in its power means which no other organisation possessed. In spite of the law all non-Magyar languages were suppressed in the courts and the administration, in State undertakings such as railways, posts and telegraphs, in the schools, and in the very churches and religious houses. The Government pushed its reforming tendencies so far that it refused to tolerate even the Slovak secondary schools maintained by religious associations.”[14]

The methods by which this Magyarisation was carried out will be dealt with in greater detail in the following chapters.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Extracted from evidence adduced before the League of Nations, September 1922.

[8] See also _Magyars et Pangermanistes_.

[9] See also _Racial Problems in Hungary_.

[10] For a collection of Björnson’s letters and articles dealing with Hungary, see _Björnson et Apponyi_, by E. Lederer, Prague, 1921.

[11] _Racial Problems in Hungary._

[12] K. G. Jayne, _Enc. Brit._

[13] _Enc. Brit._

[14] Dr. Kadlec, _Les Magyars et la République Tchécoslovaque_, 1921.