Читать книгу The Evolution of Hungary and its place In European History - Pálengó Teleki - Страница 7

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MY first words must be the expression of my gratitude for and appreciation of the opportunity you have offered me by inviting me to take part in the work planned by the Institute of Politics in a noble spirit in quest of the truth.

I recognize a parallel between this spirit in the realm of knowledge and your initiative in ascertaining the material wants of our needy population and your prompt and magnanimous response. The deeds of the American Relief Administration and the American Red Cross will be forever engraved in the hearts of the whole Hungarian nation.

I have spoken of the quest of scientific truth; for truth alone can be the foundation of a better world, and the only way to establish the truth is to acquire knowledge and collect information. I look upon the work you have engaged in, with deep realization of the true needs of mankind, as a work of scientific survey. Our generation today is hungry for knowledge, because it has realized, more and more, that full knowledge was lacking when peace was made, and only a few manifested the desire to acquire it.

I could enter upon a detailed and specific criticism of the peace treaty of Trianon, partitioning my country, but I will refrain from doing it—though you can readily believe that it is a great temptation for me to do so, not only as a Hungarian, as you would naturally think, but even more so as a geographer, whose business it is to deal with territorial and boundary questions. I will refrain because I am not in the fortunate position of my distinguished fellow-lecturers, Viscount Bryce and Signor Tittoni, who could treat these questions from an indisputably unbiased point of view.

It is not my intention to plead the cause of Hungary. Advocacy and pleading will avail but little to advance the work of world-regeneration imposed on us by the Great War. Only knowledge will do this, a thorough knowledge of the relations existing between the different nations. This thorough knowledge was lacking at the time when peace was made. I do not wish to dwell on this point, and will only remark that this lack of knowledge may have been natural in view of the magnitude and variety of the issues arising out of the great struggle.

I regard the matter in a different light and see that we have to forget much of what has happened. We must not try to turn back—there being no turning back in history—but must consider how matters actually stand, and try to find the way by which we can, in the shortest possible time, secure conditions for the foundation of an assured peace and of economic prosperity, and for the development of a real sense of humanity.

As a Hungarian I have good reason to insist upon knowledge. Hungary, though situated in the heart of Europe, has remained almost unknown to the outside world. Since the Middle Ages we have had no foreign representation or relations of our own, except that of some of our Transylvanian princes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Even the greatest of our politicians—and this I can assert from personal experience—failed to appreciate the value of international connections, even in the moments of greatest danger.

I shall return later to these questions of foreign policy and our connections with Austria.

He who wishes to co-operate in the quest for scientific truth must first of all explain to his fellow-workmen those conditions and facts of which he himself possesses an expert knowledge, and, in turn, of course, gratefully accept any and all scientifically established truths which others impart.

If we want this work of reconstruction to be done well, we must abjure every form of exaggeration; we must tell the truth, and try to see things from every point of view, even if this sometimes does violence to our feelings. Since the war ended I have witnessed some negotiations, some bargainings and hagglings, and others of the like nature have come to my knowledge, and I find too much of the spirit: “What can I get out of the other? How can I outwit him?” and I find much less of the point of view: “How can we co-operate?” The pressure of the world’s public opinion, and naturally in the first place that of your great country, may, however, go far towards providing a remedy for this evil.

I highly appreciate the words of an address made by President Garfield on February 8 last:

“Each country knows its own wants, but appreciates all too little the needs of its neighbors.”

I am absolutely of his opinion. First of all mutual understanding is necessary, vitally necessary, and it must be based upon a dispassionate consideration of the facts.

The unusual spirit which has dominated the diplomacy of the United States in Hungary, since the Armistice, has been most gratifying and encouraging to us. The thought uppermost in the minds of your representatives has obviously been:

“Hostilities have ceased. What interests have we Americans in common with the Hungarians? Let us work earnestly together along those lines and arrange our differences later.”

Here is the foundation for a new departure in diplomacy and one in the development of which small nations have a vital interest. One of your diplomats in describing this policy to me said:

“It aims at a development of international relations which will enable co-operation to supplant destructive rivalry as the dominating idea of diplomacy.”

Hungary will be glad to go hand in hand with your great country along this road which leads to better understanding, to peaceful co-operation, and away from that rivalry so aptly characterized as destructive, which has been the bane of peace and civilization. In these vital questions of mankind we must try to use the methods of the chemist, the physician, the mechanic. We must take into consideration all the facts—whether pleasing or not—without fear or hypocrisy. And if we are able to see things clearly as they are, we must conform our actions to what is needed, without fear and without reservation.

I shall speak to you of Hungary, for I assume that is the subject you expect me to treat, and it is the one on which I am best able to give you information.

Let us trace the history of the land, a history which was not unfamiliar to Americans of the generation of your grandsires. More than that, the Hungarians were at that time the European people best known in the United States. No lesser statesmen than Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln had gone on record, in speeches and in bills introduced by them, as favoring the independence of Hungary and the righting of my country’s historical wrongs. Much was contributed to such a knowledge by the great number of Hungarians—mostly emigrants after our last war for freedom in 1849—who fought in your army in the Civil War.

It is best to draw broad outlines historically and add a picture of Hungary’s present economic situation. In doing so there are two aspects of the subject which you probably will desire me to consider: first, the relations which existed between Hungary and the neighboring states at various epochs, with Hungary’s place in the European constellation; and, secondly, a general survey of Hungary during and after the war, with the conditions now existing in the Basin of the Middle Danube, the region which for long centuries constituted the Kingdom of Hungary.

Fig. 2. The geographical position of Hungary in Europe. The political geography of the continent is shown as before the Balkan Wars and the Great War, except that the present Hungary is represented.

To begin with, we had best cover the geography and history of Hungary in some detail. This may be considerable, but it seems indispensable if we wish to obtain a clear perspective of the great lines of possible development in this section of Europe, of which Hungary once formed a preponderant part, exercising at certain epochs a dominant influence. Today, though much diminished in territory, Hungary still retains her important geographical position (Fig. 2). I believe you will discover in the course of my lectures that it is the pivot of consolidation for south-eastern Europe. What you wish to know and what you demand from me are facts—those great basic facts and conditions which dominate life, and which are always no less powerful than the human will, indeed, in the long run, even more powerful.

Let me begin with the geography of the land and afterwards show you its history, merely those facts of its history and of the history of its settlement, which have been of permanent influence and which, continuing for a long time, perhaps for centuries, throw light upon our condition today.

Do not think I am a believer in the absolute determining influence of surroundings. I consider human will one of the greatest factors and in modern times and in civilized countries a determining factor of human fate. But it would be equally unwise to think ourselves independent of the life of the earth’s surface in general of which human life is a part and an element, though the development of the human brain has introduced into it a factor of ever-increasing preponderance.

The power of human will and of outer conditions is in reality changing constantly and greatly—according to time and place. Life is extremely complicated and cannot be regarded from any one point of view. The influence which a fact, or a feature of the earth’s surface, or an action may exercise upon life, and the consequences to which all this may lead, depends on the strength of the several factors playing their part in the life of the spot under contemplation. It is very seldom that direct influences can be determined. If Taine derives the polytheism of the Greeks from the variety of their home country of peninsulas, gulfs, and rugged mountains, we may consider this rather as a jeu d’esprit, the pretty conceit of an artist-writer.

The influence of surroundings on human life and history is twofold. The one is that which is exercised on the everyday life of the man bound to the place, viz., on the majority of mankind, and thus indirectly on all; the other is that exercised on single facts of history.

The first of these influences was recognized by Taine, and even before him, though its importance was exaggerated. But if you read the works of modern geographers—Professor W. M. Davis’ “Human Response to Geographical Environment,” Professor A. P. Brigham’s “Geographical Influences in American History,” Professor J. Brunhes’ “Human Geography”—you will find a keen judgment and understanding of complexity. I, for my part, must not dwell now on this problem.

The second influence exercised by surroundings on single facts presents a question of greater controversy. Here a much greater rôle is played by interests and politics. I do not mention names, because I do not speak for the purpose of aggravating differences. But look about you and read; and you will find today perfervid friends of natural frontiers, and others who deny the existence of such frontiers; you will find advocates and foes of the right to free access to the sea; you will find that the question as to whether the growth of certain cities is due to natural causes or to political tactics is treated according to political needs, and so on. It may be an element of the vitality of nations to carry interests and hatreds even into the domain of science. But I think we must return to an objective point of view, if we are to carry on our research for the sake of humanity; and I fear many a scientist of practically all the nations concerned in the recent war will look some day with regret at things he has written in these years.

All these questions of nature’s influence on human history, the interdependence of facts so different in character, need careful study and a keen judgment.

Let us now leave theory. I desire to show you some instances in the case of my own country.

You will recognize this country at first sight on any map of Europe, that is, the whole territory of pre-war Hungary and its surroundings. What is to be seen on the map of Europe east of the Alps? You will see that the spine of Europe ends abruptly along a line on the thirteenth meridian; let me say, for a better understanding, on a line drawn through Vienna, Graz, and Zagreb. The Alps are compelled by the hard, old trunk of Styria to deviate to the north and south. The northern Alpine mountain-zones turn to the northeast, and we see them—after a gap marked only by hills to the east of Vienna—reappearing in the continuous chain of the Carpathians which, turning always to the right, describes about three-quarters of a circle and surrounds what we know today as the Basin of the Middle Danube. This is the Kingdom of Hungary.

The southern ranges turn to the southeast and under the name of “Dinarides” separate the interior of the Balkan peninsula from the Adriatic. The central Alpine zones separate (Fig. 1) and follow both the north and south zones—but more pronouncedly the north—as detached, single mountains or short ranges; while the main mass of all between the Carpathians and the Dinarides, which sank during the geological ages from Cretaceous to Tertiary times, lies today deep under the new deposits of a sea which filled the whole of the great Hungarian basin during the Mesozoic. To the south the crystalline central zones reappear behind the coastal ranges of the Dinarides and turn to the east, meeting the Carpathians, which have now curved round to a decided westerly direction. Where the ranges meet and so complete the enclosure of the basin, it looks as if they were tied to a string. This is the great confusion of mountain land constituting the Central Balkans.

The Alps, the Carpathians, the Dinarides, and the Balkans, though folded in about the same period, differ distinctly in character. Each of the latter three is formed from zones which occur in the Alps, but in these ranges the position and importance of each zone are not as seen in the Alps. In the Alps limestone, dolomite, and crystalline zones are predominant. Many of you may know the character of those picturesque ranges of Switzerland and the Tyrol. In the Carpathians the only belt which is continuous and of conspicuous breadth is the flysch-zone of sandstone. The general character of the mountains is broad-backed and continuous, carrying a garment of thick virgin forests. The Dinarides, especially in the north, where they concern us, are built of limestone. The character of this mountain-land is one of plateaus dissected by abrupt valleys and narrow cañons; the surface contains “dolines” and greater undrained basins, the “poljes,” some of which are well known as distinct centers of Balkan history. The Balkans again are mostly crystalline, and they are more mature than the Carpathians or the Alps. Their forest garment is less dense, less continuous. But the characteristic property of the Balkans, which has had the greater influence upon the history of the peoples thrown by fate into this part of the continent, is the confusion in the system of its ranges.

Fig. 3. Natural regions of Hungary: 1. Alföld or great lowlands, sand, black clay, and loess plain, producing wheat and corn; 2. Dunántúl or Transdanubia, rolling hills, outlayers of the Alps, temperate climate, oldest culture, varied agriculture; 3. Kis Alföld or little plain, temperate climate, intensive agriculture, sugar-beets; 4. Northwestern Highlands, developed forestry (pine, beech, oak), mining, hillside agriculture, potatoes; 5. Northeastern Highlands, wilder (best) pine forests, mining, salt; 6. Eastern and Southern Carpathians, intensive forestry, rich pastures, sheep, cattle; 7. Bihar Mountains, beech and oak forests, ore mining, pastures; 8. Mezöség or Transylvanian Basin, strongly rolling, clay slopes, young formations, salt near borders, center natural gas, intensive maize growing, cattle; 9. Karst mountainland (Dinarides), forests, flourishing iron ore mining. Ruled areas are regions of transition. See also Figures 1 and 41.

The character of these main groups of Central Europe’s morphology is reflected in its influence on human fate and history.

There are hardly to be found two neighboring countries more different in point of historic fate than the two sister regions formed by the fanlike divergence of the Alpine zones. The northern region, the great depression, surrounded by the folds of the Carpathians, forms the most perfectly closed basin of Europe. Its average height above sea-level is 300 meters, ranging from 108 in the center to 600 on the edges, where belts of the plain penetrate the girdle of mountains. It is, of course, a hydrographical unit, practically all its rivers running to the center of the plain (Fig. 1), with consecutive circular climatological and floral belts; even the animals, migrating to higher altitudes, completely assume the unity and centralization of this region. It may perhaps be of interest if I tell you that certain birds, for instance, gulls, which live in the northwestern part of Hungary, in the last long valley on the northwest, that of the Vág, when migrating in the autumn, descend to the Hungarian plain, go down to the Adriatic and Mediterranean, and thence to Africa. From the Bohemian or Czech side of the Carpathians, only a few miles farther to the west, the gulls go down along the Elbe River, thence to the North Sea and along the shores of Holland, France, and Spain, then down to the western coast of Africa. In all respects the Carpathian Basin is well defined.

Fig. 4. The rainfall of Hungary. The Hungarian lowlands, with 500 to 600 millimeters of annual rainfall, are much drier than some parts of Germany and Austria, with 400 to 500 millimeters, because the rainfall is not evenly distributed throughout the year; in the spring and summer there are sometimes several weeks without a drop of rain or dew.

There is no greater contrast to be found anywhere, if you pass the imaginary line between the Continent proper and the Balkan peninsula—a line drawn from the north end of the Adriatic to the northwestern coast of the Black Sea. I quote Marriott’s new book on “The Eastern Question”:

“At the first sight the peninsula seems, with small exceptions, to be covered by a series of mountain ranges, subject to no law, save that of caprice, starting from nowhere in particular, ending nowhere in particular, now running north and south, now east and west, with no obvious purpose or well-defined trend.”

According to recent conclusions of the Hungarian geologist, Baron Nopcsa, geology tells us a story of great sinkings, chiefly to the south, and of dissection; morphology shows independent basins, valleys, highways, systemless mountain masses. The hydrographical system leads us in at least four directions.

Human history tells us the consequences. It tells us stories of great highways traversing the region, independently of the life of the rest of the peninsula; of conquerors taking possession of one or more of the isolated territories; of wars between peoples; and of civilizations developing in isolated basins; then of series of intermixtures of peoples in the more accessible basins and along the highways, and on the other hand, of relatively pure remnants of very old peoples in the basins situated remote from the great highways of conquerors and nations.

But it is not my business to tell you this story. I have to tell you that of the northern region, of the great Basin of the Middle Danube and the mountain girdles protecting it (Fig. 5).

There are two primeval facts, which the two main features have stamped here on human history, viz., the tendency for all to unite towards what we call the central point of gravity of the greatest geographical weight, and the protecting action of the main mountain girdle stretching from west-northwest northward, eastward, and then southward.

As to the first of these, there was no stability so long as the unity of the Basin was not recognized by a Power then holding the center and consequently impelled to extend its rule to the broad belts of mountains and forests, and taking possession of the passes.

Neither Huns, nor Gepids, nor the Avars could weld the lowland into a permanent State. Nor could the Goths, nor the Longobards, nor yet the Franks, coming from the west, nor the Pannonian Slavs establish a lasting sovereignty in Transdanubia. Short was the rule of the Gepids in Transylvania, of the Bulgarians in the south, of Quades and Markomanns in the north, and even the great Moravian Empire in the northwest could not withstand the first serious attack.

Fig. 5. The Carpathian Mountains, encircling the Basin of the Middle Danube. The Alps, the Dinarides, and the Balkan Mountains form the other borders of this basin. The Magyars are thought to have entered Hungary by the Verecke Pass, northeast of the present site of Budapest.

We shall see later how the Magyars settled in the country. Let us note here that they were the first to push out their frontiers on every side, in a comparatively short time, to the crest of the Carpathians, and how this measure proved effective. There exist, of course, no absolute barriers, such as last for all time and withstand every force. The Carpathians, especially in their narrower part in the northeast, were crossed by some of the nations and hordes of the age of the great migrations, particularly by the Huns. But other waves, the Scythians, the Bulgarians, the Petchenegs, and others, were turned aside toward the south and north by the Carpathians. Some of the tribes of the Goths were turned southward in their wanderings, while the Avars seem to have entered the basin from the south, through what was pre-war Roumania. Still nobody tried to prevent the crossing of the mountains. And when in the thirteenth century the last danger, the great Mongol invasion, came from the East, internal struggles prevented the King of Hungary from meeting it in time on the mountain-crest and he was defeated on the plain. But the mountains have in our own days given signal proof of their efficacy as a splendid barrier, even when defended only by weak forces.

A barrier of defense, by virtue of their breadth and their dense wood-cover, and thus forming a great, practically uninhabited belt, they were at the same time a barrier to expansion. Some of our kings with their own royal troops, or by policy, tried to extend their power to the other side. The nation’s practical political sense did not follow the kings of the first national dynasty to Moldavia, nor the Anjou King Louis to Galicia and Poland, nor the great renaissance King Matthias Hunyadi to Moravia and Silesia. The possession of these lands practically never lasted longer than the reign of the conquering king.

I have said that the strength of any factor influencing life is relative, that it depends on its harmony and disharmony with other factors. All this varies not only from place to place, but also from time to time. Still, you may see the influence of the same factor at different periods and sometimes the coincidence will strike you. Certain features, though much less outstanding than the Carpathian wall, are seen again and again at different periods of history to constitute natural frontiers (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Boundaries recurring at different periods in history: A-A, Bulgarian Empire, ninth century; B-B, the territory conquered by the Protestant princes of Transylvania; C-C the Hungarian Banat of Macsó; D-D, line where the Austro-Hungarian army stopped in 1914; E-E, boundary of the Gepids in 500 A.D., of the Banat of Szörény in the fourteenth century, and of Little Wallachia in the eighteenth century; F-F, Field Marshal Mackensen’s line, 1917, corresponding with part of A-A.

Old northern Hungary, the Slovakia of today, belongs to two water systems, the waters of the western part flowing into the Danube between Pressburg and Budapest, those of the eastern part, converging like the sections of a fan, towards the Tisza River, flowing down right through the middle of the Hungarian plain. The watershed is traversed practically by only two roads and parallel-running railroads. This watershed is said to have been the northernmost limit, though perhaps not the real frontier of the first Bulgarian Empire in the beginning of the ninth century. When the Magyars occupied and extended their country to the main ranges of the Carpathians, the watershed lost its importance as a dividing line, because all the rivers of both sides run towards the central Hungarian plain, although in opposite curves. But the line recovered its importance when an alien and strong enemy-power, the Turk, occupied the lowlands and barred the ways to the south. We see the line in the seventeenth century dividing the Hapsburg part of Hungary from the territory temporarily occupied by our Transylvania princes to the north, and in Reformation times dividing the strongholds of Catholicism on the west from those of Protestantism on the east. The boundary vanishes when the Turks are driven out and both sides again have free access to the lowlands and thus have a common center of gravitation.

There is another frontier better known historically, viz., the Danube, which marks off the west part, into which the last foothills of the Alps descend from the main body of the basin. You know this to have been the limit of the Roman province of Pannonia, with its farthest northern stronghold, Aquincum, on the spot where our capital city stands today. But you may perhaps not know that it was also the eastern limit of the Eastern Frank Empire in the ninth century.

Rivers lose their importance as boundaries with the progress of civilization. In early centuries mighty streams flowing slowly between marshy borders through lowlands might have been formidable barriers, especially with a strong force behind them. The river made navigable by dredging is no longer a dividing obstacle; on the contrary, it connects its shores so that sister-towns spring into life on its opposite banks. They may still form very good lines of delimitation, especially when marshes border their courses and when other facts, for instance, an ethnographic difference on the two sides, accentuates the line. This is the case with the Lower Danube, dividing Roumania and Bulgaria; or the River Drave, separating the Croats and Magyars and their respective lands. The Middle Danube is not of this type.

The Great War accentuated two other historical frontiers in the neighborhood of Hungary. It was at the many-branched, marshy Kolubara River in western Serbia, on the frontier river of the Hungarian Banat of Macsó, four centuries ago a frontier-march against the Turkish advance, that the Serbs stopped our offensive in 1914. And the last line Mackensen reached in 1917 in Roumania, the Sereth-Putna line, situated where the space is narrowest between the Black Sea and the Carpathians, not only once formed the old frontier of the two Roumanian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, but also the limit of the Bulgarian Empire of the ninth century towards the land which was the home of the Magyars in the eighth and ninth centuries (Fig. 6).

We may find other lines which at different, far-distant periods of history reappear as boundaries. May I mention only the lower part of the “Olt” River in Roumania, the temporary eastern limit of the land of Gepids about 500 A.D.; again a frontier, that of the Hungarian Banat of Szörény, during the reign of our Anjou King Louis in the fourteenth century; and again a frontier, that of Little Wallachia, during the eighteenth century, immediately after the Turks withdrew from the country? And it is perhaps interesting to note that Serbia at the time of the death of its ruler, George Branković, in 1459 reflects the frontiers of Moesia Superior of Roman days.

After this digression, let us come back to the historical frontiers of Hungary. I have told you all about the general character of the Carpathian frontier, of its continuity and mightiness. The attention of students of frontiers should be called specially to the breadth of the uninhabited belt and to the wood-cover. These are elements of a first-class importance in judging and comparing mountain boundaries—more important than height and ruggedness. And I call your attention also to the question of coinciding factors.

In the case of the Carpathians, for instance, you may look at a geological, a climatological, a morphological, a hydrographical, a biological, or a demographical map of Europe, or at any others, such as forest maps, those of arable land or of railroads, and you will find marked on all those maps the semicircle of the Carpathians as a dividing barrier.

The combination of all the conditions aforementioned in a belt which is of great breadth and remarkable for the scarcity of its population—this, rather than the mere arbitrary setting of any particular line of demarcation, constitutes an actual division of absolute efficacy and great historical and political importance. The further details are of less importance; and, in the study of frontiers, problems of quite another character present themselves. It makes no difference whether the line of watershed or that connecting the highest peaks denotes the frontier. The main fact remains through ages, though there are periods of local changes, of the pushing down of the frontier line by a stronger power from the highest peaks towards the valley-heads of the outer slope. In the Carpathians it is the straighter line of the highest crests that marks the frontier. There are noteworthy deviations only in two places. One is near Pressburg, where the necessity for protection against aggressions through the gate of Vienna, where the Danube enters the Hungarian basins, made the Hungarian frontier guards descend even in early centuries to the Morava or March River, now the frontier between Czechoslovakia and Austria. The other is on the most eastern side of the old frontier, in the southeast corner of Transylvania. The boundary line descends here from the very broad-backed mountain top, where the watershed is not recognizable and does not divide, to the defiles or cañons of the Little Besztercze, Békás, Tatros, Ojtoz, and Bodza rivulets, the gates of the mountain-land. The linking together of these gorges or gateways forms a better line of defense. I should like to call your attention to the fact that Professor Penck of Berlin advocated such a type of frontier on a much more important spot, which was strongly disputed during the Great War. This is the northeast frontier of Italy, where Professor Penck is in favor of a line connecting the defiles of the Brenta, Piave, Livenza, and Tagliamento, instead of the Austro-Italian frontier along the crest of the Dolomites and the Karnian Alps.

The other frontiers of Hungary were less marked, in comparison to the splendid wall of the Carpathians, but are interesting in several respects. Where the Alps are forced by the above-mentioned Styrian block to part, the lowland basin penetrates into the Alps themselves in the great “gulf” of Graz. Farther to the south, passing through isolated hills and downs between the Drave and the Save, the outliers of the plain penetrate far into Bosnia. At these points the political frontiers, too, have been at all times less fixed. In the time of the kings of our old national dynasty, the Árpáds, the Basin of Graz—and just before the Turkish conquest, Bosnia also—belonged in great part to Hungary. Farther to the east, the broad mass of the lowlands extends south, far into historical Serbia. Here the Hungarian expansion chose as the southernmost demarcation line, the Save, not the Drave and Danube frontier of recent times, and the territory between the three rivers was for long centuries—up to the time of the Turkish occupation—one of the most thickly populated Magyar regions. The crest of the Balkan mountain masses was reached as the boundary of the Hungarian State only twice and then temporarily and for a very short time, and only for the defense of the real frontier. This happened after the first settling down of the Magyars.

But that leads us to another group of facts, to the story of how the Magyars settled in this Middle Danube Basin. So now we shall leave frontier questions. In my next lecture I shall speak of the settling, that intermediate and complex link between natural conditions and the more easily recognizable facts of human history.