Fire in the Carpathians

In Liberty Square in the heart of Budapest is a huge map of the old Kingdom of Hungary, done in shrubbery, with a Danube of blue flowers winding through its length. It shows, besides the Hungary of the Treaty of Trianon, all the provinces taken away by that treaty: Slovakia and Ruthenia, ceded to Czecho-Slovakia; Croatia, ceded to Yugoslavia; the Banat, ceded to Yugoslavia and Rumania; and the broad plateau of Transylvania, which Rumania also took. Around the map is a border of flowers spelling out in Hungarian:

I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD: I BELIEVE IN ONE FATHERLAND: i BELIEVE IN HUNGARY'S RESURRECTION.

Hemmed in by succession States, revisionist, expansionist, but surrounded by neighbors powerful enough to hold her in check, Hungary smoldered for 20 bitter years. Her first small chance came when Germany dismembered Czecho-Slovakia, tossing Hungary minuscule Ruthenia. Last week came Hungary's great chance. She took it--but not in the old-fashioned Balkan manner. In other times what was done in Vienna last week would have rocked the chancelleries of Europe, shaken bourse and market, reverberated around the world in grimmest headlines. Not so under the New Order. To Rome it was "a victory of Axis policy which reveals to the world its true constructive character, its clarifying, its civilizing spirit." As to that, there was some argument, particularly in Rumania, but no one could gainsay the Axis victory. When Russia began the dismemberment of Rumania last June, the small but tough Hungarian Army was poised on the edge of Transylvania.

Prudence and a word from Adolf Hitler kept it from moving in. Hitler ordered Rumania's King Carol to settle the claims of both Hungary and Bulgaria before Sept. 1. King Carol began to wriggle and stall. Last month, with Bulgaria's claim to Dobruja agreed to but still unfulfilled, Hungary's Premier Count Paul Teleki and Foreign Minister Count Stephen Csaky sent delegates to Turnu Severin in Rumania to present their claim to Transylvania. The delegates were told that Rumania would not consider ceding more than one-fifth of Transylvania. The delegates went home to Budapest and Count Csaky had a talk with the German and Italian Ministers, then went off to Vienna, taking Count Teleki with him. Hungarian warplanes made practice flights over the Transylvanian border.

Reunion in Vienna. In Belvedere Palace in Vienna, where two years ago the Rome-Berlin Axis graciously gave Hungary a nibble of Czecho-Slovakia, Counts Teleki and Csaky again met their Axis mentors last week. Besides their old friends, Germany's Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Italy's Count Galeazzo Ciano, they had the pleasure of meeting Rumanian Foreign Minister Mihail Manoilescu. M. Manoilescu had been summoned by the Axis. The German and Italian Foreign Ministers were there simply to lend their good offices to the discussions, to point the way to a resumption of negotiations.

This was all very well, but Moscow suddenly discovered that the little Rumanian Army was trying to pick a fight with the big Red Army along the Bessarabian frontier. Premier Molotov sent an outraged note to Bucharest. The Rumanian Army was withdrawn from the Prut River to the Siret. This gesture only brought forth a stiffer note from Comrade Molotov. It looked very much as if Russia were about to protect herself by moving farther into

Rumania. And it looked as if Russia might not wait for the Transylvanian problem to settle itself. So Herr von Ribbentrop and Count Ciano, who consider southeast Europe their own back lot, decided on a squeeze play.

In Bucharest cagey King Carol, who had wooed the Axis too late in life, heard about it when he received a frantic telephone call from his Foreign Minister telling him that Germany and Italy demanded that Rumania submit the dispute to arbitration--i.e., surrender a whacking chunk of Transylvania. The King had until 5 o'clock the next morning. His only consolation was that Germany would guarantee to him what would be left of his Kingdom. He summoned his Crown Council to the Palace, and throughout most of the night King & Councilors cudgeled their brains for a dodge. Just before 5 a.m. they gave up.

Too late for the Council meeting, the Transylvanian Peasant Party leader, onetime Premier Juliu Maniu, turned up in Bucharest that morning, protesting bitterly. As news filtered out during the day to a shocked and sullen Rumania, protests grew ominous and muttering crowds of Bucharest citizens gathered outside the Palace. Even Iron Guardists were disillusioned. But to King Carol and a majority of his Councilors the choice was brutally simple: they could lose half of Transylvania, or they could lose Rumania.

They made the obvious decision.

With that the conference moved to a swift Axis finish. In the Gold Room of "the Belvedere the two Hungarians and the two Rumanians met with Ciano, Ribbentrop and Baron Alexander von Dornberg, German Chief of Protocol.

Only one of the seven was in civilian clothes--Count Teleki." While Ribbentrop was reading the crisp decision, Rumania's Manoilescu grew pale and faint. Baron von Dornberg hastened to his side with a glass of water.

In Budapest, when news of the settlement became known, a blackout ordered at the height of the tension was suspended.

That bright city looked more brilliant than ever. In the streets, in cafes, crowds cheered. Hungary's new greatness was only beginning, excited Magyars told each other.

At the railroad station a crowd gathered to welcome Counts Teleki and Csaky.

An emissary of Regent Nicholas Horthy, especially picked for the purpose, kissed Count Teleki on both cheeks. The map in Liberty Square was replanted to obliterate the border between Hungary and the ceded wedge of Transylvania.

Word spread through Budapest that Yugoslavia, last inviolate succession State in Europe, had offered to discuss with Hungary the return of part of the Banat.

In their joy Hungarians forgot that whenever Germany gives Hungary something, she takes more for herself. By guaranteeing the shrunken frontiers of Rumania, Germany had squelched Hungary's claim to the rest of Transylvania and Rumania's part of the Banat.

Axis Coup. By recognizing Hungary's rightful claim to the Szekler district, a Hungarian ethnic island in the heart of Rumania, the Axis had pushed Hungary's frontier bang up against the Carpathians. Magyars have held this mountain fortress against eastern hordes for centuries, and if need be they might be called on to hold it against the Russians.

Russia and Germany are nominally friendly powers. So Germany could hardly protest when Russia grabbed one mouth of the Danube from under her nose last June. Germany could hardly have protested if Russia had grabbed the Rumanian oil fields before last week's squeeze play. But now that Germany has guaranteed Rumania's frontier, Russia will hardly grab anything Rumanian. This is especially true because Germany will back her guarantee with an army, which will doubtless stay on the best of terms with its Red comrades across the Prut.

So pleased were Delegates von Ribbentrop and Ciano that they went hunting together in the Danube flats across from Vienna, where in 1809 Napoleon licked the Austrians in the Battle of Wagram.

Last Act? But while the Axis Ministers hunted, resentment burst into flame from the Danube to the Carpathians. The ceded part of Transylvania has 1,500,000 Rumanians and only 1,000,000 Hungarians, and most of the Rumanians are peasants among whom the Rumanian Government divided the estates of Magyar landlords. This week many left their land

(which will be taken from them anyway), to trek into Old Rumania. But many stubbornly stayed.

In Brasov, a mob broke into the German Consulate, ripped down pictures of Hitler, trampled the Nazi flag. Ten thousand people knelt in the city's main square and took an oath of "Death to the Traitors." In Cluj, chief city of Transylvania, a mob dragged the Italian Consul out of his house and pummeled him in the street.

In Bucharest, crowds shouting "Fight the Hungarians" milled before King Carol's palace and before the Italian and Ger man Legations. Armored cars patrolled the streets with machine guns sticking out of their turrets and the Army manned fire hoses.

Hundreds of demonstrators were packed off to concentration camps. Peasant Leader Maniu left Bucharest for Transylvania swearing to organize resistance. From London , Rumania 's former Minister Viorel Virgil Tilea (who refused to return when he was recalled last month) broadcast an impas sioned plea : "Have no fear of Soviet Russia. Germany is your Enemy No. 1." Even the leading pro-German newspaper, Curentul, shrieked for punishment of those responsible for giving in "before a shot has been fired."

After the Vienna agreement was signed Joachim von Ribbentrop announced that it was the "last act" of the revision of Rumania's borders. This week Joachim von Ribbentrop's boss sent word to Bu charest that unless the disorders stopped, Germany would occupy all of Rumania with troops, ringing down the curtain on the land of Carol. Across the muddy Prut the Red Army, like Br'er Fox, lay low.

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