Claim:
The Károlyi government had no vision for Hungarian foreign policy whatsoever
Rebuttal:
The Károlyi government initially had a well identifiable foreign policy vision for Hungary. This rested on 3 main pillars: 1. ceasing all fighting and starting peace negotiations 2. the inviolability of the borders of Hungary, and 3. the federalisation of Hungary. This was supplemented with a pro-entente general approach. However, by early March 1919 Károlyi himseff had realised that this entire line was a mistake and changed course.
The Károlyi government had a well articulated foreign policy vision, based on the pillars of pacifism, territorial integrity and federationalism. Pacifism for them meant that the opponents would have decided on the still remaining open questions with peceful means, at the negotiating table. Also, by voicing pacifist ideas they were seeking to distance themselves from the earlier elite that had led the country to war. They were trying to prove to the entente powers that this is a different government from that seen during the war, hereby trying to avoid detrimental peace conditions. The two other pillars of their foreign policy went hand in hand. The Károlyi government supported the territorial integrity of Hungary apart from the question of Croatia. However, in harmony with the wilsonian principles, they connected this with the idea of a radical change of the whole setup of the country. What they envisaged was a federative makeover. This concept, developed by Oszkár Jászi, the so-called ’Switzerland-of-the-East plan’ would have involved dividing the country into regions according to the ethnic group boundaries, where each ethnic group would have enjoyed widespread cultural, linguistic and self-governance autonomy. This plan had two goals: to stop the separatist movements of the minorities and to prove to the entente that Hungary had changed its approach concerning ethnic minorities – thereby trying to make the idea of keeping the integrity of Hungary more acceptable for the entente leaders. These ideas were supplemented with Károlyi’s general pro-entente approach.
It needs to be added, however, that as this concept seemed more and more untenable, so did the steps of the Hungarian government become more and more hasty and unconsidered. Károlyi’s speech on 2 March 1919 clearly signalled that he had recognised his mistake, albeit too late. Visiting the Sekler Division, he said, ’if the Paris peace conference were to decide on dismembering Hungary, if the dire need arose, we would liberate the country by military force’.
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