Desperate Gamble

Democrats are in demand in Budapest. Choleric, dictatorial Regent Nicholas Horthy and his landed-gentry friends need a new act, are ready to try "the People's Will" if it can get them out of the war without penalty. Except for the brief moment of Count Michael Karolyi's Republic at the end of World War I, Hungary has never seriously tried democracy and the first moves were awkward.

Royalist Count Anton Sigray solemnly assured the docile Parliament that the Hungarian State had always been based on democratic principles, always pursued a democratic policy "in the best meaning of the word. The Hungarian kingdom must be restored," he added amid cheers. "Restoration would bring about a solidification and pacification ... of the whole southeastern European sphere."

First Hungarian move toward a more stable southeast: a vague offer to return all lands snatched from Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia at the beginning of the war.* In the same breath there was a reminder that the southern part of Transylvania "rightfully" belonged to Hungary. Second Hungarian move: preparation for general mobilization. Plainly the Magyars who still dream of Greater Hungary intended to be ready to move swiftly in any melee that might develop in the wake of the war. Over German protests, all but three Hungarian divisions were withdrawn from the Russian front. Premier Nicholas Kallay recently observed: "We must not gamble away our chances of voicing our demands when the complicated problems of central Europe come to be disentangled."

The chance was long gone. Allied with Italy since 1927, the recipient of Hitler's favors since 1938, one of a small handful of governments to recognize Mussolini's bogus Fascist Republic last September, the men of Budapest had guessed wrong too often. From Moscow came clear hints that even Rumania might fare better in the settlements than anti-Slav, anti-Communist Hungary. To the Kremlin, Rumania under a changed regime (and minus Bessarabia) might yet become a friend, worthy to receive Transylvania; Budapest would remain the center of anti-Russian plots, a handy spearhead for any future German Drang nach Osten. It would take a mighty swing inside Hungary to shake the Russian view.

*Scraps that fell from Hitler's table into Hungary's eager mouth: Czechoslovakia's Rutheniaand parts of Slovakia, Yugoslavia's Voivodina, Rumania's northern Transylvania.

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