The U.S. general who saved the Hungarian National Museum
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The members of the Inter-Allied Supreme Command’s Military Mission in Hungary were eating their dinner on October 5, 1919, when an American major came to report that there are Romanian soldiers in the Hungarian National Museum planning to take home its treasures with 14 trucks. The American member of the Mission, General Harry Hill Bandholtz, who was also President of the Day did not hesitate. He immediately went there and drove the Romanian soldiers away, allegedly, with a riding crop. But how did Romanian troops get to Budapest?
Hungary occupied
One of the most sorrowful periods in the modern Hungarian history started at the beginning of November 1918. While people celebrated victory in Paris, London and Washington, in Budapest the Károlyi-government proclaimed that the
defeated Hungary was going to disband its army
since it had become a pacifist country following Wilson’s Fourteen Points. However, those points were published in January and by the end of the year – instead of the United States – France became the arbiter in the questions of the Old Continent. And France wanted strong allies against Germany in the East since it had lost Russia to the Bolshevik Revolution. Thus, Paris was interested in creating a powerful Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Consequently, Czechoslovakian, Romanian and Yugoslavian troops
overran the historic borders of the Hungarian Kingdom
occupying not only cities populated by their own people but even 100% Hungarian territories. Because of this, the Károlyi-government resigned on March 1919, and a group of Communist radicals gained power ruling cruelly for 133 days in Hungary.
Of course, in the end, for France and Great-Britain, dreading from a world revolution, it was worth almost everything to crush the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Thus, they allowed Romanian troops standing on the left bank of Tisza to cross the river,
to defeat the Communist army and occupy Budapest.
Romanian soldiers tried to take home everything
Communist leaders fled to Vienna while Romanian troops started to consistently loot all Hungarian villages, towns and cities, even Budapest.
Again, Hungary gets robbed by the Romanian vermin because of the stupid French. France is Europe’s cancer.
God Bless General Harry Hill Bandholtz,
Who through patriotic duty to the US government, performed his duty even in a country that was an enemy state to the US. We can see that even though there are wrong directions country’s can be forced to take. There are still some very smart commanders and chiefs that can even today see above it all and do the right thing. RIP – General Harry Hill Bandholtz !!
Thank God for those who are fair and just
Oops! Manipulation and some fake info!
Hungarian bolshevik troops attacked Slovakia, first, and succeeded to conquer territory. Just want to mention the atrocities performed by the Hungarian army to the civilians there!
After this success attacked Romania to reconquer lost territories, as well. Despite the initial success, as gaining ten miles, the Romanians finally defeated the Hungarians. Despite some incidents like here mentioned National Museum, plunders and so on, there were no consistent crimes as the Romanians where closed supervised by France/US/UK for order/democracy restoration.
Nevertheless, Romanians army crimes where negligible vs Hungarians ones.
Hungarian army is well known in central Europe for its atrocities and ignoble behavior during the historic conflicts: please see the WWI battles against Serbia, too, their crimes on Transylvania, and mentioned Slovakia.