Tri­anon 100: Life Stopped in Hun­gary and Mourn­ing Began When Treaty was Signed

Almost two years after World War I, Hun­gar­i­ans had to face anoth­er, even big­ger loss: the dis­man­tling of his­toric Hun­gary, the King­dom of Hun­gary. Every­one believed the treaty was unjust and forced upon Hun­gar­i­ans. Los­ing two-thirds of its ter­ri­to­ry with more than 3 mil­lion Hun­gar­i­ans caused such a shock that Hun­gary sent politi­cians with no future ambi­tions to sign the treaty. When they did, life stopped in the whole coun­try and Hun­gar­i­ans began to mourn.

In prepa­ra­tion for the announce­ment, by June 4, 1920, the gov­ern­ment had ordered mil­i­tary readi­ness for all corps, con­cen­trat­ed mil­i­tary units, and police patrols had been dou­bled in cities.

Although the Treaty was to be signed in the after­noon, the whole day went with a num­ber of demon­stra­tions, and Holy Mass­es. In the morn­ing, a march began from Heroes’ Square through Andrássy Boule­vard, with the par­tic­i­pants includ­ing many refugees and those Hun­gar­i­ans forced to leave their moth­er­land. Pubs, shops, schools, and uni­ver­si­ties had been closed dur­ing the day.

News from Paris came in at ten o’clock in the morn­ing, after which bells tolled around Hun­gary, at some places report­ed­ly ring­ing the whole day. The whole coun­try began to mourn, peo­ple dressed in black, and black flags were hung on pub­lic buildings.

At around the time of the sign­ing, in protest against the dic­tate, the bells of Hun­gary began to toll once again, in addi­tion, traf­fic stopped for ten minutes.

After the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Prime Min­is­ter Sán­dor Simonyi-Semadam announced mar­tial law in order to main­tain pub­lic order. Beside minor inci­dents, for exam­ple, a gang attack against the sec­re­tary of fac­to­ry own­er Man­fréd Weiss, June 4^th and the com­ing days report­ed­ly passed calm­ly on the streets.

The Tri­anon Treaty then influ­enced Hun­gar­i­an pub­lic life along with oth­er for­eign affairs in the com­ing years.

Source:www.hungarytoday.hu