3–5 June 1920 – The Mournful Days of Trianon in the Contemporary Press

The Blackest Friday “Tomorrow the Hungarian sky will be draped in mourning, and music shall fall silent; every Hungarian tongue shall lose its voice. Tomorrow, throughout the country, the trains will come to a halt, and the beat of our hearts will falter on this sombre day of grief. Tomorrow, every son of this land waits for the heavens to tear apart and for the earth itself — the stolen Hungarian earth — to tremble beneath the feet of those who robbed it. We await some miracle, some mighty act of justice, which at the final moment might yet prevent the terrible crime woven against us — and against all mankind — by hidden powers beneath the surface…”

1920. VI. 4. “The ringing of bells will announce tomorrow, on Friday morning, that a new chapter begins in the history of the Hungarian nation. Humbled to the ground, stripped and abandoned, like a stripped tree, we have become beggars in rags, who once were the ceremonial stewards of Europe’s paradise. Our neighbours, whom we once defended with the shedding of our blood against the destructive fury of medieval barbarism — whom we fed with our own bread and raised into manhood through the strength of our own culture — have betrayed us ungratefully and plundered our country, more than two-thirds of which they still occupy today. And this invasion was carried out with the knowledge of the Entente; the English, French, and Italians looked on with folded arms at our destruction — forgetting that they were able to grow great, powerful, and wealthy only because, for a thousand years, we were the living bulwark upon which the assaults of Eastern barbarism broke…”

Silent Protest "On the Day of the Holy Spirit, millions of Hungarian hearts burst into tears, and millions of Hungarian hands clench into fists. On Hungary’s sacred day, the image of Crucified Justice is held aloft. The spirit of solemn devotion is mingled with the uprising of a bitter nation’s soul, on the eve of the signing of the terrible sentence passed upon Hungary in the Palace of Trianon. There, in the West, the merciless tribunal of the Western powers delivered this verdict against Hungary — a country to which the West itself, throughout the course of history, owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude…"

Do Not Rejoice, My Enemy…! The nation’s silent protest against the peace treaty — the Friday demonstration. — In the morning, all shops will be closed, and trains will come to a halt. “On 4 June, sorrowfully but without mourning, the 4th of June dawns upon us. In the great Palace of Trianon, a Hungarian minister appears and signs that peace treaty which even those who imposed it upon us have already abandoned. He signs it in the knowledge that Hungary will faithfully fulfil every obligation that can be physically carried out, yet at the same time it protests and cannot reconcile itself to it — just as no European nation striving for the preservation of world peace could ever truly be reconciled to it…”

Bells of Mourning "The Hungarian bells began to toll in that half-hour when the peace of Hungary was signed in the Palace of Trianon at Versailles. Consummatum est — it is finished; the fate of the Hungarian nation was sealed at that turning point of history, which leads us toward a new millennium. The nation’s grief echoes in the bells, and this ringing accompanies the invisible coffin in which Old Hungary lies. The old country is dead, resting with a sombre face like a fallen landowner, carried out from the collapsing walls of a doomed manor house on his final journey. Black-veiled horses are led behind him, and in the funeral procession his rusted sword and spiked mace are carried. We bury Old Hungary; it is for Old Hungary that the bells toll. We close the door of the crypt over the coffin — but we bring back the sword and the mace. Let what we have buried rest in peace. Let us not mourn it, nor wish to resurrect it: within the coffin lay our own sins, our smallness, our inactivity, our recklessness, our folly — that Hungary which produced the “Pál Pató” spirit, and which squandered the nation’s thousand-year treasures without sense or measure…"

We Have Signed the Peace Treaty “At ten o’clock for ten minutes all life froze today. Then it shook itself, set in motion again, and shall not rest until the world that froze it ceases to exist. Our conscience is clearer than that of the victors. On the day of the signing, which places a full stop after our war, we declare: Hungary has nothing to regret, nor any reason for reproach or punishment. With true faith and sacred right it defended its country, with honest soul and God-pleasing manliness it kept its word. It did not abandon its allies in the hour of misfortune, nor did it thirst for the blood of its enemies in the days of intoxicating victories. It was brave in battle and humane towards the defenceless. The Hungarian, whom the enemy now tortures to death in peacetime merely for being Hungarian, treated those who were at his mercy during the war with gentleness, restraint, and chivalry…”

DUMB “…our lips. Only our hearts beat together in painful unison. It is our Good Friday once again. Before the tribunal in Paris, a Hungarian stands deathly pale. With a trembling hand he signs his name beneath a terrible document. Should every single letter of it be fulfilled, we could say: — Hungary is no more! Yet there is no one in the world — neither friend nor enemy — who, looking at what took place in Great Trianon on 4 June 1920 at ten o’clock, would not see it as nothing more than a theatrical scene…”

National Unity “On the black day on which the darkness of the peace treaty descended upon us, an eternal flame must be lit upon the altar of national unity. It is still only a small flame today, yet it shines far, like a star in the dark night. With it we send a sign into the distance to our brothers torn away by force, who look up to the cruel sky with tearful eyes. With it we declare that we keep watch over them even in spirit. By constantly fanning the flame of national feeling, we show that we remain faithful to them, that we consider them our brothers, and we ask them not to forget us either, but to remain faithful in the innermost depths of their souls to the shared homeland, which in better times the God of the Hungarians will one day return to us…”

The Peace Treaty Has Been Signed “The protest of the capital and the country — Holy Mass in the Basilica and church services — The silent demonstration of the refugees. The Hungarian Telegraph Office reports from Paris on 4 June. The Hungarian peace treaty was signed today at 4:30 in the afternoon (Havas Agency.)…”