In times of war, one must stay out of the war and stand up for Hungarianness at all costs, said the parliamentary state secretary of the Ministry of the Interior in his speech at the Trianon monument in Zebegény on Sunday, the day of national unity.
Bence Rétvári, who is also the KDNP member of parliament for the region, said: to whom the Hungarians across the border are not important, after a while the Hungarians here at the border will not be important either. Hungarians must always unite, “we must always think of the Hungarians first and foremost, and every Hungarian must stand up for all Hungarians,” said the state secretary.
He recalled that one hundred and three years ago, the Hungarian leaders did not stand up for the Hungarians, but left it up to the goodwill of others to decide what the future would be for the Hungarians of Transylvania, Subcarpathia, Upland, South, and Őrvidék. “We must learn from this historical lesson,” he warned.
According to Bence Rétvári, Hungary’s territorial loss did not depend on how who lost on the battlefields, but on whose government stood up for their own country during the negotiations, and who was invited and who was not.
The state secretary recalled: they were not willing to talk to the leaders of the Soviet Republic, they did not invite the government for 133 days, which meant a lot of time lost, and Mihály Károlyi expected the goodwill of the Entente instead of protecting Hungarian interests. They gave him all the concessions, everyone’s demands were accepted, “because then they will treat us with goodwill”, thought the Károlyis.
As he reminded, Germany lost 70,000 square kilometers, Austria 40,000, and Hungary 180,000 square kilometers.
“We were obviously on the losing side, so Hungary would certainly have had a loss after the First World War, but not that big,” he said.
Bence Rétvári also spoke about the fact that before the outbreak of World War I, the leaders of Europe, the nations of Europe, had a month to think about whether they wanted to get involved in a war or not, and in the end they got involved. The bilateral conflict, a local conflict, the conflict of two countries, two dynasties caused a war situation in other European countries in a matter of seconds, as the European countries entered the war one by one, he pointed out.
“We Hungarians opposed this war until the last moment, István Tisza opposed the decision, but Hungary was not in a sovereign position to prevent it (…), it drifted into it together with the Habsburg dynasty,” said the politician.
Bence Rétvári reminded that István Tisza justified his opposition with the protection of human lives and that he did not see an outcome that would have been beneficial for Hungary.
“He said in advance that Hungary cannot come out of this war well (…), Hungary must not be swept into it,” recalled the state secretary.
Bence Rétvári also emphasized that the fundamental national interest of the Hungarians, and the fundamental experience of the twentieth century, is that they should not get involved in war.
“When world powers fight against each other, we only suffered national tragedies in the 20th century, Hungarians never benefited from that,” he said.
Source: MTI, photo: from Bence Rétvári’s Facebook page
