HUNGARY: Tidbit

• Share

Last week while Germany was grabbing Bohemia and Moravia by the scruffs of their necks and whistling Slovakia home, the little Kingdom of Hungary was being allowed to make a grab of its own in the Carpatho-Ukraine, the easternmost prov ince of now extinct Czecho-Slovakia. Long have Poland and Hungary wanted a common border for protection against Germany. Last fall, when Czecho-Slovakia was amputated, they almost got it. Last week, when Adolf Hitler wiped Czechoslovakia off the map, they did get it.

Swift Hungarian columns darted northward over snow-choked roads through the western mountain passes of Carpatho-Ukraine as soon as Hungary learned that the lid was off. Late the second day of the occupation, one frostbitten contingent reached the Polish border, where a Polish colonel ecstatically kissed the Hungarian commander while their troops embraced (see cut). Polish frontier guards welcomed the Hungarian soldiers as brothers and thawed them out in a guard station.

Although Adolf Hitler's German troops scarcely had to fire a gun for the rich prize of Bohemia and Moravia, the Carpathian mountains did not fall without a struggle. Czech soldiers in Carpatho-Ukraine, having learned that Bohemia was a German province, bee-lined for the Rumanian border, where they surrendered their arms and were interned. But the Ukrainian Nationalist Guards of Carpatho-Ukraine, armed at the last minute by Premier Augustin Volosin, long a Ukrainian nationalist leader, put up a stiff resistance. There was a pitched battle to take Chust, the capital. It took Hungary a full four days to occupy the territory, in contrast to the mere eight or ten hours it took the Germans to seize

Czech territory. Meanwhile, Premier Volosin, failing to get protection from Führer Hitler or assistance from Rumania's King Carol, fled into Rumania in a peasant's oxcart.

Carpatho-Ukraine, since Munich, was the centre of Führer Hitler's Ukrainian autonomy movement. Perhaps last week the Führer figured that since he was soon going to have all he wanted of Eastern Europe anyway, he might just as well let the Hungarians take Carpatho-Ukraine for him. It was noteworthy that the Hungarian Parliament quickly passed stringent anti-Semitic bills. Chances were that Ferenc Szalasi, imprisoned Nazi leader, would soon be released. Uneasy over the future, Hungary was careful to conform to Nazi "ideals" last week.

Ironic coincidence of the week: On the day the Hungarian Army marched into Carpatho-Ukraine, a Hungarian-Czech commission announced that it had fixed the final boundary line between Carpatho-Ukraine and Hungary. The commission had been hard at work ever since November 2, when Italy and Germany agreed to let Hungary have parts of Carpatho-Ukraine.