Tibor Frank

Dreaming Peace, Making War

The Budapest Conversations of U.S. Minister John F. Montgomery
1934-1941

 

According to Who Was Who in America, John Flournoy Montgomery, formerly U.S. Minister to Hungary (1933-41), was born on September 20, 1878 in Sedalia, Missouri. The Montgomerys were Presbyterian and Anglo-Irish and claimed Norman and Huguenot descent. The minister was educated locally, graduating from the Ramsdell Academy in Sedalia. All his working life, apart from the years en poste in Budapest, was spent in the condensed milk industry. Between 1925 and 1933, and then again after 1941, he was President of the International Milk Co. He was a Freemason. Montgomery lived in Vermont, in a large home, with his wife, two daughters and numerous domestics. He was not a career diplomat: he was appointed to his post as a result of the Democratic victory in the 1932 presidential elections, as a reward for loyal and lasting services to his party, which included financial support.
The American legation was originally in Árpád (today: Steindl Imre) utca in downtown Budapest, in the 5th District. It was during Montgomery's tenure of office, early in 1934, that they moved to Szabadság tér, where the U.S. Embassy is still located. Budapest was reckoned a minor post, with a staff of twenty-seven in 1939; by comparison, seventy were stationed at the Consulate General in Vienna, not even counting secretarial staff. The Residence, home of the Montgomery family, was in Buda, at Lovas út 32.
Montgomery looked on his position as an observation post. He spent much of his time collecting information. He made a surprisingly large number of contacts in his time in Budapest, the majority of which he carefully nursed. He revelled in the social life, as shown by the implied joy with which he complained to his friends. "Socially, everything is very lively here, and I am kept very busy with luncheons, dinners, teas, and goodness knows what. It gets very tiresome but it is necessary and in this business you have to keep in touch with your contacts all the time." Further evidence is offered by his diplomatic reports, the care he took dictating records of his confidential political conversations, a huge correspondence, a journal he kept for two years, and a book and articles he published later. Even more eloquent is a permanent protocol list containing the names of close on seven hundred persons and their spouses invited to lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and his regular Wednesday concerts, which Montgomery compiled himself and kept up to date. The methodology would put many a modern Who's Who to shame. Since most of the entries covered both husband and wife, well over a thousand people were involved.
It was an extensive yet closed world. The protocol list faithfully mirrors the odd, semi-feudal establishment of Hungary between the two world wars. Montgomery's contacts were primarily official, ministers and high-ranking civil servants, and of course senior diplomats accredited to Budapest. More than half the list, however, is made up of members of the Hungarian aristocracy, headed by Habsburgs resident in Hungary, including every archduke and archduchess. The extraordinarily high number of the Count Károlyis, Széchenyis, Telekis, and Zichys catches the eye. Montgomery was impressed by old names, by family trees rooted in medieval obscurity, by ceremonially dressed magnates and ancient châteaux, even if some of them now housed tenants.
The huge circle assembled by Montgomery was, however, somewhat misleading. It would seem that he provided himself with a comprehensive picture of Hungarian society. Being, however, a monoglot English speaker, he was forced to confine his contacts to English speakers and this imposed severe limitations, even though he employed interpreters on occasion. This decisively influenced his image of Hungary and of Hungarian society. His direct sources could only be the select few who in the Hungary of the time had learnt English, indeed those who were in a position to do so. This explains the large number of aristocrats in his circle, and his friendship with Anglophile politicians, primarily Tibor Eckhardt, the leader of the Smallholders' Party; hence his good relationship with Regent Horthy (a polyglot who once allegedly studied English, as a young naval officer, with James Joyce), also Kálmán Kánya, the Foreign Minister, and his deputy Baron Apor, the Prime Minister Count Pál Teleki, and an earlier prime minister, Gyula Gömbös, all of whom spoke good English, just like Leon Orlowski, who headed the Polish legation. But even those who spoke English well did not always understand Montgomery. His strong mid-western accent troubled even Kálmán Kánya, the Foreign Minister.
Montgomery, a sober businessman, was captivated by the reflected light of Habsburg times. Budapest between the wars was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and in what the historian Gyula Szekfuý termed the Neo Baroque Age with pejorative intent, the magic of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy lit up once again, and for the last time.
The Regent Miklós Horthy, a landowner and naval officer, who had received his political education as aide-de-camp to Emperor-King Francis Joseph, himself lived under the spell of the Imperial Court. All that he had observed and learnt in thus serving his old master in the Hofburg in Vienna was miniaturised in Buda Castle. Horthy was spellbound by Francis Joseph, and Montgomery admired the Admiral. He was enchanted by the changing of the guard, by levées for diplomats in the Castle, or a mass for the diplomatic corps celebrated on the occasion of the anniversary of the enthronement of the Pope, by nights at the Opera on December 6, Horthy's name-day, by military parades, cocktail and garden parties, by soirées given by the Habsburg archdukes resident in Hungary, and by news of the Saint Stephen's Day procession on August 20 (which he missed since he spent his summers in America) and by other processions too, with ceremonially accoutred dignitaries, sparkling decorations, grand crosses and their ribbons, the rag-and-bone shop of a world that has had its day. Horthy's Hungary continued as a kingdom, thus members of orders continued to use their titles and to bear their insignia. Horthy's military bearing, disarming graciousness and irresistible charm impressed Montgomery. To the end of his life he remembered him as "a very fine person and a very wonderful man."
In the Budapest of the Thirties Montgomery found the complete stage of a kingdom sans Habsburgs. A decorative admiral stood for the king at the head of a parliamentary system, something that naively reminded an inexperienced diplomat of England, which he found so attractive. The Head of State had been the last Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy; the Foreign Minister had once represented Austria-Hungary, one of the Great Powers, in Mexico; Dísz tér in the Castle recalled the spirit of the Ballhausplatz and, on occasion, of its arrogance; the better part of Hungarian diplomats had received their training in Vienna. The United States did not support a Habsburg restauration, but President Roosevelt did receive Crown Prince Otto in the White House. In his residence at Esterházy utca 24, Archduke Albrecht (and even more so his mother, Princess Isabella) sometimes also dreamt of the Hungarian crown. In the course of the Thirties the expansion of National Socialism steadily dwarfed the threat of a Habsburg restauration. Admiral Horthy, as the defender of the traditional Hungarian national interest, appeared, to this American, as someone who opposed Hitler and despised the Nazis. Horthy and his circle may indeed have opposed the Nazis, but not really the Germans. With growing frequency they shared their anxieties with the American minister in Budapest. The more the country drifted in the direction of Nazi Germany, the more the political class made use of Montgomery as messenger of their real or pretended anti-German feelings. Horthy, as a Hungarian gentleman and naval officer who had learnt his politics at the feet of Francis Joseph, very likely felt a natural aversion for Hitler and Nazi methods which, in his case was increasingly mixed with the wish to cover himself in the eyes of the British and the Americans when called to account after the war. Montgomery happily listened to Horthy's repeated promises concerning the de-Nazification of Hungarian Parliament. It gave him satisfaction to observe signs that the extreme right was kept in check, such as the repeated arrest of their leader Szálasi and, later, the dismissal of Béla Imrédy, the pro-Nazi prime minister of 1938-39.
For an American, the Hungarian Regent seemed to be preferable to Nazi Germany just as, earlier, he had appeared preferable to the Habsburgs - that is inasmuch as little Hungary could maintain the appearance of independence. Anti-Communism, which right from the start had been a link with Hitler, was also Horthy's favoured subject. (Horthy called on Hitler on August 22, 1936: "...it was rumoured that they discussed Communism... - 'Of course, they did! Could you imagine the Regent overlooking a good opportunity like that?'" - Baron Apor, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs remarked.) After the Second World War it appeared that the aged admiral's fears were justified. Not only Hitler's Germany but Stalin's Soviet Union showed themselves to be the kind of threat compared to which Horthy's Hungary looked like paradise lost. First Horthy appeared preferable to the Habsburgs, then to the Nazis and finally, to Bolshevism.
The conservative Montgomery respected authority and felt most comfortable in the company of the like-minded, in the narrowly circumscribed circle of his sources of information. He was fondest of the always well-informed Tibor Eckhardt, and treated him as a friend, he looked up to that cunning old fox Kálmán Kánya, he liked Baron Apor who so ably packaged all bad news, and he respected the apparent wisdom of Counts Bethlen and Teleki. He was happy to note every kind of hostility to Hitler in Horthy's inner circle. He paid close attention to Count István Bethlen's alarm-raising speeches in Parliament, thus to what Bethlen said on February 9, 1938:

...in foreign policy I used to be the spokesman of a pro-German line, but there is one thing that is obvious to me: if a Gleichschaltung of political life takes place in Hungary under the aegis of the ideas of the extreme right, we will end up as the servants of Germany and not her friends. That will imply the end of an independent Hungarian foreign policy.

His official sources of information presented Montgomery with a blue-eyed image of Hungary. Whatever the subject, be it Hungarian intentions concerning the revision of the frontiers, German-Hungarian relations, or anti-Jewish legislation, most of what he was told in the Foreign Ministry on Dísz tér, in the Prime Minister's Office in the Sándor Palace, or by the Regent in the Royal Palace, was brighter and more beautiful than actual reality.
What Montgomery recorded is bound to surprise those who know little about Kálmán Kánya, the Foreign Minister. This old man and experienced diplomat, a survivor of the Habsburg monarchy, moved about on the stage of European diplomacy as if he were playing with his children. "de Kánya did not like it at all", his deputy, Baron Apor commented in 1936, "because he had to go to Vienna for a conference with two other foreign ministers, both of whom were so young that their united ages were exactly the same as de Kánya's - 67. He felt as though he was compelled to talk to a couple of school boys."14 Years before the war, Kánya never left it in doubt what he thought about the Nazis and Hitler.
As Baron Guy von Hahn, a Nazi agent in Budapest tellingly put it: "Kánya was a friend of former Germany but hates the present-day Germany."15 As early as 1935, Montgomery had doubts concerning Hitler's policies, and reported with considerable forethought:

If Hitler were an intelligent man, de Kánya said, he would at this moment make a public announcement that he would give up Austria and thus allay the fears of Italy and reassure the world as to his intentions. He felt sure, however, that he would not do this, and he feared he might even make more dramatic moves in the future.
I mentioned that Napoleon was an Italian and always felt that he didn't belong in France which feeling was back of his desire to conquer the world. I suggested that Hitler being an Austrian might in the end be as great a disturber to peace as Napoleon for the same reason.

Kánya understood the devil's kitchen of German foreign policy far better than the average well-trained diplomat.

He said "You know, they have five foreign offices in Germany; one day von Neurath is in control, then the next day it is Goebbels, the next day Goering, then Rosenberg, and then Hess. Therefore, you could never control it abosolutely."

There was good reason why the Italian and German ministers were dissatisfied with the Hungarian Foreign Minister.

The Italian and German Ministers in Budapest, Vinci and Erdmannsdorff, according to Eckhardt, are very dissatisfied with de Kanya because he has not been more active in taking the part of Italy and Germany at London, and on other occasions.

As time passed, and after he resigned his office, Kánya became ever more outspoken. "Mr Hitler was not a normal person," he told the U.S. Minister on March 18, 1939. He also predicted that the alliance between Hitler and Stalin would not last.

de Kanya said that he had yesterday read a portion of MEIN KAMPF which somebody told him bore on the question of an alliance between Russia and Germany, and he found it very amusing because Mr Hitler proved definitely that Germany never could be an ally of Russia, that it was absolutely impossible. He felt that a month would tell the story. Germany and Russia had made threats as to what action they will take in case peace proposals are refused. As they have been definitely refused it is now up to them to make good their threats. If they don't make them good in a month it will then prove that the German-Russian alliance is nothing except what can be seen on its face - that there is no understanding which would involve further cooperation between Germany and Russia - and the way was left open for a clash of interests which might bring Germany and Russia into antagonism: at least that is what he hoped.

Kánya added something important with which the Hungarian political class of the time agreed in practice.

He said there was no difference between Nazism and Bolshevism; in fact, he said, the only difference between Germany today and Russia was that it was colder in Russia.

Montgomery considered this the guiding idea of a Hungary drifting into war. He thought it so important that, in the preface to his Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite, published in 1947, he told off his fellow Americans for leaving this out of account. This much-quoted book, much of which was based on his conversations in Budapest, was an enthusiastic apology for Horthy's Hungary. A study of the documentary evidence suggests that Montgomery truly met a political élite which was hostile to both the Nazis and the Soviets, and that these men shaped and defined what he thought about the country.
The documents which follow, the publication of which was kindly endorsed by Ms Jean Montgomery-Riddell, the minister's daughter, are a small selection of the close to two hundred conversations which Montgomery recorded in Budapest. The original spelling of the documents has been kept throughout. They will be published complete, as discovered, edited and introduced by me, in Hungarian by Corvina Press, and in the original English by CEU Press, towards the end of 2002. Ms Montgomery-Riddell generously donated the originals to the Hungarian National Library. As a valuable collection, they form a serious and unexpected additional source for the history of the preliminaries of the Second World War in and out of Hungary. For those interested in the history of U.S.-Hungarian relations, and the pre-War history of Hungary, they might come as a revelation.

***

Budapest, December 11, 1939

Conversation with Mr. de Kanya, former Foreign Minister

Mr. de Kanya told me that he had many friends in Germany, since he spent a good part of his life in Vienna and had been Minister in Berlin; that he was constantly seeing various of these friends or hearing from them in an indirect way that all his information was to the effect that conditions in Germany were very bad indeed, and that the morale of the people was not too high.
He said that all in all most of his friends insisted that Germany was without doubt going to win the war; nevertheless, most of the time they talked in a manner which showed they hadn't the slightest bit of confidence in Germany's ability to even survive as a nation because they always indicated fears for Germany being cut up, turned Bolshevik, or other suggestions which were a little more frantic, and even told him confidentially they saw no way out. He said that only last week a very prominent German (he added, a man of good position who was conservative and trustworthy) told him that in his opinion if Mr. Hitler didn't do something either in the way of an offensive within six weeks, there would be a revolution, and that if this offensive didn't turn out to be a military success there would be a revolution anyhow. de Kanya said he could hardly believe this. Neverthe-less, he doesn't believe, as Count Csaky and others do, that a revolution in Germany is impossible. He thinks that the Soviet move has disturbed a lot of Germans and that the more responsible elements are now thinking more of ways and means to protect themselves against the Soviets than they are of winning the war.
de Kanya says his German friends, without exception, pretend to believe that the French have no heart for the war that they are driven into it more or less by the British; and that they can separate the French from the British in time, after which they can finish off the British. The principal worry of most of them seems to be if they can hold off the Bolsheviks for this to happen.
de Kanya says some day he is going to give the story of his conversations with Hitler to the world. At the present time he cannot. When they are published, they will show that in every conversation he had with Hitler, Hitler never lived up to any promise he made. He said that conversation with Hitler was unilateral, since Hitler did all the talking. Every time he saw him he broke out in a lot of statements as to what he was going to do for Hungary, such as restoring the ancient kingdom; even in a small matter he definitely told him that Pressburg belonged to Hungary, that he would see that the Hungarians got it; and that when the time came he ignored his promise entirely, as he had all the others.
de Kanya said that when the Regent went to Germany, Hitler spoke to him about the possibility of a war, and the Regent told him that it would be a mistake to go to war with England since due to her great sea power she was a very difficult country to defeat. He said Hitler instantly became furious and began to scream and yell at the Regent, and that right in the midst of his screaming the Regent held up his hands and told him in no uncertain terms that he was the Head of a State and he didn't expect to listen to any conversation addressed in such a tone and that unless he spoke to him in the language which one Head of a State used to another he would immediately return to Hungary. He said Hitler instantly caved in, and after that was very sweet to the Regent all the time he was there. Ribbentrop blamed de Kanya for this incident. He said de Kanya put him up to it, etc.

Budapest, November 8, 1940

Conversation with H.S.H. The Regent

The Regent received me with his face wreathed in smiles and almost jumped up and down with apparent joy in telling me how happy he was over the reelection of President Roosevelt. He said he and Madame Horthy had sat up to the early hours of the morning of Wednesday trying to get the election results and that they were both terribly disappointed because they got nothing. However, now that the election was assured they were very happy because they believed in everything President Roosevelt stood for, and he felt that his reelection was the first bright thing that happened in many months and meant so much to the entire world.
The Regent told me he wanted to write a personal letter of congratulation to the President and asked me if I would send it in the pouch. In the meantime he said he would be pleased if I would wire the President that he was delighted at his election. I said to him, "I don't know, you know our codes are broken down and somebody may decode the message." He said "I don't care if they do."
After disposing of the election the Regent told me that he had something very interesting to tell me in great confidence. He didn't want it repeated to anyone. He said that a man who had been a liaison officer with him in the last war and was now one of the high ranking German Admirals had been to Budapest lately and had asked for permission to call. As he was at Godollo he sent word for him to come down there and do some shooting. The man accepted with pleasure, and they had a very fine hunt. He said that he purposely said nothing to him about the war because he didn't want the man to think he invited him down there for the purpose of pumping him. As the man was a rather silent man and said very little, he was therefore surprised when after the hunt the man said, "Admiral, you know the navy hasn't changed at all in Germany. All the other forces are different, but the navy is just the same as before the war. We must be grateful to Hitler for the fact that he has done so much for the navy, but we and Japan both have made one very serious mistake, that is, not with the navy, but our Governments and the Japanese Government thought that the air arm could take the place of the Navy. That has proved to be a great mistake. The British navy is still intact; it is a wonderful navy. It is just as true now as it was in the last war, that the Power that commands the sea will win the war." The Regent said he didn't say anything but he was naturally pleased at this statement because it agreed with his own ideas.
I spoke to the Regent about Eckhardt and Bethlen going to America and England. I told him the idea and he thought it might be a good one. He said he would speak to the Prime Minister about it. I then brought up the subject of our Military Attaché and told him all about it, and said that if the Foreign Office would tell us the truth we wouldn't have to go rooting around for information. He said he didn't know why the F.O. didn't tell us the truth, he couldn't understand it. I told him something of my position vis-ŕ-vis the Foreign Minister, and asked him if he received copies of the letters of our correspondence. At first he said no, and then when I called it to his attention he said he had and remembered it, but said Csaky is just afraid of the Germans, absolutely frightened by them and does all these things because he is so scared. I didn't contradict him, but I told him Csaky was making my position rather difficult. The Regent said to me, "Anything that happens now, no matter what, come to me." I said, "I cannot come to Your Highness." He said, "Then call up Captain Tost to take the matter up with me." He said, "I am still here; in fact, more in charge than appears on the surface. We had to let the German troops come through, for after all they said they were coming through to protect the oil fields, but we absolutely refused to let them make a base here, and I don't intend to do it. Further, I am going to kick the Nazis out of Parliament." I said, "What will Germany say to that?" He said, "I don't care, I am going to do it now or later. In fact, I wouldn't have them in Parliament at all because that would be the simplest solution.
In times like this Parliament is dangerous, but I don't want to ape the dictators. I don't want to have them think I am going to have their form of government. I am going to have a Parliament, but am going to kick the Nazis out."
The Regent told me that he had issued a new order to the Army that no one was to engage in politics in any form, upon penalty of immediate dismissal, that every officer had to sign a statement acknowledging the receipt of this order, and he felt that this would have a decided effect, particularly as he had dismissed a lot of officers who had engaged in politics.

 

Tibor Frank
is Director of the Bartók Archives in Budapest and Professor of Musicology at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. His books include The Keyboard Sonatas of Joseph Haydn (1995) and Béla Bartók: Composition, Concept, and Autograph Sources (1996).