Magyar Honvéd
Hungarian National Defence Troops
By the later part of the 19th Century clear signs of the decay of the dualist and of the growth of an extreme nationalist Magyar spirit were already visible. The Army bills of 1889, which involved an increase of the peace footing of the joint Austro-Hungarian army, had been carried with difficulty, despite the efforts of Koloman Tisza and of Count Julius Andrássy the Elder. Demands tending towards the Magyarization of the joint army had been advanced and had found such an echo in Magyar public opinion that Count Andrássy was obliged solemnly to warn the country of the dangers of nationalist Chauvinism and to remind it of its obligations under the Compact of 1867.
In the autumn of 1902 the Austrian and the Hungarian governments, at the instance of the crown and in agreement with the joint minister for war and the Austrian and Hungarian ministers for national defence, laid before their respective parliaments bills providing for an increase of 21,coo men in the annual contingents of recruits. 16,700 men were needed for the joint army, and the remainder for the Austrian and Hungarian national defence troops (Landwehr and honvéd). The total contribution of Hungary would have been some 6500 and of Austria some 14,500 men.
The military authorities made, however, the mistake of detaining in barracks several thousand supernumerary recruits (i.e. recruits liable to military service but in excess of the annual 103,000 enrollable by law) pending the adoption of the Army bills by the two parliaments. The object of this apparently high-handed step was to avoid the expense and delay of summoning the supernumeraries again to the colours when the bills should have received parliamentary sanction; but it was not unnaturally resented by the Hungarian Chamber, which has ever possessed a lively sense of its prerogatives. The Opposition, consisting chiefly of the independence party led by Francis Kossuth (eldest son of Louis Kossuth), made capital out of the grievance and decided to obstruct ministerial measures until the supernumeraries should be discharged. The estimates could not be sanctioned, and though Kossuth granted the Széll cabinet a vote on account for the first four months of 1903, the Government found itself at the mercy of the Opposition. At the end of 1902 the supernumeraries were discharged-too late to calm the ardour of the Opposition, which proceeded to demand that the Army bills should be entirely withdrawn or that, if adopted, they should be counterbalanced by concessions to Magyar nationalist feeling calculated to promote the use of the Magyar language in the Hungarian part of the army and to render the Hungarian regiments, few of which are purely Magyar, more and more Magyar in character.
The obstructionists now raised the cry that the German words of command in the joint army must be replaced by Magyar words in the regiments recruited from Hungary - a demand which, apart from its disintegrating influence on the army, the crown considered to be an encroachment upon the royal military prerogatives as defined by the Hungarian Fundamental Law XII. of 1867. Clause n of the law runs:-" In pursuance of the constitutional military prerogatives of His Majesty, everything relating to the unitary direction, leadership and inner organization of the whole army, and thus also of the Hungarian army as a complementary part of the whole army, is recognized as subject to His Majesty's disposal." The cry for the Magyar words of command on which the subsequent constitutional crisis turned, was tantamount to a demand that the monarch should differentiate the Hungarian from the Austrian part of the joint army, and should render it impossible for any but Magyar officers to command Hungarian regiments, less than half of which have a majority of Magyar recruits.
The partisans of the Magyar words of command based their claim upon clause 12 of the Fundamental Law XII. of 1867 - which runs:- " Nevertheless the country reserves its right periodically to complete the Hungarian army and the right of granting recruits, the fixing of the conditions on which the recruits are granted, the fixing of the term of service and all the dispositions concerning the stationing and the supplies of the troops according to existing law both as regards legislation and administration." Since Hungary reserved her right to fix the conditions on which recruits should be granted, the partisans of the Magyar words of command argued that the abolition of the German words of command in the Hungarian regiments might be made such a condition, despite the enumeration in the preceding clause n, of everything appertaining to the unitary leadership and inner organization of the joint Austro-Hungarian army as belonging to the constitutional military prerogatives of the crown.
Practically, the dispute was a trial of strength between Magyar nationalist feeling and the crown. Austrian feeling strongly supported the monarch in his determination to defend the unity of the army, and the conflict gradually acquired an intensity that appeared to threaten the very existence of the dual system.
An interval of negotiation between the crown and many leading Magyar Liberals followed, until at the end of October 1903 Count Stephen Tisza, son of Koloman Tisza, accepted a mission to form a cabinet after all others had declined. As programme Tisza brought with him a number of concessions from the crown to Magyar nationalist feeling in regard to military matters, particularly in regard to military badges, penal procedure, the transfer of officers of Hungarian origin from Austrian to Hungarian regiments, the establishment of military scholarships for Magyar youths and the introduction of the two years' service system. In regard to the military language, the Tisza programme-which, having been drafted by a committee of nine members, is known as the " programme of the nine "-declared that the responsibility of the cabinet extends to the military prerogatives of the crown, and that " the legal influence of parliament exists in this respect as in respect of every constitutional right." The programme, however, expressly excluded for " weighty political reasons affecting great interests of the nation " the question of the military language; and on Tisza's motion the Liberal party adopted an addendum, sanctioned by the crown: " the party maintains the standpoint that the king has a right to fix the language of service and command in the Hungarian army on the basis of his constitutional prerogatives as recognized in clause 11 of law XII. of 1867."
A deadlock, lasting from January 1905 until April 1906, ensued between the crown and Hungary and, to a great extent, between Hungary and Austria. In October 1907 an agreement was attained, thanks chiefly to the sobering of Hungarian opinion by a severe economic crisis, which brought out with unusual clearness the fact that separation from Austria would involve a period of distress if not a commercial ruin for Hungary. The burning question of the "Magyar word of command " remained unsettled, save in so far as the fixed determination of the king-emperor had settled it.
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