successfully counter-attacking. Within a few days he had withdrawn to the line indicated to him, and he then requested the Conference to call upon the Rumanians to carry out their part of the bargain. A new consideration, however, now came into play; the Rumanians declared that it would be dangerous for them to leave the line of the Theiss until the Hungarians had actually carried out Article 2 of the Military Convention—that is, had demobilized all their forces except six infantry and two cavalry divisions. Allied military opinion admitted the justice of this contention, and recognized that the general policy of Béla Kun had amounted to a complete violation of the Armistice Convention. 18. Occupation of Budapest by Rumanians, 8th August. On the 17th July General Franchet d'Esperey, acting on instructions from Paris, demanded that the Budapest Government should resign and make room for a government freely elected by the people; otherwise military action would immediately be taken against Hungary. This was the first active step taken by the Allies for the suppression of the Soviet Government, and on the 25th July the Conference issued a wireless communication formally declaring their readiness to enter into peace negotiations with Hungary if a representative government were established. Béla Kun, anxious to bolster up his tottering régime by a successful coup, replied to General Franchet d'Esperey's ultimatum by opening a regular offensive against the Rumanian forces. The Hungarians launched their attack on the 20th July. They broke through to a depth of from 15 to 35 kilometres and claimed to have captured 75 field guns and 36 heavy guns. The Rumanians, however, were well prepared, and as a result of their counter-attacks on the north and south, and the concentration of the Rumanian reserves in the centre, the Hungarians were forced back over the River Theiss along the whole front by the 26th July. The Rumanians crossed the Theiss a few days later, and by the 8th August they had occupied the city of Budapest itself and all Hungary east of the Danube. In these circumstances the Conference dispatched a Mission composed of four Allied generals to Budapest to get into touch with the Hungarian Government and see that the Armistice was observed and that disarmament was effectively carried out. The Mission was also to establish liaison with the Commanders of the Rumanian and Yugo-Slav armies, with a view to preventing any measures being taken such as might OCCUPATION OF BUDAPEST 357 prolong the existence of disturbed conditions in Hungary. For their political guidance the Allied representatives were informed that the Conference had no desire to interfere with the internal affairs of the Hungarian people, but could only treat with a government such as could be trusted to carry out its international obligations. The Rumanian advance, justified though it was by the local situation, had taken the Supreme Council by surprise, and they at once sent an urgent communication to the Rumanian Government, calling on them to stop the forward movement of their troops. The Rumanians were, however, convinced that only by the occupation of Budapest could the final downfall of the Communist régime in Hungary be secured. They accordingly persisted in their advance, and from the moment when the Rumanian forces entered the Hungarian capital, the problem of enforcing the will of the Conference upon Hungary changed to that of enforcing it upon a recalcitrant ally. 19. Summary. To sum up, the root causes of all the misunderstandings and difficulties which occurred in the case of Hungary as of other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were: 1. That there was no unity either of military command or of political direction in the treatment of the forces of the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy as a whole. 2. That the Military Conventions establishing the Armistice had taken little or no account of the interests of some of the parties most concerned, and that nine months after the Armistice Rumania had (rightly or wrongly) received no compensation in kind for her material losses during the war. 3. That when dealing with the Soviet Government at Budapest, which made no secret of its bellicose intentions, the Conference preferred relying on the verbal assurance of Béla Kun to observing or controlling his actions. 4. When at last plans were considered for a combined military operation to enforce the observance of terms which Hungary had disregarded for nine months, the matter was so delayed that in the meanwhile, Rumania, the State most directly interested, had already taken independent action. In fairness to Rumania it must, however, be recognized that it was the Hungarians who took the initiative by invading Rumanian territory, and that the force of the Rumanian counter-attack carried it through to Budapest. CHAPTER IX THE LEGAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PRIOR TO THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE BY TREATIES PART I THE BREAK-UP OF THE WORLD'S SYSTEM OF TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS § I. INTRODUCTION THE effect of the World War of 1914-1918 upon the institutional and legal fabric of human society is a subject of vital importance in all studies of social, economic, political, and legal conditions during the years of war and of reconstruction. The war has affected the municipal legal systems of all the world's States, both belligerent and neutral; and it has also affected, in many important particulars, the system of International Law. Not only has the war shaped and modified the rules and principles of municipal and international law: it has also determined the nature and the scope of relations, and especially of contractual relations, between States and between individuals. Prior to the outbreak of the World War of 1914-1918 the relations of States one to another were governed, in the main, by a system of international rules and principles based partly upon custom and partly upon a mass of written agreements. In a certain sense the States of the world formed a vast community in which common and separate interests, within the environment of economic and social evolution and of political progress, struggled for mastery. Various factors tended to produce world unity. The existence of groups of States helped to narrow and limit the particularist tendencies of certain of the great political entities, and the interdependence of all communities in the matter of trade produced a measure of international co-operation. The subtle ties of friendship, art, and literature led to a certain unity in the world, while religious, BREAK-UP OF THE WORLD'S SYSTEM 359 labour, and intellectual movements operated in the same direction. But the spirit of nationality, the divergence of political systems, the rivalry in commerce, and the march of territorial expansion all accentuated the differences in aim and in method between individual communities within the world-community as a whole. The chief bond which held the world's States together in a vast community of communities was one of a legal character. legal character. All of the States had become associated, in one way or another, in a 'family of nations which recognized the binding force of international law and international morality. This legal and moral system was crude at best; it lacked many of the essential elements possessed by any one of the leading national systems of law and justice. But it formed the legal basis of international relations, and it gave promise of further evolution to meet the needs of the States' community. The war, unprecedented in scope and violence, has dealt the whole system of international law, both customary and conventionary, a rude blow from the effects of which it will take many years to recover;1 and never again will this system be exactly what it was before, for new factors have been produced by the war itself which are leading, under the shaping hand of the League of Nations and other widespread influences, to novel principles and processes of international action. With many of the immediate effects of the war on the system of international law we are not now concerned. Only treaties and conventions, as distinct from international customs, fall within our survey; and here again we are concerned merely to point out, in the briefest manner, the effect of the shock of war upon the network of treaties and conventions which, in 1914, linked the States of the world together in amicable relations. The outbreak of the war resulted in the annulment of many treaties and conventions and in the suspension or unenforcibility of many others. A reference to the juridical principles, which are to be applied to this partial collapse or break-up of treaty relationships of States, forms merely a prelude to the study of the efforts to replace the state of war by a stable régime of friendly international relations based upon Treaties of Peace. The various stages in this process will form the main subject-matter of the present 1 See Lawrence, The Society of Nations, 1919, Lecture IV. chapter. We shall see how the negotiations of 1918 led to pre-armistice international Agreements and how these Agreements lie at the basis of Armistice Conventions and Treaties of Peace alike. In many ways these pre-armistice Agreements constitute the foundation of the entire structure of the World's Peace; and as such this deserves the painstaking study of historians and statesmen. § II. THE EFFECT OF WAR ON TREATIES: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PRINCIPLES Our first inquiry must be this: What, at the moment of the outbreak of war in 1914, were the recognized principles of international law as to the effect of war on treaties, or conventions, between States? The answer to this question is not altogether easy, owing largely to variance in international practice and to differences of opinion among the leading international jurists. But it is at least possible to classify the various kinds of treaties and conventions and to state the law, in so far as the law is at all settled, in regard to each one of them. I: First Method of Classification 2 A. There are, in the first place, treaties to which other States besides the belligerents are parties. These treaties are of two kinds, which publicists designate as as 'great international treaties' and 'ordinary treaties'. (1) In considering the juridical effects of war on 'great international treaties' it is necessary to distinguish four separate and distinct situations. (a) The first situation arises when the cause of the war is entirely unconnected with the treaty in question. In such case the treaty is unaffected by the war; it remains in force. Thus, the great Treaty of Paris of 1856 settled for a time the Eastern question; and Prussia and Austria were two of the signatory Powers. The war of 1866 between these two States 1 On the whole subject of the effect of war on treaties, see Hall, International Law, 7th ed., 1917 (edited by Professor A. Pearce Higgins), pp. 397403; Lawrence, International Law, 4th ed., 1910, pp. 360-5; Westlake, International Law, Part II: War, 1907, pp. 29-32; Oppenheim, International Law, 2nd ed., 1912, Vol. II, pp. 128-31; Crandall, Treaties: Their Making and Enforcement, 2nd ed., 1916, § 181. This method is based largely on Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 360-5. |