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# The Last Dualist Experiment: István Tisza's Negotiations with the Romanians

The collapse of the coalition government and the appointment, on 17 January 1910, of Count Károly Khuen-Héderváry as prime minister represented a watershed in the political history of Dualism. Taking note of the shifts in power relations within the Hungarian ruling class, conservatives rallied in an attempt to construct a new governing party true to the spirit of 1867, and thereby to bring the prolonged domestic political crisis to an end.

Hungarians in Transylvania were fed up with the coalition. The national minorities, for their part, believed that Khuen-Héderváry and some of his ministers had close ties to the Viennese court; their hopes were also raised by the fact that the crown prince expected the new prime minister to adopt his policies. The government took pains to accommodate the Romanians and, to a lesser extent, the Slovaks. In January, it suspended a number of sentences for political crimes; it also dropped several of the press suits inherited from the coalition government, officially on the grounds that 'the new circumstances do not warrant further prosecution.'[75]75. OL, Minisztertanácsi jegyzőkönyvek, 1910; F. Pölöskei, Tisza István nemzetiségi politikája az első világháború előestjén (Sz. 1970, 1) p. 7. It tacitly allowed Romanians to display their tricolour flag. Both the appeals court at Marosvásárhely and the supreme court ruled that it was permissible to sing, in public, 'Romanian Awake,' which was regarded as a national anthem. Justice Minister Ferenc Székely, who was also responsible for the education portfolio, undertook to revise the education policy developed by Apponyi and make it more favourable to the national minorities.

{3-716.} The Tribuna group in Arad reacted positively to the government's initial measures. They calculated that Khuen-Héderváry was politically vulnerable and would need support from the nationalities in his struggle against the Independence party opposition; the archduke's circle reinforced this assessment. Their men in Bucharest, Slavici and Brote, were encouraged by Romania's Liberals to recommend a 'decent compromise.' Brote, the onetime vice-chairman of the Romanian National Party, had chosen to emigrate at the time of memorandum trial. He now initiated negotiations with Khuen-Héderváry over the establishment, in Budapest, of a Romanian news agency that would relay reliable information about Transylvania to the Romanian public and make the latter more receptive to a compromise. However, when Mangra, the vicar of Nagyvárad, and previously a popular and fiery champion of the nationalist cause, rallied to István Tisza, the Tribuna group was rent by internal disputes and became discredited in the eyes of the Romanian public.

The acting leaders of the national committee, Mihali, Maniu, and Vaida-Voevod, were also full of anticipation. Khuen-Héderváry gave repeated assurances that the government did not want to crush the minorities at the election, and there was even talk of partial electoral alliances. The leaders laid claim to parliamentary seats in some thirty constituencies that had Romanian majorities and, reportedly, promised to support government candidates in sixty others; the government, for its part, dangled the lure of financial support — amounting to 60,000–100,000 crowns — for their campaigns in selected constituencies.

Looking forward to the election with some optimism, the Romanian party held a national conference on April 5, at Nagyszeben, and put a rejuvenated committee in charge of the campaign. Their finances had improved: Ioan I. C. Brătianu, the Liberal party leader in Bucharest, made a substantial contribution, and they could count on support from Khuen-Héderváry, Francis Ferdinand, {3-717.} and Lueger's Christian Socialists in Vienna. And yet, despite all their dynamism, the Romanians failed to get properly organized. The list of 33 candidates (in 37 constituencies) was not drawn up until the last minute. According to Slavici, the manifesto published in the press diverged from what had been approved by the committee, but they went along with it to avoid further confusion. Some Romanians wanted to cooperate with Kristóffy; others, in the Banat, rejected this option out of fear that they would lose the last shreds of the Hungarians' sympathy. Still others sought to ally themselves with the government's bęte noire, the radical Independence Party led by Gyula Justh. At the last minute, the leading Romanians in Szeben County opted for a passive stance. The politicians' earlier readiness to make covert deals only served to confuse the Romanian electorate. The self-assured Maniu tried to caution the voters of Alvinc: 'Do not believe the false rumours that we former deputies have concluded some sort of pact with the new government ... and do not think that these elections will be easier than the preceding ones! They will be similarly, or even more difficult.'[76]76. Tribuna, 4 June 1910. In the event, his warnings fell on deaf ears.

The 1910 election campaign was conducted in an uncommonly aggressive manner, particularly in Hungarian-inhabited districts. The election was supervised by a man well-known to Romanians, State Secretary Sándor Jeszenszky. His allegiance was not to Khuen-Héderváry but to István Tisza, founder of the Party of National Work, yet even Francis Ferdinand failed to block his appointment. This time, Tisza aimed not merely to win a majority but to annihilate some of his parliamentary rivals. His principal target was Justh's Independence Party, but he was also intent on crushing Kristóffy, who represented the crown prince, and the national minority parties, in order to forestall the emergence of a hundred-strong block of deputies beholden to Francis Ferdinand. The Romanians' situation was complicated by the fact that their electoral hopes were focused on Romanian-inhabited districts traditionally in {3-718.} the pocket of the government, and where their efforts would serve mainly to weaken the government party. Justh's opponents could not count on significant support from the Romanians. The Work Party did not count on an easy victory; Jeszenszky set aside half of the 30 million crown election fund for the second round, and the shortage of money was compensated by violent campaign tactics. In the event, public opinion turned against the strident nationalism of the coalition, and the Party of Work won the election by an unexpectedly wide margin. An emboldened Tisza confided to his intimates that he was now ready to confront the crown prince.

The nationalities were appalled at the election results. Only five of the thirty-three Romanian 'nationalist' candidates won seats, in three constituencies where they were unopposed. Maniu found his grim warning justified, for he failed to retain his seat. The Tribunist wing's hopes were crushed, for it could not win a single seat. On the other hand, the voters elected nine Romanian candidates who had endorsed the government party's program. The Romanians were so stunned that, at least initially, they did not seek to attribute the results to official harassment. 'Forceful electoral tactics deprived us of two seats at the most,' commented one of their most respectable newspapers, 'while in many places our deputies were rejected by the votes of thousands of Romanians.'[77]77. Libertatea, 4 June 1910. The newspaper of the Nagyszeben archbishopric, an advocate of moderation, opined that the voters had turned against a patently unrealistic political program.

For the government, the Romanian nationalists' defeat was almost too favourable an outcome. The election revealed that the Romanian party was weaker than both sides had anticipated. The government was free to take advantage of their weakness and divisions when it resumed negotiations on political and cultural concessions. Yet the government showed no sense of urgency; it acknowledged the existence of the minorities' parties but, in keeping with Dualist political tradition, refused to treat them as significant political factors.

{3-719.} The leader of the Party of Work, István Tisza, was generally regarded as the country's 'strongman' and, by the Hungarian ruling class, as their 'man of providence.' With characteristic consistency, he urged that a compromise be forged with the Romanians. In a campaign address at Nagyvárad, he had invited a compromise between Hungarians and Romanians — by negotiation with the leaders of the Romanian national movements, or, if that was not possible, with Church leaders. His speech earned him plaudits in the Romanian press; Balázsfalva's Unirea saw in him a defender of the nationalities comparable to Deák. In July, Tisza reiterated his views before parliament. The Romanian national committee responded to this overture by authorizing Ioan Mihu (a wealthy champion of political activism) to enter into negotiations with Tisza. Mihu had been spotted long ago as a potential mediator; he did not hide, even from Romanians, his 'sincere devotion to an undivided and united Hungarian state, with only one reservation, that within this state I be free and unhindered in preserving my Romanian national identity. I am ready assume the practical consequences of these convictions.'[78]78. Vaida-Voevod's report of 8 August 1910 to Alexander Brosch von Aarenau (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien, Nachlass Franz Ferdinand, Berichte Vaidas 668-76 f), in Keith Hitchins, The Nationality Problem in Austria-Hungary (Leiden, 1974), p. 175.

Earlier, Tisza had balked at the prospect that the Romanian party would preserve its independence, but he changed his mind in the course of the initial negotiations. He now agreed that party leaders could participate in future negotiations, and that any agreement would have to be submitted to a Romanian national conference for approval. The Romanian demands, drafted in August by the party leaders, were set down in a memorandum by Maniu, Goldiş, and Branisce. They decided that if the government met their terms, they would adopt 'greater restraint' in parliament and develop a new party program.

However, there were many hurdles on the way to an agreement. Tisza came under violent attack from the entire Hungarian left, which regarded his pursuit of compromise as an attempt by reactionaries to maximize their power. As for the conservative-nationalist opposition, it regarded any concession as treason, and {3-720.} this, too, drove Tisza — who, in any case, was not known for gentleness — to take a tougher stand. Bucharest encouraged him to seek a compromise, but its basic strategy had changed: the régime now wanted the Hungarian government and Transylvania's Romanians to find a modus vivendi that, even if it did not fully resolve the nationality problem, would facilitate cordial relations between Romania and the monarchy. More substantial improvements could be left to the inexorable march of history. A similar approach came to rule at the Belvedere; the crown prince feared Tisza and worried that if the Romanians were 'taken in ' by administrative concessions, his own freedom of manoeuvre would be constrained.

In autumn 1910, the Romanian National party submitted its economic and cultural demands to Tisza. The twenty-three items included extension of the franchise, a guarantee of fifty constituencies, official status for the Romanian language, a minimum number of administrative posts reserved for Romanians, establishment of a new bishopric, higher state subsidies for Romanian cultural projects, the creation of three Romanian secondary schools, and the promotion of economic development, along the lines of the 'Székely program,' in Romanian-inhabited districts. In return, the Romanians promised that they would accept the basic terms of the 1867 Compromise. However, they refused to offer sustained support for the government. Tisza (as well as Khuen-Héderváry) considered these terms unacceptable, but they were prepared to take the memorandum as a starting point for negotiation.

The eight members of the Romanian party's negotiating committee were divided. Although Maniu and Vlad privately acknowledged that the Hungarian side was showing much flexibility and consideration, they refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the prevailing legal order. Appalled at the disunity and the escalation of demands, Mihu threatened to resign. For a time, the Romanian consul in Budapest managed to dissuade him; but when Khuen-Héderváry declared that the memorandum's agressive tone, and the {3-721.} Romanians' pretension that they were equal negotiating partners, were intolerable, Mihu gave up his attempts at mediation and withdrew from the committee. He did consult in December with King Charles, Brătianu, and Take Ionescu, all of whom approved of the negotiations. Even the author of Die Vereinigten Staaten von Grossösterreich, Aurel C. Popovici, spoke up in support of the initiative. By sending a message of greetings to Tisza, the king effectively instructed the Romanians to carry on with the negotiations. In the meantime, the terms of the Romanian memorandum leaked out; this complicated the task of the Romanian negotiators, who now felt bound to pursue objectives that had been included in the list only out of tactical considerations. The suppression of factionalism acquired urgency when the negotiators found themselves paralysed by the negative propaganda emanating from diverse dissenting groups.

The strongest faction, the Tribuna group at Arad, had become identified with Octavian Goga. This talented poet from Szeben County won popularity on both sides of the Carpathians by his contributions to two literary–political journals, first, Luceafărul, founded in 1902 at Budapest, and then, Ţara Noastră. His poetry had a strong social orientation and was inspired by populist tendencies in Romania. Goga had emerged as the leading figure in the Tribuna group after Mangra's departure and the public discredit of several of his colleagues. In time, Goga's talent and his defence of popular liberties would earn him the sympathy of the prominent Hungarian poet Endre Ady. In a series of articles marked by a poet's incisive and lapidary style, Goga denounced the national committee for having precipitated electoral defeat and called for its rejuvenation. His followers, the 'steely youths,' wanted to transform the traditional committee–ridden party into a mass organization. Determined to reform the structure and spirit of Romanian society, and to rid it of alien — Hungarian or Jewish–Hungarian — influences, they tried to develop a new ideological approach that {3-722.} blended an ostensibly democratic, conservative anti-capitalism with messianism and religious mysticism; their approach also bore the traces of contemporary sociology and Hungarian liberal radicalism.

Open discord between factions undermined the political credibility of the Romanian National party and prompted a justifiable suspicion in government circles that the party's leaders had lost control. The liquidation of Tribuna became a condition of the party's political survival, and Bucharest concurred in this judgment; even King Charles was annoyed by the paper. In Hungary, on the other hand, the paper's was gaining in popularity for, in its new guise of political scandal-sheet, it titillated lower middle-class Romanians. The latter enjoyed reading attacks on the committee (which they considered impotent) and on such old and discredited values as solidarity and party discipline. The party leaders tried to bargain; when that failed, they forcefully condemned factionalism and, in 1911, founded — at great expense — an official party newspaper, also at Arad; it bore the title Românul and was edited by the former Tribunist Vasile Goldiş. Românul brought a new low in Transylvanian–Romanian journalism, for its sole guiding principle was to crush Tribuna. To that end, the editors recruited a fearsome satirical journalist from Bucharest, I. L. Caragiale. Whenever one paper organized a meeting between its staff and readers and invited writers from Romania, the other would follow suit, and then the two would accuse each other of 'involving their brothers from the Regat' in party quarrels. The rough and tough struggle, replete with personal insult, had all the appearances of a religious war and prompted gleeful commentary in the Hungarian press. Bucharest finally intervened to end the crisis. The Tribuna group came under moral pressure from public figures in Romania. Then, in March 1912, Bucharest dispatched a trusted agent, C. Stere, to Arad; applying forceful tactics, he managed within two weeks to liquidate Tribuna. The journal and its assets were taken over by the committee {3-723.} and merged with Românul. Goga, who had been sentenced for libel, found refuge from this unpleasant affair in the relative calm of Szeged jail. The 25-year Tribuna movement thus came to an end. 'Stere's peace' brought Romanian National Party leaders a nominal victory over a more democratically-based faction; despite its internal divisions, the committee could now project an image of unity. Freed from the burden of overt factionalism, the leadership gained some room to manoeuvre and compromise.

Romanian political activity in Transylvania became more intense. Beginning in 1910, political rallies multiplied, generally with the assent of the authorities. Associations flourished, thanks in part to the generosity of a Bessarabian landowner, Vasile Stroescu, who over three years donated more than 500,000 crowns to this cause. The celebration, in 1911, of ASTRA's fiftieth anniversary took the form of a major, pan-Romanian political demonstration; a prominent, symbolic role was reserved for Aurel Vlaicu, a talented Transylvanian aviator engaged in attempts to fly over the Carpathians.[79]79. V. Curticăpeanu, Le mouvement culturel pour le parachèvement de l'Etat national roumain (Bucharest, 1973), pp. 99-101.

The second phase of the negotiations between the Work-party government and Transylvanian Romanians was inspired in part by Bucharest. In November 1912, Brătianu urged Tisza to confer with Mihali, the leader of the Romanian parliamentary group; he assured Tisza that although the group was 'occasionally compelled to take an uncompromising tone' by radicals in the party, it nevertheless 'wholly suppported Hungary's present constitution.'[80]80. Pölöskei, Tisza István, p. 10. Tisza and the new prime minister, the onetime Transylvanian László Lukács, invited Mihali to form a negotiating team with other delegates from his party. The invitation occasioned much surprise, for it signified official acknowledgement of the Romanian National Party's legality. A ten-member committee authorized three of their number to enter into negotiations, which got under way in January 1913 at Tisza's apartment. Mihali, Maniu, and Branisce handed over a set of eleven demands; on the advice of the crown prince, the demands {3-724.} were formulated in such a way that any agreement based on them 'could be construed at any time as being violated by the Hungarians, and therefore null and void.'[81]81. Al. Vaida-Voevod's letter of 23 January 1913, Kriegsarchiv, Wien, Militärkanzlei Franz Ferdinand, Rumänische Akten, 303/9. Although the demands reflected needs inherent to a developing national movement, they were long-term goals and ill-suited to form the basis a negotiated agreement. They included Romanian language classes at all levels in state, municipal, and denominational schools; greater autonomy for the Uniate Church; use of the Romanian language in public administration and the courts; total freedom of association and the press; and some fifty parliamentary seats to reflect their share of the population. This escalation of demands brought a guarded response from Tisza: he reiterated promises of economic concessions and remedies for the more manageable grievances involving the Churches and public administration. With the concurrence of the crown prince, the Romanians broke off negotiations. Only Mihali continued to negotiate, in secret; he obtained that twenty-one Romanian villages, attached to the Hungarian Uniate bishopric that had been established in 1912 at Hajdúdorog, be re-annexed to the Romanian archbishopric, and that the state make some minor concessions in the spheres of education and administration.

When, in autumn 1913, the third round of negotiations got under way, international tensions were still running high; only two months had passed since the Bucharest treaty that ended the Balkan wars. On October 27–28, Tisza, now prime minister, conferred with three Romanian delegates. Encouraged by Romania's more powerful status and by stronger support from the crown prince, the latter expanded the list of demands, which now included the appointment of Romanians acceptable to their party as lords lieutenant and undersecretaries of state. Tisza, in turn, was more accommodating than in the previous round. He promised the free use of Romanian, in oral as well as written communication, in public administration and the lower courts; the testing of officials' proficiency in the language of the region where they were assigned; instruction in Romanian at elementary schools attended by a sizeable number of {3-725.} Romanians; and the teaching of Romanian as a subject at the public secondary schools in such districts. Tisza also promised the establishment of a state-supported Romanian secondary school and an increase in state subsidies — which then stood at 7 million crowns — earmarked for Romanian projects. On the other hand, he ruled out an early appointment of Romanian under-secretaries and the consequent institutionalization of Romanian influence over government policies. Tisza did make some further, and significant, concessions. First, he told the Romanians that they could count on thirty parliamentary constituencies now, and more later; second, he was willing to 'reconsider' the 'lex Apponyi.' However, he demanded equally significant concessions in return: the Romanian party would have to abandon its platform of grievances, endorse unreservedly the existing state system, proclaim (in some appropriate formulation) that the new agreement amounted to a lasting settlement of the nationality question, and devote its political efforts to implementing the agreement to the greatest benefit of the Romanian people. The proclamation would have to make clear that Tisza considered this agreement to be an essentially final settlement of the Romanian question.

The Romanian party faced a serious dilemma. It could not doubt Tisza's seriousness of purpose. Bucharest as well as Vienna favoured an early accord; the Romanian community at large also had an immediate interest in improving relations with the government. The party would have accepted Tisza's offer if he had not demanded that it proclaim the finality of the new settlement and give up its objections to Dualism. Speaking for themselves, the party leaders might have complied with this condition; however, they anticipated that the broader Romanian intelligentsia would be more intransigent, and thus they did not want to overcommmit themselves to Tisza and the government. They wanted an agreement but, preferring to remain in opposition, were not ready to live with its consequences.

{3-726.} Mihu branded their ambivalent approach to the negotiations as 'political Hamletism.' Vaida-Voevod and his companions did find a formula that would allow their party to give up the demands for universal franchise and revision of the Dualist system. They would have liked to obtain other concessions, but this prospect alarmed Francis Ferdinand's advisers. The latter believed, in the words of Ottokar Czernin, who occasionally acted as the archduke's emissary to Bucharest, that it was better if 'Hungary's Romanians stayed hungry and continued to yearn for His Imperial Highness.'[82]82. Czernin's letter to the crown prince's military bureau, 6 January 1914, Kriegsarchiv, Wien, Militärkanzlei Franz Ferdinand, Rumänische Akten (no file number). Francis Ferdinand and his advisers were apprehensive about Tisza's latest concessions, and became even more so when the Hungarian prime minister, perceiving the archduke's strategy, tactically dropped his last demand, that the Romanians accept the agreement as a final settlement and issue a formal 'declaration of renunciation.' Tisza thus made sure that he would not have to bear the odium for failure.

The Belvedere group reacted in some confusion. A flustered Czernin flitted between the archduke, the Transylvanian Romanians, Tisza, Bucharest, and the German foreign office, which had been rallied against Tisza; he only succeeded in crossing Tisza, who branded him a 'colossal ass.' The Workshop had no option but to play its hidden card. As late as 30 December 1913, the crown prince's office was ruled by the principle that 'an agreement must definitely be reached.'[83]83. Carl von Bardolff's memorandum to the crown prince, 30 December 1913, Kriegsarchiv, Wien, Militärkanzlei Franz Ferdinand, Rumänische Akten (no file number). In January, the Belvedere group managed to obtain three additional electoral mandates for the Romanians, but they stopped pressing for an early agreement, having come to the conclusion that a Hungarian–Romanian settlement would undermine the prospects of the 'Greater Austria' scheme that they had been working on for years. The draft of a letter from the crown prince, dating from this period, reveals that he had endorsed the negotiations with great reluctance, and only because of foreign policy imperatives: 'I am fundamentally opposed to a settlement, for it threatens to drive our Romanians into the Hungarian, anti-Habsburg {3-727.} camp, and that would be highly dangerous for me personally ... I have no wish for a Romanian cohort beholden to Tisza.'[84]84. Francis Ferdinand's draft letter to Czernin, January 1914, Kriegsarchiv, Wien, Militärkanzlei Franz Ferdinand, Rumänische Akten (no file number). Accordingly, the Romanians were warned not to seek agreement at any cost. The advice helped the fretful national committee to reach a decision. On 17 February 1914, they resolved that Tisza's proposal 'did not suffice to clear up — even temporarily — the conflicts between Hungarian government policy and the Romanians.'[85]85. Quoted in Magyarország története, Vol. 7, p. 853.

Until 1913, Romania's politicians counselled the Romanians in Hungary to seek an accord with the government. By now, such urgings came mainly from the elderly King Charles, and even he wished that Hungary would fundamentally recast its policy toward the nationalities. Brătianu told Germany's ambassador that 'the Hungarians must not retain their exclusive hold on power;' they should, instead, be content with being first among equals and share power with the minorities. Being rather less spectacular, Tisza's concessions were underestimated by Bucharest.

Tisza saw failure looming and tried to forestall it. He mobilized the lords lieutenant in Transylvania to appease the Hungarian opponents of negotiation, and he invited Romanian Church leaders to do likewise. Still, he was not surprised by the Romanian party's final decision. 'I am distressed,' wrote Tisza to Mihali, 'for I see little hope of reaching our goal at this time, but I am happy to note that you Romanians also see signs of significant progress and rapprochement.'[86]86. Tisza's letter to Mihali, 12 February 1914, quoted in Pölöskei, Tisza István. Thus, in early 1914, the Dualist era's last attempt to replicate the success with the Saxons and integrate the Romanians — including those tending toward national separatism — into Hungary's political life ended in failure.

Since the problem of Transylvania had long transcended the duel for power between the region's Hungarians and Romanians, it is not surprising that official Hungarian–Romanian negotiations were conducted over the heads of Transylvania's Hungarian politicians. The attitudes and views of the latter have yet to be fully uncovered by historical research. Their reactions appear to have {3-728.} been motivated principally by anxiety, a sentiment that was intensified in 1913, when, thanks to the Bucharest peace treaty, Romania emerged as a significant power in southeastern Europe. They realized that the status of Transylvania's Romanians had to be ameliorated, but they failed to come up with a suitably progressive alternative. In fact, Transylvania's politicians considered that even Tisza's concessions were excessive. These attitudes were displayed in the weighty parliamentary debate, held at the end of 1913, on the nationality question: István Bethlen took a firm stand against any compromise, while Zoltán Désy argued that the problem would be resolved by a general process of democratization. Désy's opinion was shared by the distinguished rector of Kolozsvár University, István Apáthy, as well as by a rising political star, Mihály Károlyi. The latter averred that a state ought not to bargain with its citizens, and that group autonomy was out of the question.