The cooperation of the Polish and Hungarian states, connected with the renewal of their independent existence after the Great War, included, among others, the supply of arms from the Danube river to the reviving Polish Army. The first train carrying Hungarian ammunition reached Poland in November 1918, during the initial phase of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over Lviv. The Hungarians also supported us during the Bolshevik War - among others, on 19 March 1919 we received from them 20 million cartridges for Mannlicher rifles and 20 thousand artillery shells, for which we paid with coal supplies.
These were not, however, ordinary military purchases. They were carried out in very specific conditions which both countries found themselves in.
Throughout the war with the Bolsheviks, the Comintern created committees to support Soviet Russia and secretly financed anti-Polish press propaganda. Many workers in Western Europe believed that in Russia the power of the proletariat implements the idea of social justice and that Poland is the enemy of all workers. All over the continent, trade unions blocked transports for Poland and started strikes under the slogans: "Hands off Russia" and "Not a single cartridge for your Poland". Many governments, such as the British, Czechoslovakian, Lithuanian and, of course, German, also took an unfavourable or even hostile stance towards Poland.
Hungary’s situation was even worse, as it was bleeding with the red revolution and was treated internationally as a country defeated in the Great War. The winning France was organising Central Europe according to its own interests, at the expense of Hungarians. That is why our cousins strived to sign a political agreement with Poland and a secret military convention, seeing us as the only ally in a very difficult international situation for them. First of all, they expected that Warsaw would be an advocate of Budapest among the Entente countries and would support it in its fight for the recovery of the historic Upper Hungary. In return, they offered to supply military equipment, armaments and even to organize a voluntary conscription to a Hungarian legion to fight on the Polish-Bolshevik front. On the Vistula River, however, there was great resistance against such a rapprochement with Hungary, especially among the pro-French National Democracy, which had a very strong influence in the Polish diplomatic corps.
All the inhibitions ceased in the face of Bolsheviks' progress on the front in 1920, when the rapid supply of specific weapons and military equipment to the Polish army became a matter of life and death for us. Sometimes the stockpile of munitions reached a critical state
and Polish soldiers fought with a dozen or so bullets. A possible loss of Poland in the war with the Bolsheviks would be a direct threat to their return to the Pannonian Basin. The experience of the red rule of Béla Kuna on the Danube was so traumatic that in June 1920 the Chief of Staff of the Hungarian army, Colonel Géza Dormánda, offered to send the Polish command a Hungarian military contingent of 30 000 Honvéds. The moods of Hungarians towards Poland at that time were well reflected in the Christian-national magazine Új Nemzedék (New Generation) writing: "We do not know what the Coalition will do, we must be ready to take the side of Poland. The fate of Poland is our fate".
On June 3, 1920, an agreement was concluded between the Main Procurement Office of the Polish Army and Manfred Weiss for the supply of 38 million rifle cartridges. The Chargé d'Affaires of Hungary in Warsaw was then Iván Csekonics – who strove for friendly political and military cooperation between Poland and Hungary. He was trusted by Poles and was consulted many times by the heads of Polish diplomacy and personally by Józef Piłsudski. With the help of Csekonics, a shipment containing 890,000 cartridges for Mauser rifles was made available to Poland on 8 July under the agreement of 3 July. On the same day, the Hungarian Minister for National Defence, Major General István Sréter, ordered the immediate transfer to Poland of the entire stock of ammunition from the Hungarian army and ordered that for the next two weeks, the Manfred Weiss ammunition factory should work exclusively for Poland. The Ministry of Railways ordered to treat all trains that travel to Poland, as transports of the highest importance and privilege. By July 30, most of the transports with supplies had crossed Hungary and also Romania. After that date, i.e. the day when the Second Socialist International announced a boycott of all transports to Poland, the Hungarians took on the entire effort to help Warsaw.
However, their supplies could not pass through Czechoslovakia (by government decision in Prague), which delayed them for many weeks critical for the fate of Poland. The Czechs even tried to stop the Franco-British military and political mission going to Poland (including Maxime Weygand, Edgar Vincent D'Abernon, Maurice Hankey).
In view of the huge losses of the Polish cavalry on the front, the idea of using the support of the Romanian and Hungarian cavalry also appeared in Warsaw. However, while the negotiations with Bucharest did not raise any objections or even the favour of Paris, the talks with Budapest on this matter had to be conducted unofficially. The Polish side was striving for 20-30 thousand horses. A telegram sent to Warsaw by the then Hungarian Foreign Minister, Pál Teleki, on July 13th showed that Hungary could not offer such a large number of cavalry units, but would gladly compensate for this with units of other types of armed forces. Csekonics suggested to his government that the hussars returning to their homeland could support the Hungarian uprising in Slovakia and thus facilitate the return of the area to its Hungarian homeland. It was very important for Budapest to ensure the neutrality of Romania in the face of such an eventuality, which they expected from Warsaw.
The Hungarian military attaché in Warsaw, Colonel József Takách-Tolvay, also conducted very advanced talks with the Polish general staff on the armament of Hungarian squadrons. Heavy equipment was to be provided by Poland or the Entente, hussars and horses by the Hungarian side. However, the case was closed on 4 August when the Hungarian Ambassador to Paris, Iván Praznovszky, announced that the Entente, in view of Czechoslovakia's irrevocable and strong opposition, did not agree to send hussars to help Poland. In this situation, all that could be obtained was the aforementioned transport of ammunition from the Weiss factory, which was also stopped by the government in Prague. The train was diverted along a circular route, through Romania, which, of course, prolonged its journey. Finally, on 12 August 1920, 80 wagons with Hungarian ammunition rolled into the railway station in Mazovian Skierniewice.
We received the following from our cousins:
- 35 million rounds for Mauser rifles;
- 13 million Mauser artillery shells;
- 10 million Mannlicher rounds;
- 600,000 Mannlicher cartridges;
- 40 million Mauser cartridge pistons and many other pieces of military equipment.
As we know today (from the report submitted by General Kazimierz Sosnkowski during the meeting of the Council for State Defence on 5 July 1920), the ammunition at the disposal of the Polish Army was to be used up on 14 August 1920. So the Hungarian transport arrived in Poland at the last moment before... the catastrophe during the decisive battle of the whole war. The ammunition and equipment delivered to our units made it possible to win the Battle of Warsaw and Niemen, thus reversing the fate of the campaign and defending the newly regained independence.
In September 1920, the head of the Polish General Staff, General Tadeusz Rozwadowski, addressed Colonel József Takách-Tolvay with the following words: "Remember that we will never forget the noble intention of the Hungarians, with which they wanted to serve us sincerely in the most difficult moments for us. [....] There may come a time when we will return the favour. [....] You were the only nation that really wanted to help us, the support of the French came only after great pressure, and even then, what kind of support was it? The English were against Poland with the Lithuanians and Germans, the latter in turn were against the Czechs.
In total, between 1919 and 1921 Hungary delivered 75 million pieces of ammunition to Poland.
After the peace treaty was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland refused to ratify the Treaty of Trianon, which means that in the legal sense Poland never recognised the partition of Hungary.
Artur Kolęda
autor jest historykiem i publicystą, pracownikiem Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej