Miklós Bánffy - They Were Counted

As it had been a few months before, so it was now, and everyone in the Casino had their own ideas of what was going to happen on the following day. They wandered from group to group noisily broadcasting their views. The only thing upon which everyone agreed was that a period of dictatorial rule had started and would continue into the foreseeable future. What should be done? There were worried faces on all sides. Everyone had a different theory. No doubt, swore some of those arguing in the Casino, their leaders would come up with some clever, hitherto unthought-of solution, politically adroit and unassailable. As they waited for definite news the arguments raged. One idea, which made everyone laugh gleefully, was put forward by a well-known Budapest lawyer renowned for his wit; and this had at once been been headlined in the newspapers. It was beautiful, it was simple and it put everyone in a roar. Briefly it was that all Members of Parliament should at once resign their seats and all elected official resign their positions. Thus there would be no speaker, no officials of the house, not even a sergeant-at-arms to whom the royal decree would be handed.

‘What a tremendous joke that’d be!’ shouted Wuelffenstein. ‘Fancy General Nyiri running about in all directions, paper in hand, and no one there to give it to! Why, he couldn’t even call a meeting as the house-rules state you have to have forty members for that.’

‘Pity they hadn’t thought of this before. It’s a bit late now!’ said someone else.

So they waited and talked until word came from the party leaders: everyone was to be at the parliament building and in their seats by half-past nine at the latest. Nothing else; but it was enough.

In the morning all entrances to Parliament Square were blocked by police. No one could pass without showing his official papers. The square itself presented an alarming, sinister sight. Everywhere there were soldiers, national guards with their rifles stacked in neat pyramids, and Colonel Fabritius, their commander, standing in front of them. Right in the centre there was a squadron of hussars, mounted but at ease. Behind the police cordons waited groups of silent, grey-clad working men, not many but certainly a few hundred. More of them were collected farther back in Alkotmany Street, and a man in the crowd called out that the workers had been summoned by the government itself. There were a few newspaper men in the square and these cheered the better-known deputies as they arrived. All the elected members hurried inside, where they collected in groups whispering among themselves.

Bells sounded to announce that the House was in session and everyone went swiftly to his place. The official notary started reading something, gabbling in a low voice. Then Rakovszky, the vice-chairman, took the stand.

Rakovszky was heard in dead silence. He said that the session had been called to receive the King’s message. General Nyiri, the plenipotentiary Royal Commissioner, had announced that he would expect the people’s elected representatives to attend him at eleven o’clock at the royal palace, when he would read out the royal decree dissolving Parliament. Rakovszky now added his own remarks to the official statement, raising fine points of the legality of such a procedure. It seemed that the royal message was not to be handed to him by the Minister-President but by two army officers, and that it would be in a sealed envelope. Since, he said, it was customary for such documents to be presented to the House by the Minister-President, he advised that the Parliament should not accept the envelope but that it should be handed back at once to the appointed officers. This was the formula decided on by the party leaders at the previous evening’s meeting. It was a revolutionary decision because it would mean that, after all the fuss, nothing would have happened. It would be a fact that Parliament had been called into session … but dissolved? No one would have any knowledge of that, either officially or legally. Those unfamiliar with parliamentary procedure were somewhat bemused by this solution and it took a few moments for Rakovszky’s words to sink in. However, so strong was the feeling that they must act in strict accordance with the law, and that this only was important, that general approval was soon given to the proposal.

The chairman of the assembly now quickly suggested that the house should meet again two days later, on 21 February. Everyone knew that this would never happen, for the army had already been ordered to occupy the Parliament building and at that moment the soldiers were pouring into the ground floor and were already coming up the stairs that led to the chamber. This was disregarded, for everyone felt that they must stand on their own legal rights and proceed accordingly. At this point one of the sergeants-at-arms rushed in and shouted: ‘They’re coming! They’re already in the corridor!’

At once there was a general uproar, the chairman rose, closed the session and hurried off the platform. Everyone made for the exits, jostling each other in their hurry to get away.

Then through the lower door a stout uniformed officer stalked in. It was Colonel Fabritius. All those heading for that exit turned and rushed towards whatever other escape from the chamber they could find. As they did so the colonel mounted the podium and read out the royal decree of dissolution, but the only people to hear him were the journalists in the press gallery. As soon as he had finished the chamber was occupied by armed soldiers.

In the corridors the fleeing members found that soldiers had been posted everywhere. They were all from the National Guard of Budapest. It was a tragic and shameful sight — an armed military occupation of Parliament, the ancient citadel of Hungary’s independence. The soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder facing the entrances to the chamber, like a dark wall shutting out even the grey morning light from the windows behind them.

Balint, who scorned the idea of running away, was one of the last to leave the chamber. He walked slowly and sadly towards the main stairway but stopped when Bela Varju came running towards him.

‘They’ve closed the entrance. No one can get out that way!’ he called from a distance.

‘Perhaps we can go through the common rooms?’ suggested Abady, and together they quickly disappeared through one of the doors. Once inside Balint glanced back and saw that they had only just been in time, for he could already see the backs of soldiers lined up outside the wide glass doors through which they had just slipped.

Balint was quicker than Varju, who was now somewhat out of breath. He turned at the exit on the other side of the room and, for the first time seeing the comic side of it all, called back: ‘Hurry up, my friend, we don’t want to find our coats again in the Vienna prison-house!’

Balint’s train did not leave until two o’clock, so he went first to lunch at the Casino. There the atmosphere was one of unrelieved gloom. One or two people were conferring in low tones, but they fell silent if anyone came near them. Even at the long communal table the events of that morning were hardly mentioned. Shoulders were shrugged but everyone kept their opinions to themselves. Fredi Wuelffenstein, normally so ebullient, never once talked of how his Hungarian blood was boiling. It was the realization that no one knew any longer what the future would bring that deadened everyone’s spirits. Secretly there were many who began to wonder if they had not been wrong in making those demands about the army and the laws which had brought them into direct confrontation with the monarch.