They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [109]
During the previous weeks Lukacs had been doing everything he could to get the army estimates passed with only a year’s validity. To get Justh’s co-operation he had made two different offers on the suffrage question. Both had been turned down. Neither did he get very far elsewhere for Apponyi, in a public speech, declared that neither he nor any of his followers would even discuss what Lukacs was proposing, while Justh let it be known that he found even the suffrage concessions inadequate.
The chances of reaching general agreement were still further reduced by a split in the Independent party, for just when it had appeared that an agreement with Justh was imminent, the Kossuth-Apponyi group brought up an absurdly far-fetched set of nationalistic demands. Then, as Justh did not want to be made to appear less patriotic than the others, he in turn put forward some even more radical suggestions – and only Lukacs knew how his hands had been tied by his secret allegiance to the Heir’s policies which left him with no room for manoeuvre. The Justh party now put forward ever more stubborn and revolutionary demands for reform in the mistaken belief that the Minister-President had the power to grant them. They had the means to obstruct the passing by Parliament of any measures with which they did not agree, and they used this power relentlessly. All that was done in the House in those days was endless voting on trivialities … voting, voting … closed sessions and more voting.
At this point Tisza once more emerged into the limelight.
Though it had not yet happened, it was everywhere believed that soon Navy, who had succeeded Berzeviczy as Speaker of the House, would resign and that Tisza would take his place.
This would mean a violation of the Rules of the House for only a few years before, in 1904, Tisza had himself been at the head of affairs.
Abady moved from group to group, saying nothing but listening to what everyone had to say. He only stayed about fifteen minutes listening to each discussion before moving on to the next; but everywhere he heard the same thing, hatred for Tisza, hatred and more hatred, hatred from every kind and shade of opinion in the opposition, hatred from faithful believers in the 1867 Compromise, hatred from the followers of Andrassy, from members of the People’s Party and even from those unrepentant old politicians who still brandished the banner of 1848 and revolt against the Habsburgs. There was no difference anywhere.
On the other hand there was no such unanimity in the government’s own ranks. Those few supporters of Tisza who were present kept their mouths firmly closed and stood about in frigid silence. The rest of Lukacs’s supporters belonged to that familiar type of politician, inane and passive like so many who blindly follow where they think the majority are leading and who are only happy when betting on a certainty. Such men are dismayed by the hazardous and they were now restless and anxious, shaking their heads and vainly trying to reassure themselves by repeating to each other what they firmly believed to be words of ponderous political wisdom. They were obviously scared, for they remembered what had happened in 1904, and the memory of the disastrous days that followed now made their very bones ache. They tried to bolster up their courage by telling each other that Tisza’s force of will would overcome all difficulties and that it would be done peaceably and with none of the violence of those other days. The mere fact of having a strong man like Tisza controlling the business of the House would be menace enough to keep the trouble-makers in their place. Hedging their bets, as such politicians are wont to do, a number of them went round whispering in the ears of anyone who would listen, especially their political opponents, that should there be any repetition of violence in the Chamber, they personally had never approved of such methods and indeed went so far as to oppose them!
Balint found all this deeply disheartening. He thought of Tisza, whom he greatly admired, risking