They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [153]
From then on no one in the House would speak on any subject other than the salt-contract scandal. In vain did the government try to introduce a bill for wider suffrage. The waves of personal hatred and malice were so strong that no progress could be made. One day in March the opposition appeared in force in the Chamber, and Lovaszy, backed by some seventy or eighty supporters, shouted out ‘Stop for a moment!’ and in the brief silence that followed all those behind him started calling out ‘Salt! Salt! Salt! Salt!’ Of course Tisza suspended the session and ordered in the guards. These were at once rounded on by the rebellious members, who tried to wean the guards from their duty by explaining to them that their military oaths were not valid and did all they could to get them too to mutiny and disobey orders.
This was the first time that these so-called politicians, who made great play of their patriotic duty, tried to incite mutiny. It did not succeed.
Now they looked around for new allies and even went so far as to make common ground with the most left-wing of the Galilei Club, with whom they organized a big meeting in the Vigado. At this rally the public were regaled with the unusual sight of the otherwise reactionary Apponyi and Aladar Zichy sitting side by side with Jaszi and Kunfi who some years later were to play a leading part in the October Revolution and the Bolshevik regime which followed it. Everything was forgotten except party hatreds and opposition to the government.
At the same time as this was happening at home the situation abroad was growing ever more serious.
Diplomatic activity had never been so frenzied. In London a conference was convened to heal the wounds and lead to peace, but it was held in vain. Even though Turkey accepted most of the great powers’ proposals, peace seemed as elusive as ever. The much-vaunted disinterestedness of the great powers was clearly shown for what it really was by their insistence on Turkey’s ceding the Aegean Islands to their own jurisdiction – a concession that was immediately granted but which led only to the peace talks being abandoned. Adrianople remained under siege while Montenegro never paused for a moment in the shelling and encircling of Scutari, cynically disregarding the fact that the London Conference had just confirmed Albania’s right of ownership.
What impertinence! said the great powers. This cannot be tolerated, they muttered indignantly: but six weeks went by until it was already the end of March before they managed to agree upon any practical action. A resolution was made summoning Nikita to explain himself. Nikita refused to appear. Then, at the beginning of April, the Allied fleets demonstrated before Antivari. Still Nikita refused either to budge or to restrain his army. Then an international blockade against tiny Montenegro was declared; but even this had no effect upon Nikita, who scornfully ignored it while his armies occupied Scutari.
And they stayed there, regardless of the menaces launched from the London Conference. Nikita must have had secret knowledge that Russia stood behind him despite her ambassador’s public support for the sanctions agreed in London.
The Dual Monarchy now found herself forced to take the initiative. In London she declared that she could not tolerate the Montenegrin presence in Scutari and would therefore ‘act independently’.
War, which had been coming nearer and nearer for two months, now stood before the door.
Balint read all this in the newspapers, but he was not as affected as he used to be; for his anxiety was personal and near at hand. There was, firstly, his mother