They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [172]
All the same there were a few signs that something disquieting was moving under the surface, and this not only in the Balkans. It was rumoured that a Russian secret agent, one Count Dobrinsky, was travelling about in disguise on the Hungarian side of the Carpathians.
It seemed that he had already been in Ruthenia for some little time and that his presence there had only become remarked when, instead of the old-style little wooden chapels, there had been erected many new churches built of stone in the Russian manner with money from an unknown source. Wherever such a new ‘Russian’ church appeared so at the same time did a portrait of the Tsar, Father of all the Russias. But Dobrinsky was not only there to build propaganda churches, his real function, it was reported, was to draw strategic maps of the passes over the Carpathians and to recruit a network of confidential informers, about fifty of whom had been arrested and brought to trial at the end of December.
This was the calm before the storm. It was the beginning of 1914.
Society in the Hungarian capital did not seem to be aware of any of these things. Nor did Parliament. Nearly everyone was interested only by whatever scandal came their way. Only Tisza was doing everything he could to make up for lost time. Only he saw how necessary this was. Even though it was so late in the day he did all he could to bring peace to the controversy over the status of the ethnic minorities in the kingdom. He alone, it seemed, realized how essential it was to get these troubles settled before some world crisis would test the country’s mettle. He initiated talks with the influential Romanian politician Maniu – and was promptly attacked by Justh and other chauvinist demagogues for so doing. The county of Pest reacted stormily. The discussions went on for some six weeks, until, in the end, the Romanian ‘national committee’ rejected the Minister-President’s overtures. Despite their refusal to co-operate Tisza declared that for his part he would be as good as his word and continue to hold out the hand of friendship whether it was grasped or not.
It was the last very late attempt to solve a problem that had dogged Hungarian politics for more than a decade. It was, perhaps, a trifle shop-soiled too, because of the irredentist pretensions of the Bucharest peace treaty. But Tisza, even if he had wanted to, could not then have offered more. His hands were tied, firstly by the fact that public opinion was against him and secondly because there were so few others in public life sufficiently clear-sighted to realize the seriousness of the international situation.
At the end of February Balint again found himself back in the Kalotaszeg. He had to go to Magyarokerek to deal with a most interesting situation that had developed there. After a series of abortive attempts a Co-operative society had been formed in the villages in the mountains where the only work was in forestry. This was not unlike the one of two similar societies which had already been formed in the Szekler country. Abady was anxious to persuade this new Co-operative to affiliate to his national movement. This was no easy task, especially in the bigger villages like Kalota-Szentkiraly, Valko and Gyero-Monostor who had all rejected the idea of affiliation. However, the people of Magyarokerek were more flexible in their ideas and accepted Balint’s proposition within a month of forming their Co-operative. Balint therefore felt himself bound to find them a forest, for though the villagers were honest, and full of goodwill and joy in their work, they had no money with which to pay for the standing timber on whatever land might be made available to them. This was the custom, but it was difficult to find a landowner willing to forego the profit on land which he had always regarded as there only for his personal profit.
Balint accordingly had decided to give them one of his own holdings which was