The United States and the Burgenland, 1918–1920

Abstract

Among the many delimitations determined by the Paris Peace Conference was the rectification of theAusgleichfrontier of 1867 between Austria and Hungary. Article 27, paragraph 5, of the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon detached from the former Kingdom of Hungary the German-speaking western districts of the Hungarian Counties of Moson (Wieselburg), Sopron (Ödenburg), and Vas (Eisenburg). This region, then known as German West Hungary and subsequently as the Burgenland, had been the object of dispute between Austria and Hungary in the immediate postwar years. In the interval between the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in the autumn of 1918 and the Treaty of Trianon in June, 1920, the reactions of American representatives in Central Europe varied from advocation of the union of West Hungary with Austria to admonitions that the proposal was a serious miscalculation because the will of the inhabitants had not been ascertained and because historic and economic principles had been given only cursory consideration. In short, American observations mirrored the incertitude surrounding the West Hungarian controversy.