The figures furnished by the Hungarian delegation left no doubt behind:  they treated of the dismemberment of Hungary and the sacrifice of three millions and a half of Magyars and of the German population of Hungary to people certainly more ignorant and less advanced.  At the end Apponyi and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for anything more than a plebiscite for the territories in dispute.

After he had explained in a marvellous manner the great function of historic Hungary, that of having saved on various occasions Europe from barbaric invasion, and of having known how to maintain its unity for ten centuries in spite of the many differences amongst nations, Count Apponyi showed how important it was for Europe to have a solid Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and violence.

You can say [added Apponyi] that against all these reasons there is only one—­victory, the right of victory.  We know it, gentlemen; we are sufficient realists in politics to count on this factor.  We know what we owe to victory and we are ready to pay the price of our defeat.  But should this be the sole principle of construction:  that force alone should be the basis of what you would build, that force alone should be the base of the new building, that material force alone should be the power to hold up those constructions which fall whilst you are trying to build them?  The future of Europe would then be sad, and we cannot believe it.  We do not find all that in the mentality of the victorious nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which you have defined the principles for which you have fought, and the objects of the War which you have proposed to yourselves.

And after having referred to the traditions of the past, Count Apponyi added: 

We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which you have proclaimed:  it would be doing you injustice to think otherwise.  We have faith in the moral forces with which you have wished to identify your cause.  And all that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory of your arms may be surpassed by the glory of the peace which you will give to the world.

The Hungarian delegation was simply heard; but the treaty, which had been previously prepared and was the natural consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, was in no way modified.

An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is superfluous.  By a stroke of irony the financial and economic clauses inflict the most serious burdens on a country which had lost almost everything:  which has lost the greatest number of men proportionately in the War, which since the War has had two revolutions, which for four months suffered the sackings of Bolshevism—­led by Bela Kun and the worst elements of revolutionary political crime—­and, finally, has suffered a Rumanian occupation, which was worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism.

It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties imposed on the conquered is lasting and which is the least supportable:  after the Treaty of Versailles, all the treaties have had the same tendency and the same conformation.