purpose, and then sent an official report on this dispute to M. Pichon asking him for a definite statement of the Allied point of view, which would then be taken by the Magyars and ourselves as definitive and binding. My report was sent on November 25th, and two days later I received a reply from M. Pichon, which contained the following:
In your letter of November 25th you drew my attention to the conclusions arising from the Armistice negotiated with Count Károlyi on November 13th, and running counter to the Armistice with Austria-Hungary which the Allies signed on November 3rd.
In view of the fact that Count Károlyi wished to draw incorrect conclusions from this document . . . I have the honour to inform you that the Minister of War has just sent precise telegraphic instructions on this matter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Allied Armies.
In confidence I may mention that these instructions provide for the immediate withdrawal of the Magyar troops from the territory occupied by them without authorization.
This successfully concluded the first part of our struggle for Slovakia by which our right to that territory and the juridical ineffectiveness of Károlyi’s Armistice were fully confirmed.
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Immediately after the change of regime, Dr. Emil Stodola was appointed as our delegate at Budapest, and towards the end of November, at his own request, he was replaced by Dr. Milan Hodža. The first Allied Military Mission, directed by Lieutenant-Colonel Vyx, reached Budapest on November 27th. At the first interview between Dr. Hodža and Lieutenant-Colonel Vyx on November 29th, the latter spoke emphatically against our occupation of Slovakia, which, he said, was contrary to the Belgrade Armistice. He added that our action there would do us great harm at the Peace Conference. Dr. Hodža rightly pointed out that as an Allied State, recognized by the Great Powers even before the collapse of Austria, we were entitled to occupy Slovakia, and he asked Lieutenant-Colonel Vyx, in view of the fact that Paris was duly informed of our attitude in this respect, to obtain direct instructions from Generals Henrys and Franchet d’Esperey. But before any news of the negotiations in Budapest had reached Paris, my intervention there had been effective, with the result that Lieutenant-Colonel Vyx received due instructions from the Ministry of War, these having been originally drawn up by M. Pichon. On December 3rd he
