CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INDEPENDENT CZECHOSLOVAK STATE … Austria of even date; Czecho-Slovakia on the other hand, desiring to conform her institutions to the principles of liberty and justice, and to give a sure guarantee to all the inhabitants of the territories over which she has assumed sovereignty…” 43 The Czechoslovak contemporary interpretation followed the so-called declaratory theory of recognition implying that the Allied Powers have taken into account the existing independent Czechoslovak state 44 which was created on 28 October 1918 (on the bases of Act No. 11/1918 Sb.) and which exercised sovereignty over the Czechoslovak territory from then on. This was the opinion of the Czechoslovak legal doctrine (in particular professor A. Hobza, who gave his expert opinion in 1922) 45 , as well as of the Czechoslovak courts: the Supreme Administrative Court and the Supreme Court, which also outright rejected the idea that the Czechoslovak Republic was a successor de jure of Austria-Hungary. 46 As noted above, the Czechoslovak state border demands became a contentious issue. This is even more evident when examining the situation between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Markedly more complicated for the new state was the integration of Slovakia, thus inter alia also the Hungarian minority. As a matter of fact, the new government in Budapest refused to cede the territory that had belonged to Hungary for centuries, and was also hungarianised to a large extent. Fights took place there, and only the pressure exerted by the Allies forced Budapest to abandon the territory. The Hungarian bureaucracy, including the railways and telegraph service, left the state, where the situation became problematic afterwards and even anti-Semitic pogroms occurred. In many places there was complete chaos and it was armed groups that ruled, Hungarian ones in some areas, and German or Slovak ones in other places. In this situation the border was provisionally determined at the meetings attended by the Slovak agrarian politician Milan Hodža in Budapest at the end of November 1918. However, this solution was not particularly favourable for Czechoslovakia. Considering the complicated post-war development in Hungary, and as the Hungarian troops were still in Slovakia at the end of 1918, the issue of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border had to be resolved first by the diplomatic intervention of the Allied Powers in 1919 and subsequently by using military force. After the Hungarian Soviet Republic (inspired by the Bolsheviks) was created in April 1919, the Romanian and Czechoslovak troops intervened against it. The Czechoslovak soldiers were commanded by Italian officers who were, at Beneš’s request, replaced by French officers. However, the more numerous Hungarian troops launched a counteroffensive in May, seizing a large part of Slovakia. While under the Hungarian control, the eastern part of Slovakia was even proclaimed the Slovak Soviet Republic (when the Slovak Communist Republic of the Soviets was established in the Eastern Slovak town of Prešov on 16 June 1919 with the assistance of the Hungarian Communist regime of Béla Khun). In accordance with the ultimatum by the Allied powers, the Hungarians left Slovakia by the end of June 1919. 43 http://treaties.fco.gov.uk/docs/fullnames/pdf/1919/10 SEP/ SAINT-GERMAIN-EN LAYE, TREATY BETWEEN PRINCIPAl ALLIED ASSOCIATED POWERs &CZECHO-SLOVAKIA.pdf. 44 LAUTERPACHT, H.: Recognition of states in international law, p. 423 and following. 45 HOBZA, A. La République tchécoslovaque et le droit international, Revue générale de droit international public , Paris 1922. See also RAŠÍN, L.: Vznik a uznání československého stát u (Creation and recognition of Czechoslovak state), Praha 1926, esp. p. 215. 46 See for example the decision of the Supreme Court No. R II 28/1928. VÁŽNÝ, F.: Rozhodnutí nejvyššího soudu československé republiky ve věcech občanských. Sv. X. 1928 . Praha, 1929, pp. 171-179, decision No. 7751. www. science.law.muni.Cz/knihy/vazny/Vazny_Obcan/RNS_obcan_sv10.pdf.

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