d
out that as the Banat had never been divided, but had for a thousand
years lived under the crown of St. Stephen, it should still remain one
whole--of course under the Hungarian flag. The Roumanians contended that
the indivisibility of the Banat was designed by Nature, since the
mountainous eastern part could not exist if separated from the fertile
west. The Magyars asserted that it was altogether wrong to think of the
radical remodelling and complete dismemberment of a territory which
Nature had predestined to be one. The Yugoslavs agreed with both parties
that it was not easy to draw a satisfactory frontier, but they asked
that, as far as possible, the predominantly Roumanian parts should be
joined to Roumania, the Slav populations to them and the Magyars to
Hungary. As a matter of fact the Paris Conference did attempt to make an
ethnical division, between these three States, of the Banat. Roumania
tried to demonstrate the impossibility of this by turning off the water
in the Bega Canal when the Serbs evacuated Teme[vs]var and were taking
their heavily-laden barges from that town. There will have to be a
central, international organization to control the network of waterways.
As soon as the Paris Conference had decided on this division it was told
by the Magyars, the Roumanians and the Yugoslavs that all the numerous
Germans of the Banat wished to belong to Hungary, to Roumania and to
Yugoslavia. A great many of the Germans were indifferent, so long as
they could peaceably carry on their prosperous agricultural operations.
Not much political solidarity is apparent among the Germans of the
Banat, and seeing that both Yugoslavia and Roumania, now the principal
possessors of this land, have elsewhere within their boundaries large
German populations, their respective Banat Germans will be able to ally
themselves with these in the Parliaments of Belgrade and Bucharest. The
Banat Germans who are discontented with the Paris decisions are firstly
those, among the aristocratic and commercial classes, who were
accustomed to enjoy under the Magyars a favoured position, and secondly
those who, with more or less justification, say that Roumania has yet to
show that she will treat her subject minorities in a truly liberal
fashion. It is for this reason that the Germans of Ver[vs]ac and Bela
Crkva--in which towns they are about as numerous as the total of
Yugoslavs, Roumanians and Magyars--would give a majority in favour of
Yugoslav