At­ti­la Si­mon: With Pipe, Drum, Dou­ble Bass – or Exper­i­ment on „the Re-oc­cu­pa­tion of the Upper Land” on 5th Octo­ber 1938

Due to the strained for­eign and home pol­i­cy sit­u­a­tion in Czecho­slo­va­ki­a, Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber 1938 was rich in armed inci­dents, street demon­stra­tions, eth­nic con­flict­s. These were first­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic for the Czech-German bor­der sec­tion, where they began even soon­er before the deci­sion in Munich, but they con­tin­ued even after the bor­der changes.

Despite of this, on the Slovak-Hungarian bor­der sec­tion there was silence and peace­ful­ness, although in the first days of Octo­ber, the sit­u­a­tion in South Slo­va­kia sharp­ened. In many places – main­ly in the ter­ri­to­ry of Sub-Carpathia – there were minor bor­der col­lis­sions that were made most­ly by free groups gath­er­ing in Hun­ga­ry. Although in the ter­ri­to­ry of the Slovak-Hungarian bor­der sec­tion the num­ber of such con­flicts was min­i­mal. On 5th Octo­ber by Kacagó­pusz­ta belong­ing to the dis­trict of Fe­le­di, on 7th Octo­ber by Pár­kány, and on 13th Octo­ber in Per­benyik belong­ing to the Kirá­ly­helmec dis­tric there were bor­der inci­dents. In this study from the three inci­dents we intend to intro­duce the one that hap­pened in Kacagó­pusz­ta on 5th Octo­ber that before the first Vien­na deci­sion can be con­sid­ered not only the most impor­tant indi­ci­den­t, but also the most doc­u­ment­ed one.
The most impor­tant bor­der inci­dent of fall 1938 was in the Fe­le­di dis­trict on 5th Octo­ber, dur­ing which the units of the Hun­gar­i­an bor­der insur­ing com­pa­ny in Hang­ony broke to the ter­ri­to­ry of Czecho­slo­va­ki­a. Con­se­quent­ly they broke the first line of the Czechoslo­vak bor­der guard and occu­pied some ter­ri­to­ries lived by Hun­gar­i­an­s. Although the Czechoslo­vak bor­der defence – that were acti­vat­ed and put into action even armoured troops – stopped them. After the attack was defeat­ed, and their supe­ri­or units mo­re strong­ly insist­ed on their with­drawal, the attack­ers after 1 day of fight, on 5th Octo­ber in evening hours drew back behind the state bor­der­s.
The set­tling down of the diplo­mat­ic storm that was caused by the evening inci­dent took place at the meet­ing in Ko­má­rom. After the com­mence­ment of the ple­na­ry meet­ing on 10th Octo­ber the leader of the Slo­vak del­e­ga­tion, Jozef Tiso required expla­na­tion from the Hun­gar­i­an party con­cern­ing the attack on 5th Octo­ber. Con­se­quent­ly Ká­nya explained that there was indi­vid­ual ini­tia­tive behind the attack and that the exam­i­na­tion of the case is in process. Te­le­ki indi­cat­ed that the sol­dier in cus­tody would be bring to mil­i­tary jus­tice.