THE HUNGARIANS
SIR,—It is surprising that Mr. Harold Nicolson should write, and that you should publish, the remarks on Hungary in " Marginal Comment " of November loth, since they are based on a distortion of history inexcus- able in a man of Mr. Nicolson's standing. Mr. Nicolson attempts to justify his prejudices by saying that in " a thousand years . . . the Magyars have done much harm and little good to Europe," and states this opinion to be a fact.
He would do well to remember that, at a time when the unity of Christendom was being destroyed in the West, the States of Central Europe were continually engaged in fierce warfare to preserve the very existence of Christendom against the attacks of the Ottoman Turks. Hungary was in the forefront of these wars. The last of her old line of kings fell in battle at Mohacs in 1526, and the land was overrun ; but the Hungarians never gave in, although it was not until the eighteenth century that their country was cleared of the infidel.
If an Englishman today is able to ignore the past struggles and sufferings of the Magyars, it is because their sacrifices, and those of their allies, saved Europe and England from a menace in every way as terrible as
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