Harry Hill Bandholtz
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Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz (1864 - May, 11 1925) was the US representative of the Allied Military Mission in Hungary in 1919.
[edit] Life
Bandholtz was born in Constantine, Michigan and a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Before World War I he was Chief of the American Constabulary in the Philippines between 1907-1913.
As a Brigadier General, he was Provost Marshal to General John J. Pershing's American Expeditionary Force in France at the end of the World War I.
Between 1919 and 1920, he was the US representative to the Inter-Allied Supreme Command's Military Mission in Hungary. He became famous there when on 5 October 1919 prevented Romanian soldiers from seizing the Transylvanian collection of the Hungarian National Museum. He also protected the furniture of the Royal Palace and prevented the arresting of Hungarian PM István Friedrich by the Romanians.
In 1920, when a rebellion among miners broke out in Mingo County, West Wirginia, President Warren G. Harding sent Gen. Bandholtz and Gen. Billy Mitchell(*) to control the situation.
[edit] Memorial in Budapest
In his honor a statue was placed in front of the US embassy in Budapest, Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) in 1936, with the following inscription in Bandholtz's own words:
- "I simply carried out the instruction of my government, as I understood them, as an officer and a gentleman of the United States Army."
The statue made by prominent Hungarian sculptor Miklós Ligeti depicts Bandholtz with his famous riding-whip in his hand. According to the popular legend he bundled off the robbing soldiers with this whip although Bandholtz didn't mention this detail in his autobiography. Today the whip is on display in the Hungarian National Museum.
The memorial caused diplomatic troubles in the Hungarian-Romanian relationship. Romania asked the US ambassador in Budapest no to be present on the inauguration ceremony but American diplomats in lesser rank were there.
After World War II, the statue was repaired but in 1949 it was removed by the new Communist government. In 1985, at the request of Ambassador Nicolas Salgo, it was moved from a statue boneyard to the garden of the US Ambassador's residence. It was placed back on its original place before the US embassy on 6 July 1989, one day before the historic visit of President George H. W. Bush in Budapest. The inscription with the humble sentence was only restored in 1993.
