Life-size bronze statue of Harry Hill Bandholtz, Brigadier General of the U.S. Army is located in a park at Szabadság tér, a public square located in the Lipótváros neighborhood of Budapest. Just behind the statue the building of the U.S. Embassy can be found. The general is depicted in U.S. military general's uniform with hands behind back facing ahead. The statue was 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 statue is placed on the marble pedestal with the engraved inscription, in English:
“General Harry Hill Bandholtz, head of the American Military Mission, who on October 5, 1919 blocked the removal of the treasures of the National Museum to Romania.”
The statue was erected in 1936, and stood throughout World War II. In the late 1940s the statue was removed “for repair.” It lay in a statue boneyard until the 1980s, at which time it was placed in the garden of the U.S. Ambassador’s residence, at the request of then-Ambassador Salgo. It was re-placed in Szabadság tér at its original location in July 1989, just a few days before the visit of President Bush.
On August 11, 1919, General Bandholtz arrived in Budapest as one of four generals (English, French, Italian, American) to become the Inter-Allied Control Commission for Hungary, primarily to supervise the disengagement of Romanian troops from Hungary. He became famous when, on the night of October 5, 1919, as President of the Day of the Commission, mainly through bluff, armed only with a riding crop, he prevented a group of Romanian soldiers from removing Transylvanian treasures from the National Museum.
Biography
Harry Hill Bandholtz (December 18, 1864 – May 11, 1925) was a United States Army career officer who served for more than a decade in the Philippines. He was a Major General during World War I, and the US representative of the Inter-Allied Military Mission in Hungary in 1919.
Bandholtz was born in Constantine, Michigan and a graduate of the United States Military Academy. In 1902 he served as Provincial Governor in Tayabas Province in the Philippines. As an Army captain assigned in the Philippines, he became an early patron of Manuel Quezon.[1] He was promoted to Brigadier General and served as Chief of the Philippines Constabulary between 1907-1913 supporting America's colonial government during a period where violent rebellion to American rule still smoldered in the Philippines. After his Philippines service ended in 1913, he returned to serve in the infantry as a Major. He served in NY as Chief of Staff in the NY National Guard and went with it to the border in Mexico. In 1917 he became commander of the 58th Brigade of the 29th Division. He went with his unit to France in June of that year and served with it for three months. On September 27 he was named United States Army Provost Marshal General to General John J. Pershing's American Expeditionary Force in France serving through the end of hostilities and beyond. General Bandholtz reorganized the Military Police Corps, established a Military Police school in Autun, France, and advocated a permanent Military Police Corps following the war. Major General Bandholtz is widely considered to be the "father" of the United States Army's Military Police Corps.
Between August 1919 and February 9, 1920, he was the US representative to the Inter-Allied Supreme Command's Military Mission in Hungary. The Military Mission was charged with disarming the Hungarian military and supervising the withdrawal of the Serbian and Romanian armies who were occupying the territory of Hungary. According to his own accounts, he is said to have prevented the arresting of Hungarian PM István Friedrich by the Romanians. He is also remembered for preventing Romanian soldiers from looting the Hungarian National Museum on 5 October 1919.
In 1920, when a rebellion among miners broke out in Mingo County, West Virginia after two mineworkers were assassinated on the McDowell County courthouse steps, President Warren G. Harding sent Gen. Bandholtz and Gen. Billy Mitchell(*) to control the situation. Bandholtz threatened marching mineworkers that they would be tried for treason. Mineworkers offered the compromise that they would stop fighting if federal troops would come and enforce the law evenhandedly but this was initially refused by Bandholtz. Eventually federal troops did deploy and mine workers quickly ceased fighting. Several treason trials eventually were held, at private expense, but they failed to procure convictions and scandalized US society.
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