Miklós Horthy

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He was born on the 18th of June 1868, the fifth child of the Horthy family, in the county of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok. At the age of 18 he entered the Royal Hungarian Naval Academy and studied there for four years. According to his memoir the Academy’s motto, Duty above life’, became his for the rest of his life. At the beginning of the First World War, Horthy was ordered back to the fleet and in the first month he commanded the destroyer, Habsburg.

During the war, the Navy was underpaid and undersupplied. Mutinies were common. However, thanks to Horthy’s firm command, the crew’s dissatisfaction did not result in mutiny on his destroyer. Presumably it was this firmness that convinced Emperor Károly IV that Horthy was the man to cope with the rising dissatisfaction in the fleet. This explains why he promoted Horthy to the rank of Rear Admiral and put him in command of the Austro-Hungarian fleet ahead of eighteen Navy officer's senior to him in rank.

Leadership

The impact of a long-lasting war and the enormous social differences, intensified by the subsequent unprecedented depression, resulted in a popular uprising, not only in Hungary but in most of the defeated nations. Budapest wasn’t alone, Vienna and Berlin faced a very similar situation. Károly IV ‘relinquish[ed] his rights to participation in the administration of the state’ in both countries of the Empire. On the 16th of November 1918, Hungary announced its independence from Austria and declared itself a republic. The first coalition government, appointed by Count Mihály Károly, reformed the law to broaden the franchise, giving the vote to every Hungarian citizen over 24 years of age and living at the same address for the previous six years. they also started thorough agrarian reforms, including land distribution. In the final months of the war soldiers in retreat after several years fighting on the front, were faced with a situation in Budapest and across the country similar to that in Germany at the time: rampant inflation and depression. On the 31st of October, István Tisza, Hungary’s former Prime Minister and responsible for taking the country into the war, was murdered by soldiers not yet disarmed following their return. Partly in response to this the government decided to demobilize the Hungarian forces - five months before the ceasefire was signed.

On 20th March 1919 the government received the conditions of the armistice which included neutral zones stretching from the border deep inside Hungarian territory. In the final peace agreement this defined the new outline of Hungary and meant that the country lost two thirds of its territory. President Mihály Károlyi, Prime Minister Dénes Berinkey and his ministers resigned. The Hungarian Communist Party came to power led by Béla Kun. There was a brief dictatorship. As the power of the communist party was limited mainly to the capital, a separate department was founded to organize the taking of hostages from the most influential families in both Budapest and further afield. Enemies of the system were interned and an armed unit, the so-called Lenin-Fiúk [Lenin Boys], of the communist party terrorized the countryside with the massacre of civilians suspected of opposing the regime. Led by Tibor Szamuely they moved quickly around the country in a private train fortified with weaponry. In the May of 1919, with the tacit consent of the Western Allies, Czechoslovakia and Romania launched a joint attack on Hungary, thanks to rapid mobilization the forces from the north were repelled, however by the 1st of August Romanian forces had occupied and looted the capital and marched on into north-west Hungary. The communist regime failed, and the leaders fled to Austria. Between January and August of 1919 Hungary had nine governments, four from the left and five from the right under the Regency of a Habsburg Archduke, none of them was confirmed or accepted in the international forum. Part of the country was occupied by French forces. On the 30th of October 1918 the monarch ordered Horthy to hand over the fleet to the Allies. Following this action the Admiral travelled to Budapest for further orders from the new revolutionary government, but István Friedrich, the freshly appointed chairman of the military council, reprimanded him for having ‘betrayed his country’ in this way. Horthy withdrew to his estate in Kenderes. Meanwhile two separate but ideologically similar ‘ellenforradalmi’ [counter revolutionary governments] were formed in Vienna and in the Hungarian city of Szeged. The first, under the leadership of Count István Bethlen, united with the second, led by Count Gyula Károlyi and formed a cabinet in Szeged in the French-occupied southern zone of Hungary with the agreement of the French and the Serbian governments and of the Western Allies. A group of military officers, under Gyula Gömbös began to put together an army for this political movement and, as Horthy was the highest ranked and most famous Hungarian military officer, Gömbös started recruiting in his name. Horthy arrived in Szeged in the spring of 1919 and was invited to lead this army and accept the position of Minister of War in the Károlyi government. On the 12th of June Horthy stood down from his position in the government and became the commander of the Ellenforradalmi Nemzeti Hadsereg [the Counter-Revolutionary National Army]. In the August of 1919. when the Romanian army left Budapest and marched towards north-west Hungary, Horthy moved his army from Szeged in the south to western Hungary. During this movement the troops crossed the Alfőld [the main plain] of Hungary between the Tisza and Danube rivers. During this operation some of the unit leaders, Pál Prónay, Gyula Ostenburg and Iván Héjjas to name the most prominent, carried out reprisals which, as the leaders of the communist government had already left the country, meant public executions of mostly innocent civilians, local leaders and supporters of the previous regime. There is no source suggesting that Horthy gave orders for these actions, and it is quite possible that he didn’t even know about them. In the middle of August, the army arrived in Siófok, a city on the shores of Lake Balaton in the west of the country. In the second half of the month, British Major General Sir Adam Clark arrived in Budapest to lead negotiations to form a government acceptable to the Western Allies in the peace negotiations at Versailles. As the leader of the only Hungarian army at the time, Horthy was also invited to these negotiations during which the participants agreed that a general election would be called and that, in the interim, a coalition government would be formed. Before the election Horthy would be allowed to march into Budapest and take the city over. On the 16th of November, Horthy and the army entered Budapest and a coalition government , acceptable to the allies, was formed on the 23rd of the same month. On the 16th of February 1920, the Hungarian Parliament declared Hungary a kingdom and revoked all laws of the communist legislation. On 1st March a law [I/1920] was enacted stating that a Regent would lead the country until such time as Charles IV and his descendants could be reinstated. According to this new law the Regent would have limited rights compared to those of a King. Unfortunately, no copies of the initial drafts of this law survive. The political system was not so different from that in Britain where the Royal Family holds the title of monarch through succession. The monarchs of Hungary were the Habsburgs, but the Western Allies would not countenance a Habsburg leadership either in Austria or in Hungary to ensure that the old empire could not be revived. On the 3rd of February 1920 the Council of Ambassadors [a meeting of foreign ministers of the Western Allied Powers in Paris] declared that they would not accept the Habsburg monarchs either in Vienna or Budapest. Officially Hungary considered the Habsburgs to be their legitimate and sole leaders, however they were aware that, given the political atmosphere, a Habsburg monarch could not be crowned. As a result, the decision was made to elect a regent for the period of the Habsburg family’s enforced absence.  And so, on the 1st of March 1920, 131 of the 141 members of the Hungarian parliament elected Horthy to the position of Regent [II/1920].

However, immediately after the election Horthy called for a re-negotiation of the rights accorded to the Regent, feeling that, as it stood, there were too many restrictions to govern the post-war country effectively. The bill was re-negotiated and in the final version most of the rights of a monarch were retained for the new post with some exceptions: the Regent could not confer nobility; he did not have the right of patronage [the nomination of clerics]; he could not name his successor and he did not have the right of Royal Assent which meant that laws could be enacted without his consent. Horthy accepted the post. Charles IV made two attempts to return to Hungary in 1921. The first time, on 27th March 1921, he arrived incognito Szombathely in Western Hungary. Pál Teleki, who was hunting in the neighbourhood, at the estate of Count Cziráky Dénes, was informed of the King’s return in the middle of the night on Easter Sunday and immediately set out to see him. He was confirmed in his position of Prime Minister. That same night a second government was formed and, in the morning, with the news of the King’s return and the political developments of the night, Teleki was sent to the Royal Palace in Budapest to prepare the Regent for the King’s arrival. Unfortunately, he became lost and ‘had a puncture’ en route, so the King arrived unannounced at the Royal Palace, finding the Horthy family at lunch. In their brief meeting Horthy informed him of the decision of the Western Allies and asked him to leave Hungary before neighboring countries attacked.

Teleki finally arrived after the King had left the capital. The King returned to Switzerland. However, on October 21st of the same year, Charles attempted once again to take back power. This time there were serious military preparations in western Hungary in the estates of aristocrats loyal to him. Arriving in Hungary he travelled to the capital by train. Most garrisons along the route pledged their allegiance because they believed that his return was with the consent of the Hungarian Regent and government. As it was a Sunday and the King was a devoted Catholic, he stopped at every station for Mass, this time was sufficient for the capital, the Regent and the government to build up their defence, concentrating troops in the area of Budaörs, these units consisted mainly of voluntary groups of university students.

Both sides wanted to avoid fighting. The King’s commanders took positions for their troops around Budaörs such that a serious battle was physically almost impossible. The King himself did not believe that he would encounter military opposition, and, appalled at the idea of a battle against his own people, ordered a retreat. On the way back he was taken into custody by the Hungarian authorities and held in the monastery at Tihany next to Lake Balaton. He was subsequently transported by the Allies and held under house arrest on Madeira where he died of the Spanish ‘flu 6 months later. Two weeks after the King’s failed second attempt, on the 6th of November, the Hungarian parliament enacted a law governing the dethronement of the Habsburg monarchy [XLVII/1921] declaring that the Habsburg monarchy had lost its right to leadership in Hungary. Admiral Nicholas Horthy was regent of the Hungarian Kingdom until 15 October 1944.