Hungary lost 2/3rd of its territory 102 years ago: was it inevitable?

The peace treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4, 1920, is regarded as one of the greatest tragedies in Hungarian history. That is understandable since millions of Hungarians were separated from their motherland. Now, almost 2 million Hungarians live in Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Serbia, who still suffer disadvantages because of their nationality. Of course, the problems of ethnically mixed regions are not the specific challenge of the Carpathian Basin but of every country in Central-Europe to which the governments, NGOs, and citizens have to find answers in the future. But was it inevitable to lose 2/3rd of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1920?

Trianon, one of the greatest national tragedies

On June 4, 1920, life stopped for a minute everywhere in the “mutilated”, “small” Hungary. At 4.32 pm, two Hungarian officials, who planned no further political career, signed the Peace Treaty of Trianon at the Grand Trianon in Versailles. The Hungarian society regarded the act as one of the greatest tragedies in Hungary’s history, and everybody was shocked in the country even though the new borders were more or less known by then.

The Hungarian delegation on their way to sign the Peace Treaty of Trianon. Photo: Wikimedia

Everybody asked why the great powers were so brutal with Hungary? Why did Hungary suffer the greatest territorial loss after WWI?

Legends were born about freemasons, the French president’s Hungarian daughter-in-law and Romanian prostitutes to explain the inexplicable collapse of “Greater Hungary”.

If we try to forget these and would like to find the real reasons, we should concentrate on at least three hubs of causes.

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First, we should not forget the entente’s prime goal after WWI: weakening Germany. Every politician in Paris, London or Rome knew that Germany, despite their defeat, would remain a great power. To prevent Berlin from starting a war, the entente agreed they should destroy all their possible allies in Europe. That is why they decided to dismantle the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Hungary itself. They wanted to create a corridor around Germany that could stop Berlin’s future expansion.

As a result, Czechoslovakia, “Greater Romania” and Yugoslavia were born and received huge territories from Hungary with millions of Hungarians.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wanted otherwise but realized already by 1918 that the high principle of the self-determination of people would be neglected at the peace conference. As a result, their delegation travelled home, and they never ratified the Peace Treaty of Trianon.

The consequences of the peace treaty. Photo: Wikimedia

Armed resistance?

Second, the Central Powers, including Hungary, were defeated. Starvation, coal shortage, and the collapse of state institutions followed. Moreover, revolutions came one after the other between 1918 and 1920. The Károlyi government formed after the victorious Aster Revolution on October 31, 1918, started quick disarmament

to prevent a civil war or a Bolshevik-style coup d’état.

Furthermore, they thought that a new, pacifist and democratic Hungary would receive favourable terms in Paris. The people also believed in Károlyi since his good relations to French leaders were widely known. One of his fellow party member, for example, shouted in the parliament in 1918 that they were the friends of entente. Historians today state that provided Károlyi was a more characteristic leader committed to defending Hungary with armed forces, he could have saved 5-10,000 square kilometres more. But he could not have prevented losing huge territories anyway because of

the French plan of creating a corridor of Germany in the region.

The post-war period in Hungary was an apocalypse-like world. Therefore, the support for Károlyi and his governments faded away fast after the failures and the advancement of foreign armies. Károlyi wanted the Social-democratic Party to form a government since it had almost 1 million party members by early 1919. He did not know that Socialdemocratic leaders made a pact with Béla Kun’s Communists and when he realized, it was too late.

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The Trianon memorial in Békéscsaba. Photo: Wikimedia

Even Western-Hungary lost

The formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, 1919, was a shock in Paris. As a result, the peace conference did not invite Hungary, though the final borders were determined in 1919 May when the Communist regime ruled in Budapest. 

Thanks to the Soviet Republic, Austria got Western-Hungary, today’s Burgenland. The aim of that decision was to make a viable Austria that does not inevitably have to join Germany. However, Austria was also defeated, but Hungary’s soviet republic solved that moral dilema.

The entente’s decision on Western Hungary was corrected only once, in 1921 December in the Sopron plebiscite. Sopron and some settlements decided to remain part of Hungary.

To sum it all up, the partition of Hungary was inevitable after the Central Power’s defeat in WWI.

The “Red Map” showing Hungarians with red colour. Photo: Wikimedia

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