The First World War was not a fun
time for multinational empires, but in its aftermath, no country was
punished more harshly than Hungary: the Hungarian state lost 60% of its population and
70% of its land in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Why though was the relatively minor
power of Hungary singled out for such drastic dismemberment? What
caused Hungary to be partitioned, and looking back a century
later, was Trianon justified? Well, Hungary was dragged into WW1
(mostly) against its government's wishes. Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Hungary operated autonomously but shared Austria’s monarch and foreign policy. So, when the Austrian heir to the
throne Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and Austria-Hungary issued its infamous
ultimatum to Serbia, beginning the war, Hungary came along for the ride. The Hungarian Prime Minister
until 1917, István Tisza, then became one of the war’s strongest supporters, seeing it as a fight for Hungary’s very survival. And he wasn’t entirely wrong,
from a certain point of view. Pre-war, less than half of the people within
Hungary’s borders were ethnic Hungarians. I’ll reiterate: over 50% of Hungary’s subjects didn’t want to be Hungarian,
and the government knew it. They also knew that failure in the war,
and a breakdown of central authority, would mean an unstoppable nationalist
outbreak among those minorities, which is exactly what ended up happening. The Paris Peace Conference, where
Trianon was signed, was guided (in theory) by the principle
of national self-determination: that different ethnicities should have their own
states in which they could govern themselves. Some shrinking of Hungary was inevitable, then, from the moment it became clear that
they would not be at the victor’s table, but that principle of self-determination
wasn’t exactly applied perfectly. The three biggest concessions
(land ceded to Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) mostly did contain Slovaks,
Romanians, and South Slavs, but significant portions of their
populations were also ethnically Hungarian. And obviously, if Hungarians ruling over
minorities was a problem, then so would be Hungarians, some 3 million in total, being
made minorities by other nationalities. Now, some spillover was just
not possible to eliminate: people don’t live in nice
clean boxes. In many cases, Hungarians lived side-by-side with
Slovaks, or Romanians, or Serbs, so exactly what state some regions should've ended
up in was always going to be a matter for debate. Take Northern Transylvania as an example: full
of Hungarians but far away from Hungary proper. There’s also the simple, undeniable
fact that Austria-Hungary lost WW1, and as a matter of standard practice, countries that lose wars don’t tend
to be favoured over the winners. But that doesn’t really explain why so many
Hungarians were left outside of their country. First though, let’s be clear: on the whole, Trianon and the treaty for Austria (both
named for French châteaux) did their job well. They put many millions of people who had
previously been under the Dual Monarchy in their own countries. (Either old ones
that expanded, or totally new ones). To those nationalities, Trianon
wasn’t a harsh punishment at all; it was an act of liberation that had come
after, in some cases, centuries of subjugation. On top of that, the Hungary that was left, while it was smaller, kept the
core Hungarian territories; it was more of a Hungary for Hungarians, as they
made up the vast majority of the population there. So, the argument that suggests that Trianon
was a fundamentally flawed or unjust exercise is only really true if you believe in the
righteousness of Hungarian empire-building. Still, the millions of excluded
Hungarians were a real fault in the plan, and North Transylvania aside, most of
them lived in land directly adjacent to, and that could have easily remained a
part of, Hungary. So why didn’t they? Well, the situation on the ground
leading up to Trianon was messy. Hungary went from being a monarchy
linked to Austria, to a liberal republic, then to a Soviet republic, then back
to a liberal republic, and finally again to monarchy (though this time without
a monarch) in the course of just two years. In that chaos, a number of screw-ups
by the many Hungarian governments saw Hungary lose considerably more
territory than they might've otherwise. Most notably, the first republican government
under Mihály Károlyi ordered the Hungarian army, over a million men strong, to totally disarm, despite the fact that Hungary’s armistice with the
Entente only called for limited demobilisation; apparently, he was under the impression that
that would result in a fairer peace deal. It did not, and vast swathes of Hungary’s
territory (more than just land inhabited by non-Hungarians) were occupied by
the much smaller forces of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Southern
Slavs with hardly a shot being fired. On the other hand, the complete
opposite plan failed as well: when the Communist government briefly took over, it resisted any and all
territorial changes with force (whether the land was inhabited
by ethnic Hungarians or not). In response, Romania invaded, occupied
Budapest, and forced the Communists out. It also really didn’t help
the Hungarians that their main enemies were fiercely supported by France, and tacitly by Italy and Britain, both
on the field and at the peace conference. The great powers didn’t necessarily
have anything against Hungary per se, but they (particularly France) were eager to let
the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the new republic of Czechoslovakia, and
Romania have whatever they wanted from Hungary, so as to ensure their support in any future war
against Germany or the Soviet Union. As for why those countries were even interested in land with
majority Hungarian populations: simple economics. The areas were generally more
urbanised, industrialised, and productive than the surrounding countryside. Hungary would try to “revise” Trianon
with the help of the Germans during WW2. That didn’t end up working out for
them, but you can find out how Germany, another defeated power, was carved up
after that war in the video to the left. And as always, I’ve been
James and I’ll see you there.
