Why Was Hungary Punished So Severely After World War One? (Short Animated Documentary)

world war one was a war of losers even the winners lost amongst the countries which did lose perhaps the greatest loser was the kingdom of hungary which lost 70 percent of its land and about 65 percent of its population and given that many in the hungarian government were opposed to the war at least at first why was hungary in particular punished so severely so at the outbreak of the war the kingdom of hungary was made up of many different peoples many of whom frankly wanted out and as such for those in charge maintaining hungary's integrity was more important than any territorial conquest as opposed to the austrian half of the empire that sought territory in italy and in poland and was overwhelmingly pro-war there are many reasons why the antarette pushed for the breakup of the kingdom of hungary the first was that this wasn't a negotiation but a dictat countries that lose wars as completely as austria-hungary did weren't in a position to negotiate over the terms the second reason was that they had made many promises of national sovereignty during the war to groups like the czechs and the polish which was in return for these people launching rebellions or simply refusing to fight for the empires that they currently lived in the antante also assured countries like romania and serbia that their territorial claims on the habsburg empire would be respected and so that's why places like transylvania were bargained away irrespective of the hungarian government's wishes now this wasn't a case of the anton presenting some united front britain was fairly unconcerned about what territory hungary would keep and what its allies in the region would receive since its primary concern was the ottoman empire in germany and what it could get from them the united states was a big supporter of self-determination as a principle but its leadership had no experience nor much interest in dictating the borders of countries in southeastern europe the main architects of hungary's breakup were italy mostly for its own territorial ambitions and notably france the french were entirely focused on the decades that were to come after the war and france wished to build a strong alliance with the countries in the region aimed at the new soviet union and any resurgent germany and making sure that these potential allies got what they wanted from hungary was a big part of that plan so that's all seth would right well no the hungarians had hoped that the front lines at the armistice would be where hungary's new borders would be yet as the treaty of trianon was being negotiated by the anton the liberal hungarian government collapsed and it was replaced by a social democratic one which had made an agreement with the communist party and when they were in power the communists swiftly purged everyone else and declared that hungary was a communist state and one which wouldn't accept any territorial losses something it proved by swiftly invading czechoslovakia and starting another war with romania for the anton this focused minds and made it clear that the hungarians didn't accept their defeat and that they would likely seek to fight again as soon as they were able to in order to reclaim their old territory this fact terrified the nations on hungary's borders and so they demanded via the french that the terms be harsh the communist government collapsed in late 1919 and after this the french took a much more lenient approach to the hungarians and sought to offer them this so long as they agree to an anti-soviet alliance the reason being that the soviets were busy invading poland and the french were terrified of what they could do if they won these plans went nowhere because the polish managed to defeat the soviets on their own and the nations in southeastern europe wouldn't countenance anything except absolute humiliation for hungary and so alongside broad restrictions on the size of its military hungary lost most of its population and its territory and the country took on the shape that it has today i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bissonette kelly moneymaker alex schwinn mr wolf captain cydog adam's daughter skye chappelle marvin cassell aaron the white mo james castaneda jordan longley jerry landon gustav swan rasheed ali winston k wood boogery wiggely spinning three plates copper tone maggie paskowski spencer lightfoot matthew shipley robert wetzel corso wolff the mc whopper anthony beckett marcus asner lil brepentisi and charles the first

Channel: History Matters

Views: 3,077,263

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Id: dYDo5c4-OIY

Length: 3min 41sec (221 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021