Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
burg empire in favour of the “
SuccessorStates
” - Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
-whichwouldacquiremuchoftheirterritoryatHungary'sexpense.InBudapest,theOctober
30 “Michaelmas Daisy Revolution” put the Social Democratic party of Count
MihályKáro-
lyi
in power, but his government avoided the issue of land reform, attempted unsuccessfully
to negotiate peace with the Entente and finally resigned when France backed further demands
by the Successor States.
On March 21, 1919, a
Republic of Councils
(
Tanácsköztársaság
) was proclaimed led by
Béla Kun
, which ruled through local Soviets. Hoping for radical change and believing that
“Russia will save us”, many initially supported the new regime, but enforced nationalization
of land and capital and attacks on religion soon alienated the majority. After 134 days, the
regime collapsed before the advancing Romanian army, which occupied Budapest.
Then came the
WhiteTerror
, as right-wing gangs moved up from the south killing “Reds”
and Jews, who were made scapegoats for the earlier Communist “Red Terror” - especially in
Budapest, the Bolshevik capital.
AdmiralMiklósHorthy
, self-appointed regent for Karl IV,
who had been exiled by the Western allies (“the Admiral without a fleet, for the king without
a kingdom”) entered what he called the “sinful city” on a white horse, and ordered a return
to “traditional values”. Meanwhile, at the Paris Conference, Hungary was obliged to sign the
Treaty of Trianon
(July 4, 1920), surrendering two-thirds of its historic territory and three-
fifths of its total population (three million in all) to the Successor States. The bitterest loss
was
Transylvania
- a devastating blow to national pride. Horthy's regency was character-
ized by gala balls and hunger marches, revanchism and growing
anti-Semitism
, enshrined in
law from 1925. Yet Horthy was a moderate compared to the
Arrow Cross
Fascists waiting
in the wings, whose power grew as
World War II
raged, and the Hungarian Second Army
perished at Stalingrad.
Anticipating Horthy's defection from the Axis in October 1944, Nazi Germany staged a
coup, installing an Arrow Cross government, which enabled them to quicken the pace of the
Holocaust in Hungary and begin the massacre of the
Jews
of Budapest. It was only thanks
to the valiant efforts of foreign diplomats like Wallenberg and Lutz that half of them sur-
vived, when ninety percent of Hungary's provincial Jews perished. In late December, the Red
Army smashed through the defensive “Attila Line” and encircled the capital, held by German
troops. During the seven-week
siege of Budapest
, citizens endured endless shelling amid a
bitter winter, as street-fighting raged. In January the Germans withdrew from Pest, blew up
the Danube bridges and holed up in Buda, where the Vár was reduced to rubble as the Red
Armybattered the Wehrmacht into submission. Aside fromthe Jews inthe ghetto -forwhom
it meant salvation from the Arrow Cross - the city's
liberation
on February 13, 1945 brought
little joy to Budapestis, as the Red Army embarked on an orgy of rape and looting, followed
by a wave of deportations to Siberia.
