Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II, from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944.
Horthy began his career as a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1896 and attained the rank of rear admiral by 1918. He participated in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto and ascended to the position of commander-in-chief of the Navy in the final year of World War I. Following mutinies, Emperor-King Charles I and IV appointed him a vice admiral and commander of the Fleet, dismissing the previous admiral. During the revolutions and interventions in Hungary from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, Horthy returned to Budapest with the National Army. Subsequently, the Diet of Hungary offered him the position of Regent of Hungary, while the House of Habsburg and Hungarian monarchy was formally dethroned.
Throughout the interwar period, Horthy led an administration characterized by national conservatism and antisemitism.John Laughland: A History of Political Trials: From Charles I to Saddam Hussein, Peter Lang Ltd, 2008 Under his leadership, Hungary banned the Hungarian Communist Party and the far-right Arrow Cross Party led by Ferenc Szálasi, and pursued a revanchist foreign policy in response to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. The former King of Hungary, Charles IV, attempted to return to Hungary twice before the Hungarian government yielded to Allied threats of renewed hostilities in 1921. Subsequently, Charles was escorted out of Hungary and into exile.
Ideologically a national conservative, Horthy has sometimes been labelled as a fascist. In the late 1930s, Horthy's foreign policy led him into an alliance with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. With the support of Adolf Hitler, Hungary succeeded in reoccupying certain areas ceded to neighbouring countries by the Treaty of Trianon. Under Horthy's leadership, Hungary provided support to Polish refugees when Germany attacked their country in 1939 and participated in the Axis powers' invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Some historians view Horthy as unenthusiastic about contributing to the German war effort and the Holocaust in Hungary (out of fear that it may sabotage peace deals with Allied forces); in addition, several attempts were made to strike a secret deal with the Allies of World War II after it had become obvious that the Axis would lose the war, therefore eventually leading the Germans to invade and take control of the country in March 1944. However, prior to the Nazi occupation of Hungary, 63,000 Jews were murdered. In late 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where the majority (80%) were exterminated on arrival in gas chambers.Hungary and the Holocaust Confrontation with the Past (2001) (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum); Tim Cole; Hungary, the Holocaust, and Hungarians: Remembering whose History? p. 3-5; Serbian historian Zvonimir Golubović has claimed that not only was Horthy aware of these genocidal massacres, but had approved of them, such as those in the Novi Sad raid.Zvonimir Golubović, Racija u Južnoj Bačkoj, 1942. godine, Novi Sad, 1991. (page 194)
In October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had declared an armistice with the Soviets and had withdrawn from the Axis. He was forced to resign, placed under arrest by the Germans and taken to Bavaria, while the Arrow Cross Party ruled Hungary. At the end of the war, he came under the custody of American troops.von Papen, Franz, Memoirs, London, 1952, pps:541-23, 546. After providing evidence for the Ministries Trial of war crimes in 1948, Horthy settled and lived out his remaining years in exile in Portugal. His memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (A Life for Hungary), was first published in 1953. He has a reputation as a controversial historical figure in contemporary Hungary.
Early life and naval career Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was born at Kenderes, to an untitled noble family; his ancestor István Horti had been ennobled by King Ferdinand II in 1635. His father, István Horthy de Nagybánya,not to be confused with István Horthy, Miklos’s eldest son was a member of the House of Magnates, the upper chamber of the Diet of Hungary, and lord of a estate. He married Hungarian noblewoman Paula Halassy de Dévaványa in 1857. Miklós was the fourth of their eight children, who were raised as Protestants in the Reformed Church of Hungary.
Aged 14, Horthy joined the Austro-Hungarian Navy, as a cadet at the Imperial and Royal Naval Academy in Fiume. Because the official language of the naval academy was German, Horthy spoke Hungarian with a slight, but noticeable, Austro-German accent for the rest of his life. He also spoke Italian, Croatian, English, and French.
As a young man, Horthy traveled around the world and was a diplomat for Austria-Hungary in the Ottoman Empire and other countries. Horthy married Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely in Arad in 1901. They had four children: Magdolna (1902), Paula (1903), István (1904), and Miklós (1907). From 1911 until 1914, he was a naval aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, for whom he had great respect.
At the beginning of World War I, Horthy commanded the pre-dreadnought battleship . In 1915, he earned a reputation for boldness while commanding the new light cruiser . He planned the 1917 attack on the Otranto Barrage, which resulted in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto, the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic Sea. A consolidated British, French, and Italian fleet met the Austro-Hungarian force. Despite the numerical superiority of the Allied fleet, the Austrian force emerged victorious from the battle. The Austrian fleet remained relatively unscathed; however, Horthy was wounded. After the Cattaro mutiny of February 1918, Emperor Charles I of Austria selected Horthy over multiple other senior commanders as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Fleet in March 1918. In June, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought met Italian MAS torpedo boats and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. He managed to preserve the rest of the empire's fleet until he was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender it to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (the predecessor of Yugoslavia) on 31 October.
The end of the war saw Hungary turn into a landlocked nation, and with that, the new government had little need for Horthy's naval expertise. He retired with his family to his private estate at Kenderes.
Dates of rank and assignments
1896 Fregattenleutnant (Frigate Lieutenant) (fregatthadnagy – Sub-Lieutenant) 1900 Linienschiffleutnant (Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant) (sorhajóhadnagy – Lieutenant) January 1901 SMS Sperber (commander of the vessel) 1902 SMS Kranich (commander of the vessel) June 1908 SMS Taurus (commander of the vessel) August 1908 (GDO-Gesamtdetailoffizier-First Officer, temporary) 1 January 1909, Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) (korvettkapitány – Lieutenant-Commander) 1 November 1909 aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Josef 1 November 1911: Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain) (fregattkapitány – Commander) December 1912 March 1913 (commander of the vessel) 20 January 1914: Linienschiffskapitän (Ship-of-the-Line Captain) (sorhajókapitány – Captain) August 1914 (commander of the vessel) December 1914 (commander of the vessel) 1 February 1918 (commander of the vessel) 27 February 1918, Konteradmiral (ellentengernagy – Rear Admiral) 27 February 1918 appointed Commander in Chief (the last one) of the fleet by Emperor Karl I (ahead of 11 admirals and 24 senior Linienschiffskapitän) 1 November 1918, Vizeadmiral (altengernagy – Vice Admiral, though no navy existed anymore)
Interwar period, 1919–1939
Historians agree on the conservatism of interwar Hungary. Historian István Deák states: Between 1919 and 1944, Hungary was a rightist country. Forged out of a counter-revolutionary heritage, its governments advocated a "nationalist Christian" policy; they extolled heroism, faith, and unity; they despised the French Revolution; and they spurned the liberal and socialist ideologies of the 19th century. The governments saw Hungary as a bulwark against Bolshevism and Bolshevism's instruments: socialism, cosmopolitanism, and freemasonry. They perpetrated the rule of a small clique of aristocrats, civil servants, and army officers, and surrounded with adulation by the head of the state, the counterrevolutionary Admiral Horthy.Deák, István, "Hungary" in Hans Rogger and Egon Weber (eds.), The European right: A historical profile (1963) p. 364-407 quoting p. 364.
Commander of the National Army
Two national traumas that followed the First World War profoundly shaped the spirit and future of the Hungarian nation. The first was the loss, as dictated by the Allies of World War I, of large portions of Hungarian territory that had bordered other countries. These were lands that had belonged to Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary) but were now ceded mainly to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The excisions, eventually ratified in the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, cost Hungary two-thirds of its territory and one-third of its native Hungarian speakers; this dealt the population a terrible psychological blow. The second trauma began in March 1919, when Communist leader Béla Kun seized power in the capital, Budapest, after the first proto-democratic government in Hungary faltered.Lázár, István, Hungary: A Brief History, Budapest: Corvina, 1993 (English edition) Translated by Albert Tezla; Chapter 13
Kun and his loyalists proclaimed a Hungarian Soviet Republic and promised the restoration of Hungary's former grandeur. Instead, his efforts at reconquest failed, and Hungarians were treated to Soviet-style repression in the form of armed gangs who intimidated or murdered enemies of the regime. This period of violence came to be known as the Red Terror.Deák, István, "A Hungarian Admiral on Horseback", from Essays on Hitler's Europe, University of Nebraska Press, 2001, pp. 150–151
Within weeks of his coup, Kun's popularity plummeted. On May 30, 1919, anti-communist politicians formed a counter-revolutionary government in the southern city of Szeged, which was occupied by French forces at the time. There, Gyula Károlyi, the prime minister of the counter-revolutionary government, asked former Admiral Horthy, still considered a war hero, to be the Minister of War in the new government and take command of a counter-revolutionary force that would be named the National Army (). Horthy consented, and he arrived in Szeged on 6 June. Soon afterward, because of orders from the Allied powers, a cabinet was reformed, and Horthy was not given a seat in it. Undaunted, Horthy managed to retain control of the National Army by detaching the army command from the War Ministry.