Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly (; ; 4 March 1875 – 19 March 1955) was a Hungarian politician who served as a leader of the short-lived and unrecognized First Hungarian Republic from 1918 to 1919. He served as prime minister between 1 and 16 November 1918 and as president between 16 November 1918 and 21 March 1919.
Early life and career
Early life The Károlyi family were an illustrious, extremely wealthy, Catholic aristocratic family who had played an important role in Hungarian society since the 17th century. His parents were cousins: his father was Count Gyula (Julius) Károlyi (1837 - 1890), his mother was Countess Georgine Károlyi.
Mihály Károlyi was born on March 4, 1875, in the Károlyi Palace in the aristocratic palace district of Pest. He was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate, which deeply determined his entire childhood and personality development. His mother died early from tuberculosis and his father soon remarried. His father considered Mihály unsuitable for a more serious career, because of his speech disorder. However, when he was 14, a successful operation enabled him to eventually speak normally.
Throughout his life, he has learned three foreign languages at almost native level: English, German and French. His mindset and character were shaped by external influences: including hatred towards the Habsburg dynasty, the traditional anti-German sentiment of his family, his foster father, the world-view of uncle Sándor Károlyi, his adoration of the 1848 revolution in Hungary, his idea of organizing peasants into farming cooperatives. Having unbroken optimistic faith in the rapid development of science and technology, which he thought would solve all problems of humankind, he developed an idealistic devotion to the cause of social justice based on his reading experiences, including the French Encyclopédie and Jules Verne novels.
Although he was not interested in university lectures, he managed to pass his exams with the help of a tutor and obtained a law degree. At the age of 24, he became an unbridled adult, throwing himself into the nightlife, with enthusiasm; he spent his time flagrantly, playing cards, having fun hunting. He lived in French spa towns, attended many international horse races and early automobile races in various European countries. His political opponents later sought to denounce his hedonistic lifestyle as a youth."He spent lavishly. He gambled, sat in orgies. People laughed at him. No one took him seriously. His glamorous life and his passion for cards, and later his political activities, consumed vast sums of money. [...] He was surrounded by flatterers. And he believed what the profiteers bent over backwards to tell him." - This is how Cecile Tormay, who saw Karolyi closely as a contemporary, but who regarded him as a political opponent, and who deeply hated him, not without subjectivity, because of their shared social environment, remembers him in her diary. Tormay Cecile. Notes from 1918 to 1919 "His desperate youth was followed by years of unscrupulous pleasure. During these, his way of life was in blatant contrast to the radical social demands he made in his speeches." Miklós Horthy: "My Memoirs," p. 115. Europe Book Publishing House - Historia Journal, Budapest, 1990
He was interested in all technical innovations: he enjoyed driving cars and became a passionate collector of race cars and yachts. On one occasion a fellow pilot of Louis Blériot flew the plane to Hungary that had crossed the English Channel. Károlyi bargained with the pilot to board the famous plane and make a flight over Budapest. It was characteristic of the young Károlyi's recklessness that he sat on the frame of the one-seater airplane and clung to the iron bars, making his flight with legs hanging in the air. Being a Francophone, as was the tradition in his family, he spent several years in Paris; he also traveled across the United Kingdom and the United States. As a gambling addict, he was known for his card battles, his losses and for his "dandy" lifestyle in famous casinos across Western Europe. Around the age of 30, the young tycoon started to get serious and subsequently developed an interest in politics and public life.
Early political career
In his youth, he was a wastrel, but, as he grew older, he became devoted to more serious pursuits. In 1909, he became the President of the OMGE (National Agricultural Society), the main rural organization of the nobility. Initially a supporter of the existing political and social system in Hungary, Károlyi gradually became more progressive, leaning to left-wing orientation during his career.
He ran in the 1901 and 1905 and 1906 parliamentary elections in the lower house of parliament (House of Representatives) without success; however, as a count, he had a right to participate in the Upper house (House of Magnates) of parliament. In 1910, Károlyi was elected to Parliament as a member of the opposition Party of Independence, so he could participate in political life as a member of the House of representatives in parliament. István Tisza and Mihály Károlyi became implacable political enemies following the 1905 elections. Their debates in parliament further increased their mutual personal antagonism with time.
An important milestone in his confrontation with liberal conservatism was when, in June 1912, after the vote on the Defence Act, the parliamentary speaker István Tisza put an end to the opposition's protests with police violence. Opposition members, who had been removed from the chamber, then joined forces with the democratic and socialist opposition outside parliament to organise joint people's rallies. At one of the first of these, on 16 June 1912 in Miskolc, Károlyi appeared as a speaker alongside the Civic Radical Democrat Oszkár Jászi and the social democrat Jenő Landler.
In January 1913, Károlyi was challenged to a duel by prime minister István Tisza, after refusing to shake Tisza's hand following a political disagreement. The 34-bout duel with cavalry sabres lasted an hour until Tisza cut Károlyi's arm and the seconds ended the duel.
World War I, political campaign for the Allied Powers In 1914, at the time of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Károlyi was on his American tour, where he gave lectures at various universities with his friend Zsigmond Kunfi.
During his American tour, he sent telegram messages to Budapest for the Magyarország magazine, where he shared his geopolitical opinion about the deepening crisis in Europe.
On August 5, when the war broke out, his ship arrived in Le Havre after returning from his long trip to the United States. He was promptly arrested, as a citizen of a belligerent country, despite the fact that Austria-Hungary was not yet at war with the French Republic. Consequently, he was released from prison. Later, he was arrested again for several weeks in Bordeaux for being a citizen of a belligerent country. However, after promising that he wouldn't fight against the French during the war, he finally got a passport from the Bordeaux authorities. Afterwards he travelled to Genoa via Madrid and Barcelona and then returned home. On his way home to the Kingdom of Hungary, he crossed Italy at a time when Italy had not yet declared war on the Central powers and was therefore considered a neutral country.
Károlyi was opposed to the involvement in the First World War. Initially, he remained silent on these feelings, and even read a pro-war declaration from his party. He did this as a result of internal pressure, having faced indignation after refusing to support war loans. In 1915, he volunteered in the 1st Hungarian Hussar Regiment in Budapest after being called for service. Later on, in his memoirs, he regretted having ever reluctantly supported the war due to political pressure. The horrors of the war prompted him to accept isolation to openly oppose the war. From 1916 onward, he openly demanded that the war be ended and peace concluded immediately, even at the price of dissolving the alliance of Germany. Károlyi became part of a small but very active pacifist anti-war maverick faction in the Hungarian parliament. He and his followers withdrew to create their own separate party, which initially had only no more than 20 members. According to Tibor Hajdu, Károlyi's movement soon grew in popularity.
Far from being at the forefront of politics until 1916, "the public heard far more about his motor car speeding, car accidents and card battles than his speeches in parliament." It was only after the Hungarian public opinion began to become disillusioned with the war that Károlyi began to look like a real alternative to the governing forces. His consistent and firm support for peace in his speeches made him very popular in the last year of the war.Balogh Gábor: A Károlyi-kultusz nyomában (történelmi mítosz a hatalom szolgálatában). Nagy-Magyarország (Történelmi Magazin), II. évf. 3. sz. (2010. jún.); 28–33. o.
In his parliamentary speeches, Károlyi opposed the alliance of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the German Empire: instead he advocated friendship between the peoples and argued against war and supported a pro-Entente foreign policy. Károlyi made contact with British and French Entente diplomats behind the scenes in Switzerland during the war. He argued for peace with the Allies, loosing ties between Austria and Hungary, abolishing the property-based franchise requirements that allowed only 5.8% of the population to vote and run for office before the war, and giving women the right to vote and hold office. In particular, Károlyi demanded in 1915 that veterans should be granted the right to vote, which won so much popular support that it enraged Prime Minister, Count István Tisza. In 1916 Károlyi broke off with his party, which had found his openly pro-Entente attitude to be too radical and dangerous for a war-time pacifist faction in parliament. Therefore, Károlyi formed a new party, called the United Party of Independence of 1848; generally known as the Károlyi Party.
In January 1918, Károlyi proclaimed himself a follower of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.
Marriage and family On 7 November 1914 in Budapest, Károlyi married Countess Katalin Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka, with whom he had three children. As Károlyi's wife was a member of one of Hungary's most powerful families; by the marriage, Károlyi got under the protection of his influential father-in-law. His only son, Adam Károlyi served in the Royal Air Force, who crashed due to a technical fault while testing an aircraft over the Isle of Wight in 1939.
Leading the Democratic Republic
On 25 October 1918 Károlyi had formed the Hungarian National Council. Károlyi as the most prominent opponent of continued union with Austria, seized power during the Aster Revolution on 31 October. In 1918, when the Aster Revolution broke out and it became clear that Mihály Károlyi would become head of government, his half-brother, Count József Károlyi (1884-1934), (chief bailiff of Fejér county, member of parliament), resigned from his post and became the most aggressive political opponent of Mihály Károlyi's government.Károlyi József gróf: Madeirai emlékek; Károlyi József gróf, a politikus – Fejér Megyei Levéltár közleményei 20. (Székesfehérvár, 1996) Károlyi József gróf, a politikus (Erdős Ferenc–Nyáry Zsigmond) King Charles IV was all but forced to appoint Károlyi as his Hungarian prime minister. One of Károlyi's first acts was to repudiate the compromise agreement on 31 October, effectively terminating the personal union with Austria and thus officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and state. On the 1st of November, Károlyi's new government decided to recall all of the troops, who were conscripted from the territory of Kingdom of Hungary, which was a major blow for the Habsburg's armies on the fronts.