Abstract
This chapter shows how the Hungarian reaction to defeat was distinctly outward-looking with an obsessive fixation on territorial revision and the restoration of historic Hungary. Instead of treating defeat as an opportunity for renewal and learning, Hungarians framed it as a humiliating experience and a stimulus for revenge. This attitude facilitated and popularized extremist and revanchist movements which carried the banner of revisionism and made it into a daily practice and a profession of faith for citizens and elites alike. Throughout the interwar period, revisionism became the clarion call for rallying the masses—a call that completely absorbed Hungarian political classes, distorted political judiciousness, and induced illusions and unfounded hopes. Complete denial of guilt and responsibility triumphed. Self-exculpatory explanations were legion and popular. Intense feelings of humiliation, diminution, and resentment prevailed. Desires for revenge took hold of both the Hungarian masses and elites. Defeat was a major cause behind the emergence of a host of radical and violent movements and led to the emergence of reactionary, aggressive, and militarist Hungarian nationalism that ultimately made Hungary an early ally of Fascist Italy and later of Nazi Germany.
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Notes
- 1.
Formally, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire that lost the war; but both Hungarians and Austrians were severely punished after ‘their’ empire was dismantled. As will be seen later, this particular war and the punitive Treaty of Trianon that followed became enduring collective traumatic shocks.
- 2.
Ignác Romsics, “The Trianon Peace Treaty in Hungarian Historiography and Political Thinking,” in Hungary’s Historical Legacies: Studies in Honor of Steven Bela Vardy, eds. Dennis P. Hupchick and R. William Weisberger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 95.
- 3.
S. Fenyes, Revisionist Hungary part II: Hungarian people accuses. Translated by Dora Kennedy (Miami Beach, FL: Romanian Historical Studies, 1988), 5.
- 4.
Historic Hungary, alternatively the Kingdom of Hungary, the Crown Lands of St. Stephen, is a political concept that refers to what Hungarians perceived as their historic lands, which included present-day Hungary, Slovakia, most of Croatia, Transylvania (in present-day Romania), and Burgenland (in Austria).
- 5.
For an account of how Hungarians attempted to secure treaty revision peacefully, see Éva S. Balogh “Peaceful Revision: The Diplomatic Road to War,” Hungarian Studies Review 10, no. 1 (1983), 43–51.
- 6.
The behavior of the Hungarian delegation to the Peace Conference clearly documented Hungarians’ unwillingness to resign themselves to the consequences of defeat, to take responsibility, and to look forward to the future. Instead, they held on to the notion of historic Hungary—which included non-Hungarian ethnicities and territories. This came at a time when Hungary was at near total collapse. For example, the delegation “tendered eight notes, with enclosures running into volumes, trying to disclaim Hungary’s responsibility for the war and adducing historical, ethnic, political and economic reasons to justify her demands for the possession not only of areas with homogeneous Magyar populations beyond the new frontiers, but also of territories inhabited by national minorities and dis-annexed already in 1918, for domination over the whole of historical Hungary. This introduced the activity of the Hungarian delegation to counteract the intentions of the Entente Powers.” See Gyula Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945. Translated by Sándor Simon (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1979). Hungary was innocent and everybody else was guilty, “the story continues, Hungary would have emerged victorious had other states, that had nothing to do with the entire matter, not interfered… Poor innocent Hungary was victimized in that peace treaty.” See Fenyes, Revisionist Hungary part II, 129.
- 7.
Here is an example of how defeat was explained: the causes of the collapse originated “in the ingratitude and in the false propaganda of the minorities in Hungary, in the empire-building endeavors of the neighboring countries, in the ignorance, malevolence, and political blindness of the victorious powers and in the excessive trustfulness of the Hungarian nation.” See Miklós Zeidler, Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary, 1920–1945. Translated by Thomas J. and Helen DeKornfeld (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 4.
- 8.
Hajdú and Zsuzsa observed that “To accept being a member of a small state, with everything this implied, proved to be a difficult task for every Hungarian.” See Tibor Hajdú and Nagy L. Zsuzsa “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” in A History of Hungary, eds. Peter F Sugar; Péter Hanák; and Tibor Frank (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 310.
- 9.
“The younger generations are raised in a spirit of revenge. It is downright hilarious to watch the spirit of revenge against the world powers in so small a nation.” See Fenyes, Revisionist Hungary part II, 140.
- 10.
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement that concluded Hungarian involvement in WWI. The treaty was signed between the victorious Allies of WWI and Hungary. It delineated the borders of Hungary and resulted in the loss of approximately two thirds of the population and territory of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary.
- 11.
Ulf Hedetoft, “National Identity and Mentalities of War in Three EC Countries,” Journal of Peace Research 30, no. 3 (1993), 291.
- 12.
A similar attitude was taken by Nasser of Egypt as revealed in a famous slogan after the 1967 traumatic defeat: “what was taken by force could be restored only by force.”
- 13.
Admiral Miklós Horthy served in the Dual Monarchy’s navy as its commander-in-chief and later became Francis Joseph’s adjutant. His most salient political beliefs are his unwavering anti-communism and hostility toward the Soviet Union, his aversion to all revolutions in general, and his desire to restore historic Hungary. Horthy became the most powerful man in Hungary and served as a regent from 1920 till 1944. The events that unfolded and placed him at the helm of power in Hungary clearly demonstrated that the Great Powers at least acquiesced in his election as regent.
- 14.
Matthew Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego: Trianon, Revisionism and the Journal Magyar Szemle (1927–1944),” Hungarian Studies 19, no. 1 (2005), 60.
- 15.
The journal Magyar Szemle (1927–1944), founded by Bethlen and edited by the prominent and influential historian Gyula Szekfű, became the major forum for disseminating ideas about revision. Generally, the journal stayed away from the concept of ‘ethnic revision’ and instead embraced ‘integral revision,’ that is, the restoration of historic Hungary, which included territories inhabited by non-Magyar populations. Between 1928 and 1940, a mild version of integral revision was promoted, which included promises of autonomy of ethnic minorities within historic Hungary. See Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 51.
- 16.
In contrast, Turkish foreign policy was used as a tool to bolster the regime’s efforts of state-building and internal reconstruction.
- 17.
The party was founded by Ferenc Szálasi in 1935 as the Party of National Will and later in 1939 became the Arrow Cross Party.
- 18.
Peter Bihari, “Images of defeat: Hungary after the lost war, the revolutions and the Peace Treaty of Trianon,” in Crossroads of European histories: Multiple outlooks on five key moments in the history of Europe, ed. Robert Stradling (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2006), 166.
- 19.
István Deák, “Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Hungary,” The American Historical Review 97, no. 4 (1992), 1047.
- 20.
Steven Bela Vardy, “The Social and Ideological Make-up of Hungarian Historiography in the Age of Dualism (1867–1918),” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge 24, no. 2 (1976), 208–209.
- 21.
The doctrine of the Holy Crown is a Hungarian nationalist tradition based on the idea that the state of Hungary is constituted by the Holy Crown—the historical coronation crown of the kings of Hungary since Stephen I.
- 22.
Research on traumas shows that suddenness and unexpectedness exacerbate the extent of trauma, whereas expecting a coming disaster enables individuals and communities to prepare and to build actual and psychological defenses. For example, Michael Barkun argued that much of the power of a disaster emanates from the “sudden manner in which it assaults unprepared societies, institutions, and psyches.” See Michael Barkun, Disaster and the millennium (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974).
- 23.
Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 166.
- 24.
For example, the Habsburgs could only legislate in Hungary with the Hungarian Diet. Prior to WWI, Hungary had been an autonomous part of the Habsburg Empire for nearly 400 years but eventually attained the status of an ‘equal’ partner with Austria in 1867 in what officially became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. See Leslie Laszlo, “Nationality and Religion in Hungary, 1867–1918,” East European Quarterly 17, no. 1 (Winter 1983), 41. It is worth mentioning that no other minority or ethnicity in the entire empire attained a comparable status.
- 25.
Ferenc Glatz, “Backwardness, Nationalism, Historiography,” East European Quarterly 17, no. 1 (1983): 36.
- 26.
Ibid., 36–37. A 2000 Gallup public opinion survey asked a sample of Hungarians about their perceptions of Hungary and their national identity . Most respondents agreed that Hungary had a bright past, and most of them cherished the period of the Renaissance King Matthias and the founder of the Hungarian state, Stephen (István) I. See György Hunyady and Paszkál Kiss, “Nation, State and National Identity in Modern Hungary,” in Representations of Europe and the Nation in Current and Prospective Member-States: Media, Elites, and Civil Society, eds. Bo Stråth and Anna Triandafyllidou (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2003), 189.
- 27.
Géza Jeszenszky, “One Thousand Years at the Crossroads of History: History and the Politics of Transition,” Macalester International 2, Article 11 (1995), 100.
- 28.
For studies on the antemurale myth, see Pal Kolsto, “Assessing the Role of Historical Myths in Modern Society,” in Myths and Boundaries in South-Eastern Europe, ed. Pal Kolsto (London: Hurst, 2005).
- 29.
“On July 22, 1456, John Hunyadi won a decisive victory at Belgrade over the armies of Sultan Mehmed II. Hunyadi’s feat—carried out with a small standing army combined with peasants rallied to fight the infidel by the Franciscan friar St John of Capistrano—had the effect of putting an end to Ottoman attempts on Hungary and Western Europe for the next seventy years, and is considered to have been one of the most momentous victories in Hungarian military history. The bells ringing at noon throughout Christendom are, to this day, a daily commemoration of John Hunyadi’s victory. The year 2006 saw historians observe the 550th anniversary of that event as well with an international conference and an exhibition.” See Terézia Kerny, “The Renaissance - Four Times Over. Exhibitions Commemorating Matthias’s Accession to the Throne,” The Hungarian Quarterly no. 190 (2008).
- 30.
Hunyady and Kiss, “Nation, State and National Identity in Modern Hungary,” 173–176.
- 31.
County Zemplen in its I784 address to the monarch declared that “No other nation apart from the English and the Hungarian can be called free.” See László Péter, “The holy crown of Hungary, visible and invisible,” Slavonic and East European Review 81, no. 3 (2003), 487.
- 32.
Péter, “The holy crown of Hungary,” 488–489.
- 33.
Ibid., 489.
- 34.
It should be mentioned that not everybody accepted those claims and some observers called them merely an ‘idée fixe’ of Hungarian nationalists. Hungarian philosopher Jozsef Hajnoczy pointed out the great differences between the two experiences [British and Hungarian], while others rejected those claims as absurd and some called them the “product of fantasy fed on national presumptuousness.” See Péter, “The holy crown of Hungary,” 486–488.
- 35.
Péter, “The holy crown of Hungary,” 489.
- 36.
Ibid., 487–492.
- 37.
It is true that visitors to European and other capitals would encounter a vast number and a wide variety of regalia that played prominent roles in the historical consciousness of nations, but the Hungarian Holy Crown is unique in that it is “still a living part of the political discourse” even today. See Péter, “The holy crown of Hungary,” 505.
- 38.
Signs of growing assertiveness and aspirations showed up earlier. For example, Hungarian early calls for the creation of a Hungarian army, within the Austrian Empire, which fit the pattern of high self-esteem and grandiose aspirations, began as early as 1790. Following Joseph II’s discomfiture during the Turkish War, the Diet openly demanded the creation of a national army commanded by Magyar officers and repeated those demands in 1802. During the Diet of 1839–1840, there were demands that indigenous troops wear Hungarian insignia, use Magyar language, and be commanded by Hungarian officers only. Eventually, Hungary’s assertion of military independence in 1848 was one major cause for the break with Vienna. See Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Toward a National Hungarian Army: The Military Compromise of 1868 and Its Consequences,” Slavic Review 31, no. 4 (1972): 805–806.
- 39.
A similarity could be drawn between the German and Hungarian cases: both experienced a nineteenth century of accomplishments and rising expectations followed by a twentieth century of defeats.
- 40.
Indeed, recent public opinion polls demonstrate that Hungarians still attach glamor and glory to 1848: March 15, the day of the 1848 Revolution, remains the most popular day in Hungary. See Peter Bihari, “The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and its Consequences,” in Crossroads of European histories: Multiple outlooks on five key moments in the history of Europe, ed. Robert Stradling (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2006), 47.
- 41.
Their bravery and perseverance earned them good reputation in the eyes of international public opinion as a “shining example of humanity’s unquenchable thirst for individual rights and national freedom.” See István Deák, “The Revolution and the War of Independence, 1848–1849,” in A History of Hungary, ed. Peter F. Sugar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 209.
- 42.
Bihari, “The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and its Consequences,” 53.
- 43.
There was so much commemoration of the heroic deeds of the Revolutionaries all over Hungary. Allegedly, the most celebrated Hungarian national poet, Petőfi, recited his song to the nation “rise up Hungarians” at the steps of the national museum on March 15, which has become an important national holiday. One need only take a look at the adulation and praise heaped on Kossuth, the charismatic and articulate leader of the revolution, to realize how gigantic his figure had been, “our father Kossuth,” “the Moses of the Hungarians,” “the Messiah of the nation,” and the “new Washington.” See Bihari, “The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and its Consequences,” 48. Indeed, upon his death in 1894, over 75 statues were erected to honor him, including 32 full-length figures. Those made Bihari claim that the cult of Kossuth for Hungarians resembled that of Bismarck for Germans. Major figures of the revolution were commemorated in public official memory and in a variety of vernacular forms such as folk songs and tales. Generals Klapka and Bem were celebrated for their military accomplishments along with the 13 generals who were executed by the Austrians in Arad in October 1849. See Rogers Brubaker and Margit Feischmidt, “1848 in 1998: The Politics of Commemoration in Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 4 (2002), 706–707.
- 44.
Although Hungary received autonomy, it had no control over foreign or military affairs, and the Monarch occasionally dissolved the parliament, canceled elections, and used otherwise extensive privileges. For an account of the Emperors’ extensive authority over Hungarian affairs, see Henry Wickham Steed, The Hapsburg Monarch (London: Constabel and Co., 1914).
- 45.
Sir Lewis Namier wrote of the period following 1867, “the Magyar system in international politics, a marvelous machine which through multitude of wheels and levers made one of the smallest nations in Europe into a Great Power.” See Sir Lewis Namier, Vanished Supremacies: Essays in European History, 1812–1918 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962), 147.
- 46.
Eric Beckett Weaver, National Narcissism: The Intersection of the Nationalist Cult and Gender in Hungary (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), 78.
- 47.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 59.
- 48.
Géza Jeszenszky, “Hungary through World War I and the End of the Dual Monarchy,” in A History of Hungary, ed. Peter F. Sugar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 269–270.
- 49.
Brubaker and Feischmidt, “1848 in 1998,” 705.
- 50.
Weaver, National Narcissism, 39.
- 51.
Lee Congdon, “Endre Ady’s Summons to National Regeneration in Hungary, 1900–1919,” Slavic Review 33, no. 2 (1974), 302. Language reform began when the Austrian Empire tried to impose German as the national language of the empire, as specified in the Language Decree of 1784. Hungarian nobility objected intensely and rejected the new decree. Afterwards, Hungarians began their efforts at enlivening and reforming their language and using it as an instrument of national consciousness. See S. Gal, “Linguistic theories and national images in 19th century Hungary,” in Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority, eds. S. Gal and K. Woolard (Manchester: St. Jerome’s Publishers, 2001), 161.
- 52.
Gary B. Cohen, “Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914,” Central European History 40, no. 2 (2007), 263.
- 53.
Even ministers often preached that speaking Magyar was a “holy moral commandment” and that one must become Magyar not only in name but in substance and soul in order to “live on Hungarian soil, eat Hungarian bread, and enjoy the protection of Hungarian laws.” See Laszlo Deme, “Writers and Essayists and the Rise of Magyar Nationalism in the 1820s and 1830s,” Slavic Review 43, no. 4 (1984), 634.
- 54.
There were serious efforts by Hungarian governments since the mid-1870s to Magyarize the population; school education was a prime arena for such policies. For example, the government demanded that all school teachers demonstrate competence in Magyar before employment in public schools. Magyar was made a subject in higher forms of elementary and secondary schools. The government even asked non-Magyar schools to make Magyar a required subject in their curriculum and even withheld subsidies from schools that refused to comply. Eventually, by 1914, 78% of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools in Hungary used Magyar as the primary language of instruction. See Cohen, “Nationalist Politics,” 262.
- 55.
Although formally, there was a supposedly ‘liberal’ nationality law of 1868 that did guarantee rights to individuals to speak their own languages in elementary and secondary schools, in communicating with government, and in religious practices; in practice, the picture was different. The law, for example, did not recognize national groups as collective political entities.
- 56.
Deme, “Writers and Essayists,” 632.
- 57.
Iván Zoltán Dénes, “The Value Systems of Liberals and Conservatives in Hungary, 1830–1848,” The Historical Journal 36, no. 4 (1993), 840–841.
- 58.
Deme, “Writers and Essayists,” 634–635.
- 59.
The articles written in Tudományos Gyűjtemény contributed to the creation of a nationalistic climate; government officials recognized the significance of those writings and admitted that they shaped education policies. Some arguments from those writings were quoted directly in the Diet; even police officials from Vienna recognized the significance of those writings and the centrality of this journal in promoting patriotism and generating ‘patriotic bigotry’ and went as far as blaming the journal for the whole trend of Magyarization that took hold of Hungarians. See Deme, “Writers and Essayists,” 635.
- 60.
Mary Gluck, “Politics vs. Culture: Radicalism and the Lukács Circle in Turn of the Century Hungary,” East European Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1980), 131.
- 61.
Robin Okey, “A Trio of Hungarian Balkanists: Béni Kállay, István Burián and Lajos Thallóczy in the Age of High Nationalism,” The Slavonic and East European Review 80, no. 2 (2002), 234–235.
- 62.
Jeszenszky, “One Thousand Years,” 101.
- 63.
Congdon, “Endre Ady’s Summons,” 302.
- 64.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego.”
- 65.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 59.
- 66.
Jeszenszky, “Hungary through World War I,” 270.
- 67.
A serious question has to be asked about the fate of liberalism in Hungary and the impact it had on policies and the kind of nationalism that emerged before and after the war and why Hungarian nobility concepts of nationalism won the day. Hungary’s social and economic structure that prevailed in the nineteenth century fit the overall pattern of “Central and East European type of social development,” where the conflict between the ‘aristocratic-feudalistic’ and the ‘bourgeois-capitalistic’ social forces failed to produce a definitive outcome of victory for either side. Instead, what emerged was a hybrid society that somehow retained the dominance of the gentry and the aristocratic classes and implied the absence of a powerful and coherent middle class, which in turn led to the weakening of the emerging trends of liberalism. See Steven Bella Vardy, “The Social and Ideological Make-up of Hungarian Historiography in the Age of Dualism (1867–1918),” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge 24, no. 2 (1976), 209. A unique feature of Magyar nationalism was, therefore, its identification with the cultural, social, and political supremacy of the Hungarian nobility: the national ideal and myth “had been associated with the chivalrous exploits of the Magyar nobility, who were portrayed as the chief protectors of national existence against foreign incursions.” Any attack on the privileged position of the upper classes was perceived as an attack on the sacred values of Hungarian traditions. Up till this point, Hungarian nationalism “meant the hegemony of the historic classes as well as hostility to the nationalities.” See Mary Gluck, “Politics vs. Culture,” 136. The Hungarian celebrated poet, Ady, expressed this tragedy of the conflict between liberalism and progress in 1903 when he wrote that “the pursuit of national rights and the fate of liberalism find themselves in opposing positions.” See Mary Gluck, “Politics vs. Culture,” 135. It was this class, the “bourgeois gentry class,” which dominated the country’s politics after the 1867 compromise and which also exercised hegemonic influence on the cultural and intellectual development of the nation; but this class also experienced a shift from mid-nineteenth-century liberalism—with all its limitations in the Hungarian particular context—toward the “pseudo-liberalism of the turn of the century.” See Vardy, “The Social and Ideological Make-up of Hungarian Historiography,” 210.
- 68.
Mary Gluck, “Politics vs. Culture,” 136–137.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Andras Gero, Hungarian Illusionism. Translated by Thomas J. and Helen DeKornfeld (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 43.
- 72.
István Deák, “Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Hungary,” The American Historical Review 97, no. 4 (1992), 1041.
- 73.
Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (London and New York: Harper and Row, 1983).
- 74.
David Mendeloff, “‘Pernicious History’ as a Cause of National Misperceptions: Russia and the 1999 Kosovo War,” Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association 43, no. 1 (2008), 35.
- 75.
K. L. Shimko, “Metaphors and Foreign Policy Decision Making,” Political Psychology 15, no. 4 (1994), 655–671.
- 76.
Vardy, “The Social and Ideological Make-up of Hungarian Historiography,” 208–209.
- 77.
Ibid.
- 78.
Ibid., 211.
- 79.
Deák, “Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe,” 1047.
- 80.
Vardy, “The Social and Ideological Make-up of Hungarian Historiography,” 208–210; 212–213.
- 81.
Ibid., 56.
- 82.
Peter Pastor, “The Ups and Downs in the Historiography of the Peace Treaty of Trianon,” in Hungary’s Historical Legacies, eds. Dennis P. Hupchick and Richard William Weisberger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 108.
- 83.
Around the second half of the 1920s, Count Klebelsberg made public his philosophy of national and cultural renewal, which he called “neo-nationalism” and which, he hoped, would imbue the disillusioned Hungarians with fresh ideas and energies to pursue their national goals and to erase the debilitating effects of Trianon. In an article in the daily Pesti Napló on January 1, 1928, he wrote, “[…] the national feeling and idea which I am trying to nurture through Hungarian schools, I have to call neo-nationalism. […] Hungarian nationalism has lost its main content, and therefore new goals must be set before the old sentiment. […] we want to be an educated and well-to-do nation, and therefore more substantial (fajsúlyosabb) than the nations surrounding us….” Thus, the minister of education who initiated serious educational reforms still held views that depicted Hungarians as ‘superior’ to their neighbors; indeed, a major objective of the regeneration was to ‘attract’ minorities to Hungarian Exceptionalism and superiority. This was why he repeatedly emphasized Hungarian cultural superiority as a way of winning back the lost populations: regenerating Hungarian culture would eventually ensure the “leading role” of Hungarians among the various peoples of the Carpathian Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 62–63. Neo-nationalism refocused the attention of Hungarians on the nation instead of the state—since one third of Hungarians now live under the control of other states. In light of the loss of political preeminence, Hungarians needed to reassert their cultural preeminence in the Carpathian region. See Steven B. Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon on Hungary and the Hungarian Mind: The Nature of Interwar Hungarian Irredentism,” Hungarian Studies Review 10, no. 1 (1983), 34.
- 84.
Ignác Romsics, “Nation and State in Modern Hungarian History,” The Hungarian Quarterly 42, no. 164 (2001).
- 85.
Bottoni, Stefano, “The Debate over Hungarian National Unity from Trianon to the ‘Status Law’ (1920–2001),” European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford (2002), 3–4.
- 86.
Romsics, “Nation and State.”
- 87.
Ibid.
- 88.
It is true that all nations believe themselves to be unique and distinct but not necessarily superior to other nations or entitled to supremacy and domination; an inflated or exaggerated national self-image is more likely to be found when a nation overemphasizes its uniqueness relative to others. In such cases, elites will propagate national myths that delegitimize others and overemphasize national values and the nation’s superiority. There is plenty of room for aggressive foreign policy when a nation passionately endorses chauvinistic self-images.
- 89.
Roy F. Baumeister, Laura Smart, and Joseph M. Boden, “Relation of Threatened Egotism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem,” Psychological Review 103, no. 1 (1996), 5–33.
- 90.
Takis S. Pappas, “Political Leadership and the Emergence of Radical Mass Movements in Democracy,” Comparative Political Studies 41, no. 8 (2008), 1117–1140.
- 91.
Iván T. Berend and György Ránki, “The Horthy Regime,” in A History of Hungary, ed. Ervin Pamlenyi. Translated by István Farkas, Gyula Gulyas, and Eva Rona (UK: Collet’s Publishers Ltd., 1975), 458.
- 92.
This was the note issued on March 21, 1919, by the Entente military representative to the Hungarians demanding more and more territorial concessions.
- 93.
Zsuzsa L. Nagy, “The Period of Neo-Absolutism,” in A History of Hungary, ed. Ervin Pamlenyi. Translated by István Farkas, Gyula Gulyas, and Eva Rona Laszlo Boros (UK: Collet’s Publishers Ltd., 1975), 433.
- 94.
Steven Bela Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon on Hungary and the Hungarian Mind: The Nature of Interwar Hungarian Irredentism,” Hungarian Studies Review 10, no. 1 (1983), 27–43.
- 95.
Gyula Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945. Translated by Sándor Simon (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1979), 38.
- 96.
Ferenc Pölöskei, Hungary After Two Revolutions (1919–1922). Translated by E. Csicsery-Rónay (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980), 18–20.
- 97.
The Smallholders’ Party will soon undergo another merger.
- 98.
Berend and Ránki, “The Horthy Regime,” 457.
- 99.
Ibid., 469.
- 100.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon,” 28–33.
- 101.
Maria Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” in A History of Hungary, ed. Peter Sugar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 331–336.
- 102.
Zsuzsa L. Nagy, The Liberal Opposition in Hungary, 9–10.
- 103.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years,” 334–335.
- 104.
The claims that Hungary lost around two thirds of her territory and population are exaggerated in substance. The old, historic Hungary was multiethnic in character—unlike Germany or France, for example. No matter that the areas taken away from Hungary were inhabited by Romanians, Slovaks, and other nationalities, Hungarians perceived the loss of those territories “as frustrating as if they had been inhabited by ethnic Hungarians.” See Romsics, “The Trianon Peace Treaty,” 90.
- 105.
The peace treaty added other restrictions such as prohibition on compulsory military service, limited the armed forces to 35,000 soldiers, and imposed reparations.
- 106.
Sandor Szilassy, “Hungary at the Brink of the Cliff, 1918–1919,” East European Quarterly 3, no. 1 (1969), 106.
- 107.
Expressing typical shock, surprise, and disbelief, a right-wing Jesuit, Bela Bangha, wrote in 1920, “And how suddenly did this end arrive! Five years ago, two years ago we would have laughed at anyone, even beat up anyone predicting that Hungary in 1920 would consist of merely 14 to 20 counties instead of 63… Who could have thought that so little is needed to ruin a thousand-year-old country, a country which had resisted Turks, Tartars and Western invaders—now being drifted to the brink of national abyss!” Cited in Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 166.
- 108.
Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 166.
- 109.
Here is an example of the spirit of revenge nurtured in history school textbooks: “Those who caused WWI are mainly Russia, France and England. The past decades could not obliterate from French memories their defeat at Sedan and their loss of Alsace, Lorraine, and Strasbourg. Ever since the entire French nation has been fostering a spirit of revenge… After her defeat in Asia, at the hands of the Japanese, Russia was contemplating the conquest of the Hellespont and of Constantinople. Serbia was nothing but a Russian tool in Balkan policies. Had Russia witnessed quietly Serbia’s humiliation at the hand of Austro-Hungary, Serbia would have abandoned her protectress.” Cited in Fenyes, “Revisionist Hungary part II,” 147.
- 110.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 310.
- 111.
György Ránki, “The Problem of Fascism,” in Native Fascism in the successor States, 1918–1945, ed. Peter Sugar (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Press, 1971), 67.
- 112.
John F. Montgomery, Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite (New York: Devin-Adair, 1947), 54.
- 113.
To understand the extent of the cult and how deeply entrenched and popular it had become, one could only look at the commemoration of revisionism in everyday objects: ashtrays, pencil cases, national drawing pins, irredentist watches, clothing, and even advertisements for shoe polish. There were a revisionist foot-race, playing cards, and an irredentist board game called “Let us regain Hungary.” School curricula, especially history, literature, and geography, were permeated with irredentist themes (Bihari 2006b, 168) that emphasized the idealization of historic Hungary and the Christian national ideal. Irredentist themes were repeatedly brought up in matriculation exams—almost one third of written matriculation essays on history were related to irredentism. The world of music wasn’t immune to irredentism either; there were popular dances, plays, and songs with irredentist themes (Zeidler 2002, 79–82). The humiliation of defeat also generated a ‘genre of protest literature’ that inundated bookshelves by the day (Fiona M. Dow 2002).
- 114.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 57.
- 115.
Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 166.
- 116.
Peter Pastor, “The Ups and Downs in the Historiography of the Peace Treaty of Trianon,” in Hungary’s Historical Legacies, eds. Hupchick and Weisberger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 106.
- 117.
They were only partially raised after Hungary recovered some of her territories, following the Munich Conference in 1938.
- 118.
Other slogans that were coined to cope with Trianon included “Everything back!”, “Thus it was, thus it shall be!”, and so on. Take another famous slogan, “Mutilated Hungary is no country; integral Hungary is a heavenly country,” and you observe that the same spirit that animated pre-war Hungary was still alive and well. One can simply detect the golden-age myth in this slogan. Indeed, slogans were selected through a ‘revisionary competition.’ See Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 167. Hungarian school children had to recite the Hungarian Credo at the beginning of each class:Verse
Verse I believe in one God, I believe in one Homeland, I believe in one divine eternal truth, I believe in Hungary’s resurrection. Amen.
- 119.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon upon the Hungarian Mind,” 28.
- 120.
“The most ambitious of these irredentist monuments was undoubtedly the assemblage of statues arranged on the northern end of Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) in Budapest. Four larger-than-life allegorical sculptures representing North, South, East and West were erected in January 1921. These were complemented in 1928 by the unveiling of the reliquary national flag (ereklyés országzászló). A twenty-meter high flagpole emerged from a pedestal, which formed a reliquary containing soil from each of the counties of historical Hungary. The pole was topped with a one-meter hand.” Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 57–58.
- 121.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 57–58.
- 122.
Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 167–168.
- 123.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon on Hungary,” 23–24.
- 124.
Bihari, “Images of defeat,” 169.
- 125.
Attila Pók, “The Politics of Hatred: Scapegoating in Interwar Hungary,” in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900–1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (Budapest: Central European University, 2007), 377.
- 126.
The elections of 1920 provide us with an image of the effects of the Trianon on the national mood that dominated Hungarian politics and campaigning at the time. The campaign was entirely “negative in content” and focused on accusations leveled against the communists, who invited the occupation of Budapest, and on the liberal bourgeois whose pacific policies did not offer any effective resistance to the successor states’ mutilation of historic Hungary. Thus, the “Communists, the Social Democrats and the cosmopolitan liberals were deemed responsible for the crushing defeat of the country and nation.” See Nándor Dreisziger, “The Long Shadow of Trianon: Hungarian Alliance Policies during WWII,” Hungarian Studies 17, no. 1 (2003), 33–55. This negative campaigning focused on finding an internal scapegoat for the calamity that befell the nation. The framing of defeat as such discredited previous ideas and ideologies and set the ground for the re-emergence of the older ruling classes—abetted by the occupation forces and the Allied Powers’ dread of Bolshevism. Perceiving the defeat this way also generated another necessity, which the election campaign uncovered: the need to restore and maintain a “Christian and national Hungary.” See György G. Márkus, “Party Politics, Party Systems, and the Dynamics of Political Cleavages in Hungary,” Final Report to NATIP on the Research Project (Budapest: 1998), 21. Link: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a022/817be745cc6de6f122374ffb33de7b4e4254.pdf.
- 127.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 39. This myth concealed some obvious and plain facts: the blame for the dismemberment of historic Hungary should not be attributed to the liberal bourgeois revolution, which followed and did not cause the collapse of the Monarchy. The desire of the nationalities for independence was part of the nationalist sentiment for self-determination that swept Europe and was not limited to Hungary. The liberal bourgeois government completely rejected the terms of peace that would dissolve historic Hungary; the communist regime indeed fought hard against various occupation forces and rejected the proposed borders. Finally, the frontiers of Hungary were determined for the most part by the victorious parties and for rather grand strategic reasons—creating defensible frontiers against German resurgence.
- 128.
Pál Teleki, who served as a prime minister from 1919 to 1921 and again from 1939 till 1941, two particularly crucial periods in interwar Hungary, attributed Hungary’s defeat in the war and its subsequent collapse to the “victory of Jewish influence over Christianity in all national spheres.” Thus, the remedy would be to solidify the Christian national character of Hungary and to limit Jewish influence in various spheres of Hungarian social and political life. Dezső Szabó (1879–1945), one of the most influential Hungarian writers in the 1920s, attributed Hungary’s defeat to, among other factors, “immoral, wild Jewish imperialism.” Gyula Szekfű (1883–1955) published the most influential account of Hungary’s turmoil in the 1920s, Three Generations, in which he saw defeat as an outcome of the “mirage of Western liberalism” that attracted a wide swath of the Hungarian elites. This attraction to Western liberalism in turn allowed Jews to have influence in the internal affairs of Hungary. See Pók, “The Politics of Hatred,” 380–381.
- 129.
Gero, Hungarian Illusionism, 26.
- 130.
Fenyes, Revisionist Hungary part II, 130.
- 131.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 52.
- 132.
Gero, Hungarian Illusionism, 41–42.
- 133.
Fenyes, Revisionist Hungary part II, 8.
- 134.
Dreisziger, “The Long Shadow of Trianon,” 34–35; Fiona M. Dow, “The Broken Crown: Reappraisals of Hungarian Identity in the Interwar Years” (2002). Link: http://mek.oszk.hu/02200/02236/02236.htm.
- 135.
Miklós Zeidler, “Irredentism in Everyday Life in Hungary during the Inter-War Period,” Regio - Minorities, Politics, Society - English Edition 1 (2002), 71.
- 136.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 314–315; Romsics, “The Trianon Peace Treaty in Hungarian Historiography and Political Thinking,” 94.
- 137.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon on Hungary and the Hungarian Mind,” 39–40.
- 138.
Ibid., 39–40.
- 139.
Éva S. Balogh, “Peaceful Revision: The Diplomatic Road to War,” Hungarian Studies Review 10, no. 1 (1983), 44.
- 140.
Rustem Vambery, “The Tragedy of the Magyars: Revisionism and Nazism,” Foreign Affairs 20, no. 3 (1942), 481.
- 141.
István I. Mócsy, The effects of World War I: the uprooted: Hungarian refugees and their impact on Hungary’s domestic politics, 1918–1921 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 91.
- 142.
Ibid., 102–103.
- 143.
Pölöskei, Hungary After Two Revolutions (1919–1922), 16.
- 144.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 39–40.
- 145.
Zeidler, Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary, 1920–1945, 93–95.
- 146.
Ibid., 96–97.
- 147.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I.
- 148.
Ibid., 85–95.
- 149.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon on Hungary and the Hungarian Mind,” 35.
- 150.
Pölöskei, Hungary After Two Revolutions (1919–1922), 14–15.
- 151.
Revisionist agitation was also carried out by scholarly associations such as the Hungarian Historical Association, the Hungarian Geographical Association, and the Hungarian Foreign Affairs Association. This was in addition to a number of research institutes. See Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon upon the Hungarian Mind,” 35–36.
- 152.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 124.
- 153.
Pölöskei, Hungary After Two Revolutions (1919–1922), 16.
- 154.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 93–96.
- 155.
He was a progressive and left-wing leader who was elected to the parliament in 1910 as a member of the opposition Party of Independence. When the war started, he supported it, but as the war progressed, he moved to the opposition and became one of the most serious critics of Hungary’s involvement in war. As his position became incompatible with that of the Party of Independence, he left and formed his own party, the United Party of Independence and of 1848, but also popularly known as the Károlyi Party. This is another example of the weakness of political formations in Hungary.
- 156.
Károlyi’s party was supported by some aristocrats, some noble landlords, traditional intellectuals, and some members of the petty bourgeoisie but lacked mass support. The Radical Party had only elitist support and mostly coming from modern intellectuals and radical bourgeoisie, but likewise had no mass support. The Social Democrats were thus the strongest party in the coalition, and they mainly represented skilled workers and enjoyed the support of the labor unions. See Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 296.
- 157.
Károlyi was later elected provisional president of the Hungarian Republic on January 19, 1919.
- 158.
He actually gave all of his family estates to the tenants in order to create an example but failed in making land redistribution an official policy.
- 159.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 301–302.
- 160.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 84–85.
- 161.
Zeidler, Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary, 93.
- 162.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 299.
- 163.
These territorial losses were significant—they included the industrial and mineral-producing territories as well as the grain-producing districts of Hungary. Consequently, the economic crisis worsened and led to a rise in civil unrest and protests.
- 164.
By January 1919, Hungary had lost more than half of her territory and population.
- 165.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 299–300.
- 166.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 89.
- 167.
When the note became known, “mass hysteria engulfed everybody from Károlyi to the lowliest private … such mass feelings are the stuff from which revolutions and wars are made.” See Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 302–303.
- 168.
Károlyi believed that his pacific policies would help dissociate Hungary from responsibility for the war and convince the Allied Powers to treat Hungary fairly. Until February 1919, the government’s domestic and foreign policies had been in accordance with the wishes, or so the Károlyi regime thought, of the Entente Powers. However, these pacific policies proved fruitless, if not outright counterproductive. Indeed, Károlyi’s disappointment was doubled as he expected some support from the Entente Powers but instead received further humiliating demands that threatened the dismemberment of historic Hungary. Eventually, these demands would bring down the bourgeois democratic government. See Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945, 18.
- 169.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945, 50.
- 170.
In a cabinet meeting in March 1919, Károlyi proposed that what Hungary needed in order to halt its drift toward dismemberment was a power transfer to a government that enjoyed the support of the working classes—the single most organized political force in Hungary at the time—which promised radical social transformation and could secure the support of the masses and receive help from the Russian Revolution. Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945, 19.
- 171.
During the first few days, difficult negotiations went on for hours between Communist and Social Democratic leaders who eventually agreed to merge their parties and to assume power after proclaiming a Republic of Councils (Juhász 1979, 19). The arguments that Károlyi presented as Wilsonian proved to be an illusion; now that “the illusion of Wilsonism was shattered, the possibility of a Russian alliance became the new miracle.” See Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 303.
- 172.
Pastor, “The Ups and Downs in the Historiography,” 107.
- 173.
Nagy, “The Period of Neo-Absolutism,” 435.
- 174.
For example, the expropriation of the large estates—without distributing them to peasants—left the peasants angry and frustrated turning them into fierce anti-communists (Deák 1965, 370). The regime’s terrorist detachments (Red Terror) also turned many other sectors against communism. Those failures, among many others, led into increasing support for counter-revolutionary movements.
- 175.
Károlyi, the former president who resigned for fears of the dire consequences of compliance with the Vyx note, was exacerbated by the fact that the Allied Powers responded to Kun’s tough rejection of the note by a more favorable proposal—reducing the withdrawal 16 miles east—and led him to write bitterly: “So what my Government had not been able to obtain in five months was granted to the Communists after a week, proving that the idea of standing up to the West was not such a bad one.” See Michael Károlyi, Faith Without Illusion: Memoirs of Michael Károlyi. Trans. by Catherine Károlyi (London: Cape, 1956), 158.
- 176.
Szilassy, “Hungary at the Brink of the Cliff,” 95.
- 177.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 309.
- 178.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 98.
- 179.
Nagy, “The Period of Neo-Absolutism,” 449.
- 180.
In the summer of 1919, there were three major competing political ideologies regarding state structure and system of government. These ideas were embodied by the political parties that were competing for power. The old ruling classes, composed mainly of large estate owners and capitalists and most of the middle class, wanted to re-establish the old order that privileged their interests; they saw the parliamentary system as the most viable and most suitable, especially if additional guarantees were made to obstruct the political hegemony of the extreme left and the extreme right. István Bethlen and Pál Teleki best represented this trend. An “aggressive group” composed of state and administrative employees, army officers, and owners of medium-sized landholdings and a substantial number of the Christian lower middle class—the capitalist-bourgeoisie—believed that the old ruling classes’ sole objective is the restoration of the pre-war social and political order. This group believed that the old parliamentary system had been tried and failed, that the old ruling class is responsible for the turmoil Hungary is experiencing, and that it is incapable of governing responsibly. What they wanted was a centralized state, even a dictatorship, that eliminates the influence of the Socialists/Communists and the bourgeois left and preserves the Christian character of Hungary. These ideas were advocated by the multitude of radical right movements that emerged in Hungary in the aftermath of the defeat: Gyula Gömbös and his “race-protector” fellows best exemplify this group. The third group rejected the re-establishment of the old regime but also abhorred the proposed rightist dictatorship and instead preferred to create a bourgeois capitalist system and to broaden and deepen liberal and democratic reforms and institutions. This was a coalition of Social Democrats and liberals. See Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 316.
- 181.
The year 1927 marked a new beginning: a new currency was introduced—which signaled the substantial economic recovery that Hungary had achieved—and international military observers who were still observing Hungary’s compliance with the terms of the peace treaty left in March. Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 70.
- 182.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 455.
- 183.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 28.
- 184.
Thomas Sakmyster, “Miklos Horthy (1868–1975),” in Hungarian Statesmen of Destiny, ed. Pal Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 100.
- 185.
István Deák, “Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Hungary,” The American Historical Review 97, no. 4 (1992), 1053.
- 186.
Rudolf Tokes, “Popular Front in the Balkans: Hungary,” Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 3 (1970), 83–84.
- 187.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 477.
- 188.
Pastor, “The Ups and Downs in the Historiography,” 108.
- 189.
The deputies who opposed Horthy did not have any credible candidate, and the military units that surrounded the parliament made sure that Horthy was elected as regent overwhelmingly (132 votes out of 141 votes).
- 190.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 35.
- 191.
Sakmyster, “Miklos Horthy (1868–1975),” 107–108.
- 192.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 42.
- 193.
Ibid., 43–44.
- 194.
Bethlen later would persuade Horthy of the risks involved in such adventures.
- 195.
He resigned less than a year later on April 14, 1921, when the former emperor, Karl IV, attempted to retake Hungary’s throne.
- 196.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 317.
- 197.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 462.
- 198.
Robert William Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1934), 53. Two years after he retired, Bethlen became an eloquent spokesperson of the revisionist movement and did two lecture tours in Nazi Germany and England in which he presented Hungary’s case for revision.
- 199.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 467.
- 200.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 124.
- 201.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 320.
- 202.
Mócsy, The effects of World War I, 132–133.
- 203.
Hajdu and Nagy, “Revolution, Counterrevolution, Consolidation,” 312.
- 204.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 320.
- 205.
In the four elections held between 1922 and 1935, the government party won approximately two thirds of the votes. This ensured that it had comfortable majority. But, the party secured more votes in rural areas, where the electoral rule was open ballots, ensuring a certain degree of control over election outcomes. Where the ballot was secret, such as in major cities, the outcomes were different: the government party won only 27% of the votes in the same four elections. See Andrew Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825–1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 213–214. This is significant in that it showed that political mobilization was still high and more wide-ranging in the cities, where most of the political action took place; it also showed that the government party, with its somehow pacific policy, was not popular enough and that there was real electoral competition.
- 206.
Gömbös would retain his seat in the 1926 elections upon the insistence of Horthy and would be appointed a minister of defense the same year. This clearly shows that the radical right still had power even within the party itself.
- 207.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 321.
- 208.
Ibid., 325.
- 209.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 72–73.
- 210.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 478.
- 211.
Caples, “Et In Hungaria Ego,” 70.
- 212.
Berend and Ranki, “The Horthy Regime,” 480.
- 213.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 79. The Cartographic Institute was part of the chief-of-staff’s establishment; two of its commanders were arrested for their involvement in the printing and distribution of the fakes. Imre Nádasy, the chief-of-police, was also sentenced for assisting the counterfeiters of obtaining passports. See Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 322.
- 214.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 322.
- 215.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 81.
- 216.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 326.
- 217.
The Heimwehr, German Home Guard, were paramilitary nationalist groups operating within Austria during the 1920s and 1930s—similar in ideology to the German Freikorps.
- 218.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 327–329.
- 219.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 86.
- 220.
A good illustration of the reaction of the Hungarians to the Rothermere campaign is provided by a comment made by Dr. Folders, a former minister of agriculture who compared Rothermere’s campaign to Luther’s attaching his theses to the church door at Wittenberg; another example is provided by Eugene Rakosi, a famous editor and dramatis and public intellectual, who likened Rothermere to Christ: God has sent his only son to save Hungary. Cited in Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers, 50–51.
- 221.
Juhász, Hungarian foreign policy, 86.
- 222.
Ibid.
- 223.
Ignác Romsics, “Nation and State in Modern Hungarian History,” The Hungarian Quarterly 42, no. 164 (2001).
- 224.
Ormos, “The Early Interwar Years, 1921–1938,” 330–331.
- 225.
Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 245–247; Carlile Aylmer Macartney, A History of Hungary (New York: Praeger, 1956), 116.
- 226.
Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 257.
- 227.
Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 251–252; Carlile Aylmer Macartney, A History of Hungary (New York: Praeger, 1956), 119.
- 228.
Vardy, “The Impact of Trianon upon the Hungarian Mind,” 34.
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Zabad, I.M. (2019). Hungary: The Cult of Defeat. In: The Aftermath of Defeats in War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13747-2_4
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