Great Britain and the Establishment of the Horthy Regime

Abstract

The role played by Great Britain in the political and economic affairs of the independent Hungary that emerged from the First World War is one of paradox. On the one hand, given the myriad of European and global problems with which the British government had to grapple in the period immediately after the First World War, it is understandable that matters relating to Hungary would be given a relatively low priority. This sentiment was very well reflected in the words of a British statesman, Sir William Beveridge, who in early 1919 told Count Mihály Károlyi that Britain had ‘many more important things to think about than the fate of 10 million people in Hungary, and Hungary must wait her turn for political attention’.¹ Yet despite Beveridge’s admonition, what might be called the ‘Hungarian question’ was to attract considerable attention and arouse a good deal of controversy in Britain in the post-war period. Despite the key role that the East Central European specialists in the British Foreign Office played in the framing of the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Trianon, many politically aware and influential Britons, including David Lloyd George, were troubled by what appeared to be unduly severe peace terms imposed on the Hungarians.