First Hungarian Republic

History

Károlyi era

The Hungarian People's Republic was created by the Aster Revolution, which started in Budapest on 31 October 1918. That day, King Charles IV appointed the revolt's leader, Mihály Károlyi, as Hungarian prime minister. Almost his first act was to formally terminate the personal union between Austria and Hungary. On 13 November, Charles issued a proclamation withdrawing from Hungarian politics. A few days later the provisional government proclaimed Hungary a people's republic, with Károlyi as both prime minister and interim president. This event ended 400 years of rule by the House of Habsburg.

The Hungarian Royal Honvéd army still had more than 1,400,000 soldiers when Mihály Károlyi was announced as prime minister of Hungary. Károlyi yielded to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's demand for pacifism by ordering the unilateral self-disarmament of the Hungarian army. This happened under the direction of Béla Linder, (minister of war) on 2 November 1918. Due to the full disarmament of its army, Hungary was to remain without a national defence at a time of particular vulnerability. The Hungarian self-disarmament made the occupation of Hungary directly possible for the relatively small armies of Romania, the Franco-Serbian army and the armed forces of the newly established Czechoslovakia.

The Károlyi government's measures failed to stem popular discontent, especially when the Entente powers began distributing slices of what many considered Hungary's traditional territory to the majority ethnic groups in Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the First Czechoslovak Republic. The new government and its supporters had pinned their hopes for maintaining Hungary's territorial integrity on the abandonment of Cisleithania and Germany, the securing of a separate peace, and exploiting Károlyi's close connections in the French Third Republic. When Károlyi appointed Oszkár Jászi as the new Minister for National Minorities of Hungary, Jászi immediately offered democratic referendums about the disputed borders for minorities, however, the political leaders of those minorities refused the very idea of democratic referendums regarding disputed territories at the Paris peace conference. After the Hungarian self-disarmament, Czech, Serbian, and Romanian political leaders chose to attack Hungary instead of holding democratic plebiscites concerning the disputed areas.

Military and political events changed rapidly and drastically after Hungarian disarmament:

• on 5 November 1918, the Serbian army, with the help of the French army, crossed the southern borders
• on 8 November, the Czechoslovak Army crossed the northern borders
• on 13 November, the Romanian army crossed the eastern borders

The Entente considered Hungary a partner in the defeated Dual Monarchy, and dashed the Hungarians' hopes with the delivery of successive diplomatic notes. Each demanded the surrender of more land to other ethnic groups. On 20 March 1919, the French head of the Entente mission in Budapest gave Károlyi a note delineating the final postwar boundaries, which the Hungarians found unacceptable. Károlyi and Prime Minister Dénes Berinkey were now in an impossible position. They knew accepting the French note would endanger the country's territorial integrity, but were in no position to reject it. In protest, Berinkey resigned.

Károlyi informed the cabinet that only the Hungarian Social Democratic Party could possibly form a new government. Unknown to Károlyi, however, the Social Democrats had merged with the Hungarian Communist Party; the latter promised that the Russian SFSR would help Hungary to restore its original borders. Although the Social Democrats held a majority in the newly merged Hungarian Socialist Party, the communists led by Béla Kun immediately seized control and announced the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on 21 March 1919.

Re-establishment and dissolution

After the fall of the Soviet Republic on 1 August 1919, a social democratic government—the so-called "trade union government"—came to power under the leadership of Gyula Peidl. A decree was issued on 2 August restoring the form of government and the official state name back to "People's Republic". During its brief existence, the Peidl government began to abrogate the edicts passed by the Communist regime.

On 6 August, István Friedrich, leader of the White House Comrades Association—a right-wing, counter-revolutionary group—seized power in a bloodless coup with the backing of the Royal Romanian Army. The next day, Joseph August declared himself regent of Hungary—he held the position until 23 August, when he was forced to resign—and appointed Friedrich as Prime Minister. The state was formally dissolved by the new government on 8 August 1919.