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Hungary Postwar Political and Economic Conditions
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Figure 5. Trianon Hungary, 1920
Source: Based on information from C.A. Macartney, Hungary: A
Short History, Chicago, 1962, 208.
In 1920 and 1921, internal chaos racked Hungary. The
white
terror continued to plague Jews and leftists, unemployment
and
inflation soared, and penniless Hungarian refugees poured
across
the border from neighboring countries and burdened the
floundering economy. The government offered the population
little
succor. In January 1920, Hungarian men and women cast the
first
secret ballots in the country's political history and
elected a
large counterrevolutionary and agrarian majority to a
unicameral
parliament. Two main political parties emerged: the
socially
conservative Christian National Union and the Independent
Smallholders' Party, which advocated land reform. In March
the
parliament annulled both the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723
and the
Compromise of 1867, and it restored the Hungarian monarchy
but
postponed electing a king until civil disorder had
subsided.
Instead, Miklos Horthy (1920-44)--a former commander in
chief of
the Austro-Hungarian navy--was elected regent and was
empowered,
among other things, to appoint Hungary's prime minister,
veto
legislation, convene or dissolve the parliament, and
command the
armed forces.
Hungary's signing of the Treaty of Trianon on June 4,
1920,
ratified the country's dismemberment, limited the size of
its
armed forces, and required reparations payments. The
territorial
provisions of the treaty, which ensured continued discord
between
Hungary and its neighbors, required the Hungarians to
surrender
more than two-thirds of their prewar lands
(see
fig. 5).
Romania
acquired Transylvania; Yugoslavia gained Croatia,
Slavonia, and
Vojvodina; Slovakia became a part of Czechoslovakia; and
Austria
also acquired a small price of prewar Hungarian territory.
Hungary also lost about 60 percent of its prewar
population, and
about one-third of the 10 million ethnic Hungarians found
themselves outside the diminished homeland. The country's
ethnic
composition was left almost homogeneous. Hungarians
constituted
about 90 percent of the population, Germans made up about
6 to 8
percent, and Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, Jews, and other
minorities accounted for the remainder.
New international borders separated Hungary's
industrial base
from its sources of raw materials and its former markets
for
agricultural and industrial products. Its new
circumstances
forced Hungary to become a trading nation. Hungary lost 84
percent of its timber resources, 43 percent of its arable
land,
and 83 percent of its iron ore. Because most of the
country's
prewar industry was concentrated near Budapest, Hungary
retained
about 51 percent of its industrial population, 56 percent
of its
industry, 82 percent of its heavy industry, and 70 percent
of its
banks.
Data as of September 1989
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