The following text is ripped from the book of Zoltán Halász (you can find bibliographic data at the end of this document). It was the best article on Hungarian history in English I have found, this is why I "borrowed" it instead of translating my own words. It is only a part of his wonderful book which is basically a picture book stuffed with superb photos. Buy one if you get some.
I plan to insert some maps and pictures into this file as soon as I finish with the text itself. Just be patient and come back in the next few weeks.
I committed two crimes to publish this historical overview. First, violating copyright laws, and second, advertising the book on an academic network. If you are the author or an authority having problems with either, just let me know and I will remove it immediately.
Ákos Dömötör [dome <at> impulzus <dot> com]
No written sources on the early history of the Hungarian people have come down to us. Consequently, the material for study must be sought in the evidence of language, archaeology, ethnography and anthropology. Comparative linguistics provides the main field of research for what is known as Hungarian prehistory, for it demonstrates that the Hungarian language, judging by its vocabulary and structural pecularies, belongs to the Finno-Ugrian group of the Uralic languages, more precisely, to its Ugrian branch. It has not been possible to determine whether the original home of the Uralian prehistoric peoples was in Europe or Asia. It is believed, however, that the common homeland of the Ob-Ugrians and the ancient Hungarians (the Magyars) was along the central Volga. The ancestors of the Hungarians were for the most part fishermen and hunters, but is is probable that they were acquainted with animal husbandry, the tanning of leather, pottery, and the carving of wood and bone.
In the middle of the first millennium B.C., the ancestors of the Hungarians migrated from the lands they had shared in common with the other Ugrian peoples and moved south. Here they came under the influence of the Bulgar-Turkic pastoral tribes, with a resulting change in their manner of life: their primary occupation as mounted nomads was transformed into herding, and they lived in a tribal society. In the course of their migrations, they came into contact with different nomadic empires which formed with amazing speed on the steppes only to collapse later with the same dramatic suddenness. In the middle of the fifth century B.C., the ancestors of the Hungarian people joined the Onogur tribes of Bulgar-Turkic origin and lived with them along the northern shore of the Black Sea. For a time they were subject to the lax sovereignty of the Turkish Empire. Later a part of the Onogurs withdrew themselves from the Khazar overlordship and migrated to the south to found the Bulgarian homeland on the lower Danube. Another group of the remaining Onogurs drifted towards the Volga, while the rest formed a tribal alliance under Khazar overlordship. As time went on, they began to use the name of the strongest tribe in the alliance - the Megyer tribe - as a generic term for the whole group. This is the origin of the name Magyar, and of Magyarország - the name for a Hungarian and for Hungary in their own language today. The world applied to them in foreign languages (Hungarus, Hongrois, Hungarian, Ungar, etc.) derives from the term Onogur. Accounts of the Magyar migration differ in different sources. All we know for sure is that they were forced by the attack of the Pechegens to move west to the land between the Don and the Dnieper. Fleeing from this region after another sweeping offensive in or around 895-896, they entered the Carpathian Basin, familiar to them from their earlier raiding expeditions. At the time of the Magyar Conquest, the area was inhabited mostly by Slavic ethnic groups; and Great Moravia, situated on the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, had been in a state of disintegration since the death of Prince Svatopluk. The military power of the Pannonian Slav principality in the west did not represent notable strength. The rule of the Bulgars, extending over the Great Plain and Transylvania, was not consolidated. Under these circumstances, the Magyars were able to overrun the whole area of the country without difficulty. The military leader of the conquering tribes was Árpád, and after the founding of the state, his descendants became the rulers of the country.
The land occupied by the conquering Magyars had been inhabited since prehistoric times. According to the archaeological evidences found at Vértesszõlõs, the Carpathian Basin had already been the dwelling place of prehistoric man half a million years ago. In the caves of the Bükk Mountains, for example, the one hundred and fifty thousand-year-old tools of Paleolithic man have been unearthed. Human settlement also existed in the Middle Paleolithic period in the region along the middle section of the river Tisza, and in the Neolithic period the people of the Körös culture, who used polished stone tools, had already taken up farming. THe earliest known art also originates from the people of the Tisza, the Great Plain and later from the Bükk and Transdanubian cultures. During the early Iron Age, Thracians settled east of the Tisza and Illyrians west of the Danube. The latter erected enormous earthwork as defence against the Scythians and later against the Celts, who came from the west.
In the early years of our era, the Romans, who had conquered the Celts, extended their rule to the region of the country lying west of the Danube, which then became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Pannonia. A century later the province of Dacia was formed in the region of Transylvania. The four centuries of Roman rule created an advanced and flourishing civilization and the founding of the majority of the present-day towns in western Hungary can be traced back to Roman antecedents. For example, both Sopron and Szombathely (Scarbantia and Savaria), located near the Austro-Hungarian border, developed into important settlements along the Amber Route which extended from the Baltic countries to Italy; the predecessor of Pécs in southern Hungary was the Roman town of Sopianae, and Aquincum, the Roman predecessor of today's Budapest, was a large town along the river Danube with a waterwork system, a sewage system, steam baths, markets, and two amphitheatres.
After four centuries of existence, Roman civilization was swept away by the great migrations. For five hundred years the Carpathian Basin had been already the "the people's highway", with various tribes such as the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Lombards migrating across the area after sojourning for various lengths of time. Later, the empire of the Huns came into being, the military power that finally forced the withdrawal of the Roman legions. After the fall of the great Hun and Avar nomadic empires, only the Western Slavic and Southern Slavic people succeeded in establishing themselves in the Carpathian Basin.
The advanced economic and political conditions of the Slavs, who had been settling in the area since the 6th and 7th centuries, exerted a significant influence over the Magyars; in fact, several words related to agriculture and handicrafts are expressed in the Hungarian language by words borrowed from the Slavic peoples.
An outstanding representative of the remaining works of Hungarian Romanesque art (astonishingly great in number despite all later losses through destruction) is a haggard male head carved from red marble. Naturally, we do not know the identity of the artist, and since we can only surmise that it depicts King Stephen I, the first king of Hungary, art historians refer to the statue as "the royal head from Kalocsa", the town where it was uncovered. It is a portrait whose hard features suggest formidable energy and resolve, and bear witness to great wisdom and understanding. King Stephen was probably this kind of person. Against formidable odds, he proposed and implemented fundamental changes in Hungary. In the course of this transformation the nomadic Magyars, who had been living within the framework of tribal organization, settled permanently in the area, took up the occupations of agriculture and handicraft, and exchanged their ancient pagan belief for Christianity. Later events proved the choice a historic one.
The events that led up to it were as follows. In the first half of the tenth century, during the decades the followed the Conquest, raiding expeditions of Magyar mounted warriors subjected all Europe to a constant state of terror. In time, however, they began to feel the effects of Western counter-strategy. When the Magyars invaded Bavaria in 955, the armoured cavalry of Otto the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, checked their advance, and in the decisive battle at Lechfeld it annihilated the Magyar assailants. Although the Magyars launched further attacks on Byzantium following this devastating defeat, it became clear that they had arrived at a decisive historic cross-road. Two alternatives confronted them: either they settle down, form a state and adjust themselves to the people of Europe, or else the same fate would befall them as that of the other nomadic peoples who had been annihilated in previous centuries.
The first steps towards consolidation were actually taken by King Stephen's father, Géza (972-997), the last Magyar prince, who called in feudal knights and missionaries from the west to help break the resistance of his people which was impending the spread of the new faith and checking the transformation taking place within the country. However, the great task of implementing the change to Christianity was carried out by (Saint) Stephen I (997-1038) who defeated the forces of the rebellious tribal aristocracy, was crowned with a crown received from the Pope, and replaced the ancient tribal structure with the newly founded Hungarian State. The counties became the organizational units of the state and were ruled by governors (comes) appointed by the king. By rigorous measures, Stephen I forced those still loyal to ancient pagan beliefs to convert to Christianity, organized eight bishoprics and two archbishoprics, and decreed that every group of ten villages should build a church. Since there were two to three thousand villages in the country, this order resulted in a greatly increased demand for construction work, coupled with the demand for ceremonial robes, as well as metal and goldsmith's objects for the churches. Furthermore, thanks to the work of craftsmen invited from abroad, Hungarian goldsmiths, metallurgists and stonemasons, the Magyar art of the Conquest gradually blended into the Romanesque style, which was just spreading throughout Europe at that time. This style became so deeply rooted in Hungary, that for a long time to come, even small village churches were built in this manner. In the course of his long reign, the most important political objectives developed by Stephen I were the introduction and implementation of internal reforms and the preservation of the country's independence. These same political objectives were passed on to his successors. He himself fought successfully against Holy Roman Emperor King Conrad II, frustrating his plans of conquest. Among his successors was King (Saint) Ladislas I (1077-1095), who increased the territory of the country, and supported the Pope in the investiture wars against the Holy Roman Emperor. At the end of the twelfth century, King Béla III - educated during his stay as a hostage at the court of Emperor Manuel and almost succeeding him on the Byzantine throne - put an end to the interference of Byzantium with some clever and form political maneuvering.
It is the spring of 1241. The first sentries of dreaded Mongol forces appear at the north and north-eastern passes of the Carpathians. They are riding tiny, long-haired horses, and are wearing iron-plated armoury made of leather straps. After provoking and harassing the defending forces with feigned attacks, Batu Khan's forces concentrate their power and irrupt into Hungary through the Verecke pass, the route used by the Magyars at the time of the Conquest. The commander of the defending forces, the Palatine of Hungary, flees wounded from the scene of the battle. He just escapes death. The assailants first swoop down upon the northern part of the country, looting and massacring as the proceed forward. Later they come to grips with the main Magyar forces, led by Béla IV, in the valley of the river Sajó. During the night, the Tartars secretly cross the river and set fire to the Magyar camp. The greatest part of the besieged Magyar army, suffering an attack from the rear, is annihilated. The survivors flee towards the west and south. Soon the northern part of the country is completely under the assailants grip. When winter sets in, the Mongol forces cross the ice of the frozen Danube with ease and the whole of Transdanubia, the land west of Danube, is at their mercy. Only a few fortresses protected by stone walls hold out and, in fact, succeed in repelling the attack. The rest of the region up to its western border is occupied by the Mongols. From the western border, the Austrian Prince Friedrich mounts an attack, not against the Tartars, but against the surviving Magyar towns, and occupies Sopron and, for a short time, Gyõr. He imprisons Béla IV, who had fled to his court, and releases him only for a heavy ransom. The Tartars pursue the king, who is trying to organize resistance, and search for him everywhere. They follow his trail to Zagreb and Dalmatia. He finally takes refuge in Trogir. To quote a German chronicler: "After three hundred years, Hungaria was no more."
In fact, it did appear as though Hungary had been annihilated by the Mongol invasion. However, internal dynastic conflicts erupted within the Mongol Empire, resulting in the withdrawal of the Mongol hordes from the country in the summer of 1242. Hungaria survived the apparently fatal devastation. Its population decimated, its towns reduced to ashes, and its villages razed to dust, the country survived. Béla IV began the reconstruction of the country, building castles and fortified towns to forestall the threat of another Mongol invasion. He invited German, Walloon and Italian settlers, and by granting them special privileges, promoted urban development. The king, who was called "the second founder of the state", planned the construction of Buda Castle, raised the settlements of Buda and Pest to the rank of towns, and founded the Dominican convent on Margaret Island. On this island, which lies between Buda and Pest, his daughter Margaret - who was later canonized - lived as a nun. The Mongol invasion proved to be a turning point in more ways than one. The country's survival was proof of the strength of the people. However, the manner of reconstruction - though necessary under the circumstances - became the source of further internal strife and feudal anarchy. The king, fearing another Mongol invasion, encouraged feudal lords to build strongholds. These new strongholds, however, became a basis of a power in which the role of the king became more and more insignificant. At the same time, a growing number of lesser nobles were forced into positions of dependence by the greater lords as soldiers in their private armies. The stormy and glorious reign of Béla IV (1235-1270) was followed be renewed struggles over succession and battles between opposing factions. Later, with the death of king Andrew III, the male line of the House of Árpád became extinct, and thus, the right of inheritance through the female line became a possibility.
In the early 1970s, the fragment of a Trecento-style statue was unearthed during archaeological excavations in one of the courtyards of Buda Castle. Further excavations uncovered over forty statues and fragments, a veritable graveyard of statues. In all probability, they had adorned the Friss (New) Palace of Sigismund of Luxemburg, later Holy Roman Emperor.
The statues of ladies, knights, court musicians, servants and guardsmen mark not only the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but also the beginning of a new age. Dressed in full-length gowns, richly gathered cloaks, pointed shoes and daring hats, they are an unexpected reminder of a flourishing, almost decadent Hungarian Trecento, whose mere existence was no more than a conjecture before the miraculous appearance of the archaeological foundings at Buda Castle. Charles Robert, the descendant of the Naples branch of the Angevin House and through his grandmother of the House of Árpád, became king after the death of Andrew III, the last monarch of the House of Árpád. At the height of the feudal anarchy, the barons, whose power was far greater than that of the king, fought battles and made alliances. However, by gradually overcoming the power of the barons, breaking the resistance of the renegade towns and putting an end to chaos, Charles Robert, who grew up among the modern financial and trading life of Naples and Milan, brought prosperity to feudal Hungary. Knights, soldiers, businessmen and artists from Naples and other Italian towns brought a new vitality. This is why the achievements of the Trecento appeared relatively early in Hungary as compared to other European countries, and why they formed a new kind of unity, merging local tradition and Gothic art in the works of succeeding generations.
Charles Robert was a realist in economic matters. He had no plans for conquest and held that his two greatest achievements were the introduction of a new Hungarian currency, the gold forint modelled on the Florentine design, and the meeting he arranged between himself and the Polish and Bohemian kings at his castle in Visegrád, which gave birth to important decisions concerning the development of foreign trade between their countries. His son, Louis I (1342-1382), came to be known as Louis the Great because of his dynastic and expansionist policies. His forces advanced as far as Naples, Treviso, and the Bulgarian Viddin, and he later acquired the Polish throne. Since he died without male issue, the throne was assumed by Sigismund of Luxemburg, Louis the Great's son-in-law. This fullblooded and gluttonous king, who lived for the pursuit of love and adventure and wasted enormous amounts of money, had one great aim - winning the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which he acquired in 1433. Sigismund made extensive use of the resources of Hungary to further his aims abroad, and loans linked to mortgages on the royal estates played a growing part in financing his ventures. This policy reached such proportions that by the middle of the fifteenth century, the estates of the great barons made up more than half the territory of Hungary. Central power was finally weakened to such an extent that only Sigismund's alliance with the powerful Czillei-Garai League could ensure his position on the throne. Meanwhile, the expansionist Ottoman Empire was posing a direct threat to the country, and after the resounding defeat at Nicopolis in 1396, all Sigismund could manage was feeble resistance against repeated Turkish attacks upon fortresses in the southern region of Hungary.
Sigismund's turbulent and stormy reign, however, also had its positive aspects; towns grew and flourished, and the multilingual and educated royal court exerted a favourable influence on the development of the arts and culture in general. Large-scale building schemes provided ample and long term work for the artists, for example, the building of the Friss (New) Castle in Buda, the castles of Visegrád, Tata and Várpalota. In Sigismund's court there were patrons such as Pipo Spano, a descendant of the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto Ammanatini and Masolino da Pannicale to Hungary. Artistic frescoes were painted, beautifully illuminated codices were produced by the royal workshop, panel painting flourished, and so did sculpture.
When the noon-day bells chime from the church steeples of Europe, they serve as a reminder of a historic event that took place in 1456 under the medieval walls of Belgrade [Nándorfehérvár], the capital of present-day Yugoslavia. The protagonists were Murad, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and János Hunyadi, the outstanding military leader of the age. Belgrade was besieged from all sides by 300 thousand Turkish soldiers. The sultan had planned to capture the great southern stronghold and from there push into Hungary, and the west. Belgrade's defence was led by Mihály Szilágyi, Hunyadi's brother-in-law. The fate of the fortress was critically important for the future of Europe. Pope Calixtus III called for a crusade and sent Giovanni Capistrano, a Franciscan friar, later canonized, and an outstanding orator, to Hungary. He was to help Hunyadi recruit soldiers to relieve the forces at the castle.
Before the siege of the fortress began, Pope Calixtus III issued a bull calling for prayers for the defenders of the fortress and ordering the ringing of the bells at noon. The peoples of the southern region flocked to Hunyadi's army, and troops arrived from Poland, Germany, Vienna and Bohemia, composed primarily of artisans, students and peasants. There was a shortage of food and ammunition at the fortress, so their position appeared hopeless. However, at the last moment, Hunyadi arrived with his relief forces. His boats broke through the blockade set up on the Danube by the Turkish ships and succeeded in establishing communication with the beleaguered garrison. Hunyadi organized the defence of the stronghold and the counterattacked, destroying the Turkish forces. The Turkish army left Belgrade defeated and having suffered severe losses, including the loss of its fleet. Hunyadi's victory at Belgrade was the most severe defeat the conquering sultans had ever suffered, and for another half century, it saved Hungary from similar attacks by the Ottoman power.
János Hunyadi's (c. 1407/9-1456) career was an astonishing one. The youth who was descended from a family of the lesser nobility was first a page, and later the leader a mercenary unit. In the service of the Italian princes, including the Sforzas, he became acquainted with the techniques of organizing a modern mercenary army and learned the importance of the foot soldier and the artillery. His remarkable gifts as a military commander and statesman were responsible for his meteoric rise, in the course of which he became one of the greatest landowners in the country, a baron, Ban of Szörény, Voivode of Transylvania and the commander of the campaigns againts the Turks, as well as governor of the country.
The day after his victory at Belgrade, Hunyadi died a victim of the plague which devastated the war-stricken country. It seemed for a time that with his death the power of the Hunyadis had also come to an end. As a result of political intrigue, his older son Ladislas was executed by the king, and the younger son, Matthias, was taken as a hostage with him to Prague. However, in the year of the Belgrade victory, the neurotic king, Ladislas V, died suddenly in the Bohemian capital. A large-scale movement launched by the lesser nobility, townsmen, and of course, the Hunyadi faction, forced the barons participating in the Diet held at Buda Castle to elect fifteen-year-old Matthias as the ruler of the country. According to the chronicles, the resistance of the barons was broken by fifteen thousand armed nobles, who marched over the ice of the frozen Danube to the walls of the Castle. This action was so successfully accomplished, that after long weeks of procrastination, the decision favouring Matthias took only a few hours to make.
There are few figures in Hungarian history surrounded by as many legends, anecdotes and entertaining stories, as that of King Matthias. His image as the defender of the common people against the arrogant barons is just as much a part of Hungarian historical folklore as "Mátyás deák" (Student Matthias). In this characterization, Matthias roams the country in disguise, unveils injustice, rewards virtue, and conquers the hearts of young girls and beautiful women, who never even suspect that the clever, goodlooking traveller they hold in their arms is the king himself.
Obviously, tales and fables known to many peoples have exerted influence over Hungarian folklore (e.g., attributing the deeds of Harun-al-Rashid, memorialized in The Thousand and One Nights, and other legendary heroes to Matthias). It is also obvious, however, that the historical memory of a nation, as well as its nostalgia, is manifested in the tales about Matthias; for the reign of King Matthias between 1458 and 1490 was the golden age of medieval Hungary. With astonishing strength and political wisdom, the adolescent elected to the throne of the country broke the resistance of the various baronial factions opposing him and, with a series of measures, built up a centralized monarchy based on the absolute power of the ruler. He created a highly disciplined mercenary army supplied with modern weapons, and reformed the system of jurisdiction. This, together with the creation of a stable centralized power and public security, provided a solid basis for the development of industry and commerce. Matthias encouraged the growth of towns and made Buda his royal residence, which consequently became one of the most beautiful in Europe. To the Gothic Friss (New) Palace in Buda Matthias added a new wing in the Renaissance style which held his famous library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana. The first printing press was established in Buda in 1473. There was also an outburst of scientific activity. Hundreds of Hungarian students made their way to the universities of Vienna, Cracow, Padua and Bologna, returning to Hungary to spread the influence of the new learning. In Pozsony [now Bratislava] the Academia Istropolitana was founded; at the court of Matthias, Antonio Bonfini was writing his Rerum Hungaricarum Decades, and the Italian humanist Galeotto Marzio, was also active there. Janus Pannonius, the humanist poet famous throughout Europe, worked in Pécs. Nor were architecture and the fine arts neglected. The royal palace of Buda, the magnificent palace of Visegrád with its three hundred and fifty rooms and the fortress castle of Diósgyõr were all embellished with works by Hungarian and Italian artists, including Benedetto de Maiano, Verrocchio, Leonardo and others. A portrait of Matthias was painted by Mantegna.
Matthias pursued a vigorous and active foreign policy. In the early years of his reign he launched an offensive attack against the Turks. Later, he conducted an expansionist foreign policy towards Moravia and Silesia, and finally, against Austria. After occupying Vienna in 1489, he transferred his royal residence there from Buda, and it was in Vienna that he died in 1490. At the time of his sudden death, he left behind him a flourishing country which stood at the forefront of European development.
A contradictory and ominous political figure at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Tamás Bakócz had been, in the course of his career, royal secretary and Bishop of Gyõr under King Matthias's reign. Under the reign of Matthias's successor, Wladislas II, he was royal chancellor, Archbishop of Esztergom, and later a cardinal. A master of Machiavellian intrigue and a remarkable political strategist, trusted by Venice and mediator between Milanese and Florentine bankers and Buda, he rose in the course of a few decades from the son of a wheelmaking serf to the rank of the richest and most powerful men in the country. In 1510, Bakócz set himself the greatest objective of his life, the attainment of the vacant papal throne. He arrived in Rome at the head of a magnificent delegation, and for months he attempted to dazzle the Eternal City with sumptuous festivities on which he spent enormous sums of money. As far as the papal throne was concerned, his efforts remained fruitless, for the conclave elected young Giovanni Medici as the head of the Church. However, the new pope, Leo X, "consoled" Bakócz with a Bull which enabled him to declare a crusade against the Turks. The status of the serfs had deteriorated in the course of the preceding years due to increased oppression, including restriction of their freedom of movement. Bakócz and a section of the landowners were convinced that the serfs would march to the faraway battlefields, and consequently, the tense internal situation would become less dangerous. The majority of the barons and nobility, however, opposed putting arms in the hands of the peasants. When men from all parts of the country began to gather together for the holy crusade against the Turks, many of the landowners used force to keep their serfs at home. They oppressed the families of those who had gone, forcing them to accept the labour and duties of those absent from home. The crusading force, formed as it was of the dissatisfied masses, rapidly turned into an anti-feudal army. When Bakócz, urged by the alarmed feudal lords and nobles, suspended the crusade, the infuriated masses refused to obey his orders. György Dózsa, a Székely cavalry officer who had already proven himself in battle against the Turks, led his army to the Hungarian Great Plain where larger and larger groups of peasants joined him, and the towns on the plains also sided with them. Realizing the threat to their power, the barons and the lesser nobility temporarily set aside their differences at this point, and the cavalry of the nobility swooped down on the peasant army, which had laid siege to Temesvár [now Timisoara]. The peasant forces suffered decisive defeat at the hands of the experienced and well-armed nobility, and after the uprising had been finally crushed, ruthless revenge was taken on the peasants. Dózsa was captured, seated on a red-hot throne, crowned with a red-hot iron crown, and burned alive. Thousands of peasants were executed. The Diet was convened in the autumn of 1514 proceeded to pass a law depriving the serfs of all freedom of movement.
It was under these circumstances that the decisive attack of the Turks took place. After occupying two of Hungary's southern bastions, the Turkish Sultan Suleiman II (1496-1566) launched a large-scale offensive with a well-equipped army of eighty thousand in the summer of 1526. The Hungarian forces, led by Louis II, barely consisted of twenty thousand men who were poorly armed in comparison to the Turkish army. The decisive battle was fought at Mohács by the Danube river and ended with the annihilation of the Hungarian army. Fifteen thousand were killed in the battle, and the king himself died on the battlefield. This event was one of the tragic turning points in Hungarian history, and its efforts were felt for centuries to come. The territorial unity of medieval Hungary, together with its independence, were lost.
On August 26, 1541, fifteen years after the Battle of Mohács, Buda Castle became the scene of unusual events. Ferdinand of Habsburg had been besieging the castle since April, but without success: the Hungarian defence forces continually repelled his attacks. On this day, Sultan Suleiman also appeared under the walls of the castle. Roggendorf, the Hapsburg commander, clashed with the Turks, but shortly afterwards, made a quick retreat. At this point, the sultan invited John Sigismund, the one-year-old prince, to his camp, together with the Hungarian leaders. While the festivities were in progress in the camp, janissaries pretending to be peaceful visitors infiltrated Buda Castle and once inside, disarmed the Hungarian guard. The Sultan declared that a Turkish garrison would be stationed in Buda, and that the region of the Great Plain would become part of the Ottoman Empire. The child John Sigismund and his power was limited to Transylvania and the region beyond the Tisza.
The events leading up to the Sultan's coup reached back fifteen years when, following their victory at Mohács the Turks did not occupy Hungary. Instead, looting and pillaging wherever they passed and seizing large number of people as slaves, they withdrew from the country. This provided an opportunity for organizing the resources of the country against another Turkish offensive. However, this did not happen. The lesser nobility elected the wealthiest landowner in the country, János Zápolyai, as king (1526-1564) on the throne at their counter-Diet. The dual election was followed by internal warfare. After the mercenary army of Ferdinand of Hapsburg drove Zápolyai out of the country, he sought th Sultan's support in regaining his throne. In 1529 Suleiman II personally led his forces into Hungary to help Zápolyai. On the site of the battle of Mohács, Zápolyai formally planted the vassal's kiss on the Sultan's hand. From this point on, Hungary became a battleground. The Turks viewed Hungary as the springboard for their attack on Vienna, and the Hapsburgs, for their part, attempted to maintain at least the northern and western parts of the country under their influence. In this way, Hungary became the locale for a great power struggle, in which both sides strove for decisive power in Europe.
After the Turkish occupation of Buda in 1541, the central and most fertile part of the country, the region of the Great Plain, became part of the great Ottoman Empire which streched over three continents. The supreme ruler of the entire Hungarian territory was the begler bey of Buda, who, having the title of pasha, was directly responsible to the Sultan. The Ottoman system of taxation inflicted a heavy burden on the Hungarian serfs, and the law restricted their freedom of movement. The "heathen" were not allowed to build stone houses and could not repair their damaged homes without permission. On the other hand, the Turks left the population to practice the religion in peace. When war broke out, the Ottoman army again spoiled, destroyed and plundered the country. At such times, Hungary became a veritable slave market; Asian slave traders travelled as far as Buda and transported thousands of slaves to the interior of the Ottoman Empire. The resulting sense of uncertainty forced the population to take refuge in the larger settlements, a movement which led to the depopulation and desolation of hundreds of villages.
After the battle of Mohács, the western and northern areas of Hungary came under the rule of Ferdinand of Hapsburg as the Kingdom of Hungary. Charles V left the government of the eastern part of his Empire to his brother Ferdinand, who exerted all his energies in an attempt to unite Austria, Bohemia and Hungary under one centralized government. His Council of War strengthened the front defences which ran through the heart of Hungary, and by the second half of the sixteenth century, a network of frontier fortresses had been created. For over a century this network remained the frontier between the Ottoman-occupied part of Hungary and part of the country under Hapsburg rule. Consequently, the area along the line of border fortresses became the scene of continual clashes between the defenders and the Turkish raiders.
The eastern region of the divided country, Transylvania, fell under the rule of Zápolyai's son, John Sigismund. Following his death, prince István Báthori (1571-1586), who had achieved a certain degree of independence from the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, came into power. Báthori imposed a strong centralized rule. He also recognized the value of heyducks, herdsmen who had banded together into lawless fighters and marauders in the troubled times of war, and began to organize them. He also made it possible for the lower classes of the Székelys living as serfs to make their way upwards through military service.
Báthori planned his foreign policy on a Central-European axis, bases upon an anti-Hapsburg, Transylvanian-Polish-French alliance. He put himself forward as a candidate for the empty throne of Poland, and, with the help of the Polish lesser nobility, was crowned in 1576, consequently becoming one of the great Polish kings.
The degree of slaughter and devastation in Hungary at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was equalled only by the Thirty Years' War shortly afterwards. The Fifteen Years' War began in hope of driving the Ottoman forces out of the country. However, it only resulted in defeat and further gains for the Turks. Moreover, the imperial Hapsburg mercenaries plundered and devastated the northern part of the country and Transylvania, which had been relatively peaceful until that time. They aggravated the situation by their aggressive methods and murderous ways, confiscating estates and persecuting the Protestants under Belgioso and Basta, the imperial mercenary commanders. The Hapsburgs also employed the method of show trials for treason in order to confiscate the estates of the landowners, and used force to take away the Protestant churches.
General embitterment and discontent led to the first Hungarian uprising against the Hapsburgs in 1604. The beginning and success of the uprising are linked with the name of István Bocskai, a landowner in Eastern Hungary. He negotiated a secret agreement with the Ottomans, recruited the heyducks under his flag, and after a series of victories over the Hapsburgs, became prince of Transylvania in 1605. Bocskai refused the title of king offered to him by the Sultan, his only objective being to bring peace to the country caught between the two great rival powers, the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. As a result of his steadfast efforts, the Treaty of Vienna was signed in 1606. In this treaty the Emperor undertook to bring the unsuccessful war against the Turks to an immediate end, to return the expropriated estates to their Hungarian owners, to guarantee the freedom of religion, and to station only Hungarian soldiers in the country. Following the Treaty of Vienna, the Emperor signed a treaty with the Turks as well, which concluded the Fifteen Years' War. Although the provisions of the Treaty of Vienna were not fully enforced (in the years immediately following the signing of the Treaty of Vienna, a Counter-Reformation movement led by Péter Pázmány, the brilliant Archbishop of Esztergom, emerged, reconverting the majority of the Protestant magnates, and their serfs, to Catholicism), Transylvania nevertheless continued to be the main bastion in the struggle for independence from the Hapsburgs. Prince Gábor Bethlen (1613-1629), under whose reign Transylvania enjoyed a golden age of economic and cultural development, took up arms against the Hapsburgs several times during the Thirty Years' War to help the Protestant forces.
Why did the Hungarian fight against the Hapsburgs when it was the Turks who held a substantial part of their country under occupation? The answer to this question lies in the Hapsburgs' refusal to take as strong a stand against the Turks as their power and resources would have permitted in their use of Hungary as a buffer-state, and in their compromise solutions - negotiated both openly and in secret - which seriously conflicted with fundamental Hungarian interests. A flagrant example was the tragic fate of Miklós Zrínyi, the Hungarian writer, statesman and military leader. Zrínyi, who was the bán (viceroy) of Croatia and a landowner in the south, strove for the expulsion of the Turks both in his writings and on the battlefield, and his extremely fast and victorious campaign proved that his policy of saving the nation was realistic and feasible. Nevertheless, the imperial general Montecuccoli, and not Zrínyi, was appointed commander-in-chief of the army against the Ottoman forces. The attitude of this "procrastinating general" is summed up by his often-quoted saying, "Three things are required for war: money, money, and money." Following the victory which Montecuccoli finally managed to secure, the imperial court signed a treaty which was tantamount to defeat in return for certain Ottoman trade concessions to Austrian trading capital. Zrínyi died amidst mysterious circumstances while hunting, and even today the suspicion remains that he was murdered. In any case, it is a historical fact that the nobles who led the anti-Hapsburg movement were captured and executed after Zrínyi's death, and their estates were confiscated. The Hapsburgs utilized this event to abolish Hungarian self-government and to undertake a campaign of repression against the Hungarian Protestants. The country was overrun by mercenaries who plundered at will.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, armed clashes became increasingly frequent between Hapsburg mercenaries and the ever growing number of outlaws. These men, known as Kuruc, were forced to leave their homes as a result of the tyranny of the imperial authorities. At the same time, the embittered serfs deeply sympathized with them. The early Kuruc attacks on the Imperial troops ended in failure. Resistance strengthened when a young landowner, Count Imre Thököly, took over the leadership of their uprising in 1678, and having organized a strong army, successfully occupied the northeastern parts of the country. Thököly was consequently made prince of Upper Hungary, and a short-lived Upper Hungarian principality was established. Hungary thus became divided into four parts.
Because of its ware with France, the Hapsburg government had few forces available to deal with the Kuruc threat and was forced to make concessions to the Hungarian barons. The Diet convened in 1681, re-established baronial government, took measures to end the outrages of the German soldiers, announced an amnesty, and made concessions with regard to freedom and religion. As the result of these concessions, the majority of the Hungarian ruling class abandoned Thököly and decided to reach an agreement with the Hapsburgs. Thököly and a faction of the Kuruc fighters nonetheless were determined to continue their resistance.
Thököly's position was greatly weakened in the eyes of the public, because his strategy was based on Ottoman support despite tha changing balance of power in Europe. In light of the events at the end of the century, it became increasingly clear that the time for the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary had come. After the grand vizier Kara Mustapha's unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1683 by an army of two hundred thousand, Emperor Leopold I, realizing the seriousness of the situation, finally ceased his passsive strategy towards the Turks. Under continued encouragement from Pope Innocent XI, the "Holy League" of Austria, Poland and Venice was established for the struggle against the Turks. A peace treaty, valid for twenty years, was signed by Austria and France, and the allied forces - in which a great number of Hungarian soldiers also fought - began their campaign. In the summer of 1686, after fierce fighting, they captured Buda, and the following year they reoccupied Transylvania. Under the leadership of Charles of Lotharingia and later of Eugene of Savoy, they drove the Turks from Hungary. The final victory of the war, the battle of Zenta in 1697, was followed by the Treaty of Karlovitz [Karlóca] in 1699, which, with the exception of a small region, freed all of Hungary from Turkish occupation.
The question now poses itself, how was it possible that barely four years after the long-awaited liberation from a century and a half of Turkish repression, there followed an all-out war of independence against the Hapsburgs? Why did the people of this impoverished country rise in arms and fight for eight long years against the superior forces of the powerful Hapsburg Empire? The answer is not simple, for the problems are manifold. But one reason for the revolt was that the Hapsburgs violated the interests of the Hungarian landowners when they did not return their estates in the areas formerly under Turkish control. Instead, they were distributed among the Austrian aristocracy, officers of the Imperial Army, and high-ranking court officials. The peasants and serfs were severely affected by the state tax and the so-called portio imposed on them. In addition they were forced to provide quarters and food for the imperial troops. Townspeople also suffered under the burden of ruthless taxation. The Hungarian troops who formerly manned the frontier fortresses were returned to serfdom. The ruined peasants and the thousands of soldiers condemned to new serfdom fled the villages and took refuge as outlaws and bandits in the forests and mountains. The world of the wandering and fleeing poor was once more revived.
In the northern section of the discontented country, a few serfs and a handful of the former officers of the Thököly movement began to organize another anti-Hapsburg movement. Accepting their call to assume command, one of the greatest leaders of the independence movements in Europe, Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II, enters the stage of Hungarian history. Rákóczi's father had been Prince of Transylvania, and his stepfather was Imre Thököly, the leader of the Kuruc uprising. His mother, Ilona Zrínyi, was herself a descendant of military leaders who fought and defended their country against the Turks; she made a heroic defence of the fortress of Munkács against the siege of the Hapsburg army during the final days of the Thököly uprising. Afterwards, she followed her husband into exile.
The young Ferenc Rákóczi, the wealthiest landowner in the country, had learnt the oppressive methods of the Viennese court through personal experience. The Hapsburgs separated him from his family in his youth and deprived him of his freedom, but Rákóczi escaped from the prison at Wiener Neustadt and managed to reach Poland before his threatened trial for treason. In 1703, accepting the offer of leadership from his supporters, Rákóczi returned to Hungary, where great masses of peasants assembled under his banner. In a short time, he had an army of seventy thousand which soon swelled to one hundred thousand. With this army at his disposal, he quickly occupied the greater part of the country. By this time the war of independence - which began as a popular uprising - was joined by large numbers of the nobility. In 1705 the Diet elected Rákóczi as the ruling prince of the confederation of insurgent Hungarian nobles, announced the dethronement of the Hapsburgs, and in 1707 proclaimed the independence of Hungary.
On Ádám Mányoki's contemporary portrait, Rákóczi looks at the world with a natural and spontaneous expression. His heavy dark hair falls to his shoulders from the plumed fur cap that he is wearing. His finely cut and slightly sensuous lips show a man who is fond of life, but the pondering and searching look of his brownish grey eyes reveal a thinker of profound insight. Rákóczi was a highly educated and open-minded man. He conducted his correspondence with his unreliable ally, Louis XIV, in French. During the bitter years of exile, he wrote his Confessions - philosophical and anguished pieces of writing - in fine classical Latin. The manifestoes and decrees which he issued in Hungarian, dictating and revising them himself, were the shining examples of faultless and concise Hungarian prose. He was an excellent organizer whose concerns ranged from providing for the needs of the army to solving increasingly serious economic problems. His foreign policy was broad-minded, yet realistic. He established relations with France and Poland, and sought Russian support.
Yet in the end, the Kuruc war of independence was defeated. After the victory of the Hapsburg forces at Höchstadt, the opportunity was lost for a joint French-Hungarian offensive, and Hapsburg military pressure mounted. The internal contradictions in Hungary continued, and discontent grew among the peasants because they had been waiting in vain for the measure that would free the serfs. The nobility abandoned the struggle that had entailed heavy material sacrifices and deserted to the Hapsburg camp in growing numbers. There was a shortage of money and the soldiers began to leave their units. And while Rákóczi was in Russia at the court of Peter the Great to seek aid, Sándor Károlyi, the commander-in-chief of the Kuruc forces, capitulated (1711). Rákóczi spent the rest of his life in exile, first in France, then in Turkey.
Following the end of the Kuruc war of independence, the first decades of the eighteenth century marked a period of accommodation and compromise between the Hapsburg administrators and the Hungarian barons. The repopulation of areas devastated under Ottoman rule was rapidly taking place. Masses of serfs flowed from Northern Hungary - which had not been occupied - to the depopulated southern areas, and they in turn were replaced by Slovak, Southern Slav and German settlers. Due to large-scale immigration, the population doubled in seventy years, reaching over eight million. At the same time, however, the number of the non-Hungarian population was greater that the Hungarian.
The idyllic state of affairs between the dynasty and the Hungarian nobility began to deteriorate around the middle of the century. At first the Hungarian part of the compromise involved the maintenance of the county system, and nobles who pledged allegiance to the Hapsburgs were allowed to retain their estates. The authority of the baron-controlled Hungarian Diet was also maintained. In return, the Hungarian ruling class again recognized the Hapsburg dynasty as the monarchs of Hungary. In 1723 Charles III (1711-1740) induced the Hungarian barons to accept the Pragmatic Sanction, which recognized the rights of inheritance of the female offspring of the Hapsburg dynasty and the indivisibility of the Hapsburg Empire.
The Hungarian estates enthusiastically supported Maria Theresa (1740-1780). Perhaps the most blatant example of their enthusiasm is the well-known engraving of the young queen holding her baby son (later King Joseph II) as the members of the nobility zealously declare that they will sacrifice their "life and blood" to save the throne from the Prussian rival. Naturally, they shouted in Latin and, according to contemporary gossip, they added very quietly: "sed avenam non", that is, they would be willing to sacrifice their blood, but unwilling to supply oats to feed the army horses. Naturally, reluctance was not confined to the oats, and in the course of time, the conflict deepened between the Hungarian nobility, who insisted on the retention of their feudal prerogatives - i.e., the outdated serf system and exemption from taxation - and the Hapsburg administration. When Joseph II (1780-1790), the most interesting and impressive personality of all the Hapsburgs, tried to implement reforms based on the ideals of enlightened absolutism, the resistance of the nobility grew stronger. The decrees easing the oppression of the serfs were only successfully enforced after the repression of a peasant uprising in Transylvania which frightened landowners sufficiently for them to tolerate the implementation of these measures. In the end, Joseph II was enforced to cancel nearly all of his reforms on his death-bed.
A positive feature of the resistance against the policies of Joseph II was the political programme designed to safeguard the Hungarian language against Germanisation. Consequently, Hungarian literature was given a new impetus. In the final decade of the century, under the reign of Francis I (1792-1835) who considered that his principal task was "to put the brakes on the demon of revolution," there emerged a section of the lesser nobility and the intelligentsia which followed the events in France with active interest. It was from their ranks that a small group of very high intellectual calibre was formed whose main political objective, besides the independence of the country, was its transformation to a bourgeois society. Their leader was the lawyer József Hajnóczy, and the group included the poet János Batsányi, the writer Ferenc Kazinczy, and the economist Gergely Berzeviczky. When Ignác Martinovics took over leadership in 1794, the group was transformed into a revolutionary Jacobin organization. The organization was shortlived, and the membership must have still been only a few hundred when the imperial police arrested the leaders, who were executed in Buda in 1795.
At the Diet of 1825, following a statement made by one of the members on the need to encourage the use of the Hungarian language and culture, a young aristocrat, count István Széchenyi, asked for the floor. To help implement this aim, he offered a year's income from his estates to found a Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His example was followed by others, and by the end of the Diet, the necessary financial basis for the establishment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was secured.
Széchenyi's speech at the Diet marked the beginning of a new era, that of the Hungarian Reform Movement. Széchenyi became an outstanding leader of this movement in the following years, the initiator and active participant of a whole series of changes and reforms which were to set feudal Hungary on the road to bourgeois development.
Széchenyi's ideas for reform were supposed to lay the foundations for the growth of general welfare. He believed that the transformation from feudalism to bourgeois economy could be implemented voluntarily and peacefully. He was anxious to see these inevitable reforms take place under the leadership of the nobility and the large landowners. He had no desire to alter the relationship between Hungary and the Hapsburg dynasty; on the contrary, he wanted to make use of Austrian capital for the economic transformation of Hungary. He elaborated his political programme in influential books, but his practical initiatives also gave a considerable boost to development. He participated in the introduction of steamship navigation on the Danube, encouraged mining, set up steam mills, and aided the construction of railways. He was responsible for works regulating the waters of the Tisza and the Lower Danube, and induced the Diet to pass a law for the construction of the first permanent bridge across the Danube, the Chain Bridge in Budapest. He was the first to propose the unification of the three separate towns of Buda, Pest and Óbuda.
The other great personality of the age, Lajos Kossuth, made his first appearance in public life at the Diet of 1832 with the publication of a newspaper - produced in mimeographed form - that contributed considerably to the dissemination of liberal ideas throughout the country.
The activities of the Reform Movement mobilized the political life of the country. Chancellor Metternich, however, who effectively held the reins of power in place of the sickly and feeble-minded Ferdinand I, did everything he could to roll back the tide of liberal resistance. But the views of Kossuth were becoming increasingly popular; by means of modern journalism, he was able to win over the public to side with his political views. The political programme of the Opposition Party advocated the liberation of the serfs against an indemnity paid to their lords, ended the nobility's privilege of not paying taxes, proposed the gradual introduction of universal franchise and equality before the law. It also advocated the abolition of the system of entailment, one of the most ancient laws governing Hungarian feudalism, which stood in the way of the development of a modern credit system.
The revolutionary spirit of the spring of 1848 gave a tremendous impetus to the course of events in Hungary. Having swept Paris, Berlin and Milan, revolution irrupted in Vienna as well. On March 15, a revolutionary demonstration took place in Pest. The writer Mór Jókai read the "Twelve Points" containing the national demands for change, Sándor Petõfi recited his poem, the "National Song", and a revolutionary mass meeting was held in front of the National Museum in which ten thousand people took part. The Diet which held its session in Pozsony [now Bratislava] passed the laws containing the reforms demanded by the opposition. The king gave his assent, and the Viennese State council appointed count Lajos Batthyány, the chairman of the Opposition Party, to form the new government.
The revolutionary wave that swept over Europe had paved the way for the bloodless victory of the March revolution. But by the summer of 1848, the wave of counter-revolution had won decisive victories, and the court in Vienna decided that the time had come to take action against the Hungarian revolution. Jellacic, the bán of Croatia devoted to imperial interests launched an attack with an army of 45,000, crossed the river Drave, and invaded Hungary. The National Defence Commission elected by Parliament took over the leadership of the resistance with Lajos Kossuth at its head. Kossuth promptly set out on a recruiting campaign, and tens of thousands of people from the towns and villages of the plains rallied to the battle-cry. The Hungarian army, made up for the most part of the new conscripts, defeated Jellacic and drove his army out of the country. Influenced by the events in Hungary, the Camarilla in Vienna compelled Ferdinand V to abdictate in favour of Francis Joseph (1848-1916). Under the command of Prince Windischgraetz, the offensive against Hungary began and on January 4, 1849 the imperial forces captured the capital. The Government transferred its headquarters to Debrecen, and Arthur Görgey, the commander-in-chief of the Hungarian forces, led his army through the mountains of northern Hungary. He arrived after a brilliantly executed series of manœuvres on the Upper Tisza, where the army was reorganised and reinforced with newly recruited troops.
The Hungarian forces, strengthened during the winter months, launched an offensive in the spring of 1849. Supported by Polish, Austrian, Italian and other volunteers, it drove the imperial forces out of the country after a series of victorious battles. Following the marked improvement of the military situation, Kossuth - with the support of the radical wing in Parliament - forced through the dethronement of the Hapsburgs and the proclamation of the independence of Hungary on April 14, 1849. He was then elected the Governing President of the country.
Meanwhile, on the basis of their Holy Alliance, the Hapsburg Court presuaded the Russian czar to provide military intervention against Hungary. The Hungarian forces were inevitably overwhelmed by the joint offensive of the superior Russian and Austrian imperial forces. After many bottles, the Hungarian war of independence was crushed. The poet Sándor Petõfi was among those who fell in the battle of Segesvár [now Sigisoara]. The final battle at Temesvár [now Timisoara] was concluded by the Hungarian surrender to the Russian commander-in-chief, Prince Paskievits, at Világos on August 13, 1849. Kossuth, together with many other leaders of the war of independence, took refuge abroad. Fourteen generals were executed at Arad [now Oradea], Count Lajos Batthyány was shot by a firing squad in Pest, military courts sentenced thousands to prison and to death, and tens of thousands of Hungarian soldiers were forcibly conscripted into the emperor's army. A reign of terror engulfed Hungary.
Revolutions, including the unsuccessful ones, nearly always force their victorious enemies to retain at least some of the measures which were introduced by them. This is what happened in the case of the 1848-49 Hungarian revolution and war of independence. Although the political system introduced by the Minister of the Interior Alexander Bach annulled the 1848 laws, it could not, however, nullify the most important reforms, including the liberation of the serfs. So while the regime introduced measures to Germanise the country by force, and any kind of activity was viewed with suspicion by the secret police, Hungary nevertheless embarked upon the road of economic development in the period following its defeat. Agricultural output increased and certain branches of industry, such as milling, coal-mining, metallurgy and processing, showed signs of development, and Hungary began exporting a considerable quantity of goods.
Meanwhile, international conflicts were increasingly undermining the status of the Hapsburg Empire, whose position was aggravated by internal resistance. The Hapsburg armies had been defeated by the forces of the Italian risorgimento, supported by France, and it was soon apparent that the Empire was without the economic resources to wage a protracted war. Francis Joseph laid the blame for the debacle on his government, and in the autumn of 1859, he compelled Alexander Bach to resign. The dynasty began to seek some sort of a compromise with the Hungarian ruling class. A long political struggle which lasted for eight years began, in the course of which it was either the Hungarian public which was dissatisfied with the rights being offered to them by the various "diplomas" and "patents" issued by the Hapsburgs, or it was the dynasty which considered the Hungarian demands too excessive. Finally, external and internal changes created the conditions suitable for compromise. The Hapsburg Empire was further weakened by defeat at the hands of the Prussians at the battle of Königgrätz, while the Hungarians, faced with serious economic difficulties, hoped that a compromise would lead to loans, economic development, and the provision of posts in the 1848 government administration. It was under these circumstances that the Compromise of 1867 was reached, mainly through the efforts of Ferenc Deák, who had been a minister in the 1848 government and was the representative politician of the lesser nobility.
The Compromise reorganised the Hapsburg Empire on a dualist basis. Within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, both the Austrian empire and the Hungarian kingdom became independent states with separate legislative bodies and governments responsible to their legislatures. The link between them was further assured by the common affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: defence, foreign affairs and the finances related to these. Francis Joseph, who had been uncrowned up till then, was crowned King of Hungary in the summer of 1867. According to the accounts from contemporary records, it must have been a splendid occasion. The ceremony took place in the rapidly developing community of Buda-Pest which already had a population numbering around half a million. (Six years later, the towns of Pest, Óbuda and Buda merged, giving birth to Budapest.) From each county in Hungary, a sack of earth was brought to "Coronation Hill", onto the top of which Francis Joseph galloped on horseback, wearing the Holy Crown and a coronation robe, and carrying a sword to make the traditional slashes to the four winds, signifying his intention to defend his country from any kind of attack, from wherever it might originate. It is a scene that yearns for the painter's brush, and in fact, it was soon rendered immortal by chromolitography and appeared on the walls of schoolrooms, bank offices, and middle class homes.
The policy of appeasing the dynasty had a great many supporters, but an even greater number of people hung the portrait of "our father Kossuth" in their homes, and brooded in front of it with nostalgia; for Kossuth, even in exile, had continued to support the platform of independence and had condemned the Compromise. This dichotomy was the essential feature of the internal political life of Hungary during the last decades of the nineteenth century. In manifested itself in the struggle between the ruling party, which supported the Compromise, and the opposition parties, which adhered to the principles of 1848. It was a struggle interspersed with many spectacular events, such as the sudden conversion of Kálmán Tisza, who, discarding his programme of independence, formed a new government and remained in power for three decades.
All these events occurred during a period of economic growth, and with the promotion of industrial development, there was a massive migration to the towns. A railway network was constructed in this period, the main lines of which met at Budapest, directing the interregional traffic of distant parts of the country to the capital. This contributed to the development of Budapest as a centre of transport, and also enhanced its commerce and industry. Budapest developed at an astonishing speed, and in the course of a few decades, became one of the great capitals of Europe. Important new industrial firms, such as engineering works, textile and leather factories were founded, and signs of development began to appear in mining and in the metallurgical industries. The regulation of rivers and the resulting cessation of the flood peril expanded the amount of arable land. The modernisation of farming became feasible, and the output increased. The high point of the era following the Compromise was marked by the celebrations of the onethousandth anniversary of the Magyar Conquest of Hungary. However, behind the glossy exterior and a basically unfounded optimism, a number of serious problems had been tormenting the country for some time. Lacking capital, the owners of small and medium-sized estates could not keep up with modern development, and consequently went bankrupt. The number of farm labourers reached four million, and thousands of landless peasants were forced to emigrate. The discontent felt by the working masses and the national minorities contributed to the further deepening of internal contradictions. The growth and expansion of the working-class movement was marked by a series of strikes and demonstrations which the government attempted to crush on several bloody occasions. While the Monarchy drifted towards war, resistance to the imminent conflict strengthened among the masses.
Following the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, most politicians and military commanders of the Monarchy favoured war against Serbia. Count István Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister, was at first opposed to the idea of declaring war. He considered the timing inopportunate and the proposed annexation of Serbia undesirable, as it would have increased Slav population of the Monarchy and weakened the Hungarian ruling classes. He was, however, persuaded by Austrian pressure to dispatch the unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia, it was worded thus provoking a war. Posters bearing the signature of Francis Joseph appeared on the streets of Budapest declaring the war: "I have considered everything, I have thought over everything...;" The Hungarian soldiers joined their regiments singing and carrying bouquets. The troops were sent off at the stations by elegantly dressed ladies to the sound of band music. It seemed as though the glittering image of the millennial celebrations was turning into a new, even falser illusion.
However, the enthusiasm was short-lived. Hungary was aligned with the Central Powers, but events soon disproved the vainglorious prophecy of Kaiser William II that the Germans would be in Paris by the time "the leaves fall from the trees". The fighting gradually developed into trench warfare with heavy loss of life on both sides. In the first three years, Austro-Hungary lost three million men, and a million of these were Hungarian.
The country was short of food, inflation was on the rise, and wages lagged far behind the rapidly changing prices, while those dealing in paper-soled boots and inedible rations reaped handsome profits. Dissatisfaction was everywhere. Since 1915, Count Mihály Károlyi, the leader of the political opposition, had been demanding a break with the Germans and a separate peace. Following the death of Francis Joseph, the new king, Charles IV (1916-1918), attempted to conclude that separate peace. He proposed a series of liberal reforms and concessions to the national minorities, but his attempts failed in 1917.
The 1917 February revolution in Russia had a great impact in Hungary; a wave of antiwar strikes swept over the country. New left-wing trends made themselves felt within the working-class movement, including the left-wing opposition within the Social Democratic Party, which strongly attacked the opportunism of party leadership. The revolutionary socialist group of university students, the Galilei Circle, started organizing anti-militarist resistance in alliance with the trade union workers. The effect of the revolution in Russia and the peace edict was even more striking. Tension mounted rapidly in the country, which the government was unable to do anything about. Strikes and demonstrations engulfed the nation, and the revolutionary movement spread to the fronts. At the same time, movements among the national minorities for self-determination and independence took on increased vigour. By the summer of 1918, the fate of the Monarchy was sealed. Even before its capitulation on November 3, 1918, a National Council had already come into existence. Headed by Count Mihály Károlyi, it demanded a separate peace, Hungarian independence, the recognition of the right of self-determination for the national minorities, land reform, and universal suffrage. On October 31, 1918, the masses, wearing asters on their caps, marched through the streets of Budapest and occupied the strategic points in the capital. Archduke Joseph, named homo regius by the king, appointed Károlyi Prime Minister. On November 16, 1918, Hungary was proclaimed a republic.
Károlyi, a liberal politician, whom the so called "Michaelmas Revolution" brought to power as head of republic, was opposed to the war and sympathetic to the Entente Powers. He tried to alleviate the plight of the peasants and divided up his huge estates among them. Despite this, he was soon overwhelmed by the territorial demands and armed invasion of the Entente. On March 21, a communist regime took over under Béla Kun. The hastily conceived measures of the communists - nationalization of all the lands and taking most of the economy into state control - met with resistance. Meanwhile the Red Army collapsed and the Romanian forces marched into Budapest. On August 1, 1919, the short-lived first communist regime of Hungary was overthrown.
After the fall of the communist regime and the departure of the Romanian troops from the country, a National Army created under the command of Admiral Miklós Horty, the one-time aide-de-camp of Emperor Francis Joseph, advanced on Budapest. Elections were held and on March 1, 1921, the National Assembly appointed Miklós Horty regent of Hungary.
After the election of the National Assembly, but before the election of the Regent, the Treaty of Trianon was signed. The provisions of this peace treaty were extremely severe. Hungary's territory was reduced to a third of its previous size, and the country was forced to pay a large indemnity. What's more, the territorial provisions of the treaty resulted in three million Hungarians being placed under the jurisdiction of neighbouring countries.
The Treaty of Trianon shocked Hungary not only by severing millions of Hungarians from the mother country - this could have been gradually made acceptable by the application of minority rights and the kind of handling of national frontiers now in evidence in Western Europe - but also by wrecking Central Europe's historical economic region.
Between the two world wars Hungary achieved a measure of economic development, though suffering heavy losses during the universal economic crisis of the thirties. Hoping for the recovery of the territories that had been lost as a result of the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary in her foreign policy got more and more under the influence of the Axis Powers. As a result of the Vienna Verdicts agreed upon in 1938 and in 1940, Hungary in fact recovered some of the territories annexed to Slovakia and Romania. Unfortunately, the country was by her alliance with the Axis Powers drawn into World War II, which she entered in 1941, by sending an army to the eastern front.
World War II brought heavy losses to Hungary: during the Battle of Stalingrad and the offensive on the Don, 40,000 soldiers of the Second Hungarian Army were killed and 70,000 were captured by the Soviet troops, and heavy damage was inflicted on Hungarian towns by the air raids of the Allies. The resistance against the country's involvement in the war grew and in March, 1944 Hitler, anxious to keep Hungary in the war, decided to occupy it. He sent for Horthy and while the Regent was staying in the leadership quarters in Germany, Hitler's troops marched in.
Horthy remained in his post as Regent and the new Hungarian puppet-government fulfilled all the demands of Veesenmayer, the German plenipotentiary. Further Hungarian troops were sent to the front, the Gestapo took the drive against the anti-Nazis, and more than half a million Jews were deported to the German death-camps. After Romania, Finland and Bulgaria followed by Italy's example and went over to the Allies, Horthy sent secret envoys to Moscow and a cease-fire agreement was signed. After the cease-fire proclamation was read over Budapest radio, however, Horthy's son, Miklós Horthy Jr., was taken prisoner by the Gestapo. Horthy was forced to sign a document appointing the Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi National Protector and then was taken to Germany with his family, where he lived in captivity. After the war, Horthy moved to Portugal, where he died in exile in 1957.
The war continued. The German army was finally driven out of Hungary by the Soviet army in April, 1945. The war took the lives of half a million Hungarians, and forty per cent of the nation's material resources were destroyed. The provisions of the Treaty of Trianon were reinstated and Hungary was forced to pay a large indemnity.
A period of reconstruction followed the war. Hungary became a republic, democratic elections were held, and a coalition government was formed. The Hungarian Communist Party, however, supported by the occupying Soviet army and the KGB, did not accept the result of the democratic process. The lawful government of the country was toppled by unlawful arrests, deportations to Siberia, and other means. The communists assumed power, introduced a reign of terror. The collectivisation of agriculture, the forced development of heavy industry, the rigid central planning, ruined the economy in a few years. As a result of the growing resistance of the Hungarian people, a revolution that broke out on October 23, 1956, toppled the regime headed by Mátyás Rákosi. The government of Imre Nagy announced the beginning of a new, democratic era, and Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The revolution seemed triumphant: the Soviet troops withdrew and peace returned to the country. On November 4th, however, the Soviet army invaded the country in overwhelming numbers and while Prime Minister Nagy applied in vain for the help of the UN, they crushed the uprising. Thousands were arrested, deported or executed. Imre Nagy and other leaders of the revolution applied for asylum at the Yugoslav embassy in Budapest, but they were deported to Romania, later brought back to Hungary, and after a show trial, executed in 1958.
After a period of bloody oppression, the regime of János Kádár tried to introduce a kind of "goulash communism": the living standard of the population was slightly improved, and travel to the West was allowed within limits. By introducing the slogan "Who is not against us is with us," Kádár tried to pacify public opinion hostile towards the regime. The system of "socialist planning", however, even as modified by the "reform of the economic management" introduced in 1968, did not work and the economy could be kept going only by amassing foreign depts. The growing inflation, the lowering of the living standard, the hopeless economic situation of the country, aroused growing opposition, even within Communist Party ranks. János Kádár was forced to retire and after a transitory period, the reform-communist government of Miklós Németh took over.
During the summer of 1989, conferences took place among the representatives of government and the budding parties of the opposition. A system of free elections and a way towards multiparty democracy was elaborated. At the same time, the Hungarian government opened the country's frontiers to citizens of Soviet-occupied East Germany who wanted to flee to the West. The chain-reaction caused by this measure introduced the historical changes in East-Central Europe, which brought the demise of communist rule in several countries.
Based on the agreements concluded by the representatives of the Hungarian government
and of the parties of the opposition, general elections were held in April, 1990. The newly elected
parliament revised the Constitution and elected the president of the Hungarian Republic. In September
1990, municipal elections were held, completing the establishment of parliamentary democracy in Hungary.
© Zoltán Halász
English translation by Zsuzsa Béres
Translation revised by J.E. Sollosy
Bibliographic data:
Title: Hungary (4th edition)
Authors: Zoltán Halász / András Balla (photo) / Zsuzsa Béres (translation)
Published by Corvina, in 1998
159 pages
ISBN: 963-13-4129-1, 963-13-4727-3