Folia Historica 32. (Budapest, 2017)
I. TANULMÁNYOK - Varga Lujza: Magyarország csatlakozása a Nemzetek Szövetségéhez
THE ADMISSION OF HUNGARY TO THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS Summán/ After the devastating World War I and the follow-up Treaties of Versailles, new states were bom - one of them was the weakened Hungary, which lost a significant part of its territories and was in a difficult economical and political situation. Hungary practically crowded out from the European political scene. On 4 June 1920, Hungary signed the Treaty of Trianon - of which the first part included the covenant of the newly established League of Nations. It seemed clear that the League of Nations sought to determine the post-war diplomacy. The Hungarian government, whose main aim in foreign policy was to return into the circulation of European diplomacy, also took it into consideration. According to this, one of the major goals of the incoming new Prime Minister, István Bethlen, was to achieve the addition of Hungary to the League of Nations. Despite that by the basis of the League of Nations it would have been clear that the defeated powers would also adjoin the organization, in reality it was preceded by long series of negotiations and speculations. In 1920 Hungary and Bulgaria were the firsts to request their admission, on what the verdict of the members of the League of Nations was quite divided. The newly formed alliance, the Little Entente commanded the Hungarian disarmament, and the final settlement of the Austrian-Hungarian border as basic condition to the admission which was also balked by Charles IV's attempts to retake the throne of Hungary. Although the negotiations were still in progress, due to a provision by the League of Nations that all parties involved in a matter should be invited to the according meetings, the Hungarian delegates could be found in various events organized by the League of Nations. Meanwhile the Hungarian government also began to establish a representation operating under the League of Nations, with Mihály Réz and later Zoltán Baranyai as head of it. The Hungarian request to join the League of Nations arrived to the organization during the summer of 1921, and the consideration was to be expected by September 1921, by one of the Committees set up by the Assembly. Due to the hard political situation in Hungary, it was certain that the vote on Hungary's request would have been divided, which made the Hungarian leaders to postpone its application. On 24 September Count Albert Apponyi made a solicitation for the postpone of the decision for the next session, which was accepted by the Assembly. Poliowing the settlement of the contested points, in 1922 the negotiations over the Hungarian request started again, and on 18 September 1922 Hungary's admission to the League of Nations was accepted by unanimous vote. 66
