Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 17. The Hungary of Trianon from the Election of the Regent to the Last Year of Peace (1920-1938). László Baják

At the loud remonstrance and threats of the Allies and the successor states, however, Miklós Horthy prevented this from occurring on both occasions, the second with military intervention. (At the time of the coronation the king, who was sworn to protect the integrity of the territories of Hungary, was persona non grata.) Finally, at the end of 1921, the Hungarian Parliament proclaimed the dethronement of the House of Habsburg, and the Allies exiled the king to Madeira. Among the repercussions of the royal putsch was the forming of a close anti-Hungarian Little Entente by its neighbours Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Southern Slavonic state. It was also in 1921 that Hungarian rebels obstructed the handing over of territories awarded to Austria - this with the knowledge of the government. In the ensuing diplomatic row Hungarian succeeded, and here alone succeeded, in giving the population of a small part of the territory the right to decide which country they would like to live in. In the referendum, the citizens of Sopron and the area around it voted in favour of Hungary. In 1920 Miklós Horthy, whose name is inseparable from the period between the two wars, was temporarily elected as Hungary's regent until the royal question was solved. But the solution never was found to the question of who should be king, and so for nearly 25 years the last admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy reigned as head of state of a strangely kingless kingdom. Miklós Horthy had for three decades been an outstanding naval officer on the world's oceans, had been Franz Joseph's aide-de-camp and had stood firm in the First World War naval battles in the Adriatic. His best-known exploit is the breaking in 1917 of the blockade on the Straits of Otranto, which temporarily allowed the submarines of the Central Powers access to the Mediterranean. (In the course of his career Horthy possessed numerous orders and decorations, only few of which surfaced following German looting in the Second World War.) In other words, Horthy's rank and reputation made him fit for the post of head of state. However, a diplomat wrote aptly of him, "Horthy is an exceptionally congenial, cordial fellow, but he has no sense of politics.