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Land forces of the Kingdom of Hungary (1919–1945)
For the predecessor of the Royal Hungarian Army that existed from 1867 to 1918, see Royal Hungarian Honvéd.
Hungarian National Army Magyar Nemzeti Hadsereg[1] (1919–1920)Royal Hungarian National Army Magyar Királyi Nemzeti Hadsereg[2] (1920–1922)Royal Hungarian Army Magyar Királyi Honvédség[3] (1922–1945)
Infantry colour of the Royal Hungarian Army (1939–45)
The Royal Hungarian Army (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvédség, German: Königlich Ungarische Armee) was the name given to the land forces of the Kingdom of Hungary in the period from 1922 to 1945.[11][12][13] Its name was inherited from the Royal Hungarian Honvéd which went under the same Hungarian title of Magyar Királyi Honvédség from 1867 to 1918. Initially restricted by the Treaty of Trianon to 35,000 men, the army was steadily upgraded during the 1930s and fought on the side of the Axis powers during World War II.
Admiral Horthy during the entry of the National Army in Budapest, November 1919
In July 1919 the former Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Admiral Miklós Horthy, had begun to set up the "National Army" (Hungarian: Nemzeti Hadsereg) as directed by the opposition government. This was supported by former k.u.k. officers like Gyula Gömbös, Döme Sztójay and Anton Lehár. After the withdrawal of Romanian troops in 1919/20 they took over the defence of the country, but remained dependent on the goodwill of the victorious powers that had met at the Paris Peace Conference.
Hungarian troops occupy Baranya that had previously been cleared by the Yugoslav army, September 1921
The Treaty of Trianon that was signed on 4 June 1920 confirmed Hungary's territorial losses and restricted its armed forces to a volunteer organisation of 35,000 men. Heavy weapons such as heavy artillery, tanks, aircraft and anti-aircraft guns were forbidden as was the creation of a general staff. Compliance with these restrictions was supervised by an allied control commission.
Early years
General Pál Nagy, the first commander of the Royal Hungarian Army
On 4 January 1922 the National Army was renamed the Royal Hungarian Army. On 11 May 1922 the new organisation came into being with seven military districts, each defended by a mixed brigade (Hungarian: Vegyesdandár). In addition there were two cavalry brigades and three engineer battalions.
The length of military service was three years. Pre-military training under the supervision of army officers was conducted in the youth organisation, Levente, founded in 1921. From the age of ten, boys who wanted to pursue an officer's career, could attend a military middle school. Potential officers were then trained at the Ludovica Military Academy in Budapest (for infantry or cavalry) or the János Bolyai College of Military Technology (for artillery, engineering and intelligence troops). Secret general staff courses were run from 1923 onwards. The senior officer corps was predominantly staffed by former k.u.k. officers, of which a disproportionate number were of German-Austrian extraction.
In addition to the army there were other armed organisations that were partly used to create a cadre of training military reservists. The most important of these was the gendarmerie (Hungarian: Csendőrség) which was subordinated to the Interior Ministry and was organised in the same way as the military districts and whose strength in places clearly exceeded that of the regular armed forces. Other organisations that took on ex-soldiers were the police, the customs and border guards and the treasury guard (Finanzwache). The river police (Hungarian: Folyamőrség) who monitored traffic on the River Danube with 8 patrol boats initially worked to the Interior Ministry until it was subordinated in January 1939 to the Defence Ministry as a corps of river troops (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyami Erők).
Monitoring by the allied control commission ended on 31 March 1927 and in the same year the government of István Bethlen signed a treaty of friendship with Fascist Italy which was intended to form a counterweight to the encirclement of Hungary by the powers of the Little Entente. In the years that followed the armament of the army, which had hitherto still consisted of wartime and pre-war stock, was modernised and, especially under Gyula Gömbös, defence minister from 1929, clandestinely expanded.
The re-establishment of an air force had been planned as early as 1920 by the Ministry of Transport and, from 1925, by the Air Office of the Ministry of Trade. On 6 December 1928 the Royal Hungarian Air Force (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő) was founded, but its existence was kept secret until 1938.
Expansion and territorial changes from 1938
On 5 March 1938, Prime Minister Kálmán Darányi announced the Győr Programme that envisaged the investment of a billion pengő over 5 years on the expansion of the armed forces. This was probably aimed at securing a rapid agreement with the Little Entente states on arms equality, something that was achieved by the Bled agreement in August 1938. The reorganization of the army began on 1 October 1938 under mobilisation plans Huba I-III. In the seven military districts, the mixed brigades were now grouped into corps of three brigades each (from February 1942, light divisions).
In November 1938 after the First Vienna Award, Hungarian troops occupied the disputed areas of Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine. In the occupied region an eighth corps was established. After the break-up of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, the whole of Carpatho-Ukraine was occupied and, a little later, following the brief Slovak–Hungarian War, a strip of land in East Slovakia.
That year conscription was re-introduced. A new military service act forced officers with a Jewish parent to withdraw from active service. The remaining Jews, along with members of other national minorities and politically unreliable soldiers, were sent to serve in unarmed labour battalions.
In March 1940, three field army commands were formed, each of three corps, together with the Gyorshadtest ("Rapid Corps"). The Chief of the General Staff now took over the military command that had previously been the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. He was placed directly under the supreme commander, the regent.
Although minister president, Pál Teleki, had signed a friendship and non-aggression treaty with Yugoslavia in December 1940, in March 1941 Hungary allowed the German Wehrmacht to march through Hungarian territory. On 11 April 1941, following Telekis' suicide and by Hitler's invitation, the Hungarian 3rd Army joined the Balkans Campaign in the wake of which Bačka, Baranya, Prekmurje and Medjimurje were annexed.
Operation Barbarossa
Unlike their enemy, Romania, Germany did not envisage Hungary participating in Operation Barbarossa and, as a consequence, it was not directly involved in the preparations for the operation. The Chief of the General Staff, Henrik Werth, who was of German origin, pressed however for Hungarian participation in the campaign, supported by the Defence Minister, Károly Bartha. On 21 June, as a gesture to Germany, Hungary broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. A few days after the beginning of the war, on 26 June 1941, aircraft with Soviet markings bombed the Hungarian occupied towns of Kassa and Munkács, which gave Hungary the pretext to declare war on the Soviet Union.
On 1 July the so-called Carpathian Group (Hungarian: Kárpát Csoport) under Major General Ferenc Szombathelyi, consisting of the VIII Corps and the Rapid Corps, crossed the Soviet border and reached the Dniester within a week, meeting little Soviet resistance. The VIII Corps then remained as an occupation force in the conquered territory, while the Rapid Corps under Béla Miklós was subordinated operationally to the German 17th Army to participate in subsequent operations. It was involved in the battles of Uman and Kiev. By the end of October it had reached Izium on the Seversky Donets, before being recalled in late November to Hungary. Hitler had previously reached an agreement during a meeting with Horthy to provide five Hungarian "security brigades" to protect the hinterland in exchange for the deployment of the Rapid Corps. These were subordinated to the occupation group (Hungarian: Magyar Megszálló Csoport) formed on 6 October 1941, whose headquarters was moved from Vinnytsia to Kiev in December.
1942–43
On 7 Dec 1941, the United Kingdom declared war on Hungary who, in return, backed the German-Italian declaration of war on the United States on 13 Dec 1941. On 17 Jan 1942 Romania announced that they were participating in the 1942 campaign with two armies and, five days later, Hungary stated that they were ready to dispatch their own army. On 11 April the 2nd Army under Gusztáv Jány began moving to the front occupied by the German Army Group South near Kursk. The army took part in the German summer offensive, Fall Blau, that began in June 1942, and reached the River Don south of Voronezh in July, where it moved into defensive positions.
In Jan 1943, the 2nd Army was shattered by a major attack on the Voronezh Front (the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive). The remnants were withdrawn from the front and allocated to occupation forces in Ukraine and southern Belarus. In summer 1943, a wide-ranging re-organization of the army was introduced: the Szabolcs I plan. The hitherto light divisions were largely disbanded and in their place fully fledged infantry and reserve divisions were formed. Two corps with a total of nine security divisions remained in the Soviet Union, where they were increasingly drawn into the fight with the advancing Red Army.
After the Hungarian government of Miklós Kállay had entered into negotiations with the Western Powers in summer 1943 over a separate peace agreement, Germano-Hungarian relations noticeably worsened. Hungary's refusal to provide troops for the occupation of the Balkans, as well as her demands, to pull occupation troops out of Ukraine and Belarus to defend the homeland, were viewed with suspicion by the Germans. In March 1944 the Wehrmacht occupied large parts of Hungary in Operation Margarethe in order to prevent her from leaving the Axis alliance. The largely demobilised Hungarian army offered no resistance. The newly elected government under Döme Sztójay declared itself ready to support the Germans with new deployments of troops.
In April the 1st Army under Géza Lakatos was sent to the front in East Galicia, in order to prevent the Soviets seizing the Carpathian passes. With the help of a newly established line of defence it was able to hold here until July 1944, before it had to pull back into the Carpathians in the face of the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive.
At the end of August 1944, the 2nd and 3rd Armies were mobilised again, in order to defend Transylvania and South Hungary following Romania's change of sides. The 2nd Army was subordinated to Army Group Fretter-Pico. In the wake of the Carpatho-Dukla Offensive and Battle of Debrecen, the Hungarian-German armies were pushed back during September and October into the Great Hungarian Plain. During these battles, on 15 October, Reichsverweser Horthy was removed by the SS after his unilateral agreement of a ceasefire with the Soviet Union during Operation Panzerfaust, and the Arrow Cross Party under Ferenc Szálasitook over the government and control of the army. As a result, the commander of the 1st Army, Béla Miklós, went over to the Soviet side and they installed him as head of an opposition government with its headquarters in Debrecen. Its Defence Minister was ex-Chief of the General Staff, János Vörös, who had also defected to the Soviets.
A 102-day-long Siege of Budapest by troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts began on 3 Nov 1944 and they invested the city until 26 December. Amongst the encircled troops who surrendered on 13 February 1945 that included Wehrmacht and SS units, was the Hungarian I Corps.
End of the war and war crime trials
The 2nd Hungarian Army was disbanded in December 1944 after suffering heavy losses and the remaining units absorbed into the 3rd Army. The 1st Army pulled back to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after the fall of Budapest, where they surrendered in May 1945 to the 4th Ukrainian Front. The 3rd Army had taken part in March in the abortive Plattensee Offensive, after which it was largely disbanded. The remnants gave themselves up in May to British and American forces in Austria.
Royal Hungarian River Guard Magyar Királyi Folyamőrség[14] (1921–1939)Royal Hungarian Army River Forces Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyami Erők[15] (1939–1945)
In April 1919 the Hungarian government established the Naval Forces (Hungarian: Hadihajós csapat, lit.'warship group') under the authority of the Defence Ministry for the purpose of patrolling the Danube. It was replaced on 1 March 1921 by the civilian Royal Hungarian River Guard (Magyar Királyi Folyamőrség) under the Interior Ministry. Between March 1927 and May 1930, it expanded to about 1700 personnel, a number that held until the end of World War II. On 15 January 1939 the River Guard was renamed the Royal Hungarian Army River Forces (Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyami Erők) and placed under the Defence Ministry.[15] It used naval ranks until 1 July 1944, when it switched to army ranks. In April 1941 it took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia. From April 1944 on its minesweepers assisted the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in clearing the Danube of aerial mines.[21]
The Hungarian Defence Forces is the national defence force of Hungary. Since 2007, the Hungarian Armed Forces has been under a unified command structure. The Ministry of Defence maintains political and civil control over the army. A subordinate Joint Forces Command coordinates and commands the HDF corps. In 2020, the armed forces had 22,700 personnel on active duty. In 2019, military spending was $1.904 billion, about 1.22% of the country's GDP, well below the NATO target of 2%. In 2016, the government adopted a resolution in which it pledged to increase defence spending to 2.0% of GDP and the number of active personnel to 37,650 by 2026.
Ferenc Szálasi was a Hungarian military officer, politician, Nazi sympathizer and leader of the far-right Arrow Cross Party who headed the government of Hungary during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.
László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from April 1941 to March 1942. He was one of the chief architects of Hungary's involvement in World War II.
Carpathian Ruthenia was a region in the easternmost part of Czechoslovakia which in September 1938 became an autonomous region within that country. On 15 March 1939 it declared its independence as the "Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine"; however, on that same day it was occupied and annexed by Hungary.
Warrant Officer Dezső Szentgyörgyi was the highest scoring Hungarian fighter ace of the Royal Hungarian Honvéd Air Force in World War II.
The coins of the Austro-Hungarian krone were minted with a different design in Austria and Hungary.
The Repülőgépgyár Levente series is a Hungarian two-seat trainer and liaison aircraft from World War II. Thanks to the simple, easy-to-repair design, despite the seemingly rudimentary appearance, the type was well suited to army co-operation and liaison tasks, and Levente IIs withstood damage well, thus they could survive the fire of contemporary aircraft such as the Lavochkin La-5 and Ilyushin Il-2.
The Kingdom of Hungary, referred to retrospectively as the Regency and the Horthy era, existed as a country from 1920 to 1946 under the rule of Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary, who officially represented the Hungarian monarchy. In reality there was no king, and attempts by King Charles IV to return to the throne shortly before his death were prevented by Horthy.
The Government of National Unity was a Nazi-backed puppet government of Hungary, which ruled the German-occupied Kingdom of Hungary during World War II in eastern Europe. After the joint coup d’état with which the Nazis and the Arrow Cross Party overthrew the government of the Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy, the Arrow Cross Party established the coalition Government of National Unity on 16 October 1944.
The Straussler V-4, also known as Light Tank V4 was a Hungarian amphibious light tank design of the interwar period and it was designed by Nicholas Straussler. It was developed from the V-3, one of Nicholas Straussler's earlier models.
The 40M Nimród was a World War II Hungarian self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on a license-built copy of the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti I SPAAG but with a new turret, and developed independently. Originally, it was intended to be used both in the anti-aircraft and tank destroyer roles, but it proved to be ineffective against heavily armored Soviet tanks like the KV-1. Therefore, it was primarily used against lightly armored vehicles and for air defense.
The 101st Home Air Defence Fighter Group later Wing was an elite fighter-group of the Royal Hungarian Air Force in World War II. Also known as the Puma after the unit's insignia, it was the most famous and well known of all Hungarian fighter units during the war. Created in the spring of 1944, under the Nazi German occupation of Hungary, it operated against US Fifteenth Air Force and the Soviet VVS during 1944–45 over Hungary and later, Austria. Analogue to Jagdverband 44, many of the highest scoring and most experienced Hungarian fighter pilots served in the unit, including the top scoring Hungarian ace of World War II, Szentgyörgyi Dezső.
The Royal Hungarian Ludovica Defense Academy, shortened to Ludovica or Ludovica Academy, was Hungary's officer cadets training institute prior to 1945. The main edifice of the academy was erected in 1836 at the Ludovica Garden, in Budapest's centrally located VIIIth district. The building was designed by Mihály Pollack in the classical style.
Vitéz Baron Sándor Szurmay de Uzsok was a Hungarian military officer and politician, who served as Minister of Defence for the Hungarian portion of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary between 1917 and 1918.
Ferenc Szombathelyi, born Ferenc Knausz or Ferenc Knauz, was a Hungarian military officer who served, from September 1941 to April 1944, as Head of the General Staff of the Royal Hungarian Army during World War II.
The Chief of General Staff is the highest-ranking military officer in the Hungarian Defence Forces and is responsible for maintaining control over the service branches.
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The Hungarian Royal Gendarme Veterans' Association, commonly known by its initialism of MKCsBK or Csendor, is an international veterans' organization founded in its initial form in 1947, with the goal of maintaining an association of veterans of the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie following its dissolution in 1944 during the Soviet occupation of Hungary. It continues today as an association of the few remaining living veterans, with an additional goal of making original information and records about the Hungarian Royal Gendarmes available to the public in order to counter what the MKCsBK deems to be misinformation disseminated by the government during the years of communist rule.
Lieutenant Lajos Tóth was one of the most successful fighter pilots of the Royal Hungarian Air Force in the Second World War. He scored 24 aerial victories against the Soviet Air Force and an additional four against the United States Air Force for a total of 28 confirmed kills. After the war he voluntarily repatriated from exile in the United States to serve in the aerial combat arm of the Hungarian People's Army but was ultimately arrested and executed in one of the "salami" show trials in 1951.
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References
1 2 3 Bonhardt, Attila; Sárhidai, Gyula; Winkler, László (1992). A Magyar Királyi Honvédség fegyverzete. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. pp.10–11. ISBN9633272254.
↑ "46154/eln. B. 1920. számú körrendelet. A honvédelmi minister és az alája rendelt összes hatóságok, hivatalok, alakulatok, csapatok, stb. "m. kir." címzéssel való ellátása". Rendeleti Közlöny a Magyar Királyi Nemzeti Hadsereg számára: Szabályrendeletek. 47 (16): 65. 3 April 1920.
↑ "239/eln. 15. 1922. számú körrendelet. "M. hir. honvédség" elnevezés használatbavétele". Rendeleti Közlöny a Magyar Királyi Honvédség számára: Szabályrendeletek. 49 (2): 13. 22 January 1922.
↑ Kollega Tarsoly, István, ed. (1996). "Királyért és hazáért". Révai nagy lexikona (in Hungarian). Vol.11. Budapest: Hasonmás Kiadó. p.649. ISBN9639015040.
↑ "17.733/Elnöki oszt. – 1940. számú körrendelet. Honvédnap rendszeresítése". Honvédségi Közlöny. 67 (8): 120–121. 15 April 1940.
↑ "45000/Elnökség A. – 1938. számú körrendelet. M. kir. honvéd csapatzászlók, m. kir. honvéd lobogók és a nemzeti lobogó rendszeresítése". Honvédségi Közlöny. 65 (32): 317–318. 15 December 1938.
↑ Niehorster, Leo W. G. (1998). The Royal Hungarian Army 1920 - 1945, 313 pages, ISBN1-891227-19-X
Thomas, Dr. Nigel; Szabo, Laszlo Pal (2008). The Royal Hungarian Army in World War II. New York: Osprey. ISBN978-1-84603-324-7.
↑ The Royal Hungarian Army, 1920-1945, Volume II, Hungarian Mobile Forces, by Dr. Peter Mujzer
1 2 Csonkaréti, Károly; Sárhidai, Gyula (2009). A Magyar királyi folyamerők és fegyverzetük 1920-1945. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. p.17. ISBN9789633274880.
1 2 Csonkaréti, Károly; Benczúr, László (1991). Haditengerészek és folyamőrök a Dunán: a császári (és) királyi haditengerészet Duna-flottillájától a Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyamerőkig: 1870-1945. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. p.199. ISBN9633271533.
↑ Csonkaréti, Károly; Benczúr, László (1991). Haditengerészek és folyamőrök a Dunán: a császári (és) királyi haditengerészet Duna-flottillájától a Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyamerőkig: 1870-1945. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. p.260. ISBN9633271533.
↑ Csonkaréti, Károly; Sárhidai, Gyula (2009). A Magyar királyi folyamerők és fegyverzetük 1920-1945. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. pp.37–38. ISBN9789633274880.
1 2 Csonkaréti, Károly; Sárhidai, Gyula (2009). A Magyar királyi folyamerők és fegyverzetük 1920-1945. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó. p.41. ISBN9789633274880.
↑ "Nemzeti lobogó és árbocjelvények". Szolgálati utasítás a m. kir. folyamőrség számára: szolgálat az úszóegységekben. Budapest: Centrum Kiadóvállalat. 1931. pp.6–7.
↑ "100/Elnökség A. – 1939. számú körrendelet. A m. kir. honvéd folyamerők lobogóinak és jelvényeinek rendszeresítése". Honvédségi Közlöny. 66 (4): 11. 16 January 1939.
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