11: Attempts at the Restoration of King Charles in 1921
<< 10: Regent of Hungary || 12: The Road to Freedom >>
Attempts at the Restoration of King Charles in 1921
Easter Sunday, which fell on March 27th, was a day of brilliant sunshine. The trees
were in blossom and amid burgeoning nature the whole of Hungary. Town and country was
celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord, grateful that the signs of better times were
visibly multiplying. On the insistence of my wife, I had at last decided to take a day's
holiday with my family, the first for a considerable time. In the morning, we had given
the children their Easter eggs and small gifts had been handed out to the members of the
household. We were sitting down to our midday meal when my aide-de-camp, Major Magasházy,
entered with the message that Count Sigray(1) had arrived
and was waiting for me with an important communication. I rose from the table and went to
receive Count Sigray, the Government Commissioner for western Hungary.
We had hardly finished exchanging greetings before he disclosed to me that His Majesty
King Charles was in Budapest and was awaiting me in the Prime Minister's residence. It was
plain to me that His Majesty's return must have the worst consequences for Hungary, and I
asked Sigray if he were in any way responsible for it. He denied this.
The King, he told me, had arrived late the previous night and totally unexpectedly at
the palace of Bishop Count Mikes(2) at Szombathely after
having called on Count Thomas Erdôdy(3) in Vienna on Good
Friday in the company of his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Parma(4).
Count Erdôdy had put his car at the King's disposal for the journey to the frontier. He
had not known that His Majesty had left Switzerland, nor had he heard the slightest rumour
of his intention to do so. He had been overcome by surprise when an unnamed visitor had
been announced who, on removing his motoring goggles, had disclosed himself as the King.
Not even Count Joseph Hunyady(5), the Steward of the
Household and confidant of His Majesty, had been consulted or even informed. At
Szombathely, Sigray went on, His Majesty had received the homage of the Bishop and of the
leading churchmen who had assembled there for the Easter festival. He had, moreover,
conferred with the Prime Minister, Count Paul Teleki, who chanced to be in the
neighbourhood as he was staying as a guest at the castle of Count Sigray. Sigray himself
had been present at that interview, and Teleki told me later, when he had accepted full
responsibility for the course that events took and had handed in his resignation, that he
had done what he could to dissuade the King from taking the step he was contemplating,
expressing his opinion by the simple statement, "Too soon." But his words had no
effect. He had been instructed to go to Budapest in advance and inform me that the King
was arriving. As he had travelled by a different route and his car had broken down on the
way, he had not reached Budapest before the King.
I told Count Sigray to go at once, with my aide-de-camp, to the Cabinet Chamber and ask
His Majesty to come to the Palace. I did not have to reflect very long what I should say
to him. This self-sought situation had only one solution: the King must return to
Switzerland without delay. Six months before, on the occasion of the unveiling of a
commemorative plaque at Sopron, I had made my attitude towards the Crown and the monarch
very clear.
"We all," I had said, "would like to see the Crown of St.
Stephen resplendent in its former glory. But before this restoration can be achieved,
immense tasks of external and internal consolidation must be performed. Anyone who at the
present juncture brings the question of the restoration of the monarchy to the fore will
be doing a disservice to the peace of the country, will be hampering reconstruction and
will be putting obstacles in the way of our resumption of relations with foreign powers."
This meant, and in those days I frequently stressed this point when discussing affairs
with foreign diplomats, that I and the members of the government considered a return of
His Majesty to the Hungarian throne the concern of Hungary alone. In any case, the
Habsburg question had not been touched upon in the Treaty of Trianon. To have a certain
right and to possess the means of exercising that right are, however, two different
matters. In Paris, there was still an Ambassadorial Conference of the victorious powers
claiming full competence in dealing with all questions concerning Hungary, Austria and
Germany, the question of German reparations, for instance, and having the coercive means
at its disposal with which to enforce its decisions. Its representatives in Budapest were
the British and French High Commissioners and the Italian chargé d'affaires as well as a
Military Mission. On February 2nd, 1920, this Ambassadorial Conference had issued a formal
veto against a restoration of the Habsburgs in Hungary, as such a restoration would in its
view "rock peace to its foundations" and it could therefore "neither be
recognized nor tolerated" by the Allies.
This attitude, far from being modified at a later date, was instead confirmed. On
January 3rd, 1921, Count Sforza, the Italian Foreign Minister, in the course of a long
discussion with our diplomatic representative in Rome, Count Nemes(6),
on the question of Italy's attitude should a Habsburg return to the throne, had exclaimed,
"L'Empereur Charles, jamais!" For Italy feared that the return of a Habsburg
would menace her possession of Trieste and the South Tirol and she had therefore
undertaken, in the Treaty of Rapallo (November 3rd, 1920) with the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, to do everything within her power "to oppose the return of the
House of Habsburg to the Hungarian throne". In the course of a visit made by Edvard
Benes, the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, to Rome in the early days of February, 1921,
this had been further emphasized when he declared that a return of the Habsburgs would be
considered a casus belli. Finally, the Ambassadorial Conference itself had
reiterated its declaration of February 2nd, 1920, on February 16th of the following year,
a few weeks before the return of His Majesty to Hungary.
I had all this clearly in mind as I awaited the King. Had these facts not been put
before him by his advisers? Our discussion soon gave me the answer to that question.
I did not have to wait long before His Majesty was announced. He had walked the short
distance to the Palace. We had not met since the fateful day, two and a half years
previously, when I had had the painful duty of informing His Majesty at Schönbrunn of the
surrender of the fleet in accordance with my instructions and of asking him to accept my
resignation as Commander-in-Chief. On that occasion, as on all others, His Majesty had
displayed his kindly disposition towards me; now as I prepared to conduct him from the
aides-de-camp room to my study, he flung his arms round me.
King Charles, wearing a Hungarian officer's uniform, expressed the hope that he could
once more take his place as head of the state. He gave me a graphic account of his life in
exile.
I assured His Majesty that, were I able to recall him, our crowned King, whose
legitimate claims I recognized and was prepared to defend, it would be the happiest
termination of my present office.
In Hungary, I told him, his estates had been left unsequestrated and the income
deriving from them was at his disposal. Although my petition to the heads of the
victorious states asking that the Succession States should contribute to the grant to His
Majesty in proportion to their size and population had borne no fruit. I begged him to
believe that I still felt myself bound by the oath I had sworn to the Emperor and that I
had no wish whatsoever to retain my office as Regent. "But Your Majesty should
consider," I continued, "that the very moment I hand the reins of state over to
the King, the armies of the neighbouring states will cross our frontiers. We have nothing
with which to oppose them in the field. Your Majesty will then be forced to return to
Switzerland, Hungary will be occupied by foreign troops and the evil resulting from
renewed occupation will be incalculable."
The effects of the Rumanian occupation were still fresh in my memory. I wished to
convince His Majesty that the menace of a renewed occupation was not imaginary. At the
time I am writing this(7), the world has an aspect very
different from the one it wore in 1921, and the peoples of Austria-Hungary would no doubt
prefer the two-headed eagle to the hammer and sickle. But at that Easter time of 1921, the
tide of nationalism was running high in our neighbour states. Their governments would not
have permitted a restoration of the Habsburg symbols. These were considerations that the
Great Powers had to bear in mind. For it must be remembered, that they themselves caused
the partition of the Austro-Hungarian empire on purpose, to the subsequent misfortune of
Europe and the world.
As I was explaining the attitude of the Great Powers, the King interrupted me to tell
me that he had come with the knowledge and approval of the Entente. To my courteous
request for more details, he mentioned the name of Briand(8),
who at that time was the French Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs.
"Has Your Majesty had a personal conversation with Briand?"
"No. I have been in touch with him only through intermediaries."
The intermediary turned out to be the brother of the Empress Zita, Prince Sixtus of
Parma, who had close contact with French royalist circles, but these did not represent the
French Government.
I could not doubt for one moment that His Majesty was speaking in good faith when he
declared that his return had the approval of France at any rate. I do not consider that it
was out of the question that a certain encouragement may have been given him from Paris. I
had a vivid memory of some half-promises and vague assurances concerning the relaxation of
the terms of the Treaty of Trianon which were made when it was likely that Hungary would
have to lend support to Poland when that country had been invaded during the summer of the
previous year by the Bolshevist Russian armies. After the Battle of the Vistula, in which
Hungarian munitions played an important part, the threat to Poland receded, and Paris
promptly lost interest in Hungary. That Colonel Strutt, the British confidant of King
Charles and his companion at Eckartsau, had sent him a telegram in code in mid-March to
advise him against an attempt at regaining his throne, was a detail that I was to hear a
few days later from Masirevic(9), our diplomatic
representative in Vienna.
To clarify the situation, I proposed to His Majesty that Briand should be asked,
through the French High Commissioner in Budapest, whether he would be prepared to
guarantee Hungary French support in the name of the Allies should the Succession States
turn on what was left of our country. His Majesty agreed to this proposal and also acceded
to my request that he should return to the Bishop's palace at Szombathely to await the
reply from Paris.
"Should Briand accept the responsibility, I shall gladly restore your hereditary
rights to Your Majesty," I declared. "Should the answer be unfavourable, I shall
have to beg Your Majesty to leave the country immediately before your presence here
becomes generally known."
Attempts have since been made to place this two-hour discussion between His Majesty and
myself in a false light. As I held then and still hold today, it was a discussion on the
outcome of which depended the very existence of our Fatherland. I must add that, before he
departed, His Majesty expressed his profound thanks to me and invested me with the Grand
Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, creating me Duke of Otranto and Szeged. And
I must add further that I have neither worn the Grand Cross nor used the ducal title. This
gesture of His Majesty, however, shows better than words that he, at any rate, was
convinced of my good faith and that my attitude sprang from my sense of responsibility and
duty.
I begged King Charles to retain his confidence in me and, with regard to Hungary, to
undertake nothing without consulting me lest he should create new difficulties for our
country or endanger his own return to the throne at some future time.
While King Charles, accompanied by Major Magasházy, returned by car to Szombathely,
the Ministers assembled, and to them I gave a succinct report of the situation. All who
had seen the King were sworn to secrecy.
Meanwhile, I had called M. Maurice Fouchet, the French diplomatic representative, to
the Palace to transmit through him His Majesty's request to Briand. The answer was a
definite denial. Briand emphatically declared that at no time had he expressed his
agreement to the return of King Charles to the throne of Hungary. Whether or not this was
true, and later I learned that Prince Sixtus had conferred with several French Generals,
including Lyautey,(10) and that M. Berthélot(11), the General Secretary of the Quai d'Orsay, perturbed
about a possible union of Germany and Austria, had played an ambiguous part. Briand's
answer, publicized later in the press, did at any rate represent the official attitude of
the French Government. I informed His Majesty over the Hughes apparatus, a special
telephone on which conversations cannot be overheard, and asked him to leave the country
as quickly as possible. Koloman Kánya(12), the Foreign
Minister's deputy, informed him in person of the content of the Paris answer and of the
various protests of the Great Powers and of our neighbours. As King Charles had caught a
cold which necessitated his staying in bed for a few days, his departure was delayed until
April 5th. We had obtained from Berne permission for his re-entry into Switzerland, and
Vienna had given us the assurance that his journey through Austria would be smooth and in
keeping with his dignity. However, though His Majesty was escorted by Allied officers and
Austrian security personnel, there were regrettable Socialist-Communist demonstrations at
Bruck-an-der-Mur.
That my attitude was justified was soon made clear. My first callers on Easter Monday
were the High Commissioners of England and France, who came to stress the
"categorical opposition" of their governments to any attempt at a restoration.
Shortly afterwards, the Italian chargé d'affaires arrived to declare that the prevention
of a Habsburg restoration was "a cardinal point of Italy's foreign policy". On
the Tuesday morning, I received the Yugoslav representative, who declared that the return
of His Majesty would be regarded as a definite casus belli. The protest of the
Rumanian representative was not quite so violent, as Queen Marie(13)
of Rumania had not been altogether a stranger to King Charles's plan. Benes, as he told
our diplomat Count László Szapáry(14), put the
attempted restoration to good use, for shortly afterwards, on April 23rd, 1921, he was
able to conclude a military anti-Hungarian alliance between Czechoslovakia and Rumania.
Benes's representative in Budapest made almost daily appearances at the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs to threaten reprisals should the King prolong his stay on Hungarian
territory. The final demarche was made collectively by the Great Powers. Their
representatives, upon instructions of the Allied Ambassadorial Conference in Paris,
delivered a joint Note which referred to the declaration of February 2nd, 1920, and called
attention to the "serious consequences" that would follow should the Hungarian
Government not take active measures to prevent any attempts at restoration.
I hope that this statement will counterbalance the many incorrect versions of the
incidents of those memorable Easter days.
The royal question was once more to cause excitement in Hungary and abroad in that same
year, 1921. Again I received no warning, though I was in regular communication with His
Majesty. From his despatches, I augured that his information, particularly on personal
matters, was inadequate and that he was therefore insufficiently aware of the true state
of affairs. I decided at last to send a confidential envoy known personally to His Majesty
to Hertenstein Castle, to which King Charles had moved in April. Unfortunately, my choice
turned out to be an unsuitable one. From what motives I do not know, Boroviczény(15), married to one of the ladies-in-waiting of the Queen,
gave the King bad advice instead of giving him a true picture of actual conditions. I
could not have foreseen this, for in his former capacity of secretary to my friend General
Sarkotic(16), the government's representative in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, I had come to look upon him as an intelligent young man. Later, he had
become the assistant of the liaison officer of the Austro-Hungarian Ministry for Foreign
Affairs at Court. Boroviczény, Count Sigray, who in March had informed me of the King's
arrival, and Colonel Baron Lehár(17), a brother of the
world-famous composer, played an important part, as far as my knowledge goes, in the
inauspicious second attempt at restoration(18). The
leaders of the Legitimists, to use a term that makes a fundamentally false distinction
between their attitude and mine. Whereas we differed only in the method by which the
restoration was to be brought about, in my opinion men such as Count Julius Andrássy(19), the last of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministers,
Gustav Gratz(20), the former Hungarian Foreign Minister,
and others were not involved in the preparations. It had been made very clear on August
22nd, at a conference held under my chairmanship, that a return of the King could occur
only in conditions of domestic and foreign security. The crowned King is the King of all
Hungarians; he could only be recalled by representatives of all Hungarians and not by a
minority group. Above all, the person of the King could not be made the centre of a
hazardous coup de main.
The first information reached me on October 21st: telephone and telegraph
communications with Sopron were found to be cut. The reason for this appeared later when I
heard that His Majesty and the Queen had arrived by plane the day before at Count
Cziráky's(21) estate at Dénesfa. This place had been
chosen apparently because there was, on account of coming elections, a relatively strong
party of state police there who were under the orders of Colonel Lehár and of Major
Ostenburg at Sopron itself. Ostenburg obeyed the orders of Lehár, his men swore an oath
of loyalty to the King, and joined His Majesty on the train which was to take him to
Budapest. Their idea that the King's presence in the country could be kept secret until he
entered the capital was a mistaken one. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had been
informed of his movements by an agent stationed at Hertenstein. The other powers heard of
his arrival at Dénesfa from their military missions then located at Sopron.
Simultaneously with the first news of the King's presence came the first protests of the
Great Powers and the Little Entente. Belgrade had immediately called up three classes of
reservists, and Rumania was preparing partial mobilization. Benes sent telegrams to the
various Czech legations declaring that the presence of the ex-Emperor on Hungarian soil
was a casus belli. Great Britain informed our Prime Minister, Count Bethlen,
through the High Commissioner, Thomas Hohler(22), that the
British Government set its face against any attempt at a coup d'etat and would
therefore do nothing to exert a restraining influence on the Little Entente. If the
Hungarian Government was not in a position to keep order within its own frontiers,
energetic measures would have to be taken from abroad. The joint Note presented by the
British, French and Italian diplomats reiterated the text of the Note of April 3rd and
also demanded an unambiguous statement from the Hungarian Government that it should
"without delay take the necessary measures once more to remove the King from
Hungarian territory".
To emphasize the seriousness of the Note, the three Ministers called not only on the
Prime Minister, but also on me. Hardly had they left before the Ministers of the Little
Entente called to inform me that their troops would cross the frontier should His Majesty
resume power.
Count Bethlen, who, by a remarkable coincidence, had chanced to make an important
speech at Pécs on the very day His Majesty had, unknown to the Prime Minister, set foot
on Hungarian soil. In this he emphasized the legitimistic views of the government and,
while condemned every attempt at dethronement, yet insisted on the Hungarian right to
determine the day on which the King should return to his country. Bethlen considered the
situation to be as serious as I did. It was not because Stephen Rakovszky, the President
of the Hungarian Parliament, the man appointed by the King as chief of the
Counter-Government, threatened him, during a telephone conversation, with the gallows if
the King were not well received in Budapest. "This is terrible!" Bethlen
exclaimed as he replaced the receiver. It was because he realized that the advisers of the
King were aiming at an armed conflict to achieve their ends. Indeed that is what
developed.
Caught in this tragic situation, I tried to persuade the King to relinquish his scheme.
I wrote him the following letter, to which I appended the Anglo-Franco-Italian Note.
"Budapest, October 22nd, 1921.
Your Majesty!
In the utmost distress of mind, but moved by the oppressive weight of my anxiety, I
must beg Your Majesty to abandon your advance to the capital at the head of armed forces.
The situation has in no way altered since the spring when Your Majesty left the country.
The conditions which then prompted me and Your Majesty's trusted advisers, who,
like myself, have the welfare of Hungary at heart, to beg you to leave the country, still
prevail in a yet more em>aggravated form. The position at the moment is even more
precarious. In the spring, the arrival em>of Your Majesty took not only this
country but also the foreign powers by surprise. Since then, it is seen that preparations
have been made against such a possibility. This is evident from the fact that the
protests we received in the spring came only after a lapse of days, whereas on this occasion
they have been handed to the government immediately and are couched in far stronger terms,
the Little Entente openly threatening invasion. From our point of view, power relations
have deteriorated. We are threatened on three sides by an enemy we cannot possibly
subdue. But even should we attempt the impossible, even should our nations succeed in
holding up the enemy, it would be at the cost of the devastation of large tracts of our
land. The distress arising from such devastation would be exacerbated by the hardships of
winter, and together these would be the sure ally of Bolshevism. An earnest survey of the
situation assures us that such a menace would arise even sooner, for it is certain that an
enemy advance would foster bitterness and anarchy.
The temper of the majority of the people is such that Your Majesty would not have
the country behind him, and the prevention of civil war would not be within my power.
Should Your Majesty proceed towards Budapest with armed forces, our fate is certain
and within a few days our country would be under foreign domination.
Should Your Majesty wish to verify the facts with the representatives of the
Allies, with me or with my Ministers, no difficulties will be put in your way. Your
Majesty can, with a small retinue, cover the short distance that separates us in complete
safety. I have always tried to carry out my duty with selflessness. Today it is my duty to
inform you that, should Your Majesty enter Budapest with armed forces, Hungary will cease
to exist forever.
With profound respect,
Horthy."
I gave this letter to Bishop Vass(23), the Minister of
Social Welfare, who was in His Majesty's favour on account of his behaviour at Easter. I
sent with him Lieutenant-Colonel Ottrubay(24), a former
attaché at the Austro-Hungarian Military Chancellery. These two men met the royal train
at Komárom, but were not admitted to His Majesty's presence. For reasons for which he
alone was responsible, the King's Prime Minister designate, Rakovszky, omitted to deliver
my letter to His Majesty. A few days later, Rakovszky drew it unopened from his pocket in
the presence of Count Julius Andrássy, Count Francis Esterházy(25)
and Baroness Fiath, the President of the Hungarian Red Cross. Whether His Majesty would
have acted differently had he received my letter, none can say.
That night, I issued the necessary military orders to prevent by force of arms that
which force of arms sought to achieve. I need not go into my feelings. Naturally I
wondered whether I ought to withdraw from the whole ghastly conflict by resigning office.
But, faced by the destruction of the Fatherland, it would have been cowardice on my part
to evade the issue. Bethlen, the Prime Minister, emphatically supported my views.
Meanwhile, the train bearing the royal pair, which had been repeatedly delayed by
torn-up tracks, had reached Biatorbágy, not far from Budapest. His Majesty's demand that
the government should submit unconditionally to him and the determination of the
government to resist a coup d'etat were in conflict. To my profound grief, the
order to open fire had to be given. The miserable gendarmes, simple Magyar peasants' sons,
who had been trained all their lives to passive obedience, were the victims.(26)
I sent Colonel Shvoy(27) to parley and to request the
King to come to Budapest for negotiations under guarantee of personal safety. Upon the
insistence of his advisers, the King rejected this proposal. My second proposal, that
government representatives and responsible advisers of the King should meet the following
morning and that until then there should be a truce, was accepted.
These discussions between the Minister Kánya and General E. Sárkány(28)
on the one side and Colonel Lehár and Gratz on the other proved fruitless. Though the
government troops had meanwhile been reinforced, and though the officers who had sworn
allegiance to the King at Gyôr and Komárom begged to be released from their oath on the
grounds that they had been deceived, the King was urged to press on, regardless of
consequences.
Yet His Majesty came to a different decision. He turned westward. The sight of the
killed and injured must have brought him to his senses and made him realize that a civil
war was starting. His Majesty was averse to the thought of bloodshed, for he was a man of
a kindly and noble disposition. He and the Queen accepted the invitation of Count
Esterházy to stay at his castle at Tata.
My Ministers and I were left with the task of ensuring the personal safety of His
Majesty. We thought the safest place for his temporary sojourn would be the Benedictine
Abbey of Tihany, situated on a peninsula of Lake Balaton. A number of political
negotiations were held there and it was proposed to the King, in order to circumvent the
probability that he would be deposed by foreign powers. Indeed, Hungary was forced to pass
a law enacting the dethronement of the King, that he should abdicate in favour of his
nine-year-old son, Archduke Otto. Though this proposal was advocated in person by the
Prince Primate Cardinal Csernoch, it was rejected.
In the end, the decision of the Allies was received: His Majesty was to leave Hungary
in the British monitor Glow-worm. So it came to pass. In the Black Sea, the King
and his retinue were transferred to another ship which took them to Funchal in Madeira.
There His Majesty, surrounded by his mourning family, died on April 1st, 1922.
My attitude during the two attempts at restoration has been the subject of frequent
attack. Critics have invariably ignored the fact that on neither occasion did I act as a
tyrannical rebel. Both attempts were doomed to failure on account of our unfavourable
international position, which was determined by the anti-Habsburg policy of both the Great
Powers and the Little Entente. In the face of that policy, Hungary was powerless. Our
dependence on the Allies was most plainly manifested in the demand made to us that an Act
of Dethronement be passed, an extreme example of foreign interference in the domestic
concerns of a state.
To depict the variance of feelings and opinions concerning the monarchic question, I
shall narrate an incident which had never hitherto been mentioned, all participants in it
having been sworn to secrecy.
In August, 1922, a group of politicians and other leading figures of Hungary, among
them a Catholic bishop, came to see me at the castle in the Crown domain of Gödöllô,
where we always spent the months of August and September. They had an important proposal
to lay before me, they declared, a question about which they had hesitated to approach me.
I soon gathered from their spokesman, Count Gedeon Ráday(29),
a former Chief Comissioner of a county and Minister for Home Affairs, and, now, Deputy,
that after mature consideration they had come to offer me the Crown in the name of all
classes of the people. To ensure the country's peace, they said, the struggle for the
chief office of state must cease. Some wanted an independent Hungary with the legitimate
King, others were for electing Archduke Joseph or Archduke Albert. Elements of the Left
were aiming at a republic. "But the majority of the Magyars," Count Ráday
declared, "want to live, as Hungarians have done for a thousand years, under the
Crown of St. Stephen and a Hungarian dynasty. Accept the crown, your Serene Highness, and
at one blow the whole dangerous situation will be resolved."
I was, naturally, extremely astonished and I replied that I fully recognized the
difficulties that they had expounded. I thanked them for the confidence in me that their
proposal showed, but said that I did not feel able to accede to their request. For what
was it that gave me courage and strength to work at the reconstruction of our shattered
Fatherland? Only the feeling that, in my status as Regent of the Realm, I could count on
the confidence shown a trustworthy and honourable man. Were I to stretch my hand towards
the crown, I should cease to be selfless and worthy of respect, and my own brothers would
turn against me. Never, not even should a plebiscite be unanimous, would I accept the
royal crown.
1. Count Antal Sigray (1879-1947). He died under torture in a
Communist prison.
2. Bishop Count János Mikes (1876-1945).
3. Count Tamás Erdôdy (1886-1931), landowner, legitimist
(pro-Habsburg) politician.
4. Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma (1886-1934), brother of Queen
Zita.
5. Count Joseph Hunyadi (1873-1942).
6. Count Albert Nemes (1866-1940).
7. 1952.
8. Aristide Briand (1862-1932) in 1909 became prime minister of
France, a position he occupied ten times. In 1917 he attempted to make peace with Germany,
and, after opposition by Clemanceau, he resigned. Later he became a leading advicate of
international peace.
9. Szilárd Masirevich (1879-1944), Hungarian diplomat.
10. Marshal Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (1854-1934).
11. Philippe Berthelot (1866-1945), French diplomat.
12. Kálmán Kánya (1869-1945) former Austro-Hungarian diplomat,
later foreign minister.
13. Queen Marie, Princess of Saxon-Koburg-Gotha (1875-1938), wife
of King Ferdinand.
14. Count László Szapáry (1864-1939).
15. Baron Aladár Boroviczény (1890-1963) legitimist politician.
16. Gen. István Sarkotich (1888-1939) former provincial
commissioner of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17. Lt. Gen. Baron Antal Lehár (1876-1962). In retirement, he
traveled all over Hungary recruiting Legitimist army officers to the cause.
18. Throughout the summer of 1921 the Legitimists, have made
extensive preparations for the return of the king the planned coup d'etat was
almost an open secret. (Dombrády L. & Sándor Toth: The royal Hungarian army:
1919-45; Budapest: Zrinyi, 1987, in Hung.)
19. Count Gyula Andrássy Jr. (1860-1929), son of the former prime
minister.
20. Gusztáv Gratz (1875-1946), economist, politician.
21. Count József Cziráky (1883-1960).
22. Sir Thomas Beaumont Hohler (1871-1946), British diplomat.
23. József Vass (1877-1930), Catholic priest, politician.
24. Staff-Colonel Károly Ottrubay.
25. Count Ferenc Esterházy (1896-1939), composer, politician.
26. Some of the forces resisting the King's return were the armed
students of the Technical University, who were raised by Gyula Gömbös.
27. Kálmán Shvoy (1881-1971), his memoirs was one of the first
published on this era.
28. Maj. Gen. Jenô Sárkány (1869- ?), commander of the Budapest
military district.
29. Count Gedeon Ráday (1872-1937).
<< 10: Regent of Hungary || 12: The Road to Freedom >>
