Introduction
Foreword by Andrew L. Simon || 1: Out Into the World
Introduction to the Original Edition
by Nicholas Roosevelt
NICHOLAS HORTHY will figure in European history of the 20th century as the powerful
head of a small state who was powerless to prevent the absorption of his country first by
the German Nazis and then by the Russian Communists. His failure was due not to
incapacity, weakness or blundering on his part, but rather to the simple fact that the
Hungarians were outnumbered ten to one by the Germans and twenty to one by the Russians,
and that Germany and Russia each regarded occupation of Hungary as a pre-requisite to its
own aggrandizement. Hungary had no more chance of effective resistance against either
aggressor than a wounded stag attacked by a pack of wolves.
I saw Admiral Horthy from time to time when he was Regent of Hungary and I was United
States' Minister to that country. This was in 1930-33. In appearance he was a typical
sea-dog, red faced, sturdy, energetic, powerful, though relatively short in stature. Many
a retired British admiral could have been mistaken for him. His integrity and courage were
outstanding, as was his devotion to duty. Unlike other "strong men" he was
singularly lacking in vanity, ambition and selfishness. He did not seek the high offices
that were thrust upon him, but rather accepted them in the fervent hope that by so doing
he could serve the country that he so dearly loved. Stern when need be, he was
fundamentally kind. Proud of his office of regent, and punctilious about official
etiquette, he yet was simple in his tastes and courteous and considerate of others. His
official life was given over to an unending round of formalities, from which the only
relief was escape to the country to hunt wild boars or stags, or shoot game birds. His
energy in the field, even when in his sixties, exhausted many a younger man, and his skill
with rifle and shotgun placed him among the best shots in a country where shooting as a
sport was almost a profession.
Nicholas Horthy had just turned forty-one when, in 1909, the old Austrian Emperor,
Franz Josef, appointed him one of his personal aides, thus bringing the future admiral
into intimate contact with this survivor of an age that is utterly remote from our own.
Franz Josef in his youth had known Prince Metternich, leader of the Congress of Vienna in
the winter of 1814-15, and relentless enemy of liberalism in Europe, who had been forced
to resign as Chancellor of the Empire just before Franz Joseph was crowned emperor in
December of 1848. By the time that Nicholas Horthy came to serve Franz Josef the Emperor
had become a legendary figure, Emperor-King, for more than sixty years, an
autocrat who ruled his court and family with rigid regard for formality, a bureaucrat with
a prodigious capacity for work, and, withal, a great gentleman. The admiral several times
told me of the admiration, respect and affection which he had for the old man, not the
hero-worship of a youth in his twenties, but the considered appraisal of a man in his
forties for an employer still vigorous and efficient as he turned eighty. It is a tribute
alike to Franz Josef's influence and to Nicholas Horthy's modesty that the Admiral, as
Regent of Hungary, when faced with a grave problem of state always asked himself what the
old Emperor would have done under the the circumstances.
Admiral Horthy's life, as set forth in this volume, covers the most revolutionary
century in the world's history. His early training as a naval cadet was in the age of
sails. Electric lighting was almost unknown in Europe when he completed his naval
schooling. The Turks were still in control of parts of the Balkan peninsula. Russia's
ambition to bring all Slavic-speaking peoples under its sway, while recognized, seemed
unlikely ever to be realized. The recently achieved Italian unity was regarded by
Austrians and Hungarians as an affront to historic realities. Prussia's domination of the
newly created German Empire was resented by Austrians in particular, who looked down on
the Prussians as ill-mannered, pushy people who had usurped the position of leadership of
German culture which so long had belonged deservedly to the Austrians. As for the United
States, it was regarded by European rulers as a small, isolated country inhabited by a
bumptious, money-grubbing lot of transplanted Europeans, a nation which deservedly played
no role in world affairs.
Yet within thirty years an American President, Woodrow Wilson, with millions of
American soldiers backing the Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary, proclaimed the
principle of self-determination which hastened the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire
and the abdication of Franz Josef's successor, Charles, the last of the Habsburg emperors.
Nicholas Horthy, as commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian navy, had the humiliation
of carrying out Charles's order to surrender the imperial fleet to the scorned Yugoslavs
without any resistance. German Austria proclaimed itself a republic. The Magyar remnant of
Hungary, under the leadership of a Magyar count regarded by his peers as weak, unreliable
and unbalanced, declared its independence.
Dominated at first by socialists, it was shortly taken over by communists. In Russia
Marxism replaced Czarism. The megalomanic Kaiser William II of Germany fled to Holland and
took to sawing wood in his refuge at Doom, soon to see another megalomaniac, this time an
Austrian by birth, Adolph Hitler, backed by one of Germany's greatest generals,
Ludendorff, make his first (and unsuccessful) attempt to dominate and re-integrate
Germany. Ludendorff was soon to be locked up as a lunatic. A decade later Hitler became
Fuehrer of the "eternal" German Reich which endured a scant ten years.
Throughout most of the two decades that followed the armistice of 1918 the author of
this book was a symbol of sanity, order and stability in an unstable, disordered and sick
Europe. As head of the counterrevolutionary movement in Hungary, which, before he was
named Regent in 1920, had rescued that country from the Communists, he had incurred the
hatred of left wingers inside and out of Hungary(1). As
Regent his policy was to try to restore to Hungary the boundaries it had had before the
Habsburg empire broke up, a policy which, however commendable to Magyars, ran counter to
the nationalist aspirations and fears of non-Magyars, and was doomed to failure. In the
ensuing years most of the supporters of the Habsburgs and many of the landed nobility of
Hungary believed this upholder of the ancien regime to be "dangerously"
liberal and suspected him of wanting to establish a Horthy dynasty to replace the
Habsburgs. Royalists never forgave him for having twice thwarted ex-King Charles's
attempts to regain the throne of Hungary, attempts which, if successful, would surely have
brought about the invasion and occupation of Hungary by the neighbor states. The words put
into the mouth of Brutus at Caesar's funeral by Shakespeare could well be paraphrased:
"Not that Horthy loved Charles less, but Hungary more." When, twenty years
later, Regent Horthy appeared to go along with Hitler, it was because he was faced with
force which neither resistance nor appeasement could curb. What the outside world did not
realize was that Hitler's hatred of Horthy's independence and fearlessness was one of the
reasons why the Fuehrer took over control of Hungary and virtually made the Regent his
prisoner.
The last time I saw this staunch old admiral was when I paid my farewell visit to him
before returning to the United States in 1933. He spoke with passionate earnestness about
his conviction that Russia was the greatest threat not only to Hungary but to the western
world. For years this subject had been an obsession of his, so much so, in fact, that the
members of the diplomatic corps in Budapest in the 1930s discounted it as a phobia. Events
have proved that his fears were justified. True, it was the Nazis who started Hungary down
the path of destruction. But it was the Russians who crushed the spirit of the Hungarian
nation and reduced the economic level of the Magyars to pre-feudal poverty. The Hungarian
Regent in this case had foreseen correctly, but he was unable to convince either British
or American leaders that Communist Russia was even more rapacious and greedy than Czarist
Russia, and that it was folly to believe that if Russia was treated as a friendly ally
that country would respond in kind.
If any of Admiral Horthy's critics continue to question his clarity of thinking and his
abundant common sense, let them read this book. Written simply and modestly, it is an
absorbing record of the life of a gallant man who fought hopelessly but bravely to save as
much as he could for his country in the midst of the conflicting jealousies, ambitions and
hatreds of Eastern Europe which had been inflamed by World War I. He was a conservator
rather than a conservative, a traditionalist rather than a fascist, a practical man rather
than an idealist. He would have restored the old order had he been able to do so. Instead,
he saw the Iron Curtain close over his beloved Hungary, and retired to Portugal, where, at
the age of eighty-eight he is still living with his memories of a world that is gone
forever. Fearless, incorruptible, steadfast, his influence, like that of George
Washington, stemmed from strength of character rather than brilliance of intellect. Men
might disagree with him, but even his enemies respected him. They might question his
judgment, but none questioned his integrity and uprightness.
Big Sur, California, April 1956. Nicholas Roosevelt
1. A fact still true in the middle of the 1990's. (Ed.)
