Antal Lehár

Hungary Counter-revolutionary forces Monarchy and royalism 1876–1962 ○ Died in Vienna

Legitimist general who led counter-revolutionary troops in western Hungary and joined both of King Charles’s return attempts in 1921

Born in Sopron and trained at the cadet school and war college in Vienna, he was the younger brother of the composer Ferenc Lehár. His First World War service won him the Knight’s Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa and a barony. During the Soviet Republic he raised a force of some 2,000 men in Graz, and in August 1919 he became military commander of Western Hungary, where his troops carried out reprisals against Communists and Social Democrats. A legitimist, he placed himself at King Charles’s disposal in March 1921 and was named defence minister in the second attempt that October; when it failed he fled through Czechoslovakia to Germany. He later lived in Berlin and Vienna, administered his brother’s estate, and died in Vienna in 1962.