Aristocratic statesman who led Hungary’s delegation to the Paris peace talks in 1920 and pleaded for revising Trianon at the League
A count born in Vienna, he entered parliament in 1877 and was a leading orator for half a century. As education minister in 1906–1910 he drafted the Apponyi laws of 1907, which imposed Hungarian-language teaching on non-Hungarian schools. He led the Hungarian delegation at the Paris peace talks in January 1920 and spoke on 16 January, without changing the terms, and in March lost the regency vote to Horthy. Thereafter, as a legitimist opposition deputy and Hungary’s representative at the League of Nations, he denounced the injustice of the Trianon borders. He died in Geneva in 1933, where he had come for the Disarmament Conference.
Habsburg archduke and last field marshal of the Austro-Hungarian army who briefly declared himself regent of Hungary in August 1919
Born at Alcsút in Hungary into the Hungarian or Palatinal branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, he entered the army in 1890, commanded a corps, an army and army groups in the First World War and on 24 October 1918 became the last field marshal of the Austro-Hungarian army. On 27 October Emperor Charles made him homo regius of Hungary, but the Aster Revolution put an end to his plans. After the fall of the Soviet Republic he became head of state in August 1919 as regent for Charles and appointed István Friedrich prime minister, but when it became clear that the Allies would not recognise a Habsburg as head of state he was forced to resign on 23 August. In the Horthy era he was president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1936 to 1944. He left Hungary in 1944 and died in Rain, West Germany, in 1962.
Career timeline
1890Commissioned
1914–1918Corps, army and army group commander
1918Austro-Hungarian field marshal; homo regius of Hungary
1919Regent of Hungary
1927Member of the House of Magnates
1936–1944President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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.
Career timeline
1893Graduates from the cadet school in Vienna
1918Military Order of Maria Theresa; barony
1919Raises troops in Graz; military commander of Western Hungary
Gendarmerie officer whose detachment murdered two Népszava journalists and who joined King Charles’s 1921 return attempt
Born in Marosvásárhely, he became gendarmerie commander of Sopron after the fall of the Soviet Republic. On 17 February 1920 officers of his detachment murdered Béla Somogyi and Béla Bacsó of Népszava as a warning to Horthy’s opponents, and at the regency vote in March his troops kept “order” in the National Assembly. In August 1921 he refused to evacuate Sopron, opening the way for the town to remain in Hungary. That October he and other legitimist officers urged King Charles to seize power and escorted his armoured trains towards Budapest, but were defeated at Budaörs; he was amnestied and pensioned off. In 1932 he founded the Hungarian National Fascist Party under joint leadership with Pál Prónay.
Career timeline
1919Gendarmerie commander of Sopron
1920His officers murder Somogyi and Bacsó
1921Refuses to evacuate Sopron
1921King Charles’s second return attempt; Battle of Budaörs
Last Habsburg monarch, Emperor Charles I of Austria and King Charles IV of Hungary, who twice tried to regain the Hungarian throne in 1921
In November 1916 he succeeded his grand-uncle Franz Joseph as Emperor of Austria (as Charles I) and King of Hungary (as Charles IV). His secret peace negotiations with the Allies failed, and in the autumn of 1918 the empire fell apart. On 11 November in Austria and on 13 November in Hungary he renounced participation in affairs of state, carefully avoiding the word abdication. After going into exile in Switzerland in 1919, he twice tried to regain the Hungarian throne, in March and October 1921, but failed in the face of opposition from Regent Horthy. Arrested after the second attempt, he was exiled to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where he died of respiratory failure in 1922. The Catholic Church beatified him in 2004.
Career timeline
1916Becomes Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary
