Royal Hungarian Army

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Hungarian National Army
Magyar Nemzeti Hadsereg
Hungarian Republic
 Kingdom of Hungary
TypeArmy
Size115,447 (1920)[4]
35,000 (1921)[4]
57,648 (1930)[4]
85,332 (1937)[4]
1,000,000 (1944)[4]
Garrison/HQBudapest
Nickname(s)MKH
Motto(s)Királyért és hazáért[5]
"For King and Country"
Anniversaries28 June[6]
EngagementsSubcarpathia
Slovak–Hungarian War
World War II
Commanders
Supreme WarlordMiklós Horthy (1919–44)
Ferenc Szálasi[7] (1944–45)
Commander-in-ChiefPál Nagy (1922–25)
Hugó Sónyi (1936–40)
Chief of the General StaffViktor Lorx (1922)
Károly Beregfy (1944–45)
Notable
commanders
Károly Beregfy
Lajos Csatay
Elemér Gorondy-Novák
Gusztáv Jány
Géza Lakatos
Dezső László
Béla Miklós
Vilmos Nagy
Lajos Veress
Insignia
Insignia
(1942–1945)[8]
War Flag
(1919–1939)[9]
War Flag
(1939–1945)[10]

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 in the Second World War.

History

Background

As a vanquished power in the

Hungarian–Romanian war of 1919
. The consequence was that large areas of Hungary were occupied and many regions that Hungary had claimed were finally lost.

Admiral Horthy during the entry of the National Army in Budapest, November 1919

In July 1919 the former Commander-in-Chief of the

Paris Peace Conference
.

Baranya that had previously been cleared by the Yugoslav army
, September 1921

The

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,

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

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

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

labour battalions
.

In March 1940, three field army commands were formed, each of three corps, together with 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.

Northern Transylvania, which had been promised to Hungary, was occupied in September 1940, after the Second Vienna Award and a ninth corps established there. On 20 November 1940, Hungary joined the Tripartite Pact.

Although minister president,

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

Munkács
, which gave Hungary the pretext to declare war on the Soviet Union.

On 1 July the so-called Carpathian Group (

Kiev
in December.

1942–43

On 7 Dec 1941, the

in July, where it moved into defensive positions.

In Jan 1943, the 2nd Army was shattered by a major attack on the

Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive). The remnants were withdrawn from the front and allocated to occupation forces in the Ukraine and southern White Russia. 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
.

1944

Archduke Joseph August and the General Staff of the Royal Hungarian Army in 1944.
Hungarian soldiers in the Carpathian Mountains in 1944.

After the Hungarian government of

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

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 Szálasi took 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

Plattensee Offensive, after which it was largely disbanded. The remnants gave themselves up in May to British and American forces in Austria
.

Many Hungarian officers were sentenced and executed for war crimes, including

in Hungary.

Naval forces

Royal Hungarian River Guard
Magyar Királyi Folyamőrség[14]
(1921–1939)
Royal Hungarian Army River Forces
Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyami Erők[15]
(1939–1945)
Active1 March 1921[14] – 8 May 1945[16]
Country Kingdom of Hungary
TypeNavy
Sizec. 1700 personnel[17]
Garrison/HQBudapest
EngagementsWorld War II
Commanders
Commander[18]Olaf Richárd Wulff (first)
(1921–1933)
Ödön Trunkwalter (last)
(1944–1945)
Insignia
Naval Ensign
(1921–1939)[19]
Naval Ensign
(1939–1945)[20]

In April 1919 the Hungarian government established the Naval Forces (Hadihajós csapat, literally "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]

Order of battle (1 April 1940)
  • Patrol Boat Regiment (Budapest)
    • I Group
    • II Group
  • River Security Regiment (Újvidék (Novi Sad) after April 1941)
    • 1 Battalion
    • 2 Battalion
    • 3 Battalion
Commanders[18]
  • Olaf Richárd Wulff (10 March 1920 – 30 April 1933)
  • Ferenc Galántai Hild (1 May 1933 – 30 April 1934)
  • Richárd Dietrich (1 May 1934 – 30 April 1938)
  • Ármin Bauszern (1 May 1940 – 30 April 1942)
  • Captain Guidó Tasnády (1 May 1940 – 30 April 1942)
  • Vice-Admiral (Lieutenant-General) Kálmán Hardy (1 May 1942 – 15 October 1944)
  • Major-General (Rear-Admiral) Ödön Trunkwalter (16 October 1944 – 8 May 1945)

Chiefs of the General Staff

Commanders-in-Chief

See also

References

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ "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.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ .
  5. .
  6. ^ "17.733/Elnöki oszt. – 1940. számú körrendelet. Honvédnap rendszeresítése". Honvédségi Közlöny. 67 (8): 120–121. 15 April 1940.
  7. .
  8. ^ "18.535/eln. 3. b. – 1942. számú körrendelet. Páncéljárművek új felség- és ismertetőjelei". Honvédségi Közlöny. 69 (53): 613. 1 December 1942.
  9. ^ "1921. évi XLIX. törvénycikk a m. kir. honvédségről". 1000 év törvényei. CompLex Kiadó.
  10. ^ "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.
  11. .
  12. ^ The Royal Hungarian Army, 1920-1945, Volume II, Hungarian Mobile Forces, by Dr. Peter Mujzer
  13. ^ .
  14. ^ .
  15. .
  16. .
  17. ^ .
  18. ^ "Nemzeti lobogó és árbocjelvények". Szolgálati utasítás a m. kir. folyamőrség számára: szolgálat az úszóegységekben. Budapest: Centrum Kiadóvállalat. 1931. pp. 6–7.
  19. ^ "100/Elnökség A. – 1939. számú körrendelet. A m. kir. honvéd folyamerők lobogóinak és jelvényeinek rendszeresítése". Honvédségi Közlöny. 66 (4): 11. 16 January 1939.
  20. ^ Thomas and Szabo (2008), p. 9.

Literature