30/5/1919 Admiral Horthy: the new leader of Hungary’s conservatives

May 30, 2019

Soviet Hungary has been invaded by Romania and Czechoslovakia. However the Hungarian Reds have thrown together an army and defeated the Czechoslovaks, making it look as though the invaders are not about to overthrow Kun‘s communist regime. Instead the internal enemies of the Communists make their own preparations to strike back the revolution. In Szeged, currently occupied by French troops, conservatives meet to form a counter-revolutionary army to take on the Communists. The new army’s leader is Admiral Horthy, the wartime commander of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Like the White armies in Russia or the German Freikorps, Horthy’s army attracts many former officers of the old regime, as well as men from the borderlands that have been lost to Romania and other neighbouring countries. They prepare to wage war on the urban communists of Red Budapest.