's pacifist speech for military officers, and declaration of Hungarian self-disarmament on 2 November 1918. On 25 October 1918 Károlyi had formed the Hungarian National Council. Károlyi as the most prominent opponent of continued union with Austria, seized power during the
Aster Revolution on 31 October. In 1918, when the Aster Revolution broke out and it became clear that Mihály Károlyi would become head of government, his half-brother, Count József Károlyi (1884-1934), (chief bailiff of Fejér county, member of parliament), resigned from his post and became the most aggressive political opponent of Mihály Károlyi's government.
King Charles IV was all but forced to appoint Károlyi as his Hungarian prime minister. One of Károlyi's first acts was to repudiate the compromise agreement on 31 October, effectively terminating the personal union with Austria and thus officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and state. On the 1st of November, Károlyi's new government decided to recall all of the troops, who were conscripted from the territory of Kingdom of Hungary, which was a major blow for the Habsburg's armies on the fronts. Károlyi would have preferred to keep the monarchy and some link to
Austria if possible. Only after Charles's withdrawal from government on 16 November 1918 made Károlyi proclaim the
Hungarian Democratic Republic, with himself as provisional president. On 11 January 1919 the National Council formally recognized him as president.
Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychologist—who had known the two politicians personally—wrote about the assassination of
István Tisza and the appointment of Mihály Károlyi as new prime minister of Hungary: In the same vein, the British writer
Harold Nicolson, who had known Károlyi during his exile in Britain, when reviewing Károlyi's memoirs in 1957 noted that: Baron
Lajos Hatvany described Károlyi's leadership noting: Károlyi's cabinet lasted from 31 October 1918 to 19 January 1919. On 19 January 1919, Károlyi resigned as Prime Minister to concentrate exclusively on his duties as President of the Republic. He appointed
Dénes Berinkey to form the new government.
Foreign policy On the 1st of November, his new Hungarian government decided to recall all of the troops, who were conscripted from the territory of Kingdom of Hungary. It became a major blow for the Habsburg's armies on the
Italian Front which accelerated and secured the collapse of Austria-Hungary. The
Hungarian Royal Honvéd army still had more than 1,400,000 soldiers when Mihály Károlyi was designated as prime minister of Hungary. However, he took up the case of
pacifism in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points by ordering the unilateral self-disarmament of the Hungarian army, leaving the country defenseless at a time of particular vulnerability. This happened on 2 November 1918, while
Béla Linder served as minister of war which made the occupation of Hungary directly possible for the relatively small military forces of such surrounding nations as the Serbian army, and the Czechoslovak and the Romanian armies. Károlyi had appointed
Oszkár Jászi as the new Minister for National Minorities of Hungary. During their brief periods in power,
Oszkár Jászi, hoped to create an "Eastern Switzerland" by persuading the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary to stay as part of the new Hungarian Republic. Jászi also immediately offered democratic referendums about the disputed borders to minorities, however, the political leaders of those minorities refused the very idea of democratic referendums at the Paris peace conference. Instead the Czech, Serbian, and Romanian political leaders chose to attack Hungary to seize territories. The military and political events changed rapidly and drastically after the Hungarian unilaterial self-disarmament. During the rule of Károlyi's pacifist cabinet, Hungary lost control over approx. 75% of its former pre-WW1 territories (325 411 km2) without armed resistance and was subject to foreign occupation. • on 5 November 1918, the Serbian army, with the help of the French army, crossed southern borders, • on 8 November, the Czechoslovak Army crossed the northern borders, • on 10 November
d'Espérey's French-Serbian army crossed the Danube river and was poised to enter the Hungarian heartland, • on 11 November Germany signed
an armistice with Allies, under which they had to immediately withdraw all German troops in
Romania and in the
Ottoman Empire, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
Russian Empire back to German territory and Allies to have access to these countries. • on 13 November, the Romanian army crossed the eastern borders of the
Kingdom of Hungary. • on 13 November, Károlyi signed the
Armistice of Belgrade with the
Allied Powers. It limited the size of the Hungarian army to six infantry and two cavalry divisions. Demarcation lines defining the territory to remain under Hungarian control were made, and For their part, the neighboring countries used the so-called "struggle against
communism", against the capitalist and liberal government of Count Mihály Károlyi. The lines would apply until definitive borders could be established. Under the terms of the armistice, Serbian and French troops advanced from the south, taking control of the
Banat and Croatia. Czechoslovak forces took control of
Upper Hungary and
Carpathian Ruthenia. Romanian forces were permitted to advance to the
River Maros (Mureș). However, on 14 November, Serbia occupied
Pécs. Many citizens thought that Károlyi could negotiate soft peace terms with the Allies for Hungary. Károlyi headed the Provisional Government from 1 November 1918 until 16 November, when the Hungarian Democratic Republic was proclaimed. Károlyi ruled Hungary through a National Council, transformed into the government that consisted of his party in alliance with the large
Hungarian Social Democratic Party and the small Civic Radical Party led by
Oszkár Jászi. Additional trouble for the new government occurred over the question of the armistice.
Austria-Hungary had signed the
Armistice of villa Giusti (close to
Padua,
Italy) with the Allies on 3 November 1918. Since Hungary was now independent, some in the Cabinet argued that Hungary needed to sign a new armistice. Against his better judgement, Károlyi agreed to this idea, and had Hungary sign in November 1918, a new armistice with the Allies in
Belgrade with the Allied Commander in the Balkans, the French General
Louis Franchet d'Esperey. General Franchet d'Esperey treated the Hungarians with open contempt and imposed a harsher armistice on the defeated nation than the Padua Armistice had. The Belgrade Armistice was nonetheless seen as a victory for Károlyi, as it represented some degree of de facto recognition of his government on the part of the Allies. The Belgrade Armistice was well received back in Budapest. French recognition of Károlyi's government did not, however, materialize, and it soon became apparent that the French Foreign Office considered the treaty a "dead letter". Moreover, Károlyi's opponents argued that by needlessly seeking a second armistice, Károlyi had worsened Hungary's situation. on 23 February 1919 Upon the National Council's seizure of power, Minister of Defence Béla Linder recalled all troops from the front and instructed all Hungarian units to lay down their arms. By Károlyi's own admission, this order was informed mainly by a fear among Károlyi's cabinet that soldiers could return armed, potentially causing disorder, threatening the new government, or prompting Allied intervention. Linder's much maligned policy was very quickly reversed when Czechoslovak troops occupied several districts claimed by the Prague government in western Hungary on November 9. As a result, Linder resigned his post as Minister of Defence on November 9 and was replaced with Albert Bartha, who was now faced with the task of reorganizing and re-arming the Hungarian military. In a speech on November 11, Károlyi announced that the Hungarian army had ceased disarming and was prepared to defend Hungary from the Czech incursion. When Prague sent Gendarmes to occupy several majority Slovak districts in western Hungary, Károlyi followed through on his promise to defend Hungary's borders, mobilizing divisions of repatriated POWs who managed to repel the Czech forces. When a new demarcation line was negotiated, Hungary ceded administration of the areas given to the Prague government, but refused to withdraw its army any further. All through the winter of 1918–19, the
Romanians, the
Yugoslavs and the Czechoslovaks often broke the armistice in order to seize more territory for themselves. After January 1919, Károlyi began to consider the idea of an alliance with Soviet Russia, through Károlyi was opposed to the idea of Communism in Hungary itself. In addition, as Hungary had signed an armistice, not a peace treaty, the Allied blockade continued until such time as a peace treaty was signed. Hungary had suffered from food shortages throughout the war and deaths from starvation had become common from 1917 onwards. Furthermore, the country had been overwhelmed with refugees from
Transylvania and
Galicia.
Domestic politics At the same time, there existed various revolutionary councils, which were dominated by the Social Democrats, which were not unlike the
Soviets (Councils) that existed in
Russia in 1917. This situation of
Dual Power gave Károlyi responsibility without much power while giving the Social Democrats power without much responsibility. The war deepened social differences and disparity, since the wealthy social strata not directly involved in the war could continue to live unchanged, i.e. carefree lives, and the wealth of the large entrepreneurs who supplied the war effort could even continue to grow enormously, while the wages of the workers who lived on wages were constantly and significantly devalued. The economic incompetence of the new government which printed more and more money, leading to massive
inflation and even more impoverishment. Károlyi's failure to improve living conditions or persuade the Allies to lift the blockade led to public criticism of Károlyi. Making things worse was the creation of
Czechoslovakia which had cut Hungary off from supplies of German
coal. Hungary which possessed little coal depended upon German coal imports. Without coal, most had to live without heat in the winter of 1918–19, and the railroad network had gradually ceased to function. The collapse of railroads in their turn caused the collapse of industry and hence mass
unemployment. Of the more than forty laws and almost 400 decrees introduced by the Károlyi and Berinkey governments and passed by the National Council, the new electoral law gave the right to vote to all men over 21 and women over 24 who could read and write in any domestic language. General elections under the new law were scheduled for April 1919. During the War, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly were temporarily banned on the grounds of wartime interests. The Karolyi government reintroduced freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of assembly. With the economy on the verge of collapse as a result of the war, and with mass poverty and inflation, social reforms were introduced: unemployment benefit, tax arrears waivers, a ban on the employment of children under 14, wage increases, a token severance payment for demobilised soldiers, the introduction of an eight-hour working day and the extension of social security. Alongside the democratic establishment, the governments of the Karolyi regime also sought to consolidate internal order, but with little success. Furthermore, the Social Democrats who were Hungary's largest party by far, frequently undercut Károlyi and imposed their decisions on him without taking responsibility for their actions. Károlyi wished to transfer almost all of the rural lands to the peasants. To set an example, he gave all of his own vast family estates to his tenants. But this was the only land transfer that took place; the Social Democrats blocked any measures that might give the control of those lands to the peasantry on the grounds that it was promoting capitalism. In February 1919, the government used police force against two recently formed extremist organisations: it dissolved the dictatorial right-wing government and the Hungarian National Defence League (MOVE) led by Gyula Gömbös, which demanded the armed defence of the historic (pre-World War I) Hungarian borders. After an unemployment demonstration on 20 February 1919, which led to an armed confrontation in front of the Budapest offices of the Népszava newspaper, he imprisoned thirty-two leaders of the Communist Party of Hungary, including their leader, Béla Kun. ==Downfall of Károlyi government==