Could the Treaty of Trianon ever have been made tolerable to Hungary?

[rfmcdonald]

The past weekend, I have been seeing more than a few notes commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon. This 1920 treaty, ending the state of war between Hungary and the allies, remains deeply unpopular in Hungary; a very common criticism is that the treaty was fundamentally unjust, in dividing Hungary and making so many Hungarians minorities.

I do not agree with that particular critique. It strikes me as odd, and revealing, that the people who do point out the large numbers of ethnic Hungarian made minorities somehow overlook the much larger numbers of non-Hungarians who had been minorities in old Hungary. The idea of the treaty being fundamentally unjust does not make sense to me.

This does not mean that I do not see ways in which the treaty might have plausibly been tailored to produce political frontiers more closely matching ethnographic frontiers. There were, and are, large Hungarian populations just outside of Hungary's frontiers, majorities even in adjoining areas of Slovakia and Transcarpathia and Vojvodina and Transylvania. The Allies' concerns over the balance of power in the Carpathian basin led to these areas being lost.

Was it possible that these territories might have been assigned to Hungary? Beyond this, was it ever imaginable that the Treaty of Trianon could have been made at least tolerable to Hungary? Could a partition of the old kingdom on more strictly ethnographic lines have made post-war Hungary less wildly irredentist?

 

[Zincvit]

they lost the neighboring hungarian-majority lands, so of course, the treaty is unjust (I will ignore Transylvania because the territories need to be contiguous)

 

[Kotka]

Maybe this would’ve been more tolerable for Hungary?

 

[marathag]

View attachment 555021

Maybe this would’ve been more tolerable for Hungary?

Sure, they wanted more land, but a more accurate map

here is the 1910 layout

so valid claims to most of the areas
Now, IMO, there should have been an 'East Hungary' for the German and Hungarian areas from the start, if a land bridge was not granted

 

[WinRar Archivist]

View attachment 555021

Maybe this would’ve been more tolerable for Hungary?

Perphaps, but it will almost guarantee that Romania won't respect the treaty and would possibly start a second Romanian-Hungarian war.

 

[Fearless Leader]

I think its also worth noting the mentality present in all Hungarian leadership factions in 1918. AFAIK no one, not even the Communists was willing to accept any kind of "truncated" ethnic Hungary. Pretty much everyone insisted on maintaining the Kingdom of Hungary's pre-war borders. The only substantive difference between the groups was how many rights were to be afforded to the minority populations with the most progressive advocating a Swiss Canton model. So basically I think the answer to the OP's question is no. Even a slightly better Trianon would be completely unacceptable to the Hungarian leadership and a vast number of their population.

 

[AltoRegnant]

I think its also worth noting the mentality present in all Hungarian leadership factions in 1918. AFAIK no one, not even the Communists was willing to accept any kind of "truncated" ethnic Hungary. Pretty much everyone insisted on maintaining the Kingdom of Hungary's pre-war borders. The only substantive difference between the groups was how many rights were to be afforded to the minority populations with the most progressive advocating a Swiss Canton model. So basically I think the answer to the OP's question is no. Even a slightly better Trianon would be completely unacceptable to the Hungarian leadership and a vast number of their population.

That begs the mind, would either of the atl treaties remain as unpopular as otl?

 

[Fearless Leader]

That begs the mind, would either of the atl treaties remain as unpopular as otl?

Holly Case's book is particularly insightful for this question IMO. The Hungarians were dead set on keeping the entirety of Transylvania. Even after the Second Vienna Award, in 1940, they constantly pressed for more land. Case makes a persuasive argument that the Hungarians' eagerness to collaborate with Germany pre-Stalingrad was predicated on both the preservation of the Second Vienna Award and its expansion. Not to be outflanked, Case argues that the Romanians played a similar game and thus allowed the Germans to use the issue as a carrot to keep both of their allies in check. Given that none of the above mentioned maps give the Hungarians all of Transylvania, I think they're still going to fall short of Hungarian desires.

IMO the "Trianon Trauma" primarily stems from 2 things:

1. The presence of significant Hungarian minorities in Transylvania, Southern Slovakia, and Vojvodina.

2. Political utility in the aftermath of both WWI and the Cold War.

There are a few other factors, but in my opinion those are the main drivers. Remove either one of them and the issue is far less salient.

Remove both...well I'll admit this is interpreting the letter of the OP rather than its spirit, but here it goes.

Horthy was no saint and was definitely a horrific antisemite, but he was hardly the worst antisemite in interwar Hungary. IMO its definitely plausible that in the absence of Horthy, an ATL "Great Man" could have come to power and installed a truly totalitarian regime in Hungary rather than the largely authoritarian one which existed under Horthy. In such a scenario, Hungary could end up being considered as an aggressor nation and thus see its populations forcibly removed from the Balkans in a similar manner to how the German minorities were treated. Just like OTL the Treaty of Trianon doesn't come up during the Cold War and without Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, the issue is even less salient. There probably isn't any 1956 or Goulash Communism in TTL, but that might not be the worst thing. Especially if the different population movements in TTL produce leaders that are able to more aptly handle Hungary's transition to a market economy. By promising "short term pain for long term gain" these leaders lay the foundation for Hungarian prosperity in the late 1990s and early 2000s while also positioning the country to do well in the EU. Hungary's past also prevents them from trying to salvage a useable history and instead they echo Germany's efforts to come to terms with their past. Both policies effectively kill any attempts to resuscitate revanchist politics in the 1990s and 2000s.

IMHO even a better Hungarian handling of the 1990s would have massively reduced the "Trianon Trauma" currently felt in Hungary, but with the presence of Hungarian minorities in neighbouring countries it wouldn't completely go away. Something more drastic would be needed to undo over a century of propaganda, hence the earlier POD.

 

[rfmcdonald]

Horthy was no saint and was definitely a horrific antisemite, but he was hardly the worst antisemite in interwar Hungary. IMO its definitely plausible that in the absence of Horthy, an ATL "Great Man" could have come to power and installed a truly totalitarian regime in Hungary rather than the largely authoritarian one which existed under Horthy. In such a scenario, Hungary could end up being considered as an aggressor nation and thus see its populations forcibly removed from the Balkans in a similar manner to how the German minorities were treated. Just like OTL the Treaty of Trianon doesn't come up during the Cold War and without Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, the issue is even less salient. There probably isn't any 1956 or Goulash Communism in TTL, but that might not be the worst thing. Especially if the different population movements in TTL produce leaders that are able to more aptly handle Hungary's transition to a market economy. By promising "short term pain for long term gain" these leaders lay the foundation for Hungarian prosperity in the late 1990s and early 2000s while also positioning the country to do well in the EU. Hungary's past also prevents them from trying to salvage a useable history and instead they echo Germany's efforts to come to terms with their past. Both policies effectively kill any attempts to resuscitate revanchist politics in the 1990s and 2000s.

I suppose that this is a possibility. I suspect that a major reason you did not see such a deportation of Hungarians from Slovakia and Romania OTL is that neither of those countries were seen as morally different from Hungary. (I am not sure how the Hungarians survived in Yugoslavia, especially given as how the nearby Germans were all deported.)

 

[Fearless Leader]

I suppose that this is a possibility. I suspect that a major reason you did not see such a deportation of Hungarians from Slovakia and Romania OTL is that neither of those countries were seen as morally different from Hungary. (I am not sure how the Hungarians survived in Yugoslavia, especially given as how the nearby Germans were all deported.)

There's also the fact that the German populations were historically seen as agents of empire and were employed as such by the Nazis in WWII. Hungary was never able to mobilize its populations in quite the same way. In Yugoslavia, the survival of the Hungarian community there is largely due to Tito's desire to preserve his vision of a federalized Yugoslavia.

 

[Aghasverov]

The past weekend, I have been seeing more than a few notes commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon. This 1920 treaty, ending the state of war between Hungary and the allies, remains deeply unpopular in Hungary; a very common criticism is that the treaty was fundamentally unjust, in dividing Hungary and making so many Hungarians minorities.

I do not agree with that particular critique. It strikes me as odd, and revealing, that the people who do point out the large numbers of ethnic Hungarian made minorities somehow overlook the much larger numbers of non-Hungarians who had been minorities in old Hungary. The idea of the treaty being fundamentally unjust does not make sense to me.

This does not mean that I do not see ways in which the treaty might have plausibly been tailored to produce political frontiers more closely matching ethnographic frontiers. There were, and are, large Hungarian populations just outside of Hungary's frontiers, majorities even in adjoining areas of Slovakia and Transcarpathia and Vojvodina and Transylvania. The Allies' concerns over the balance of power in the Carpathian basin led to these areas being lost.

Was it possible that these territories might have been assigned to Hungary? Beyond this, was it ever imaginable that the Treaty of Trianon could have been made at least tolerable to Hungary? Could a partition of the old kingdom on more strictly ethnographic lines have made post-war Hungary less wildly irredentist?

No.

 

[Aghasverov]

No.

This from Wiki:
Post-Trianon Hungary possessed 90% of the engineering and printing industry of the pre-war Kingdom, while only 11% of timber and 16% ofiron was retained. In addition, 61% of arable land, 74% of public roads, 65% of canals, 62% ofrailroads, 64% of hard surface roads, 83% of pig iron output, 55% of industrial plants, and 67% of credit and banking institutions of the former Kingdom of Hungary lay within the territory of Hungary's neighbours.[124][125][126] New borders also bisected transport links – in the Kingdom of Hungary the road and railway network had a radial structure, with Budapest in the centre. Many roads and railways, running along the newly defined borders and interlinking radial transport lines, ended up in different, highly introvert countries. Hence, much of the rail cargo traffic of the emergent states was virtually paralysed.[127]These factors all combined created some imbalances in the now separated economic regions of the former Monarchy.

There's more to drawing good, sustainable boundaries than rather crudely drawing them along roughly ethnographic lines - and at Trianon, the Entente even got that wrong as often as not. Of the four bad treaties that were signed at Paris (I'll omit Sevres, since it never went into effect), this one was the most egregious. Hard to see how the Magyar people could ever see it as anything other than punitive cartographic butchery.

 

[rfmcdonald]

Conversely, the non-Magyars seem to have generally seen it as liberation. (The Germans and Jews may well be exceptions.)

War, then, seems more likely than not.

 

[Fehérvári]

Just allow proper plebiscites to be held, supervised by the League of Nations.

 

[WinRar Archivist]

Just allow proper plebiscites to be held, supervised by the League of Nations.

And what if Hungary doesn't like the results of the plebiscites?

 

[Athelstane]

It strikes me as odd, and revealing, that the people who do point out the large numbers of ethnic Hungarian made minorities somehow overlook the much larger numbers of non-Hungarians who had been minorities in old Hungary.

Well, surely one injustice - if that it what it was - cannot justify another injustice.

Hungary got the worst case borders because it lost the war. It's really that simple.

Just allow proper plebiscites to be held, supervised by the League of Nations.

That's definitely an obvious solution.

The Allies use of plebiscites to work out borders was definitely...selective.

 

[Fehérvári]

And what if Hungary doesn't like the results of the plebiscites?

"I declare that even in anticipation we will accept the results of such plebiscites, whatever they may be" - Apponyi Albert, leader of the Hungarian peace delegation

 

[WinRar Archivist]

"I declare that even in anticipation we will accept the results of such plebiscites, whatever they may be" - Apponyi Albert, leader of the Hungarian peace delegation

Excuse me if I don't trust one fellow to speak for an entire nation.

 

[Analytical Engine]

And what if Hungary doesn't like the results of the plebiscites?

Are they really going to be able to beat up all of their neighbours?

The result of the plebiscites depends heavily on the sizes and shapes of the zones involved. Even under the best case (for Hungary) scenario, those areas without a Hungarian majority voter base are leaving.

They might get a bit more of Banat, and a strip of southern Slovakia. Maybe Szeklerland, if it is a separate plebiscite area. Not sure what would happen in Burgenland - maybe they decide to join Austria regardless.

But the Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs, Croats and Ruthenians are all getting out of doge.

 

[Fehérvári]

But the Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs, Croats and Ruthenians are all getting out of doge.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, especially regarding the Ruthenians and maybe the Slovaks living in the Eastern portion of today's Slovakia. The Germans, aside from the area of Burgenland would be probably also swayable. It all depends on what promises do the Hungarians make and how. Who knows, maybe even some of the Eastern Catholic Romanians would also vote to remain in Hungary if the right things are said and done.