Mihály Károly and István Bethlen: Hungary
Bryan Cartledge

Mihály Károly and István Bethlen: Hungary will form part of the Haus series Makers of the Modern World: The Peace Conferences 1919-23 and their Aftermath. Like other volumes in the series, Károly and Bethlen will chronicle the lives of the two men most responsible for guiding their country’s fortunes during the run-up to the Peace Conference and, in Bethlen’s case, coping with its tragic aftermath. Károly presided over a liberal revolution which foundered on the punitive armistice terms imposed on Hungary by the Entente powers in 1919, enabling the Communists under Béla Kun to assume power. These events and the turmoil surrounding them kept Hungary away from the conference table in Paris at which her future was being decided. The eventual Treaty of Trianon (1920) deprived Hungary of two-thirds of her territory and over half her population, an injustice which festered during the inter-war years and eventually drove Hungary into the arms of Nazi Germany. It fell to Bethlen to manage Hungary’s gradual economic recovery during that period and her re-admission to the international community. Cartledge’s book will bring into sharp focus one of the most dramatic and disastrous episodes in Hungary’s crisis-strewn history.