Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II, from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944.
Horthy began his career as a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1896 and attained the rank of rear admiral by 1918. He participated in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto and ascended to the position of commander-in-chief of the Navy in the final year of World War I. Following mutinies, Emperor-King Charles I and IV appointed him a vice admiral and commander of the Fleet, dismissing the previous admiral. During the revolutions and interventions in Hungary from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, Horthy returned to Budapest with the National Army. Subsequently, the Diet of Hungary offered him the position of Regent of Hungary, while the House of Habsburg and Hungarian monarchy was formally dethroned.
Throughout the interwar period, Horthy led an administration characterized by national conservatism and antisemitism. Under his leadership, Hungary banned the Hungarian Communist Party and the far-right Arrow Cross Party led by Ferenc Szálasi, and pursued a revanchist foreign policy in response to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. The former King of Hungary, Charles IV, attempted to return to Hungary twice before the Hungarian government yielded to Allied threats of renewed hostilities in 1921. Subsequently, Charles was escorted out of Hungary and into exile.
Ideologically a national conservative, Horthy has sometimes been labelled as a fascist. In the late 1930s, Horthy's foreign policy led him into an alliance with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. With the support of Adolf Hitler, Hungary succeeded in reoccupying certain areas ceded to neighbouring countries by the Treaty of Trianon. Under Horthy's leadership, Hungary provided support to Polish refugees when Germany attacked their country in 1939 and participated in the Axis powers' invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Some historians view Horthy as unenthusiastic about contributing to the German war effort and the Holocaust in Hungary (out of fear that it may sabotage peace deals with Allied forces); in addition, several attempts were made to strike a secret deal with the Allies of World War II after it had become obvious that the Axis would lose the war, therefore eventually leading the Germans to invade and take control of the country in March 1944. However, prior to the Nazi occupation of Hungary, 63,000 Jews were murdered. In late 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where the majority (80%) were exterminated on arrival in gas chambers. Serbian historian Zvonimir Golubović has claimed that not only was Horthy aware of these genocidal massacres, but had approved of them, such as those in the Novi Sad raid.
In October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had declared an armistice with the Soviets and had withdrawn from the Axis. He was forced to resign, placed under arrest by the Germans and taken to Bavaria, while the Arrow Cross Party ruled Hungary. At the end of the war, he came under the custody of American troops. After providing evidence for the Ministries Trial of war crimes in 1948, Horthy settled and lived out his remaining years in exile in Portugal. His memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (A Life for Hungary), was first published in 1953. He has a reputation as a controversial historical figure in contemporary Hungary.
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was born at Kenderes, to an untitled noble family; his ancestor István Horti had been ennobled by King Ferdinand II in 1635. His father, István Horthy de Nagybánya, was a member of the House of Magnates, the upper chamber of the Diet of Hungary, and lord of a 610-hectare (1,500-acre) estate. He married Hungarian noblewoman Paula Halassy de Dévaványa in 1857. Miklós was the fourth of their eight children, who were raised as Protestants in the Reformed Church of Hungary.
Aged 14, Horthy joined the Austro-Hungarian Navy, as a cadet at the Imperial and Royal Naval Academy in Fiume. Because the official language of the naval academy was German, Horthy spoke Hungarian with a slight, but noticeable, Austro-German accent for the rest of his life. He also spoke Italian, Croatian, English, and French.
As a young man, Horthy traveled around the world and was a diplomat for Austria-Hungary in the Ottoman Empire and other countries. Horthy married Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely in Arad in 1901. They had four children: Magdolna (1902), Paula (1903), István (1904), and Miklós (1907). From 1911 until 1914, he was a naval aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, for whom he had great respect.
At the beginning of World War I, Horthy commanded the pre-dreadnought battleship SMS Habsburg. In 1915, he earned a reputation for boldness while commanding the new light cruiser SMS Novara. He planned the 1917 attack on the Otranto Barrage, which resulted in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto, the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic Sea. A consolidated British, French, and Italian fleet met the Austro-Hungarian force. Despite the numerical superiority of the Allied fleet, the Austrian force emerged victorious from the battle. The Austrian fleet remained relatively unscathed; however, Horthy was wounded. After the Cattaro mutiny of February 1918, Emperor Charles I of Austria selected Horthy over multiple other senior commanders as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Fleet in March 1918. In June, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought SMS Szent István met Italian MAS torpedo boats and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. He managed to preserve the rest of the empire's fleet until he was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender it to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (the predecessor of Yugoslavia) on 31 October.
The end of the war saw Hungary turn into a landlocked nation, and with that, the new government had little need for Horthy's naval expertise. He retired with his family to his private estate at Kenderes.
1896 Fregattenleutnant (Frigate Lieutenant) (fregatthadnagy – Sub-Lieutenant)
1900 Linienschiffleutnant (Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant) (sorhajóhadnagy – Lieutenant)
January 1901 SMS Sperber (commander of the vessel)
1902 SMS Kranich (commander of the vessel)
June 1908 SMS Taurus (commander of the vessel)
August 1908 SMS Kaiser Karl VI (GDO-Gesamtdetailoffizier-First Officer, temporary)
1 January 1909, Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) (korvettkapitány – Lieutenant-Commander)
1 November 1909 aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Josef