Miklós Horthy

Miklós Horthy DE Nagybánya (18 June 1868 - 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the two World Wars and throughout most of World War II - from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy started his career as a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1896 and attained the rank of rear admiral in 1918. He saw action in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto and became commander-in-chief of the Navy in the last year of World War I; he was promoted to vice admiral and commander of the Fleet when Emperor-King Charles dismissed the previous admiral from his post following mutinies. During the revolutions and interventions in Hungary from Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, Horthy returned to Budapest with the National Army; the parliament subsequently invited him to become regent of the kingdom. Through the interwar period Horthy led an administration which was national conservative and antisemitic. Hungary under Horthy banned the Hungarian Communist Party as well as the Arrow Cross Party, and pursued an irritants foreign policy in the face of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Charles, the former king, attempted twice to return to Hungary before the Hungarian government caved in to Allied threats to renew hostilities in 1921. Charles was then escorted out of Hungary into exile. Show less «