The Treaty of Trianon was one of the peace agreements signed between Hungary and the Allied powers after the First World War. It was signed on June 4, 1920, at the Grand Palace of Trianon in Versailles in France. The treaty holds the Kingdom of Hungary responsible for damages and losses caused to the allies (Triple Entente, 1907) and associates.
This resulted in the demand for payment for war reparations. Another consequence was the territorial dispossession of Hungary and the division of its population. With the Treaty of Trianon Hungary lost 65% of its territory and 33% of the population remained living in other newly created countries.
Arrival of the Austrian representatives Ágost Benárd and Alfréd Drasche-Lázár at the Grand Trianón Palace in Versailles for the signing of the Treaty
This was the case with all the other empires that were dissolved through the peace treaties. The Treaty of Trianon became the source of resentments and subsequent ethnic and military conflicts in this part of Central Europe.
Causes
The defeat suffered during the First World War by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rest of the old imperial powers prompted the signing of peace treaties in Europe. In these, the victorious powers imposed their conditions on the defeated: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey and Russia.
The allies of World War I - Great Britain, France, Kingdom of Italy, Japan and the United States - wanted to prevent the restoration of imperial power in Central Europe (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and in Turkey (Ottoman Empire), as well as the expansion of Russian communism.
As happened with Austria with the signing of the Treaty of Saint Germain, Hungary had to sign the Treaty of Trianon under very unfavorable terms. For this reason, they imposed harsh conditions on the defeated, to prevent them from becoming a danger to world peace again.
The irony is that, precisely because of the economic ruin that the Treaty produced in Hungary, the Hungarians allied themselves with Nazi Germany.
Delays and one-sidedness
Similarly, the presentation of the draft peace treaty to the Hungarians by the allies was delayed, which hurt Hungary; the allies had no interest in making deals with the communist government of Béla Kun.
Nor did the instability of the moderate Hungarian governments that came to power during the Romanian occupation of Budapest in 1919 helped.
It was not until January 16, 1920, that the allies recognized the new government. The Hungarian delegation received the draft treaty in Neuilly, a town near Paris.
Although the Treaty of Trianon was signed by the Hungarians, the opinion of their representatives was not taken into account; in fact, they were not allowed to participate in the negotiations. The treaty was drawn up almost entirely by the French and British representatives.
The terms of the treaty were later altered. In the initial treaty it was unilaterally declared that Hungary had to pay a large sum of gold crowns to the allies, but this money was not fixed at the time Hungary signed the treaty.
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, outlining a general framework for peace treaty negotiations, were also not taken into account. In these, respect for the self-determination of the peoples was established, but in practice this did not happen.
France's commitments
France had promised the Czechs and Romanians to hand over Hungarian territories in exchange for fighting against the country's revolutionary communists. This is one of the points included in the treaty and that bases the division of the Hungarian territory.
With these territorial "gifts" granted to Hungary's neighbors, France succeeded in establishing new partners between the Baltic countries and the Balkans.
Agreements
The most important points of the Treaty of Trianon were the following:
- Hungary was stripped of a little more than two thirds of its population when it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- It lost about 65% of its territory when the nascent Hungarian State was dismembered. The allies resolved to hand over to the newly created Czechoslovakia the regions of Slovakia, Pressburg (Bratislava), Ruthenia subcarpaciana and other minor territories.
- Austria received the western part of Hungary (that is, most of Burgenland). While Yugoslavia (made up of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) took Croatia-Slavonia and part of the Banat.
- For its part, Romania received most of the Banat region and all Transylvania and Italy stayed with Fiume. Only in two small regions were plebiscites held to consult the population on which country they wanted to belong to; all other land transfers were unconsulted.
- The Covenant of the League of Nations was also part of the treaty.
- The Hungarian armed forces could not use airplanes. Furthermore, they were to be restricted to only 35,000 men, who could carry only light weapons. Such weapons could only be used for maintenance of internal order and for the protection of borders.
- Hungary recognized the payment of compensation and damages caused to allies and partner countries, but the amount of reparations imposed on Hungary would be determined and imposed later.
Consequences
- As in all other peace treaties signed in Europe, after the end of the First World War the Treaty of Trianon led to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- After the signing of the Trianon Treaty, Hungary suffered gigantic territorial losses (about two thirds of its territory) and population that affected its former economic strength. By losing 13 million of its inhabitants, Hungary's population was reduced to just 7.62 million.
- The new Hungary was left without an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea, impacting its already weakened economy.
- The military restrictions imposed diminished their influence and political power.
- Large areas of northern Hungary were distributed to the newly created Czechoslovakia.
- Other new countries were created with the territories taken from Hungary, without taking into account elements of a historical, ethnic, social, linguistic, cultural and economic order. Later this would provoke armed confrontations between the dismembered peoples.
- The treaty sowed the seeds of resentment, ethnic conflict and subsequent interwar tensions.
-Hungarian officials claimed what they considered an open violation of the rights of the people of Hungary. They also demanded the displacement of so many Magyars without any kind of plebiscite, violating the principle of self-determination.
References
- The Treaty of Trianon. Consulted from historylearningsite.co.uk
- The Treaty of Trianon. Retrieved March 6, 2018 from freidenker.cc
- Treaty of Trianon. Consulted from britannica.com
- Miklós Zeidler: Trianon, Treaty of. Consulted of encyclopedia. 1914-1918-online.net
- Treaty of Trianon. Consulted from esacademic.com
- The Peace Treaties and the League of Nations. Consulted of historiansiglo20.org
- Treaty of Trianon. Consulted of es.wikipedia.org