Kingdom of Hungary

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kingdom of Hungary endured for nearly a thousand years, from 1000 to 1946. That span covers crusades, Ottoman sieges, Habsburg wars, a communist revolution that lasted just a few months, and a regency that had no king. How does a state that began with a Christmas Day coronation on the Danube outlast empires, world wars, and foreign occupations? And how does a kingdom founded by a single dynasty become one of medieval Europe's most multiethnic realms? The story begins with a prince baptized Vajk, a battle at Veszprém, and a crown placed on his head at Esztergom around the year 1000.

• 2. A Christian Crown Is Born

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  Stephen I, originally called Vajk before his baptism, was crowned at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. His father was the principal Géza, and Stephen's first military test came early: with Bavarian help, he defeated a rival named Koppány near Veszprém in 998. The Catholic Church gained a powerful ally in Stephen, who actively promoted Christianity alongside German knights.

  Stephen's legacy grew far beyond his lifetime. He was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1083 and later as an Eastern Orthodox saint in the year 2000. His feast day, the 20th of August, is today a national holiday in Hungary called Foundation Day.

  The monarchy he founded was led by his family, the Árpád dynasty, for 300 years. By the 12th century, the kingdom had grown into a recognized European power. Ladislaus I, who succeeded after the turmoil following Stephen's death, was also canonized, and under his rule the Hungarians acquired parts of Croatia in 1091 by exploiting a dynastic crisis there. Full kingship over Croatia came under his successor Coloman, who was crowned King of Croatia and Dalmatia at Biograd in 1102, binding the two kingdoms under one crown.

• 3. Mongols, Gold, and Dragon Orders

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  In 1222, Andrew II issued the Golden Bull, laying down principles of law for the kingdom. That legal foundation was soon tested brutally: in 1241, Mongol forces under the command of Subutai's vanguard destroyed the combined Hungarian and Cuman armies at the Battle of Mohi. The Mongol invasions killed between 15 and 25 percent of Hungary's population, a total of roughly 300,000 to 500,000 people.

  Béla IV rebuilt the kingdom after the Mongols withdrew in 1242, ordering numerous fortresses constructed against future invasion. Hungarians called him the Second Founder of the Homeland.

  The Árpád dynasty died out entirely in 1301 with the death of Andrew III. A period of contested succession followed, with two foreign candidates installed and quickly expelled before Charles I was finally crowned in 1310. His victory at Rozgony was described by the Chronicon Pictum as the most cruel battle since the Mongol invasion of Europe. Charles I introduced the forint as currency, worked the kingdom's gold mines extensively, and founded the Order of Saint George in 1326, the first secular chivalric order in the world.

  His son Louis I later united Hungary and Poland in 1370 after inheriting the Polish crown from his uncle Casimir III. That union dissolved in 1382 when Louis died without male heirs, and his two daughters took the separate thrones: Mary in Hungary, Jadwiga in Poland.

  Sigismund of Luxembourg, who became co-ruler in 1387 after marrying Mary, rebuilt the palaces of Buda and Visegrád using materials brought from Austria and Bohemia. He founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408, was elected King of the Romans in 1410, and was eventually crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 1433. He founded the Council of Constance, where the theologian Jan Hus was judged. Sigismund died in 1437 having controlled three medieval states simultaneously.

• 4. The Hunyadi Era and Ottoman Shadow

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  Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi, ruled from 1458 to 1490 and earned the nickname Matthias the Just. He built a modern mercenary force known as the Black Army of Hungary, whose cavalry arm, the Hussars, were regarded as the most skilled troops of Hungarian cavalry in the 15th century. From 1485 until his death, Matthias occupied Vienna to limit Habsburg interference in Hungarian affairs.

  John Hunyadi, before his son's reign, had already shaped Hungary's military reputation. He led the Crusade of Varna in an attempt to expel the Turks from the Balkans, and at the Battle of Varna the Ottomans won a decisive if Pyrrhic victory in which King Wladyslaw III was decapitated. Hunyadi recovered and in 1456 delivered a crushing defeat to the Ottomans at the Siege of Belgrade. The Noon Bell was instituted to commemorate the fallen Christian warriors of that battle.

  In 1479, under Pál Kinizsi, the Hungarian army destroyed Ottoman and Wallachian forces at the Battle of Breadfield. The resistance was ultimately broken at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Ottoman forces led by Suleiman the Magnificent annihilated the Hungarian army, and King Louis II drowned in the Csele Creek while trying to escape. Army leader Pál Tomori also died in the battle. Hungary would not be reunified for the rest of the 17th century.

  The Ottoman siege of the fortress at Szigetvár in 1566 illustrated the toll that resistance exacted on both sides. Between the 2nd of August and the 7th of September, a force of at least 150,000 Ottoman soldiers besieged just 2,300 defenders under Nikola IV Zrinski. The Ottomans prevailed, but lost 25,000 soldiers in doing so, and Suleiman I died before the final battle from causes of old age and illness.

• 5. Three Hungarys

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  After Mohács, the kingdom fractured into three pieces. Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria, claimed the Hungarian throne through prior dynastic agreements and was elected by a rump diet in December 1526. A majority of Hungary's ruling elite had already elected John Zápolya on the 10th of November 1526. Ottoman forces occupied the central territories, creating the tripartite division of Royal Hungary, Ottoman Hungary, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, which later became the Principality of Transylvania.

  On the 29th of February 1528, John I received the backing of the Ottoman Sultan, pulling three powers into open conflict. The Truce of Adrianople in 1547 required Ferdinand I and Charles V to recognize total Ottoman control over Hungary and pay a yearly tribute of 30,000 gold florins for their remaining northern and western Hungarian possessions.

  Habsburg dominance over the northern territories produced repeated Hungarian rebellions. The Hungarians fought wars of independence against the Habsburgs in 1604-06, 1664-71, 1680-85, 1703-11, and 1848-49. Rákóczi's War for Independence (1703-1711) was the first significant freedom fight against absolutist Habsburg rule. Francis II Rákóczi led a force that included light cavalry, pistols, light sabres, and a weapon called the fokos. At the Battle of Saint Gotthard in 1705, János Bottyán decisively defeated the Austrian army, and a Hungarian colonel named Ádám Balogh came close to capturing Joseph I himself. The Habsburgs finally broke the main Hungarian army at the Battle of Trencsén in 1708.

  The Great Turkish War eventually turned the tide. After the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs pushed back, and by 1686 the capital Buda was freed with the aid of other European forces. The country remained divided until the close of the 17th century, when the Ottomans were finally expelled.

• 6. A Patchwork of Peoples

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  From its very beginnings, the Kingdom of Hungary was a multiethnic state. At the time of the Battle of Mohács, Hungarian demographers estimate that roughly 80 percent of the population was Hungarian. By the mid-19th century, the numbers had shifted dramatically: out of a total population of 14 million, fewer than 6 million were Hungarian, the result of resettlement policies and sustained immigration from neighboring countries.

  The 1910 census, taken while the kingdom was part of Austria-Hungary, counted 18,264,533 people in the kingdom proper, excluding Croatia-Slavonia. Hungarians made up 54.44 percent of that total. Romanians accounted for 16.14 percent, Slovaks 10.65 percent, and Germans 10.42 percent. Ruthenians, Serbians, and Croatians together made up another 6 percent.

  This diversity was embedded in the kingdom's official language over centuries. Latin remained the language of official documents from the kingdom's founding until the 1840s. German was used officially from 1784 to 1790 and again between 1849 and the 1860s. Hungarian became the exclusively used official language between 1844 and 1849, and from 1867 onward. The kingdom's names in other native languages ranged from the Polish Królestwo Węgier to the Italian Regno d'Ungheria, used for the city of Fiume.

  The Treaty of Trianon in 1920 ceded 72 percent of the kingdom's territory to neighboring states. More than 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the new Hungarian borders. Hungary lost 84 percent of its timber resources, 43 percent of its arable land, and 83 percent of its iron ore. Every gold, silver, copper, mercury, and salt mine lay within the territory now belonging to Hungary's neighbors. The remnant state retained about 51 percent of the kingdom's industrial population and 56 percent of its industry, concentrated near Budapest.

• 7. Austria-Hungary and the Dual Monarchy

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  The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 transformed the Habsburg Monarchy into a dual structure. Hungary and Austria each exercised considerable independence while sharing the reigning house, defence, foreign affairs, and finances for common expenditures. The territories connected to the Hungarian crown were known officially as the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, and informally as Transleithania.

  The economic results were notable. The GNP per capita across Austria-Hungary grew roughly 1.45 percent per year from 1870 to 1913, comparing favorably to Britain at 1.00 percent, France at 1.06 percent, and Germany at 1.51 percent. The capitalist mode of production spread through the empire and obsolete medieval institutions continued to disappear.

  The arrangement collapsed with the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I in 1918. The last king, Charles IV, was deposed. Hungary briefly became a republic, then saw a communist state under Béla Kun, which lasted from the 21st of March to the 1st of August 1919. Kun's government was the second socialist state in the world after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It collapsed when Hungarian representatives went to negotiate surrender to Romanian forces and Kun fled to Austria.

  On the 29th of February 1920, after Romanian occupation forces withdrew, Hungary was restored as a constitutional monarchy without a sitting king. Former Austro-Hungarian navy admiral Miklós Horthy was appointed regent to represent the monarchy. Charles IV attempted twice to retake the throne; he died in October 1921 after his second failure. The nominal kingdom endured until 1946, when Soviet occupation finally converted the form of government to a republic.