Hungary: history to 1918

Inhabited by Celts and Slavs, the area that is now Hungary became a province of the Roman Empire, but was overrun at the end of the 4th century AD by Germanic invaders.

The arrival of the Magyars
Hungary came into existence with the arrival of the Magyar (Hungarian) nomadic tribes who migrated through southern Russia, pressed westwards across the Carpathians, and made the Middle Danube Basin their permanent home in the last years of the 9th century.

After the death of the Magyar chieftain Kurszán in 904, Árpád was chosen by the Magyar tribes as paramount chief, and his dynasty was to rule Hungary until 1301. Little is known of his successors, under whom Hungarian raiding parties on horseback ravaged territories as far off as northern Germany, Spain, and southern Italy, until a large Hungarian army was annihilated by Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor, at Lechfeld, near Augsburg, in 955.

The establishment of a Christian kingdom
After this defeat ‘Duke’ Géza (ruled 972–97) asserted his authority over the tribes, banned raids on other countries, and invited Christian missionaries from the West.

His son, Stephen I (St Stephen; ruled 997–1038), instituted a Christian monarchy. He assumed power on the death of his father by defeating his pagan rivals, confiscated their lands, established the church, and became recognized as king by Pope Sylvester II and Emperor Otto III. Stephen was crowned at Christmas in 1000. Stephen created an enormous royal domain out of the confiscated lands, which he divided into counties (megye), each being headed by a royal official (ispan). He died in 1038 and was canonized in 1083.

Hungarian conquests in the Balkans
Notwithstanding Stephen's energetic measures to spread Christianity, pagan resistance was still strong in the country. After his death, revolts against the church, rivalry over the succession, and attempts by the emperors Henry III and IV to establish feudal overlordship put the achievements of Stephen into jeopardy.

However, two strong rulers reversed this trend; St Ladislas (László) I (ruled 1077–95; canonized in 1192) and his successor Koloman (Kálmán; ruled 1095–1116) were able to reassert royal authority within and without. They extended their rule over Croatia and Dalmatia, which they governed through an appointed ban (governor). Other territories in the Balkans were also occupied in the 12th century, and each was left in the care of a ban.

The emergence of a powerful nobility
Hungarian society began to change in the 12th century. The descendants of Stephen I's chief vassals formed a class of high dignitaries who, because of generous land donations by the crown, developed into a powerful baronial class in the 13th century. The kings also donated land to many soldiers, thus creating a large nobility. Their rights to free land ownership and their independence from the barons were promised by Andrew II (ruled 1205–35) in the Golden Bull (proclamation) of 1222. As a large part of the royal domain was alienated to social groups, the power of the king diminished and that of the social groups, particularly the barons, began to create an imbalance that remained a source of conflicts throughout the century.

Béla IV and the Mongols
Béla IV (ruled 1235–70), son of Andrew III, attempted, without success, to check the barons. It was during his reign, in 1241, that Hungary was overrun by the Mongols and the king sought refuge in the castle of Trau in Dalmatia. In 1242 the Mongols left Hungary as suddenly as they came, leaving behind a devastated country.

Béla now became the ‘second founder’ of the kingdom. He rebuilt the royal army (introducing heavy cavalry), called in colonists (especially from Germany), and established towns by royal charters. Serfdom now became general (the slaves and half slaves disappeared everywhere), the nobility was allowed to run the counties, and the barons were encouraged to build castles to repel the Mongols.

Foreign rule in Hungary
Castle building led to a further extension of baronial power, against which Béla's successors were helpless. When the Árpád dynasty died out in 1301 Hungary was on the way to disintegration. In the ensuing struggle for the throne Charles Robert, a member of the Angevin house of Naples, gained the Hungarian throne in 1308 with the help of the pope. Charles Robert, who had based his claim on his descent in the female line from an Árpád, went on to defeat the ‘kinglets’, restored royal power, and introduced a systematic taxation policy.

The kingdom reached its greatest extent under Charles Robert's son, Louis I the Great (ruled 1342–82), who occupied further territories in the Balkans, which were now divided between the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Hungary. Louis also waged futile wars in Italy over his claim to Naples.

After Louis' death there was a protracted crisis over the succession, out of which Sigismund of Luxembourg emerged as king. During his long reign (1387–1437) he was away from the country for extended periods; he became king of Germany in 1411, and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1433. The acquisitions made by Louis I, including Dalmatia, were lost, and the country came under the control of a baronial league rather than the king.

János Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus
In Sigismund's time little was done against the expansionist threat of the Ottoman Turks, against whom Hungary fought intermittent wars from the late 14th century. After 1439 Sigismund's reputed son, János Corvinus Hunyadi, the ban of Szoveny, later governor of Hungary, achieved brilliant victories over the Turks. He suffered a terrible defeat at Varna in 1444, where King Ladislas III of Poland died, but shortly before his death in 1456 Hunyadi succeeded in raising the siege of Nandorfehervar (Belgrade).

Medieval Hungary reached the zenith of its splendour under Hunyadi's son Matthias Corvinus, who was chosen as king in 1458, and whose court at Buda became a centre of Renaissance culture. His aim of uniting Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia involved him in long wars with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III and the kings of Bohemia and Poland, during which he captured Vienna (1485) and made it his capital.

The Turkish conquest
After Matthias's death (1490) social and political decay rapidly set in. Royal power declined, the barons and the nobility clashed at tumultuous diets (parliaments), and the serfs were declared to be ‘in perpetual servitude’ after the bloody jacquerie (peasant rising) led by György Dózsa in 1514.

The country was in no state to repulse the Turks, who resumed their attacks in the 1520s. The Hungarian army of King Louis II was overwhelmingly defeated by Suleiman I's large Turkish army at the Battle of Mohács (1526); the king, two archbishops, and five bishops were among those killed. Buda, and the centre of Hungary, were occupied by the Turks in 1541 and were held for 145 years. Transylvania became a principality under Turkish suzerainty. Western and northern Hungary came under the rule of the Habsburgs, who at this time ruled vast territories, including Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the Netherlands. The east of Hungary was ruled by semi‐independent Hungarian princes

The establishment of Habsburg rule
The division of the country caused devastations and anarchy. The nobles, the bulk of whom became Protestant, fought the Turks and intermittently revolted against the Habsburg rulers. The Turks were finally expelled from Hungary by an international army under Charles of Lorraine, who won a great victory at the second Battle of Mohács (1687), and Buda was retaken in 1686. This marked the final end to Turkish expansion in Europe.

The whole kingdom was now under the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty. Against Emperor Leopold I's arbitrary, centralistic, and anti‐Protestant rule, a revolt was led by Ferenc Rákóczi in 1703. The revolt ended with the Peace of Szatmár in 1711, in which Emperor Charles VI promised to preserve the privileges of the nobility. In 1723 the Diet (parliament) recognized the Pragmatic Sanction (see Austria), which extended succession to the female line of the Habsburgs (the monarchy had already become hereditary in 1687).

Order and economic progress characterized the 18th century. Settlers were brought in from other lands and the Magyars now became a minority in Hungary (although the country had always been multilingual). Later, Joseph II (ruled 1780–90) alienated the nobility through his attempt at social modernization. Most of his reforms were obliterated after his death, but Hungary remained faithful to the Habsburgs throughout the Napoleonic Wars.

Magyar nationalism and the revolution of 1848–49
After 1825 a conflict gradually developed between the government and the Diet at which Count István Széchenyi, a moderate nationalist and social modernizer, acquired influence. In the 1840s the ideas of the radical nationalist, Lajos Kossuth gained ground. The Magyar nationalists introduced legislation to replace Latin with Magyar as the language of government, and aimed at the Magyarization of schools, and this resulted in the growth of nationalist feelings among the Croat, Serb, Slovak, and Romanian populations.

The revolution in the spring of 1848 destroyed the anti‐democratic, anti‐national system established by the Austrian Prince von Metternich at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The ‘April Laws’ abolished serfdom, declared legal equality, and united Transylvania with Hungary, which was now granted an independent responsible ministry under Count Lajos Batthyány with Széchenyi, Ferenc Deák, and Kossuth as members.

Civil war erupted in the summer of 1848 with the Serbs, in September with Croatia, and in October with the Austrian Imperial army, helped by the non‐Magyar nationalist movements. The Batthyány government resigned and Kossuth became political leader. He declared Hungary's independence in April 1849 and became governor. The Hungarian army was defeated with Russian help only in the late summer of 1849 after a desperate fight. Bloody reprisals followed.

The establishment of the Dual Monarchy
In the 1850s the country became a province in a unitary autocratic Austrian Empire. An attempt in 1860–61 to achieve a constitutional settlement failed, but this was eventually achieved, as a result of Deák's efforts, after the Austrian defeat by Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War of 1866.

In the constitutional settlement (Ausgleich) of 1867 Hungary acquired self‐government, with the emperor of Austria also becoming king of Hungary, so establishing the Dual Monarchy of Austria‐Hungary (see Austro‐Hungarian Empire). A separate ministry for Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia–Slavonia, headed by Count Gyula Andrássy, was responsible to the Hungarian parliament regarding all internal affairs. Issues relating to foreign affairs, defence, and joint finance, relevant to both Austria and Hungary, were dealt with through the Delegations (two committees of the Hungarian and Austrian parliaments) to which the three relevant imperial ministers were responsible. Under the ‘Dual’ system, only the Croats received autonomy; the rest of the non‐Magyars were excluded from power, and so were the lower classes, as the franchise was narrow and elections corrupt.

Increasing nationalist discontent
Hungarian nationalists became progressively dissatisfied with the system, and this led to the downfall of Kálmán Tisza's government (1875–90). Count Albert Apponyi's National Party and Ferenc Kossuth's Independence Party became the spearheads of new aspirations chiefly directed at the creation of a separate Hungarian army. This led to the constitutional crisis after Count István Tisza's government lost the election in 1905. The nationalist aims were frustrated by the staunch opposition to them by the king‐emperor, Francis Joseph.

The country made considerable economic progress, and acquired modern industry and an urban working class, concentrated largely in Budapest, which had been formed in 1872 by the unification of Buda, Pest, and Obuda, and now had a population of 1 million. But the country was still mainly rural, rather backward, and firmly in the grip of the landowners. The government was increasingly oppressive towards the Slavs and the Romanians, and discontent grew, particularly during World War I, in which Hungary fought alongside Austria as an ally of Germany.

For details of Hungarian history after 1918, see Hungary.