Hungary in World War I

The result was the breakup of the Empire and eventually, Hungary suffered severe territorial losses by the closing Trianon Peace Treaty.

By 1913, the combined length of the railway tracks of the Austrian Empire and Kingdom of Hungary reached 43,280 kilometres (26,890 miles).

Before entering the war, only the prime minister Count István Tisza hesitated, unconvinced that it was the best time to engage in battle.

In comparison to the other armies of Western Europe, Hungary's experienced veteran armed forces, technical equipment, and military expenditures were underdeveloped.

The military forces of Austria-Hungary remained largely unified over the course of the war, in spite of their multi-ethnic nature and some expectations to the contrary.

In Hungarian areas, this meant a death rate of twenty-eight per thousand persons – a level of loss exceeded within Austria-Hungary only by German Austrians.

[12] In contrast to the cases of Germany, France or Italy, the question of World War I aims of Hungary remains almost unexplored.

In July 1914, its Prime Minister, István Tisza, convinced the Monarchy's Crown Council not to demand new territories from Serbia.

In parallel, the Hungarian opposition secretly informed the Entente that an independent Hungary could be proclaimed, ready to sign a separate peace treaty if her frontiers were guaranteed.

However, when Romania declared war on the Habsburg Monarchy in August 1916, the Tisza government anticipated annexations of Romanian lands, whereas the Hungarian radical opposition in the parliament (independentists, led by Mihály Károlyi), reinforced the separatist propaganda.

In March 1917, Tisza proposed to the Crown Council of the Monarchy to divide Romania between Hungary and Russia, leaving a small Romanian buffer State.

After World War I, despite the "self-determination of peoples" idea of the Allied Powers, only one plebiscite was permitted (later known as the Sopron plebiscite) to settle disputed borders on the former territory of the Kingdom of Hungary,[15] settling a smaller territorial dispute between the First Austrian Republic and the Kingdom of Hungary.

During the Sopron plebiscite in late 1921, the polling stations were supervised by British, French, and Italian army officers of the Allied Powers.

The newly created or greatly enlarged states formed the Little Entente after the war, encircling Hungary in order to make border revision impossible.

The borders were set in such a way that all natural defense lines were crossed, making the remaining territory vulnerable to invasion.