Milan Hodža was born in the Lutheran parish of Szucsány, in the Turóc County of the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sučany, Slovakia).

He proposed to the Archduke a detailed plan to turn the Kingdom of Hungary into a federative monarchy, including a separate Slovak state.

The Archduke hoped that federalization would strengthen the ties between the oppressed non-Magyar nations and the monarchy, but his initiative was strongly opposed by the Hungarian political elite.

In the interwar period, he helped establish many Slovak newspapers and magazines and retained a strong political and ideological influence on them.

Nevertheless, he had frequent conflicts with Czech politicians as a result of his attempts to take into account the specific needs of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia, which was unusual at that time.

In 1936–1937 he attempted to launch a project of bringing together Czechoslovakia, Austria, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia based on preferential duties - a step towards the unprecedented economic integration of the region.

This organization (including its Czech members) competed with the government-in-exile led by Edvard Beneš (a strong Czechoslovakist) in London.

When Paris was conquered by the Germans, the British security forces took the members of the Czecho-Slovak National Council into custody, which was an accomplishment of spies working for the Beneš group.