Gyula Károlyi

Gyula Count Károlyi de Nagykároly ( Hungarian nagykárolyi gróf Károlyi Gyula , born May 7, 1871 in Baktalórántháza ; † April 23, 1947 ) was a conservative Hungarian politician who was also Prime Minister of Hungary from 1931 to 1932 . In 1919 he had been Prime Minister of the counter-revolutionary counter-government in Szeged for several months . As prime minister he tried to continue the moderate conservative policies of his predecessor, István Bethlen , but with less success.

Life

youth

Gyula Károlyi was born in Nyírbakta , today's Baktalórántháza, into an old noble family. His parents were Tibor Károlyi , who had been Speaker of the House of Lords between 1898 and 1900, and Emma Degenfeld-Schomburg . Tibor Károlyi was also the guardian of Mihály Károlyi , a cousin of Gyula who was to become the first Prime Minister and then President of the Republic of Hungary in 1919.

Gyula Károlyi received his education at the Faculty of Law at the University of Budapest and continued his studies at the University of Berlin and the University of Bonn . After his return home, he became a member of the Magnate House and took over the post of " ispán " of Arad County (1906-10). After that, he temporarily withdrew from politics and farmed the family estate near Arad. In 1915 he became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .

Counterrevolutionary Government

After the outbreak of the First World War he volunteered and fought on the Eastern Front as a lieutenant of the hussars . After the war he returned to his estate. The political situation, however, was chaotic: his cousin, Mihály Károlyi led the aster revolution and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy fell apart. The new rulers decimated the Hungarian army to demonstrate their will for peace against the powers of the Triple Entente . The neighboring countries ( Romania , Czechoslovakia ) used the situation to gain territorial gains: The Romanians occupied Transylvania and the Partium in the spring of 1919. In addition, on March 21, 1919 the Federative Hungarian Socialist Council Republic was established .

Many important Hungarian politicians emigrated to Vienna to escape the revolution and the Red Terror . The countermovement under István Bethlen sought to liquidate the Bolsheviks and founded the Anti-Bolshevik Committee . In parallel, Gyula Károlyi formed a counter-revolutionary government in Arad . In May the Romanians captured the city and arrested Károlyi and many of his ministers. After his liberation he went to Szeged , which was occupied by the French Army , where he reorganized his government with the aim of ending communist rule. The two counter-revolutionary centers, Vienna and Szeged, coordinated their work in the interest of common goals. Károlyi's Minister of War became Admiral Miklós Horthy , who founded a national army. The two became friends.

prime minister

Károlyi retired from politics for almost 10 years after 1919. After the Treaty of Trianon , his family lost the property in the Arad area. Then Károlyi ran agriculture in Szabolcs and Szatmár . In 1927 he was again a member of the Magnate House and in 1928 a member of the Crown Guard . He was given a more important role in the Great Depression when he briefly became Foreign Minister in the cabinet of István Bethlen (succeeding Lajos Walko ). In this capacity, Károlyi also visited Benito Mussolini in Rome in March 1931. A controversial statement brought him some attention in the French press. He claimed: "Emotions, minds, and ties of interest bind Hungary to France"

István Bethlen resigned from the post of Prime Minister on August 19, 1931 because he was unwilling to introduce unpopular measures. The regent Miklós Horthy then appointed Károlyi as prime minister. The new cabinet was formed on August 24, 1931, with the composition remaining almost unchanged.

In Hungary the economic crisis developed as a protracted agricultural crisis and credit crunch . Agricultural products made up the bulk of Hungarian exports, but prices in the world market fell by 50-70 percent. The living conditions of the peasants became unsustainable and industry and trade suffered in a similar way.

Károlyi initially reduced government spending. The Ministry of Finance cut the pay of government employees: railway workers, postmen, clerks, soldiers, gendarmes , members of the river watch and customs officers . Social benefits and pensions were reduced. This did not solve the serious economic problems, however, and the restrictions in the Council of Ministers did little to alleviate the situation: Károlyi forbade all ministers to use official cars and he himself, as Prime Minister, moved from his apartment in Pest to the Castle Palace (Buda Castle).

When Szilveszter Matuska blew up part of the Biatorbágy Bridge near Budapest on September 13, 1931 , causing a locomotive and nine of the eleven wagons of the Wien Express to fall, Károlyi issued martial law. He used the attack to imprison communists and to ban all political gatherings and demonstrations. Imre Sallai and Sándor Fürst , leaders of the communist movement, were arrested in 1932 and executed after a show trial . However, these emergency measures did not change the situation: there had been no real danger of a mass movement until then.

But the unresolved crisis heightened discontent in Hungarian society , even among the political elite . The opposition called for an expansion of franchising , the introduction of primaries and secret elections , as well as better protection of wage workers , while the agricultural lobby called for the expansion of markets and protection for farmers. These groups turned against the Prime Minister when the reforms failed to show any visible results, and this failure led Bethlen to call for Károlyi's resignation in September 1932. Károlyi gladly followed this request, as he was reluctant to take over the office from the start. He resigned on September 21, 1932 and returned to his lands. Gyula Gömbös became his successor.

End of life

After his tenure he withdrew from active politics. However, he remained a member of Horthy's "Inner Council" and in 1936 became a secret council . During the Second World War he supported the politics of Miklós Kállay . Károlyi died in Budapest on April 23, 1947 at the age of 75.

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Emotions, reason, and the threads of interest bind Hungary to France."

Web links

Commons : Gyula Károlyi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Múlt-kor (Hungarian history magazine).
• Magyar Életrajzi Lexicon (Hungarian Electronic Lexicon).