Having come to the end of World War I, as well as the Austro-Hungarian empire itself, I am about to leave Bryan Cartledge’s The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary.[1] But it is clear that Hungary was the greatest loser of the war. After the formation of the Yugoslav Committee in London in 1915, Croatia agreed to detach itself from Hungary in order to join some kind of federation of South Slavs.[2] Around that time, Serbia’s government in exile was promised Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with southern Dalmatia and a union with Croatia.[3] In 1917, at the Conference of Corfu, the Serbia government in exile reached an agreement with the Yugoslav Committee on the establishment of a kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes under the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty.[4] Similarly, the separation of Bohemia from Austria and Slovakia from Hungary were to lead toward the formation of Czechoslovakia, and Transylvania was to go to Romania.[5] By the end of 1918, these processes were complete. In determining the boundaries between successor states, the United States favored the principle of ethnicity throughout.[6] In addition, the main concern of the Allies was that these states would be able to defend themselves against the perceived menace of Bolshevik Russia.[7] This is how Yugoslavia got the Bácska in southern Hungary, for example, simply to provide Belgrade with a protective territorial cushion.[8] In the end, Hungary was deprived of no less than sixty-six percent of its territory, as compared to ten percent lost by Germany.[9] When Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia fell apart about sixty years later, though, the return of these territories to Hungary was not even considered. Only world wars warrant adjustments of this magnitude.

Footnotes

1. London: Hurst & Company, 2011 (first published in 2006).

2. Op. cit., p. 319.

3. Op. cit., p. 320.

4. Op. cit., p. 321.

5. Loc. cit.

6. Op. cit., p. 325.

7. Op. cit., p. 327.

8. Op. cit., p. 328.

9. Op. cit., p. 331.