The
Treaty of Trianon was the
peace agreement signed
4 June 1920 that formally ended WW1 between most of the
Allies of World War I and the
Kingdom of Hungary, the latter being one of the successor states to
Austria-Hungary. The treaty regulated the status of an independent Hungarian state and defined its borders. It left Hungary as a
landlocked state that covered only
28% of the 325,411 square kilometres (125,642 sq mi) that had constituted the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary (the Hungarian half of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy). Its population was 7.6 million, only
36% of the pre-war kingdom's population of 20.9 million. The areas that were allocated to neighbouring countries in total (and each of them separately) had a majority of non-Hungarians but
31% of
Hungarians (3.3 million) were left outside of post-Trianon Hungary.
Five of the pre-war kingdom's ten largest cities were drawn into other countries. The
treaty limited Hungary's army to 35,000 officers and men, and the
Austro-Hungarian Navy ceased to exist.
..
The
Hungarian government terminated its
union with Austria on
31 October 1918, officially
dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state. The
de facto temporary borders of independent Hungary were defined by the
ceasefire lines in November–December 1918.
..The
principal beneficiaries of the territorial division of pre-war Kingdom of Hungary were the
Kingdom of Romania, the
Czechoslovak Republic, the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the
First Austrian Republic.
One of the main elements of the treaty was the doctrine of "self-determination of peoples", and it was an attempt to give the non-Hungarians their own national states. In addition,
Hungary had to pay war reparations to its neighbours. The treaty was
dictated by the Allies rather than negotiated, and the Hungarians had no option but to accept its terms. The
Hungarian delegation signed the treaty under protest on
4 June 1920 at the
Grand Trianon Palace in
Versailles,
France. The treaty was registered in
League of Nations Treaty Series on 24 August 1921.
..
Officially the treaty was
intended to be a
confirmation of the right of self-determination for nations and of the
concept of nation-states replacing the old multinational Austro-Hungarian empire. Although the treaty addressed some nationality issues, it also sparked some new ones.
The
minority ethnic groups of the pre-war kingdom were the major beneficiaries. The Allies had explicitly committed themselves to the causes of the minority peoples of Austria-Hungary late in WW1. For all intents and purposes, the
death knell of the Austro-Hungarian empire sounded on
14 October 1918, when
United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister
István Burián that autonomy for the nationalities was no longer enough. Accordingly, the Allies assumed without question that the minority ethnic groups of the pre-war kingdom wanted to leave Hungary. The
Romanians joined their ethnic brethren in Romania, while the
Slovaks,
Serbs and
Croats helped establish nation-states of their own (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia). However, these new or enlarged countries also absorbed large slices of territory with a majority of
ethnic Hungarians or Hungarian speaking population. As a result,
as many as a third of Hungarian language-speakers found themselves outside the borders of the post-Trianon Hungary...
The territories of the former Hungarian Kingdom that were ceded by the treaty to neighbouring countries in total (and each of them separately) had a majority of non-Hungarian nationals; however, the
Hungarian ethnic area was much larger than the newly established territory of Hungary,therefore
30 percent of the
ethnic Hungarians were under foreign authority.
After the treaty, the
percentage and the absolute number of all Hungarian populations outside of Hungary
decreased in the next decades (although, some of these populations also recorded temporary increase of the absolute population number). There are several reasons for this population decrease, some of which were
spontaneous assimilation and certain
state policies, like
Slovakization,
Romanianization,
Serbianisation. Other important factors were the
Hungarian migration from the neighbouring states to Hungary or to some western countries as well as decreased birth rate of Hungarian populations. According to the National Office for Refugees, the number of Hungarians who immigrated to Hungary from neighbouring countries was about 350,000 between 1918 and 1924.
...
The modern boundaries of
Hungary are the same as those defined by the Treaty of Trianon, with some minor modifications until 1924 and the notable exception of three villages that were transferred to Czechoslovakia in 1947.
