Count Paul Teleki

Count Paul Teleki , 1879-1941, Hungarian premier (1920-21, 1939-41), geographer, and political writer. He studied law, political science, and geography at the Univ. of Budapest, where he later held a chair in geography. A member of the Hungarian parliament from 1905, he was the official geographic expert in the Hungarian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-20) and was foreign minister in the counterrevolutionary government at Szeged. Appointed (1920) premier by Admiral Horthy, he secured the ratification of the Treaty of Trianon by the Hungarian parliament. He retired from politics in 1921 and was replaced as premier by Stephen Bethlen. Called again to the premiership in 1939, he signed (1940) the Berlin Pact (see Axis ) and concluded a mutual-assistance treaty with Yugoslavia. When, early in 1941, it became evident that Hungary would be forced by Germany to invade Yugoslavia, Teleki committed suicide. Teleki's best-known work is The Evolution of Hungary and Its Place in European History (1923, in English).

Teleki, Pál Count (b. 1 Nov. 1879, d. 3 Apr. 1941). Prime Minister of Hungary 1920–1, 1939–41 Born in Budapest, he had a distinguished career as a geographer at the university before being elected to the Hungarian Parliament in 1909. He attended the Paris Peace Conference and became Prime Minister 1920–1, passing a series of anti-Semitic laws in response to the previous Kun regime. He returned to academic life, but in February 1939 Horthy recalled him as Prime Minister. He managed to disband some of the country's more extreme Fascist groups, but allowed anti-Semitic laws to stand. He believed that the only way to regain territory lost by Hungary at the Treaty of Trianon was to negotiate through Hitler. In this he was successful, via the two Vienna Awards. He tried desperately to keep Hungary out of World War II, but the attraction of joining forces with the apparently unstoppable Hitler made the pressure to join the war at Germany's side irresistible. Feeling bound to a treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia, he committed suicide rather than give in to the pressure from Horthy, his Cabinet, and the army to allow the Germans to attack Yugoslavia through Hungarian territory.