Treaty of Trianon

Treaty of Trianon 1920, agreement following World War I in which the Allies disposed of Hungarian territories. The internal chaos in Hungary that followed the dissolution (1918) of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy delayed the signing of a peace treaty with the Allies of World War I (excluding the United States and Russia, who did not sign it). The treaty, signed on June 4, 1920, at the Grand Trianon Palace at Versailles, France, reduced the size and population of Hungary by about two thirds, divesting it of virtually all areas that were not purely Magyar. Romania received Transylvania, part of the adjoining plain, and part of the Banat, including Timisoara. Czechoslovakia was confirmed in possession of Slovakia and Ruthenia. Yugoslavia (then the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) obtained Croatia, Slavonia, and the western section of the Banat. Austria was awarded the Burgenland, but the city of Sopron and its vicinity were returned to Hungary after a plebiscite (1921). Thus, Hungary was deprived of access to the sea and of some of its most valuable natural resources. The military establishment of the country was reduced to an army of 35,000. The Hungarian delegation signed the treaty under protest. Hungarian agitation for revision began immediately and was supported by the majority of the more than 3 million Magyars transferred to Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Although Hungary recovered part of its lost territories in 1939-40, it lost these and was reduced to boundaries approximating those of 1920 by the peace treaty signed in 1947 at Paris.

Trianon, Treaty of (4 June 1920) The peace treaty imposed upon Hungary by the victorious Allies after World War I, as part of the Paris Peace Conference. Hungary had to accept the breakup of Austria-Hungary. It was forced to cede Slovakia and Ruthenia to Czechoslovakia, Croatia to the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia from 1929), and Transylvania to Romania. Hungary thus lost two-thirds of its prewar territory, and three-fifths of its pre-war population. The terms of the treaty caused so much resentment as to destabilize Hungarian politics for the following decade and cause it to side with Nazi Germany in World War II, after it had regained much of its lost territory in the Vienna Awards of 1938 and 1940.

St Germain, Treaty of