First World War Soldiers in the Inter‐War Hungarian Parliament

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how the entry of former First World War veterans into the inter‐war Hungarian parliament shaped the ideological tendencies of the parties represented in that institution. On the basis of research into the biographies of every MP elected to Hungary’s parliament between 1920 and 1939, it considers whether the shifting proportions of veterans within the various parliamentary fractions and the parliament as a whole reflected and influenced the ideologies both of the groups they joined as well as of the wider parliament. It concludes that veterans were more strongly represented in the parliamentary fractions of rightist parties and that the dramatic increase of veterans into parliament during the 1930s coincided with a ‘turn to the Right’ in Hungarian parliamentary politics. Overall, this study provides evidence that in Hungary, as elsewhere in Western Europe, First World War veterans were radicalised by their experiences in the war and gravitated towards more extremist parties and ideologies, especially the parties of the right.