Hungarian fast detachments in "Barbarossa"
Column of Hungarian light tanks 1938 M Toldi I on the Ukrainian road, summer 1941
From the end of the 4s, the Hungarian leadership pursued a policy of expansion aimed at returning the lands lost after the First World War. Thousands of Hungarians considered themselves the victims of a very unjust peace treaty that ended the war, concluded between Hungary and the Entente at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles on June 1920 XNUMX, XNUMX.
As a result of an unfavorable agreement, punishing them, in particular, for unleashing a world war, they lost 67,12 percent. land and 58,24 percent. residents. The population was reduced from 20,9 million to 7,6 million people, and 31% of it was lost. ethnic Hungarians - 3,3 million out of 10,7 million. The army was reduced to 35 thousand people. infantry and cavalry, without tanks, heavy artillery and combat aircraft. Compulsory conscription was banned. Thus the proud Royal Hungarian Army (Magyar Királyi Honvédség, MKH, colloquially: Hungarian Honvédség, Polish Royal Hungarian honwedzi or honvedzi) became a major "force of internal order". Hungary had to pay large war reparations. In connection with this national catastrophe and the humiliating degradation of military power, national-patriotic circles put forward the slogan of the restoration of a strong Greater Hungary, the Land of the Crown of St. Stephen. They sought to regain the status of a regional empire and looked for any opportunity to regain the lost lands along with their oppressed compatriots.
The administration of Admiral-Regent Miklós Horthy shared these military-imperial aspirations. Staff officers considered scenarios of local wars with neighbors. Dreams of conquest came true quickly. The first victim of the territorial expansion of the Hungarians in 1938 was Czechoslovakia, which they dismantled together with the Germans and Poles as a result of the First Vienna Arbitration. Then, in March 1939, they attacked the new Slovak state that had just emerged after the annexation of Czechoslovakia, "by the way" capturing the tiny Ukrainian state that was then emerging - Transcarpathian Rus, Transcarpathia. Thus the so-called Northern Hungary (Hungarian Felvidék).
In the summer of 1940, as a result of great political pressure, reinforced by the concentration of three strong armies on the borders, the Hungarians won large territories - northern Transylvania - from Romania without a fight as a result of the cession. In April 1941, they joined the German attack on Yugoslavia by taking back the areas of Bačka (Bačka, part of Vojvodina, northern Serbia). Large areas returned to their homeland with several million people - in 1941 there were 11,8 million citizens in Hungary. The fulfillment of the dream of the restitution of Greater Hungary was almost at hand.
In September 1939, the Soviet Union became Hungary's new neighbor. Because of the huge ideological differences and hostile political differences, the USSR was perceived by the Hungarian elite as a potential enemy, the enemy of all European civilization and Christianity. In Hungary, the near times of the communist, revolutionary Hungarian Soviet Republic, headed by Bela Kuna, were well remembered and remembered with great hostility. For the Hungarians, the Soviet Union was a "natural", great enemy.
Adolf Hitler, during the preparations for Operation Barbarossa, did not think that the Hungarians, led by Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy, would take an active part in the war with Stalin. The German staffers assumed that Hungary would tightly close the border with the USSR when their offensive began. According to them, the MX had little combat value, and the Honved divisions had the nature of second line units, more suitable for providing protection in the rear than for direct action in a modern and direct front-line battle. The Germans, low estimating the military "power" of the Hungarians, did not officially inform them about the impending attack on the USSR. Hungary became their ally after joining the Pact of the Three on November 20, 1940; soon they joined this anti-imperialist system, aimed mainly at Great Britain - Slovakia and Romania.
