The Hungarian admiral and statesman Nicholas Horthy de Nagybánya (1868-1957) was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944. He led Hungary during a troubled period which began with a Communist revolution and ended with German and then Russian occupation.

By the Treaty of Trianon (June 4, 1920) Hungary lost 72 percent of its territory, 64 percent of its population, and most of its natural resources and markets. Hungary therefore hoped for treaty revision at the expense of its newly created neighbors, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the much expanded state of Romania. Adm. Nicholas Horthy de Nagybánya, a convinced revisionist, believed that only friendship with England could effect the restoration of Hungary's prewar boundaries. But Hungary's economic subservience to Germany and the Reich's growing military strength brought Hungary within Germany's political sphere. The eventuality which Adm. Horthy feared most came to pass, for Hungary joined in World War II against England...