page_title: László Bárdossy
section_title: Foreign Minister
hierarchical_section_title: László Bárdossy / Foreign Minister
caption_attribution_description: English: Foreign Ministers Aleksandar Cincar-Marković and László Bárdossy signed the Treaty of Eternal Friendship between Yugoslavia and Hungary on 14 March 1941 in Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Pál Teleki (with glasses) is on the left. Some weeks later, on March 26, 1941, that Yugoslav government was overthrown by a pro-Western regime.
context_page_description: László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from April 1941 to March 1942. He was one of the chief architects of Hungary's involvement in World War II.
  Bárdossy was appointed Foreign Minister in January 1941 and, following Pál Teleki's suicide in April, succeeded as Prime Minister. Seeking to recover more Hungarian territories lost after the Treaty of Trianon, he pursued a strong pro-German foreign policy and Hungary supported and subsequently joined Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia. Afterwards, during his office Hungary became belligerent with Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States.
  In March 1942, Regent Miklós Horthy dismissed Bárdossy from the post. He worked with the collaborationist governments after the German occupation of Hungary in 1944. After the end of the war, Bárdossy was found guilty of war crimes and collaborationism by a People’s Court and sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad in January 1946.
context_section_description: Hungary did not abandon the idea of reuniting the "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" after the Treaty of Trianon. Based on this doctrine, Hungary sought the revision of the treaty, claiming territories from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, including regions with no significant ethnic Hungarian population, such as Croatia. Between 1938 and 1940, following German–Italian mediation in the First and Second Vienna Awards, and the Hungarian invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine, Hungary enlarged its territory. It absorbed parts of southern Czechoslovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia and the northern part of Transylvania, which the Kingdom of Romania ceded. One of the ethno-cultural areas that changed hands between Romania and Hungary at this time was the Székely Land. The support that Hungary received from Germany for these border revisions meant that the relationship between the two countries became even closer. On 20 November 1940, Hungary formally joined the Axis Tripartite Pact.
  To simplify the planned invasion of Greece, Germany and Italy wanted to neutralize Yugoslavia. For this purpose, Germany was ready to guarantee the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. News of the German offer annoyed Hungary which had already started negotiations with Yugoslavia. At the initiative of Prime Minister Pál Teleki, Hungary and Yugoslavia signed a treaty of eternal friendship and non-aggression on 12 December 1940. The treaty referred to the possibility of the revision of the frontier in favor of Hungary after bilateral negotiations, but Hungary explicitly abandoned her claim to Croatia. Through the treaty, Hungary wanted to offset German pressure and to improve her relationship with the United Kingdom.
  When István Csáky died in January 1941, Bárdossy was appointed to replace him as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Teleki’s cabinet. From the beginning, Bárdossy agreed with Teleki's approach to foreign affairs, which placed high priorities on Hungarian independence and staying out of World War II. However, unlike Teleki, Bárdossy believed that the war would end in German victory or a negotiated settlement. In February, the Hungarian ambassador to Great Britain advised Bárdossy that the British had broken off diplomatic relations with Romania due to the presence of German troops on its soil, and expressed disquiet over the fact that Hungary had allowed them to transit through Hungary on their way to Romania. Bárdossy replied that Hungary had allowed the transit of German troops at the request of the Romanian government. The British Foreign Office response was that Bárdossy's explanation was just a pretext, as Hungary's actions had enabled Britain's enemy to establish itself in Romania, thus creating a base for further German operations. They further explained that while they understood that Hungary and other smaller nations were in extremis, Britain was trying to extend a level of "understanding and patience" with them beyond usual diplomatic practice. Bárdossy also remonstrated with the Germans regarding the guarantees they had offered the Yugoslavs, emphasising that Hungary had not given up its territorial claims. Consistent with their practice of making conflicting promises to different countries, the Germans replied that German recognised Hungary's revisionist claims, and that the assurances offered to the Yugoslavs would not interfere with them.
  On 27 February, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Aleksander Cincar-Marković, arrived in Budapest to exchange the documents ratifying the Treaty of Friendship, and Teleki and Bárdossy met with him. Cincar-Marković was alarmed by the imminent Bulgarian accession to the Tripartite Pact. In early March, Teleki wrote a long memorandum regarding the expectations that the British and Americans could have of Hungary. He saw his chief responsibility as conserving Hungary's resources to the end of the war, and listed the dangers she faced, one of which was that from Yugoslavia, despite the recently signed Treaty of Friendship. He described as unreasonable the British expectation that small nations such as Hungary
caption: Bárdossy, signing the Treaty of Eternal Friendship between Yugoslavia and Hungary in March 1941
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