The Socialist Reconstruction of Hungary

The first thing Bela had to do; make his people forget what he said about conscription. He ordered a massive increase of funding towards the country’s intelligence system, so that he could bribe or arrest any “unpatriotic” dissenters who might point out some of the discrepancies in his politics.



Once that was well underway, the military began laying out their plans for an invasion of Austria.



One group would defend against any counterattacks and flanking maneuvers, while another would pave a path to Wien, and a special ops. team would rush into the Capitol building and force Schuschnigg to record an abdication speech, placing Jakob Reumann in control of the country. Mr. Reumann would then offer to form a “New, Socialist Union between Austria and Hungary”.

On the 20th of September, 1934, one of Bela’s biggest political enemies snuck past border guards into Romania. On the 22nd, 3 of the men assigned to capture him came on a Romanian radio station and told of what the government had assigned them to do. This may not have been such a big deal until one of the younger, yet still well-known members of the cabinet made a statement denying that the country had an intelligence agency at all. The next day he, on a well-publicized live radio interview, was tricked into more or less admitting that he had lied, and that there was a government funded operation tracking down on political enemies.



For the next month the government struggled to return the nation to its normal state.

The Spanish civil war started on the 29th of November when Francisco Franco’s attempted coup was only moderately successful.



Much like Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union, Hungary wanted to know if advances in weapons and tactics would lead to more mobile, un-entrenched fronts. Around 500 NCOs, 2,000 “volunteers” and 1,000 rifles were sent to aid the Republicans, but the USSR got there first, with more troops. The Spanish democracy declined any Hungarian support, under the pressure of Stalin. But the High Command still wanted firsthand experience in modern combat. That desire would apparently have to be shelved for a while.
By the end of the year, it already seemed as if the Bourgeoisie would win yet again.



By mid-January, it was decided that the country was unified enough to draft solders for one year, and move the economy towards complete mobilization.

10 days later, however, it was decided that a war economy was too draining on resource stockpiles. Until the economy had the privilege of owning more resource rich lands, the economy was moved back into basic mobilization.



On April 4th, the reserves were mobilized for an attack on Austria. War was declared on May the 7th, and it wasn’t expected to last for more than 10 days, tops.



The first army quickly captured some hills on the outskirts of Vienna, and soon after attempted to cross the Danube. Much to the dismay of the Hungarian government, 12 days later, the city was still holding strong.



It wasn’t until the 28th that Schuschnigg made his abdication speech.



Reumann was now head of the "Forever Indebted Dependency of Austria", meaning he was Austria's chief of Police, and he was able to decide the political status of territories within what was once part of Austria.

Bela knew that he would have to advance his military or be crushed when he invaded some of is more powerful neighbors.

@Krazy19Karl, I don't think I'll be joining a faction anytime soon, but if I run into trouble I might join the comintern or even the allies. In my mind, Hungary now feels like the leader countries of all factions have wronged them in some way.

The next update should be up tomorrow, but if you keep your fingers crossed, it'll be up tonight.

Not much happened in Hungary for the next couple of months, outside from the factories and research labs. Light armored brigades were now being manufactured, based on Panzer IIs captured by the Republicans in the last days of the civil war.


A Drawing of a Captured Tank

“Tank Destroyers” were also added to the brigades. These lightly armored vehicles could pack a punch against even the heavier armor of the day. To reduce the military’s need for “cannon fodder” (they barely had enough men to hold all the guns they had produced), Hungary’s air force was advanced technologically and improved in terms of size. The designs for mountain and engineer brigades were also drawn up and were soon after added to Bela’s arsenal.

On the 9th of September, the inevitable conclusion to the Spanish civil war had finally arrived, and the Nationalists were now firmly in control of the Spanish speaking portion of the Iberian Peninsula.



A few months after that, the Soviet Republic of Hungary enacted an even stricter draft policy and began creating a group of laws outlawing open opposition to the party’s decisions (informally known as the “Anti-Acting Acts”).



Internal spies now directed their attention away from propaganda and arrests towards capturing hostile agents.



And finally, much of the Hungarian army was moved to the Romanian border, in preparation for an attack. A lot of Hungary only wanted Romania to cede the areas with a Hungarian majority population. These people were known as reunificationists. On the other hand, many people, including most of the government’s officials, wanted to reclaim all territory lost to Romania after World War 1. These were the reconstructionists.

Not long after, Japan and Germany forged an alliance known as the “Axis”.



(At the time, most people did not know the origins of the alliance’s name. In a private discussion with the Japanese foreign ministry, it is now known that Hitler said something along the lines of, “Our two nations are in the perfect geographical position to strike through the USSR’s x-axis and roast them like a shish kebab.” The German Führer literally patted himself on the back for his originality and suggested that their countries, as well as any others that may later join the alliance, be known the “Kebab Holders”, but much to the his dismay, Japanese officials did not want to name a military pact after a Persian grilling method. Not wanting to throw Hitler into another one of his temper tantrums, the name “Axis” was decided upon instead.)

The Hungarian army was mobilized once again on the 7th of December, and much to their surprise, the Romanian army was nowhere to be seen, perhaps more worried about the slight possibility of an invasion from their larger Socialist neighbor.



On December 18th, 1936, Romania was given a set of 8 demands. They are as follows:

[FONT="Century Gothic]1. Transylvania
1.1. The SRH shall be allowed to annex all territories currently held by Romania which were formerly owned by the Kingdom of Hungary. This territory will henceforth be known as “Transylvania”
1.2. All police currently located in Transylvania will be put under Hungarian command.
1.3. All non-Hungarians living in Transylvania will be deported to Romania at Romania’s expense if said persons are suspected of plotting against the Hungarian government.
2. Ports
2.1. The SRH shall be given the right to ship materials and resources through any current or future Romanian port along the Black Sea.
2.2. They will also have the right to send these goods to the ports in question using any transport and/or military escort they deem necessary.
2.3. Furthermore, Hungary will have the right to build and station military ships in any Romanian port.
3. Military
3.1. The Romanian Military shall have no more than 10,000 men active at any given time.
3.2. Failure to meet any of these demands will result in an immediate declaration of war by Hungary on Romania.[/FONT]

Romania rejected all these demands, and the next morning, war was declared. Hungarian troops marched into Romania, meeting no resistance at all, and were even welcomed with cheers in some Hungarian towns. The first battle wasn’t until January 3rd. By the 8th, a light tank brigade reached the outskirts of Bucharest.



Over the next few days, the bulk of the Romanian army had arrived at the frontlines, and began some surprisingly successful counterattacks in the north. Fearing the war may not go his way, Bela ordered the tank division outside of Romania’s capital to draw the troops out of Bucharest. The tanks retreated, and then came rolling into the city the next day.



The Hungarian espionage agency sent a fake telegram to the politicians fleeing the city, attempting to convince them that 8 more tank divisions had arrived on the northern front and were tearing through the Carpathians Mountains. They took it hook line and sinker. All around the world on the 28th of January, newspapers had the head line of “Romania Surrenders, Puppet Government Established!”

I forgot to mention in the last update that Italy joined the Axis after I attacked Romania


Bela established a new Romanian government under the rule of the Romanian Social Democratic Party. This government was given control over roughly one fifth of the land it had owned before the war; just Bucharest and the land a few dozen miles around it.



Clearly not fearing Romanian disloyalty, their army was hardly downsized at all, with the exception of a few cavalry divisions and some useless HQ squads.

Their next logical targets were Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. However, not wanting to draw too much attention to their bloodthirsty nature, Hungary decided to wait until some other nations began their inevitable conquest for more land. And even if another Great European War was started soon, it was decided that Hungary would and could not be able participate in any prolonged conflict lasting for more than a few weeks for about one to one and a half years, due to the nation’s severe lack of manpower.


Their manpower was increasing by less than 5 an month at the time

The delicate balance between war and peace in Asia had finally snapped, and the Second Sino –Japanese war was started in the early hours of the morning on July the 8th. Contrary to what had been agreed upon many times in previous treaties, none of the Chinese warlord cliques provided assistance of any kind towards the nationalist cause, most likely seeing this moment as an opportunity to gain full independence and even more regional power. Fearing further Japanese aggression, Sinkiang and New Zealand joined the Comintern and the Allies respectively.

In the middle of January, Hitler put pressure upon the Czech, British and French governments to allow Germany to take a first step in its “destiny” of uniting the German peoples of Europe by annexing the outer region of Czechoslovakia. Hoping to prevent a war, France and Brittan agreed to let Germany use whatever force necessary to annex the region. Putting all diplomacy aside, the Wehrmacht waltzed past the Czech border fortifications without firing a shot.



Once it became apparent in mid-February that Japan would sooner or later wipe China off the map, the Guangxi warlords asked for the Axis powers to diplomatically recognize them as a functional nation. Germany accepted the proposal and Guangxi became the 4th (5th if you include Manchukuo) to sign the Tripartite Pact. Xibei San Ma followed suit on August 5th and Yunnan on October 13th.

For some time now, there had been a growing call for independence among the citizens of the Hatay province of Syria. Not wanting to risk a rebellion in such an insignificant resource barren area, the province was given to Turkey on October 3rd.



Later that very same day, Germany forced Czechoslovakia to proclaim an independent state of Slovakia. The Germans then invaded the remainder of the weakened Czech territory. The UK to guaranted the independence of Poland, and Switzerland mobilized its armed forces in response to the German’s actions.



As people around the world celebrated the New Year, the Albanian and Lithuanian governments carried out rushed meetings over serious matters. Italy had threatened war against Albania if they didn’t allow themselves to be annexed, and Germany threatened likewise against Lithuania if the town of Memel wasn’t handed over immediately. Both nation-states accepted their proposals. In the next few months, Belgium and Australia joined the allies.

There were some rumors floating around that claimed that Germany was planning an invasion of Poland…