Esterházy becomes Prime Minister of Hungary

On 15 June 1917 a new government took power in Hungary. At its head was Count Móric Esterházy, who replaced István Tisza, dismissed by the king. King Charles IV had entrusted him with forming a cabinet a week earlier, on 8 June, and it came as a surprise. Most Hungarian politicians had expected the premiership to go to Count Gyula Andrássy the Younger, the experienced opposition leader. In the circle of the king, who was seeking a way to peace, he was however regarded as too openly pro-German. The choice fell on a man whom few people knew.

Esterházy was born in 1881 at Majk (today part of the town of Oroszlány) into one of the most illustrious aristocratic families of Hungary. He had sat in parliament as early as 1906, and after the outbreak of war, according to his biographers, he volunteered for the army and served on the Russian and Serbian fronts. In 1917 he was transferred to the reserve. At the time of his appointment he was 36. He brought to politics a famous name and a reputation as a moderate reformer, but he had no party of his own behind him.

The new Prime Minister wanted to form a government above party divisions. The most important portfolios went to politicians from Andrássy’s circle, among them the Minister of the Interior, Gábor Ugron, and the Minister of Finance, Gusztáv Gratz. The elderly Count Albert Apponyi of the Independence Party became Minister of Religion and Education, while Croatian affairs were taken by the Catholic People’s Party politician Aladár Zichy. Of Tisza’s government only the Minister of National Defence, General Sándor Szurmay, remained. What attracted the most attention, however, was that two leaders of the Suffrage Bloc joined the cabinet. This opposition alliance, formed on 6 June under the chairmanship of Mihály Károlyi, brought together Social Democrats, Radicals and Károlyi’s supporters, and demanded universal, equal and secret suffrage and peace without annexations. Its vice-chairman, Vilmos Vázsonyi, leader of the Budapest Democrats, became Minister of Justice, and Count Tivadar Batthyány of Károlyi’s party became Minister beside the King. Esterházy even visited the editorial office of the Social Democratic Népszava, something no Hungarian prime minister had done before.

The government’s main task was to be the extension of the franchise, which Tisza had resisted for so long, along with social reforms. The cabinet presented itself to the House of Representatives on 21 June. The new Prime Minister’s weakness was, however, evident from the first day. In parliament the National Party of Work still held an absolute majority, and Tisza remained its leader, although he himself soon left for the Italian front as a colonel of hussars. Without his consent no electoral law could pass. Nor did the government have any influence on the monarchy’s most important affairs: according to Hungarian historians, Esterházy took it bitterly that he was not informed about Charles’s secret peace attempts.

The government lasted only two months. The high hopes raised by the participation of the Suffrage Bloc soon faded, because the reform stalled in parliament. After further setbacks Esterházy resigned in August, and he was succeeded by the experienced Sándor Wekerle, who kept his ministers in the government. Esterházy’s short premiership showed that in wartime the Hungarian elite was not ready to share power with the workers, peasants and non-Magyar nationalities who were demanding it ever more loudly.