Wekerle becomes prime minister of Hungary

After the resignation of Móric Esterházy, King Charles IV entrusted the government of Hungary to Sándor Wekerle. Hungarian lists give 20 August 1917 as the date of the appointment, the British chronology of the war 21 August, and the ministers of the new cabinet formally took office on 23 August. For the 68-year-old Wekerle this was already his third term at the head of the government.

The new prime minister was an exceptional figure in Hungarian politics. He was born in 1848 in Mór into a family of Swabian origin. His father was steward of the estates of the Counts Lamberg. He made his career in the ministry of finance. As finance minister he prepared the currency reform of 1892, which put Hungarian money on the gold standard, and in the autumn of the same year he took over the government as the first prime minister of Hungary not of noble birth. During his first term parliament passed the ecclesiastical laws, which introduced compulsory civil marriage in Hungary. He governed a second time in 1906–1910 as head of the coalition of the former opposition. He was regarded as an outstanding financial expert and a skilful negotiator, without a strong base in his own party.

The task he came to was simple to describe and difficult to carry out. Wekerle took over all of Esterházy’s ministers, including the leader of the Democrats, Vilmos Vázsonyi, who as minister without portfolio was to prepare the electoral law. At the same time, however, the government had to come to terms with the National Party of Work of István Tisza, which still had a majority in the House of Representatives. Hungarian historians stress that Wekerle was better prepared for this than his predecessor: the new prime minister’s well-known pro-German stance reassured Tisza and his supporters, and his experience allowed him to manoeuvre between the camps. According to some authors the king hoped that the old politician would bring Tisza’s party closer to the groups of Counts Gyula Andrássy and Albert Apponyi.

Wekerle formally kept the slogan of reform but did not hurry it along. Vázsonyi’s bill reached parliament only in December 1917. It provided for an increase in the number of voters from about 1.8 to about 3.6 million, but did not give women the vote and tied the franchise to education. In 1918 the prime minister created his own government party, and after a crisis in the spring of that year he formed a cabinet without Vázsonyi and Apponyi. The law passed by the House of Representatives in July 1918 was even more modest than the original bill.

Wekerle’s government proved to be the last durable cabinet of Hungary within the monarchy. It lasted until the autumn of 1918, when military defeat and the break-up of Austria-Hungary swept away the old order. Wekerle resigned on 23 October, a week before the outbreak of the Aster Revolution. According to Hungarian historians, in August 1917 he was a candidate acceptable both to the king and to the quarrelling parties. At the same time he became a symbol of a policy that promised reforms without touching the power of the old elite.