Kingdom of Hungary

Recently, I was reading about the pre-WW 2 Kingdom of Hungary and the selection of AdmiralHorthy as Regent. The article indicated that there were several candidates for King. They couldn't settle on one so Horthy
was elected Regent.
Who were the leading candidates for King of Hungary?
If a King had been selected would this have significantly changed Hungarian history? Would they have still sided with the Axis?
 
Otto von Hapsburg, who was the son of the last King of Hungray, Blessed Karl, Emperor of Austria. Otto is (he's still alive and kicking) very anti-Nazi so unless this happened before 1933 I doubt he'd be in.
 
AFter Bela Kun's communist regime was overthrown Horthy and his regime represented a legitimist reaction to the republican and socialist excesses that immediately followed the colapse of the K und K regime. Declaring a monarchy was a means of giving the reactionary regime "legitimacy", but the allies would never allow a Habsburg restoration. Karl made two attempts to gain the throne in Hungary and was booted out each time. There was no real alternative candidate so the fiction of a Kingdom without a King was the best solution for the aristocrats in power. There was some noise in the mid 1920's booming a British press magnate, Lord Rothermere, as a potential King of Hungary. Rothermere was a supporter of Hungarian irredentist claims, which was the one issue that could unite all sectuions of the Hungarian political classes. Other than that I don't recall any interest in filling the throne since the regency fitted the needs of Horthy and his associates the same way declaring Spain a monarchy with a vacant throne suited Franco.
Given that Hungary was the most agressively revanchist of the successor states and was governed by a reactionary, aristocratic clique, it is hard to imagine any scenario where Hungary does not voluntarily join the Axis, especially once Czechoslovakia was on the carving block.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Otto von Hapsburg, who was the son of the last King of Hungray, Blessed Karl, Emperor of Austria. Otto is (he's still alive and kicking) very anti-Nazi so unless this happened before 1933 I doubt he'd be in.

The hungarians actually had a side branch in mind, I forget which exactly.
 
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