Magyar Warriors Volume 1: The History of the Royal Hungarian Armed Forces 1919-1945 Volume 1

Description

The Hungarian armed forces, known as the Honvedseg, were built up in the 1930s, their expansion gaining momentum once Hungary became free of the strict post- World War I Trianon treaty limitations in August 1938. Politically, Hungary was looking for a strong ally, who would help it to recover at least some of the territories that had been lost after the First World War. Initially, in the mid-1930s, Italy gave political assistance and supplied military materiel, then, on the eve of World War II, Germany also lent support. In November 1938, Hungary managed to peacefully recover a chunk of its former territory from Czechoslovakia, followed by the Sub-Carpathian area and the northern part of Transylvania from Rumania in August 1940. Later, in April 1941, the Bachka region and parts of Baranya were also taken back from the dismembered Yugoslavia, in a swift military action. The rub was that Hungary was sucked into the cauldron of the Eastern front, and soon the Honveds found themselves deep in Soviet territory, outgunned and outnumbered. From August 1944, the beleaguered Honvedseg had to fight against the mighty Soviet army in defense of its own territory. However, alongside tiny Croatia, Hungary remained the last German ally up to the bitter end. This comprehensive reference, to be published in two volumes, and the fruit of over twenty years of meticulous research by Hungarian historian Denes Bernad, and AFV expert Charles K. Kliment, strives to provide a complete picture of the Hungarian armed forces between the years 1919-1945. It describes the political situation in Hungary before and during World War II, the building of the armed forces, the growth of domestic arms manufacturers and the organisation of the armed forces units and how they changed during the war. The various campaigns of the war are described in great detail, illustrated with many photographs, colour plates and maps.

Dipl. Eng. Denes Bernad was born in 1964 in Transylvania (Rumania), in a family of indigenous ethnic Hungarians. He studied at the Transylvanian University in Brasov, where he graduated in 1988 as a Mechanical Engineer. From 1992 he lived in Canada, and in 2006 he returned with his family to Hungary. Currently, he works in the automotive industry as Program Launch Manager. He is fluent in three languages. His main interest is the military history of Central and Eastern Europe, especially Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria. His books deal especially with air forces and aircraft of these countries. He has written or co-authored seventeen historical books. Aside from the above books, Denes Bernad has published many studies concerning the history of aviation in Air Enthusiast, Air International and FlyPast (UK), WW1 Aero (USA), Avions (France), Repules, Aero Historia and A'j Szarnyak (Hungary), Militaria and Skrzydlata Polska (Poland) and Aeronatica, Aeromagazin and Model-Ist (Rumania). He is also the founding member of the Asociatia pentru Propagarea Istoriei Aviatiei (ARPIA) - Association for Propagation of History of Aviation (Bucharest, Rumania) and Magyar Repulestorteneti Tarsasag (MRT) - Hungarian Society of Aviation History (Budapest, Hungary). He is also a foreign correspondent of the French aviation magazine Avions. / Dipl. Eng. Charles K. Kliment was born in 1932 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He studied polymer chemistry at the Technical University in Prague, and specialized in the research of hydrogels for medical, cosmetic and industrial uses. In 1969 he emigrated with his family to USA. He retired in 2001 and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Already during the Second World War he began his interest in military history and combat weapons. During these years, he assembled a large collection of war-time photographs, documents and memoirs. He specializes in AFVs, especially in the history of tanks, developed in the pre-war Czechoslovakia and their use in Second World War. This was a topic of his first published book, Czechoslovak Armoured Vehicles 1918-1945, published by Bellona Press, UK (1978). Besides that, he has authored eight further books, translated two others, and published many articles in historical and modeling magazines, such as Military History, AFV News, Airfix Magazine. He also co-operates with various military museums and armored vehicles restorers.