Chapter 76:
January 15, 1940
Budapest, the capital of Hungary At Horthy's invitation, we sat down facing each other.
Miklós Horthy, born the son of a Hungarian politician during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, made a name for himself as a famed commander of the Imperial Navy during World War I.
However, with defeat in the last great war and the split from Austria, Hungary was reduced to a landlocked country, and a Communist Regime influenced by the Soviet Union came to power.
Horthy, a conservative anti-communist of noble birth, staged a coup d'état with the conservative royalist faction, driving out the communists with Romania's help and reviving the Kingdom of Hungary, seating himself as Regent.
Hilariously, when Charles I of Habsburg later returned and tried to be restored as the King of Hungary with the help of the royalist faction, Horthy blocked him with the military and exiled the King.
Officially, the reason was that a militarily-neutered Hungary under the Treaty of Trianon had nothing to gain from enthroning a king considered a war criminal by the victorious nations, but who could know his true intentions?
So, the Admiral of a country without a sea, the Regent of a Kingdom Without a King.
A person in power who started a civil war hand-in-hand with the royalist faction, only to fall into conflict with them again because of a war-criminal king.