F72067 HUNGARIANS ON THE EASTERN FRONT

From 1920, Hungary was ruled far from being democratic by Miklos Horthy, whose political views can be described as right-wing and conservative. He also clearly aimed at undermining the peace treaty in Trianon (1920) and restoring the so-called Great Hungary. From the turn of 1938/1939, he was clearly oriented towards Germany and Italy in his foreign policy. Hungary also entered the war with the Soviet Union. Already in March 1940, they formed 3 general armies (1, 2 and 3), each consisting of three corps (Hungarian Hadtest). In total, there were 27 infantry brigades (Hungarian dandar) in the Hungarian army (when Hungary joined the war with the USSR). Each of them consisted of about 9,500 people. It consisted of a command company, one 7-battery field artillery regiment and 2 infantry regiments. Each such regiment (Hungarian Ezred) had a command platoon, a machine gun company and 3 battalions (Hungarian: szloalj) of infantry. The basic shooting armament of the line units were relatively modern rifles, but in the second-throw units you could meet the old 8mm Mannlicher rifles. The anti-tank defense was mainly provided by Belgian 47 mm guns and German 37 mm PaK36 guns. The field artillery, on the other hand, consisted of the production department of such companies as Skoda, Bofors and Rheinmetall.