“HERO OF OTRANTO”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 945, 11 April 1930, Page 13

“HERO OF OTRANTO”

TRIBUTES TO HUNGARY’S GOVERNOR MESSAGES OF GOODWILL Messages of good will have poured from all parts of the country on Admiral Horthy on the tenth anniversary of his election as Governor of Hungary. By his special request, owing to the present condition of the country, all elaborate celebrations have been cancelled. Raised to a position of vital importance at a time when the internal situation of the country was one of chaos, and the external situation extremely threatening, the Governor has kept the confidence of the nation even though his personality and actions have ceased to be of critical importance. He has won its esteem by his tact and self-sacrifice in furthering the national cause and by his exemplary and unpretentious private life. Admiral Horthy, who will be 62 years of age in June, belongs to a Protestant family of the old nobility. In the first Balkan crisis, in 1908-1909, he commanded the Taurus, which was stationed outside Constantinople. Later he was appointed A.D.C. to the Emperor and served in the naval department of the Austro-Hungarian War Office. Two months after the outbri ak of the World War he passed from the Hapsburg to the Novara, and on the night of Italy’s declaration of war (March 23, 1915), led the left w’ing of the Austro-Hunfearian fleet in a raid on the Italian coast. His most celebrated battle was at Otranto, on May 14, 1917, when he broke through the enemy blockade with three cruisers (Novara, Saida, and Heligoland), and sank five enemy craft of larger tonnage, two destroyers, twenty-two patrols and three freight ships. During the battle. Admiral llorthy was severely -wounded, but re-

mained on deck till he had got his ships out of the enemy fire. For this action he received the Order of Maria Theresa. He was afterward popularly called “the Hero of Otranto.” In ISIS he became commander of the AustroHungarian fleet, and as such was oh-, liged to deliver the fleet to the National Council of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, on October 31, 1918.

When Communism broke out in Hungary Admiral Horthy went to Szeged, which was then under French occupation, and which had become the centre of ’the counter-revolutionay movement. He became Minister of War in the counter-revolution-ary government of Count Julius Karolyi (who should not be confused with Count Michael Ka.rolyi, who led the “October Revolution” and delivered over the Government of the country to the Communist leaders), and formed the nucleus of the natioal army, at the head of which he entered Budapest on November 16, 1919, after the Rumanians had withdrawn. The first important duty which fell to Admiral Horthy, after his election to the position of Governor of the National Assembly, was the ratifying of the Trianon Treaty, which was done amid a storm of protest and public demonstrations of mourning. Later, although a staunch upholder of the monarchic principle, the Governor was obliged pn two occasions, once with armed forces, to resist the entry of King Charles into the capital.