Quote Originally Posted by rothaer View Post
I wonder why Hungary not did with force keep the Hungarian settled part of South Slovakia. It would both have been in line with the new principles of self-determination of peoples and been pretty remote for any Entente troops to reach. Who should realistically have hindered them?
Hungary was at war with everyone and they continued the WW1 without any allies. Although the hungarian troops defeated the czechoslovaks, on east the romanian front was impregnable + there was significant french-serbian entente forces on south. Later these romanian troops invaded most part of Hungary, so hungarians were not in that position to change any border by force.
In Paris, the Entente did not care about the ethnic borders, only the USA wanted self-determination of peoples. But americans were not in the Trianon palace to sign the peace with Hungary, they went home earlier. It was the american plan:



The italian plans were the best from hungarian point of view, they did not want strong Austria and Yugoslavia. Italians would have given back Burgenland, Vojvodina and many other areas to Budapest. Italy was thinking about a much bigger allied Hungary to counteract serbs and germans in the region. But italians had not much political influence in Paris.

The british plans were similar to americans, but they could not convice the french:



The czechoslovak, serbian and romanian maximal claims were completely unreal:



Czechs had two main arguments to claim the southern hungarian populated areas: 1. in their opinion they were not hungarian but magyaried slovaks, 2. the czech industry needs the Danube and a bigger coastal area.