Hussars’ Meeting in Nyíregyháza

The meeting was opened by Lajos Fodor. The MoD State Secretary for Public Administration is a permanent participant of the traditionalists’ programs. In his festive speech Lajos Fodor reminded the attendees that the word “hussar" dates back to the era of King Matthias, and propagated the heroism of the Hungarian soldiers for nearly five hundred years. The hussar is not a loud-talking cavalry officer, with rakish moustache, strutting in gay clothes, the hussar begins where the military rationality ends.

The State Secretary of the Ministry added: the virtues of the hussars are unquestionable: quick-wittedness, good situational awareness, strong sense of comradeship, and unconditional respect for the superiors. The hussar officer was not just the commander, but the father, the priest and the teacher of his company, platoon. The officers and NCOs of the Hungarian Defence Forces (HDF) should preserve these values. It was the Hungarian hussar, who for instance showed the world, how to fight successfully against enemies in multiple numerical superiority.

Lajos Fodor is convinced that the hussar mentality and tactics are also present in the strategy of our era. These efficient tactical procedures are still taught all over the world for the special operations forces and the reconnaissance units. Thus the hussar is a determinative and eternal actor of the Hungarian history, and even of the universal history of war and art of war. Today the HDF are the natural inheritors and keepers of the hussar mentality. True, that now we have no Seven Years’ War or freedom fight, but we suffer from the red-sludge catastrophe and flooding, where the Hungarian soldier is among the first to save human lives, families, material values.

Photo by the Author