Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the two World Wars and throughout most of World War II from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944.
Horthy started his career as a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1896 and attained the rank of rear admiral in 1918. He saw action in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto and became commander-in-chief of the Navy in the last year of World War I; he was promoted to vice admiral and commander of the Fleet when the previous admiral was dismissed from his post by Emperor-King Charles following mutinies. During the revolutions and interventions in Hungary from Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, Horthy returned to Budapest with the National Army and was subsequently invited to become regent of the kingdom by parliament. Horthy led a national conservative and antisemitic government through the interwar period, banning the Hungarian Communist Party as well as the Arrow Cross Party, and pursuing an irredentist foreign policy in the face of the Treaty of Trianon.