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After World War I the price of fighting and losing on the Austrian side was the loss of two-thirds of Hungary’s lands. Important industry was lost and three million Hungarians ended up in foreign territory. During World War II Hungary joined the Axis powers, and as a reward received some of the territory it had lost, but once again a dangerous combination of inept diplomacy, internal weakness and unfortunate geography transformed Hungary and its hills into a battleground for foreign armies. Recalling the Habsburg–Ottoman wars the Zemplén, Bükk, Vértes, Bakony and Pilis became battle fronts.

Walking on Nagy-Mána, Börzsöny, Walk 5

After the war the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party eased itself into power and Hungary became a one-party state and ally of the Soviet Union. At the same time the ethnic composition of the hill villages was radically altered as large numbers of the original German and Slovak settlers were forcibly resettled and smallholders came under pressure to give up their land and join the agricultural co-operatives or work in the cities. The drama of the 1956 Revolution, when Hungarians rebelled against the Communist government and its Soviet backers, was largely an urban affair, but the conflict in Pécs spread into the Mecsek hills. Show trials, detentions, executions and mass emigration followed.