Northern Transylvania

Northern Transylvania (Romanian: Ardealul de Nord; Hungarian: Észak-Erdély) was the region of the Kingdom of Romania that during World War II, as a consequence of the August 1940 territorial agreement known as the Second Vienna Award, became part of the Kingdom of Hungary. With an area of 43,104 km² (16,643 sq mi), the population was largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians.

In October 1944, Soviet and Romanian forces gained control of the territory, and by March 1945 Northern Transylvania returned to Romanian administration. After the war, this was confirmed by the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947.

Transylvania has a varied history. Once part of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC–106 AD), in 106 AD, the Roman Empire conquered the territory, after the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes such as Carpi, Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, and Slavs, in the 9th century various parts came under the rule of the First Bulgarian Empire.

The Magyars conquered the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 9th century and for almost six hundred years, Transylvania was a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary. After the Hungarian defeat at Battle of Mohács by the Ottomans in 1526, two rival kings claimed the Hungarian kingdom. The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom is the predecessor of the Principality of Transylvania, which was established by the Treaty of Speyer in 1570 and the Eastern Hungarian King became the first Prince of Transylvania. The Principality of Transylvania was a semi-independent state, and a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire under the rule of the local Hungarian nobility, it continued to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law, John Sigismund's possessions belonged to the Holy Crown of Hungary, and was a symbol of the survival of Hungarian statehood. In 1690, it became part of the Habsburg monarchy as the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, and after 1848, and again from 1867 to 1918 it was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved after World War I, in the wake of the expected territorial rearrangements, the dispute over Transylvania and former ethnic tensions escalated between Romania and Hungary. The elected representatives of the Romanian National Assembly proclaimed the Union with Romania on 1 December 1918, while the Hungarian General Assembly 22 December 1918 reaffirmed their loyalty to the Hungarian state. By 1919, as a result of the Hungarian–Romanian War, much of Eastern Hungary - including Transylvania - fell under Romanian control. Eventually on 4 June 1920 the Treaty of Trianon assigned Transylvania and further areas to the Kingdom of Romania.

Considered as a national tragedy having about 3,3 million Hungarians (32% of its ethnic Hungarians) outside the new borders, the loss of 71% of its historical territory, majority of its economy, Hungary sought for revision which in the 1930's culminated as a primary goal and significantly determined her international and external politics. After the successful revision regarding southern Czechoslovakia by the First Vienna Award in 1938 and the full recovery of Carpathian Ruthenia in 1939, the Hungarian Government prepared to resolve the Transylvanian question and initiated a mass mobilization near the Hungarian-Romanian border. At the early stage of World War II the Axis Powers were not interested in the outbreak of another armed conflicts in the wake of other ongoing military events, therefore they intervened to persuade the parties to enforce diplomatic solution to reduce tensions in order to prevent further escalation.

In June 1940, Romania was forced (as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) to submit to a Soviet ultimatum and accept the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Subsequently, Hungary attempted to regain Transylvania, which it had lost in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Germany and Italy pressured both Hungary and Romania to resolve the situation in a bilateral agreement. The two delegations met in Turnu Severin on 16 August, but the negotiations failed due to a demand for a 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 sq mi) territory from the Hungarian side and only an offer of population exchange from the Romanian side. To impede a Hungarian-Romanian war in their "hinterland", the Axis powers pressured both governments to accept their arbitration: the Second Vienna Award, signed on 30 August 1940.

After World War I, the multiethnic Kingdom of Hungary was divided by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, to form several new states, but Hungary noted that the new state borders did not follow ethnic boundaries. Hungarians were the majority in border regions outside the post-Trianon Hungarian borders in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Deep within Romania, far from the Hungarian border, in the region of eastern Transylvania known as Székely Land, the Hungarian population found itself in the unusual situation of being an overwhelming majority. By the Second Vienna Award, the solution decided upon was to carve out a claw-shaped corridor with mixed population through northwestern Romania, which included a large Romanian-populated area, in order to incorporate this Hungarian-majority region into Hungary.

Historian Keith Hitchins summarizes the situation created by the award: