HISTORY OF LUDOVIKA
first appeared after the death of Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary Joseph II (1780-1790). As part of the Habsburg Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary did not have an independent army, although the Imperial Army had regiments with Hungarian personnel. The training and preparation of the officers took place either in the regiments or at the academies in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, in German language. One of the important stages in the growth of Hungarian national self-awareness is the resolution passed by the National Assembly in 1790 – 91 on the need to establish a “national military school”. The initial resistance of the Imperial Court was so weakened by the war period beginning in 1792 that Emperor Francis I eventually approved Act VII of 1808 thus accepting the “establishment of a national military academy and the development of military sciences in the country.” Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, the spouse of the ruler, also contributed to the donation funds, thanks to which the academy planned for Vác was renamed Ludovika. “The objective of the training is to make young people “fit and able to serve the country usefully”.
and despite another law and several parliamentary resolutions, it was a military hospital that operated in the building for the following decades. During the War of Independence in 1848-49, the Hungarian Military High School was established on the initiative of General Lázár Mészáros, Minister of Defence, but it could only operate for a short period of time. After the War of Independence, the Ludovika building once again housed a military hospital.
– infantry and cavalry only since artillery was not allowed – the preparation of officers was to be provided primarily by the Ludovika Academy, which started its operation pursuant to Act XVI of 1872. As a result, military education in Hungarian as the language of tuition could begin 64 years after the Act was passed. For the time being, however, no academy-level training was conducted, as only officer and senior officer courses were launched. The first commandant of the Academy was Colonel Sándor Móricz, who had fought in the Army Corps of General Bem during the War of Independence. In the following years, the courses enlarged, the requirements increased, but the temporary goal set for the Academy remained unchanged: to provide officers for the army as fast as possible. A class with Croatian language of instruction was launched in each year, and 1877 saw even the launch of a gendarmerie class.
The students studying military subjects in addition to secondary grammar school subjects, had music, dance, singing, and shorthand too among their academic subjects. Great emphasis was placed on teaching religious morality as well as acquiring the rules of social behaviour. The Ludovika Academy became one of the centres of the capital’s sports life while it also provided all the conditions for its students to become healthy and well-educated officers – role models for society.
became an educational institution of the level dreamed up by the initiators of the foundation and the legislators of 1808 pursuant to Act XXIII of 1897, approved by the Monarch. The Act required the Academy to launch real military higher education in line with the Wiener Neustadt model. Under the same Act, the operation of a military secondary school in Sopron, and military cadet schools in Pécs and Nagyvárad (Oradea) began, as institutes of military secondary education. The commandant of the Academy was appointed by the Monarch on the proposal of the Minister of Defence.
The goal was to prepare officers who could even perform staff-level service. After successfully completing their three-year-long academic studies, the graduates were promoted to lieutenant and assigned to one of the units of the Hungarian Army or the Common Army. Most of them joined the infantry of the Hungarian Army. Academy graduates wore various distinctive marks symbolising their achievements. During the training, great emphasis was also placed on making the future officers role models for society.
The mobilization, the protracted war, and the gigantic losses called for much of the teaching staff to the battlefields, where prospective officers were also very much expected. The duration of training was reduced from three to two years, which meant that fewer teachers had less time to prepare officers who would hold their ground on the battlefield well.
the People’s Commissariat for War of the Hungarian Soviet Republic abolished the Academy and ordered the establishment of a six-week-long commander training course. However, this attempt failed. On the other hand, the Ludovika students took part in the unsuccessful yet reckless uprising against the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic on 24th June 1919.
put officer training on a new basis, and Ludovika evolved into a four-year military college. Students had to sign up for twenty years of service. In addition to training in service branches, the training of combat engineer officers and signals officers was also launched. Within the officer training great emphasis was placed on patriotic education, the acquisition of rules of social interaction, the development of camaraderie and behaviour, and the development of the need for self-improvement.