Anglo-Hungarian Shipping Co. Ltd. (G. Barta), 1931-1944

The future of Hungarian navigation was imegined in many different ways by so many a dreamer at the end of the 1920's decade. The 1929. I. Hungarian law on free shipping meant some solution. With the help of captain Rákos and the Barta brothers and in the wake of the new law several shipping companies established with Dutch, German, Italian and British capital investements started operation under Hungarian flag. Later, the 1934. IV., V. and VI. law further faciliteted the state of Hungarian sea shipping and sailors. This was when Anglo-Hungarian Sea Nav. Co. was established with two freighters the s/s CSÁRDA and the s/s PUSZTA. The company's office was in Otthon Street at the XI. district of Budapest. By the beginning of 1932 newly founded companies hired 108 Hungarian officers and 216 crew on board their 13 Hungarian registered freighters. However, suspicion of Hungarian ships involved in insurance frauds and the deepening economic crisis caused that by 1934 only seven ships sailed under Hungarian flag on world seas. By this time only two companies could survive and sail on. One of them was the Anglo-Hungarian S.S. Co. Even though its devastated ship, the s/s PUSZTA, had to be replaced with another, the s/s CSIKÓS. The company made its ships run under Hungarian flag until January, 1941. When Hungary entered WW II. its ships were transferred to neutral Panama flag but many Hungarians worked on them to the end of the war.

József Horváth: What happens to you, Hungarian sea navigation? Aqua Magazin, vol. 20. 2001.