freddie, i agree with you from a moral standpoint, however i can see how difficult it was for Nato to do anything militarily at the time.
Here's a map of
Nato vs Warsaw at the time.
Hungary had no common border with Nato, contrary to Warsaw which had multiple points of entry. Austria was (and still is) neutral, so it was impossible for Nato to go through Austria, Yugoslavia was also neutral (but still much closer to Warsaw than Nato), so it was also impossible for Nato to go through Yugoslavia.
The only remaining option for Nato would have been to go through Czechoslovakia, an extremely difficult option for many reasons:
- It would have been a direct attack by Nato on Warsaw, a casus belli allowing all Warsaw countries to retaliate on all Nato countries, this could have easily led to a new continental war.
- Czechoslovakia is no easy terrain, going through the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia fighting Warsaw forces along the way would have taken weeks to Nato forces, plenty of time for the USSR to send more troups into Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
- East Germany was just north of Bohemia and Moravia, and at the time, East Germany was crawling with Soviet forces who had never left Germany since the end of WWII. Nato forces would have been quickly intercepted by Soviet forces coming from East Germany long before they were even close to the Hungarian border leading to a massive fight.
- Finally, in 1956, Warsaw forces were stronger than Nato forces, especially ground forces. We were only 10 years after the end of WWII, and during those 10 years, western European countries had dedicated most of their resources to rebuilding their cities, infrastructures, etc, but very little had been dedicated to the military, contrary to the USSR which had dedicated a large amout of its resources to its military. In 1956, the USSR ground forces were most probably capable of reaching the Atlantic in a matter of weeks (if i remember correctly my old cold war lessons, the ratio at the time was 10 Warsaw tanks against 1 Nato tank).
Now, if Austria had been part of Nato at the time, history could have followed a different path. Nato forces would have been stationed near Vienna close to the Austro-Hungarian border, they would not have needed to invade any other Warsaw countries and could have easily reached Budapest within a day (easy flat terrain, no resistance from Hungarian troups obviously). Once Nato troups would have been in Hungary that fast, the USSR may very well have let it go.