The Hungarian Revolution

Front matter

THE

AN EYEWITNESS'S ACCOUNT

OF THE FIRST FIVE DAYS

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

It was precisely a quarter to two o'clock.

A careless crowd occupied the terrace of the Belle-vue Hotel, their only problem for the moment being to decide whether to go for a walk into the forest, or to go for a bath at the Vöslau hot-baths. I had decided for the latter, when a garçon ran quickly up with:

"Please, Mr. Editor, to the telephone!"

A few minutes later cold shivers ran down my back, and the bath seemed farther removed from me than the stars of heaven.

Soon afterwards there were draughts of air about one, as the hundredth vehicle flew over the chaussées, impinged on the street-corners with two leaning wheels, shot over the pavement of narrow places, and were away into the precincts of Vienna. … One saw groups forming here and there, and with the commonplace was mingled an indefinable sense of the extraordinary.

Something had happened. In the Ballplatz, before the house No. 2, the offices of the Royal and Imperial Ministries of the All-highest House and of the Exterior, stood an unusual number of motors, among them some quite unusual foreign-looking vehicles. Hurrying men flew by. …

It was the 28th of June in the year of grace 1914.

Was all that was involved in it the heavy dream of a neurasthenic? When I delve darkly into the past I see big-lettered headlines, under which black print gave out flames of fire.

Placards about victory, about grim struggles, charges, and petitions, and laments, and holdings-out, and reliefs, long war reports of wordy youngsters, dull novels tinged with a tragic dark-mindedness, death-advertisements and casualty-lists … they connect by misty links the day of hidden agents with to-day.

A world is in that melting-pot. Galileo's eppur si muove ("and yet it moves") had to prove true at least during those years. At least the one half of the earth has always been shame faced enough to hide itself from the sun. But on she circles, all the same.

A thrilling rumour of victory ran through us, the heat of which breathed fever and miasma, which did not warm, but scorched—and induced pyrexia. The reign of force inflamed and consumed the last wit left to men.

Was it not the law of gravitation—was it the swelling flood whose rise no object and no substance might hold out against, since the void has yawned?

The rush of mass ever swifter hurtling—mass of material, mass of men—was bound to give rise to an enormous reaction. It was easy to see that the foundation-stones of this rotten building would not at the present rate long resist disintegration. Dust must all that become, if all the laws of change and development were not to prove untrue.

I only darkly remember the first bread-coupons, the care of one's shoe-leather, the limited tobacco (limited because no one had limited his garment to his cloth), and the stoppage of the exhibition of placards.

THE CASTLE AND THE RULER.

A lanky man sprang lightly out of a carriage, and hastened up the steps. A stranger asked the sentry:

"Who was that?"

The man answered reverently:

"That is the Hungarian Premier."

And after a short time came the lean man again, threw himself into the depths of the carriage—and no one asked the sentry:

"Who is that?"

The man in uniform said low:

"That was the Hungarian Premier"—and Tiza went, Esterhazy came, went likewise. Wekerle came … names, names, names.

At this time, which I may call the post-exaltation epoch of the war. appeared the first blank spaces—"censored"—in the newspapers of the Extreme Left. And like a plague, this coccus bianco quickly infected the other organs also.

In the summer of 1917 one of the higher officers of the General Staff of the Vienna School said to me:

"Look you, we win the war, sure, if only munitions. or forage, don't run short."

Then I knew that both had run short and I left him.

On the sharp advance of the Russians it was said: "Pooh, we will keep up the fête-days as they fall due": but the fall of Przemysl was not on a day of fête, but of Fate, which is an important difference.

Upon reverses followed crises: and holes were digged in order, with the earth digged up, to stop up rents made by the explosion of suppressed fury.

Ever sharper blazed up the flame of resistance which Hungary—people and independent parties—opposed to Felix Austria, and the first greater conflicts between Budapest and Vienna arose. Their origin is in the soul of the Hungarian nation, which with difficulty forgets. 1848 sprang out of the predicament into which Austrian speculation drove Hungary's industry, and blow upon blow was added to the quarrel. Who, engaged in strife, can claim Right as his sole objective? No one. The blame is to the unnatural wedlock of two systems straining parabolically apart—systems which should be led towards a community of interest in trade by means of agitation and propaganda, appealing simply to sympathy.

Pathology was bound to avenge itself on the organism of both bodies. …

And now with all this was to be combined that eruptive force which arose out of the longing for freedom from an intolerable load, and led to the meeting of Kàrolyi and Franchet d'Esperay as a final result. Hungary broke up under the pressure of the load, and any one, like me, who was in the movements of the whole period of the war—any spectator of this divorce which severed two souls in one breast—can only say that the temporary so-called "predominance of place" of Hungary in the frame of the monarchy corresponded to an effective force, not to a subjective will; and that the word was spoken in Budapest, but the deed budded in Vienna. To have any illusions as to that was only pardonable so long as it was considered useful to be able to assign the blame for the war.

…And so I come to the actual picture-gallery of the revolutionary events.

The revolution in Hungary was not organised, not manufactured, not menagé. It grew up freely, and just a dozen men sufficed to hold it together. A proof for or against? … For! for the mass can only be moved by a summons relatively of the same elevation as itself. When the mass follows unknown leadership merely on recount of a programme, this means that it wills to co-operate. And it co-operated, without swerving, without heat, without fail.

They made a revolution, the Hungarians, because there was nothing else to do. Because the gigantic upkeep of a gigantic army was growing on their shoulders, because they saw the Hapsburgs sitting ever in Vienna as Emperor and never in Budapest as King (although in such a royal comedy, directed to eye and mind and phantasy, precisely the seeing of the idol is essential to the realisation of the fairy tale), and because they had frankly had enough of fighting without motive.

History shows no Hungarian war aims—only the aim imposed upon the country of going to the aid of Austria.

Lust of annexations was not the cause of the war, but the consequence—a decisive distinction. To annex was desired, because war was being waged, but no single shot was fired with the idea of getting something out of it.

Hungary's revolution was the historical consequence of a biological principle. The sick place had to be removed by operation: a non-national Government, which managed the affairs of an Empire without any relation to the people, which throughout its whole structure was antediluvian in its reactionary trend, had, in the atmosphere of our time, to perish.

What is instructive for history is the essentials of this event.

The recognition of the inevitableness of the break-up inspired the people who rallied round Kàrolyi with tho thought of making pause, and of putting into practice their own innate pacificism. Pacifism? The instinct of self-preservation would in this case be the better term. it meant the weighing of the chance of bringing the secession from the union into harmony with evolution.

After tho Parliamentary battles, the newspaper-war, in the tumult of a continuous resistance to the most varied attacks, the expectation was fulfilled.

And in this moment I recall that. from the beginning, Hungary had on her hands the whole weight of the war, provisioned tho German troops, managed tho whole question of transport with her own rolling-stock, and, beside this, exported. Now there was superfluity in Hungary, and it was constantly said to me: "In Budapest one fares splendidly, one eats white bread—a fault of the Government, which, clinging to the principle of absolute centralisation inherent in the administrations of tho land, fed Budapest free, so to say, so as to relieve the capital of petty inconveniences. It was a mirage—a bid for popularity in the capital, which in no other land is so truly and wholly "The Capital" as in Hungary. The Government, in fact, powdered Budapest over with white meal in order to conceal the lack of black meal in many districts. The cause is simple. Only through the appearance of Budapest's well-being could the equally centralised press be "convinced" that all was really being efficiently administered. By these manœuvres the Vienna Government in Budapest was able to win from the country, from the Parliament, every complaisance in the matter of supplies ad infinitum for the army.

And now I will carry my digression from the story no further—will not touch on Arpad's times, and on to the Anjous, down to the Hapsburgs, although precisely this Revolution has its roots in the deeps. Let it be taken as a fact that this war was the cartridge that exploded a mine of aimlessness and drifting, while the powder slowly, slowly, sometimes quicker, sometimes still slower, was accumulated beneath the people by statesmen, authorities, great heroes of history, and little intriguers of mean degree.

In the autumn of 1918 it was clear that the war was finally lost. The dictatorship built upon military authority and upon the infallibility of prerogatives was robbed of its basis. All began to totter. A current whose trend was indefinable gained in strength. The Emperor-King had become fond of the jewel of the love and warm co-operation of the people, even while he let himself be led ever farther into half-measures—in spite of a marked and quite genuine love of peace. He was called in the end "Karl the Sudden," just as in the beginning of his reign they called him "Wilhelm's Antidote."

The German retreat cast spheral illuminations over hill and valley. Fall on the Bourse, dissonances, confusion, rumours. Still Sisyphus pushed the stone ever up.

And then came the great Governmental crisis, the series beginning with the dismissal of Wekerle, the endless searches for lime and cement an unheard-of expenditure of men and forces.

And then…then the word was: Kàrolyi could save the country. Save? I deny that. A man is only a man, and genius is powerless against the hydrophobia. Only some months earlier Kàrolyi could in truth have effected something, when, relying on a half-integral military power, he might have concluded a well-merited separate peace. But from within, outward, grow revolutionary forces, which do not suffice to supply the lack of actual armies. And so the appointment of Kàrolyi could only have availed to rescue the dynasty for hours or days. For radical democracy had to give so calre a field to the republican idea, that no dynasty could have withstood such a reality.

Once more, the Hungarian Revolution was a vote of the people. No kind of reactionary agitation, not the least, was to be remarked, and what agitation is now in existence, in so far as it is of any importance, is all ultra-radical. And a return to the old is desired merely by some odd people whose dulness only the Oriental parade of a Court could enliven.

While the revolutions in Germany, and especially in German Austria, have loosened sharp reactions; effective forces seeming to arise there to defend or to rehabilitate either the dynasty or the authority of the old régime, in Hungary, on the contrary, only a movement toward still more Radical principles is in some measure perceptible, but no serious stress toward the restoration of the old is to be found, is to be roused, is to be bought.

Somewhat so stands the matter in Hungary: and her previous history led to the effective outbreak of this event.

It all had to happen as it happened. It was in the air. Invisible messages flew from heart to heart, strangers found themselves friends, a silent emanation rose over the wide land, and a telegraphy of souls carried the rumour of the event to the consciousness of men.

So all lay in the deepest peace in the pause of a period of world-war. One knew nothing. Only a boding cast its shadows before.

And then…

Chapter I: The Explosion

CHAPTER I.

THE EXPLOSION.

October 30th carried the saturated air of the political tension over the capital.

The newspapers gave themselves up to criticism, polemics, and a quite strange avalanche of news, for whose confirmation no "official" stamp was valid enough. The reports of the shots still re-echoed which had fallen by the Kettenbrücke. This had happened in this way:—

The Governmental crisis, which in one event contained chronic, acute, and latent elements, found not the man who could have controlled it. The throne tottered, and the supposition is justified that clever councillors conjured up mirages before the eyes of the man on the throne, who, moreover, only possessed the bare uniform, without leadership or independence of thought. All things urged to the necessity of placing the truth of the further developments before the monarch's eyes. This must of necessity be attempted in the way of a popular demonstration. And as the demonstration—moving in an undeniably friendly temper—arrived at the Kettenbrücke to go on toward Ofen, so as to place the Insupportable in miniature before the eyes of the councillors of the absent Throne. Guards on horseback dashed up.

The front of the groups—for the demonstrators were not long a continuous mass—fell into wavering. The pressure from behind, however, carried the procession forward, whereupon some old Landsturm men, who formed the first cordon, desisted from employing any force against the crowd. (The warning hes in this detail: the first sign, a departure from strict obedience on the part of the soldier.) But the police employed force. Some minutes later there broke through shooting the sickening noise of lamentation. Wounded people shrieked their despair. Far fell the bullets. Hoofs struck on the asphalt, whistles sounded, and in the hall of the Ritz Hotel I saw the first wounded.

One man died.

Near around me alternated loud command and suppressed whisper, heliograph signals clattered over the porter's lodge, outside something droned past, the hooters of the ambulance wagons formed the accompaniment.

And on the day after whizzed the hail of hate against the police, who had not refused obedience. It is not to be wondered at, then, that the police, under this frightful and crushing contempt of the whole population, was one of the first institutions to place its services at the disposal of the National Council, already the pre-revolutionary power. The police wished to wipe out the stain by open confession to the people.

This use of force, these unholy tactics of the holders of power, which they themselves in the preliminary stage applied to the development of things at the Kettenbrücke—then the scattering of a crowd of students before the Ofen Palace—all this was mirrored still in the newspapers of October 30th. At the same time the papers greeted with enthusiasm the police, who had already over night submitted themselves to the command of the President of the National Council.

But the whirl of excitement arose out of the deep sense of uncertainty. The governmental crisis had been protracted for weeks, and the "explanation" given—the marriage of, it seemed, several gentlemen, added fuel to the fire.

A concentration of the Left was, from the beginning, impossible. Not only were the Social-Democrats now absolutely against it, but also the majority of the Kàrolyi-party, which had all the popularity. And during these crises the King was conferring with obsolete magnates, Andràssy was making well-meant but irrelevant efforts in Vienna, and by his quasi-recognition of the execrated, low-toned Imperial-and-Royal Ministry of the Exterior, had deprived himself of the sympathies which without doubt largely existed for him in bourgeois circles. Count Hadik, the probable Premier, was negotiating meantime as eagerly as if he could really believe that his efforts would result in anything. Prince Windischgrätz, the ex-Food-Minister, then staying at Berne, also took part in the political questions. His official standing was that of First Sectional-Chief in Andràssy's Ministry-of-the-Exterior; but far-reaching machinations in internal politics were attributed to him, and he is pointed to as the man who hastened the King's downfall through evil counsel. But history will need to acquire full light on these side-questions, which at present are too heated for cold reason to deal with them. Anyway, the Prince has brought upon himself, a great load of hatred, and the lack of any clear declaration of attitude on his side is significant. Against him first, then against Andàrssy and Hadik, a fury was lit: but Cabinet-director Seidler and Master-of-the-Household Count Hunyadi will find themselves heavily laden with every sin of commission or of omission. One cannot act against a People, without having to bear the consequences.

While the Emperor-King, far from the theatre of events, withdrew himself, full of anxiety, in the critical hours, while decisions as to the destinies of generations were being made over the telephone, the Press joined in with the general opinion. A world of stinging criticism whipped the shortcomings of the régime that called itself the government. Already it is now clearly established that faults not quite definable had been committed, faults which in the reel of events magnified themselves to crimes.

October 30th mirrored all this.

Yet the streets were quiet. Rumours of strikes began to be bruited, but they proved unfounded. The compositor functioned, but the least actual flaring-up of these restrained and well-disciplined people must have been at once known.

While the evening darkened over the city, still came pouring in more rumours respecting the probable action of the no-longer existing Government. About seven o'clock the foreman of the great Budapest newspaper syndicate said to me that I might have some of my packets taken away, as it was uncertain whether he would be coming to the office in the morning. He added that a sort of time limit had been fixed by the Social-Democrats, and in case the interval was not employed to effect the definite appointment of Kàrolyi, the strike would be proclaimed.

Late in the afternoon I learned at the Radical Party's office that something was under way, but one knew not what exactly, or was unwilling to divulge it. Only a certain heightening of activity was to be remarked, and it was as if all at once thrice as many members were about as could be seen at other times.

At the Gendarmerie there was nothing unusual to be observed. A readiness for action, almost usual already, was well maintained, some motors stood ready, and a direct and unbroken contact with the military was kept up—at this time without complaint.

I went along the Donauquai, and, before the Parliament House, remembered the monster demonstration, which had passed off quietly, but only thanks to the merit of the crowd, for all had been done to goad the people to frenzy. This demonstration for Kàrolyi, whose aim was merely to convince the "ruling classes" that Kàrolyi was the only man in whose person all confidence was concentrated, presented a distressing picture. Generals with their cloaks puffed out backward by the wind, showing in this way the scarlet-red of their dress, and the blood-red of their souls in their rigidly-fixed visages, whizzed incessantly in service motor-cars over the open space. It was like a red rag to the crowd…And infantry, posses of police, and whole companies of machine-gun contingents beset the Parliament Square. Thus was exhibited to the masses, some days before the explosion of their powers of expansion, to what ends the military still, as always, was misused. The men at the rudder forgot what an excellent lesson this was. And just as the open-air demonstration was at an end, there drove the best-hated man in Budapest over the Platz—General Lukachich, the victor of Isonzo and the victor of Schaffott, who in a few weeks had hundreds upon hundreds of men executed for move absence from the ranks, among them a private in Kecskemét, who had run home out of hospital to his work and wife, carrying with him the wound he had received in battle. I cannot mention this without making a mental apology to Mr. Nikolaus Favago. He had brought a report to the Az Est about this stretching of authority reminding one of Chinese atrocity—a fabulously realistic report, which I felt as unusually lacking in taste: for the reading of the thing made me sick—how the man, after he had twisted about on the ground, weeping, vowing eternal loyalty and begging pardon, was shouted at by the sergeant, with, "Come, no nonsense!" upon which four ill-aimed shots fall, the poor man writhes—and then, on command, another volley—it made one sick: but I now feel that many people may have been moved to take an active part in the Revolution through hearing, if of no others, anyway of this case, which must have clearly: shown that the power of which such things is a trait must be crushed!

All this at the time whirled uncertainly through my head. I could give myself no reason why I did not simply go home. But I had a feeling that something must happen, to miss which was to miss an experience…

I called at Gerbeaud, on the Gizellatér, the best confectioner of Budapest, expecting to meet my wife there. I wound among a throng that one could hardly see over, people eating, chattering, enjoying themselves. It was as if all these people in a body wanted to insist that they could be gay…Arm in arm we went thence through the Inner Town, which seemed quite deserted. Toward half-past nine we went back to the Gizellatér, in a house of which the Kàrolyi-party had their quarters—some rooms quite modestly furnished.

Before the house were some people, but still there might have been no party headquarters there. Slowly assembled a small throng of men. Then appeared on the balcony a speaker, who had a singularly high voice, and could not be understood in the endless noise of applause. Meantime the throng increased enormously, new masses came up, flags were visible, soldiers appeared, and there was much passionate shouting.

Later on came Kàrolyi, who was received with indescribable cheering, and spoke some words from the balcony.

And then arose the first impulse. Within the frame of the club-window bobbed up suddenly the helmeted silhouette of a constable. At first one knew not what to make of it. I had the impression that it was a puppet. But I soon saw my mistake, for, though men often speak like puppets, this puppet on the contrary spoke so clear and manlike, that he was keenly listened to. The constable spoke as a man of the people to the people. In some seconds jubilation was resounding over the place. A constable who was about, and yet arrested nobody, accosted nobody with blows and roughness…the crowd was enchanted. The police, then, were on their side…was that really possible?

(I hurried up into the party headquarters. It can be said now, easily enough, that the constable was hissed—words only, for I cannot doubt my own senses. But at present he still seems to me rather like a puppet which was exposed in the shop-window—even if by its own wish.)

Above in the [Socialist] party headquarters I heard that a company of soldiers were waiting at the East Railway Station, ready to be taken to the front…(Heavens! "company," "front," "taken"…are there such things? Have I not perhaps read about something of the kind, so far back it all lies…!). It was said that precautions had been taken to prevent the company being carried away to the front. Movement below, in the street, movement above, in the head…the thing began to harmonise.

Thick throngs went away, in order to co-operate at the railway station. Meantime, fresh and still fresh throngs arrived. Quite to the Deàkplatz thronged the mass. Songs were sung…and all at once broke out a mighty roar, the Marseillaise…the Internationale in the Hungarian words.

Then began the whirl of rumours. It was bruited by soldiers who arrived that the company under marching-orders had been already set free. Many said that its soldiers had been already seen below. It was said that blood had flowed, and the sentinels at the station had been overcome by force. I hurried into the street, made my way into the Vàciutca, got a cab, and cried to the driver "East Railway Station!" as a wild uproar arose, cries of despair, a crazy crush. Constabulary on horseback were coming—it was said. But it was only a false alarm. The throng quickly regained composure, but surrounded the cab like a flood, so that I had to get out, and my wife was lifted out bodily.

Now it was along the Vàciutca in the thickest press. Suddenly someone cries out: "We need no two-headed Eagle! Down with the scutcheons!"

Nimble fellows climbed up the frontages in the most ingenious ways, and crash, crash, fell the imperial and royal arms, the proud emblazonry of the purveyors to the Court. But beyond the cries and jubilation no single breach of the peace took place.

How utterly disciplined the crowd was is best shown by the following incident.

A troop of young fellows discovered a glass-window with a splendid collection of Court-purveyor ensigns which were adorned both with the two-headed Eagle and with numerous high, highest and all-highest coats-of-arms. The troop wanted to shatter the glass, but a lively opposition arose, the crowd resisted, and someone cried out: "Order! don't soil the Revolution with sherds!"

"Revolution"…

And the aggressive fellows were driven off; so also the crowd itself held all that was foul in its midst under its eye. But an inventive man procured paste from a near newspaper-press, and the pretty emblazonry was thickly pasted over. To revolt peaceably is very possible, I think!

The throng pushed us with it along the Kossuth-Lajos-Strasse on to the Hotel Astoria, where the offices of the National Council were.

Along the long balconies a lively movement: and ever new speakers stepped out. They all recommended calm and self-possession. So far as my recollection goes, the sense of their speeches was that thenceforth things would go as Kàrolyi intended; and toward midnight the word was that the King had appoinled Kàrolyi Premier.

The crush had meanwhile become dangerous to life.

The 30th of October passed into the 31st. It was midnight. Rare clocks struck the hour.

As mementos of the decisive day I had picked up these fragments: the claw of a two-headed eagle in papier-maché, a star out of a king's crown torn down, and a feather of a German eagle in gilt tin. Against these positive gains—whose unlawfulness I am not ashamed to admit—stood a positive loss. An equally provident as precautionary revolutionist had discounted the chances of the morrow by abstracting my spectacles as well as my gloves from my coat pocket.

But the fragments have compensated me for this loss, and I should not be now ready to make an exchange.

Chapter II: From Midnight to Midnight

CHAPTER II.

A plague of cigarette-smoke, through which, for moments, cold Autumn air bored deep channels, when passage-doors and balcony-exists were opened at the same instant. An excitement which could no more be heightened. Underneath the window of the National Council quarters in the Hotel Astoria, from whose balconies speakers without intermission wrought pacifically upon the crowd and lowered its temperature. An extract of the population of Budapest was in flux: clerks, workmen, servants, officers, ladies—every class.

Twelve minutes past twelve.

The first "announcement." A troop of soldiers, who had tendered allegiance to the National Council, had marched to the Maria Theresa Barracks to overcome it. The first bloodshed was impending. Indescribable excitement: motors shot by hard on the skirts of the crowd, men in wild haste climbed the stairs, an unspeakable intensity filled all men and things. The National Council had been sitting in permanence for days now. All decisions were rapidly made. The fight at the barracks must be prevented. Ladislaus Fényes and Eugen Landler were sent from the Council, and their efforts succeeded in averting the conflict. The watch at the Maria Theresa barracks restrained itself—no shot was fired.

Sharp on this the second report: the Platzkommando in the Inner Town is being besieged.

Alexander Garbai and the author, Ludwig Birò, afterwords Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs were despatched thither to work for quietness. They had scarcely hurried away when two officers entered with incomparable aplomb, and bluntly announced:—

"Be it known to the National Council: the Platzkommando is overcome: the watch is on our side: the Central Garrison alone withstands the National Council. We await its orders."

Frenzied jubilation after an icy silence; the held-back breath burst from the lungs; and while the mass below received the tidings with drunken rapture, the first salvos roared out, salute-guns were planted in the streets, out of windows, shots of jubilee were discharged, a wild sense of exhilaration carried away all, and all the bounds of ceremony and stiffness were abolished.

In the meantime, delegates of the National Council had taken over the building of the Platzkommando without the least disorder.

Toward two o'clock the news was known that the Soldiers' Council, which all at once was there with as much assurance as if it always had been there, had resolved to beset the Stadtkommando, and to take over the command of the Budapest Garrison and all troops in the city.