From the King-Emperor in Vienna decrees had been issued calling for all Austria-Hungary’s peoples to form so-called ‘national councils’, thereby admitting the failure of parliamentary government while approving revolutionary movements. The effect was to destroy the last remnants of the admittedly crumbling authority of the central government. On our side of the Carpathians those happy words ‘national councils’ were seized upon everywhere and used to justify the public formation of similar national councils by the Romanian and Slovak minorities. Prime Minister Wekerle still called for the maintenance of the union of Austria with Hungary in the person of the monarch, while Mihály Károlyi demanded a complete break with Austria and Hungarian independence. Both sides consulted the law books and produced suitable texts to support their views. Meanwhile there had been an attempt on the life of István Tisza (the former prime minister) and a group of officers attacked some policemen in front of the National Theatre. Behind our lines on the Serbian Front, lawless gangs were creating havoc. It was rumoured that thirty thousand army deserters were in hiding in Budapest, while many a ‘soldiers’ and workers’ council’ was being formed on the Russian model. In parliament Károlyi openly supported revolution saying ‘Take it as fact that I shall act!’, and while many people made out that they did not understand what these words meant, the very next day the ‘Workers’ Party’ joined up with some members of parliament, thus forming an impotent alliance in which everyone concerned was suspicious of their new allies and so was hopelessly irresolute.

The monarch in Vienna, or at his country place at Gödöllo not far from Budapest, gave constant audiences from which emerged new coalitions and governments that, like soap bubbles, burst as soon as they were announced. The atmosphere grew daily more heated, and there were those who took care that it should continue to do so. There were then many unscrupulous men who, for their own ends, did not hesitate to gamble with the lives of innocent young men: for example, by leading a demonstration to the royal palace in Buda regardless of whether the police would use force to disperse the crowd. ‘To Buda, to the king!’ they cried, although most people knew he was at Gödöllo and never came anywhere near Buda. The agitators had calculated aright. The government, demoralized and fatally weakened, nervously overreacted and ordered the police to cordon off the bridges and meet the demonstrators with drawn swords, thus adding fuel to the general exasperation as when kindling is thrown on the fire. Those who retreated unhurt proceeded to smash all the ‘By appointment to the king’ emblems on the city shops and smashed their windows. That same evening the ‘National Council’ was formed and supported by the majority since it was the only body to show any will to take control of affairs. All kinds of organizations, unions and people in authority, with baseless and futile confidence, hurried to join the Council with the same speed as moths rushing to a flame. Everyone was convinced that Károlyi would return from Gödöllo as Minister-President, and would then with great servility put on the robes of revolution.

This is what had happened on the previous two days, which seemed to have raced by like a film run at double speed. It was like the moment before being struck by a tornado when, with heart throbbing, one is overcome by a nerve-wracking sense of impending doom: so menacing are the tumbling clouds in the sky that first appear at the corners of the far horizon and then are suddenly above our heads, swelling and towering until they cover the entire firmament, cutting off all light and leaving only occasional gaps which at any moment will close up with a terrifying clash until the whole sky falls down upon us burying the whole world with it.

During those days this feeling never left us, and it was with a sense of deep foreboding that I went to our Monday evening dinner on 28 October 1918.

The latest news was only of delay, postponement and more talks.

On Saturday evening the king had taken Károlyi with him to Vienna arriving in the morning. There, Károlyi was told to wait at his hotel until he was summoned and, in the meantime, not to talk to anyone. Károlyi waited. Noon passed, and he still had no news. Finally he telephoned to the cabinet offices for instructions and was simply told to go home as he was not needed then … perhaps later in Budapest4?

Knowing Károlyi’s passionate nature, I realized at once that he would not accept such a gratuitous insult without in some way hitting back. It was then certain that we must expect a violent outcome. Károlyi’s arrival in Budapest would herald the storm to come.

At the Western Train Station a crowd of many thousands was already milling about. They had come from a huge public meeting outside the parliament building, called by the National Council where they had voted for the adoption of the Council’s program. When the news came of Károlyi’s imminent return the leaders at once suggested that they should all go there to greet the arrival of the evening express. The train came in. With deafening cheers and an air of celebration they lifted the ‘Leader of the People’5 onto their shoulders, passing him from hand to hand with outstretched arms. What happened next was strangely symbolic of his whole life to come.