Almost in every village and small town, riots began after receiving the news about the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. The peasants together with the returning soldiers attacked the manor houses, food storages and public buildings. Mayors, public officials and shopkeepers were beaten up or even killed by the rioting population. The main perpetrators were the homecoming veterans, most of them had already been in the country as deserters or a member of the reserve army. The representatives of the public administration sent numerous telegrams to Budapest reporting about the atrocities and asking for the immediate reinforcement of the policing forces. The Hungarian Honvéd ministry collected these messages and the officers draw maps to understand the locations of the most important trouble zones. The maps were sometimes quite inaccurate but nevertheless they provide a valuable source about the overall situation in the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom.

Violence between 5th and 9th November, 1918 (click on the picture for higher definition!)

The first map – made after these drawings – demonstrates that between 5th and 9th November 1918 violence characterised the entire country, especially the mountainous regions largely populated by Romanians and Slovaks. Meanwhile Czech, Polish, Serb and Romanian troops crossed the old borders and began to occupy some of the surrounding villages and towns.

Violence on the 13th November, 1918 (click on the picture for higher definition!)

Although as the second map demonstrated the general order was consolidated during the next days, massive riots were still taken place in several major urban centres.  Moreover certain regions – especially in Transylvania and in northern Hungary – were completely lost for the Hungarian public administration.  Meanwhile according to the military convention of Belgrade the Romanian and the Serbian troops were allowed to advance towards north and west till the river Mures and Drau. They occupied the key strategic points and quickly replaced the Hungarian public administration.