The Phoenix Land (7 page)

Chapter Two

It was only on the following day that we learned everything that had happened at the Chain Bridge.

From early in the morning Archduke Joseph had spent the day in his palace in the fortress of Buda, negotiating with various politicians in an attempt to form a government. Mihály Károlyi was due to join him in the evening. While he was there, István Friedrich and László Fényes, from their party headquarters, decided to lead the crowd that had gathered there – a crowd, it transpired later, that consisted mainly of workers from the
outlying
districts of the city – up to the fortress to ensure the appointment of Károlyi as prime minister by a show of force. ‘To Buda!’ they cried just as they had on the previous Friday.

With their two leaders at their head, the mob moved off only to find that the army had blocked Dorottya Street and formed a solid cordon in Maria-Valeria Square. There they learned that access to the Chain Bridge was also barred by the armed forces. Nevertheless, everything went well with them at first. The first two lines of guards made no resistance and let them through, as did the soldiers at Ferenc-József Square. There were police guarding the entrance to the Chain Bridge, but they only put up a token resistance, and soon the crowd had broken through. There, just where the stone lions stand, was a line of gendarmes.

This was serious. Some men tried to climb up from the roofs of the warehouse that stood below and so get onto the bridge behind the gendarmes. At this point they were met by a round of rifle fire, while the mounted police charged the crowd with drawn sabres. Helter-skelter the mob turned to flee. Scared and distressed, the workers ran for their lives back to the protection
of the Károlyi party headquarters
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, whence they had set out not long before.

As usual in such affairs, the leaders emerged unscathed, but there were three dead and some fifty wounded in that anonymous crowd which consisted largely of simple well-meaning factory workers. These were the victims. Ambulances took them to the Ritz where the hotel’s entrance hall was transformed into a
hospital
ward to give them first aid.

That was the story of the battle on Monday night.

It was this demonstration, which had drowned in its own blood, that effectively made it impossible for Károlyi to be part of the proposed government even if – and this I do not know – he had been willing to do so. This was the immediate result of the demonstration, and there were those who said that it had been organized with precisely this end in mind.

For those like myself who had distanced themselves as far as possible from the witch’s brew of politics, the next two days seemed to pass without any significant developments. But it was only the silence which precedes the storm: a silence full of
disquiet
for it was broken by the news that the machinery of state continued to disintegrate as the Budapest police force had gone over to the National Council!

In the streets the mob leaders were publicly embraced by those very police who, only the day before, had charged them with drawn sabres. It was in this climate that Count János Hadik formed his government, news of which was received everywhere with indifference, for I am sure that no one had any confidence in Hadik’s selfless initiative.

Now followed the evening of the real revolution.

I had dined in the Kaszino, as I had most evenings in the last few weeks, although fewer and fewer people had been there, and it must have been about eleven o’clock when we left the club, being the last to do so. There were three of us, together with another friend who was escorting the old chairman of the Jockey Club. We had taken to doing this in the last few days, for recently
a number of suspicious-looking men had been seen loitering in the streets – a phenomenon previously unknown in the centre of the town, and from time to time gunshots had been heard.

As soon as we stepped out of the Kaszino’s front door it was promptly shut behind us. I glanced across the street towards the Hotel Astoria, which had been taken over as the National Council’s headquarters, and it seemed that rather more people than usual were gathered there, although there were probably not more than one or two hundred. No doubt someone had made a speech from the balcony and just as probably there had been some cheering in the street; although as this had been going on for more than a week we had become used to it. Not far away the streets were as dark and empty as they always had been at this time of night. Then some shots were heard coming from the direction of the Danube, but there was nothing unusual in this. I was alone by the time I crossed Calvin Square, and it was then that I heard repeated firing from Ráday Street. This was unusual. The rapid sound of bullets hitting the steel shutters of some shop made a loud cracking sound, almost a sort of howl. Although I was not unduly worried because we had heard it before, on this night there seemed to be more of this crazy random shooting than ever.

After getting home I must admit that I slept soundly, although occasionally, when still half-asleep, I seemed to hear more
rumbling
of heavy lorries passing under my windows than on
previous
nights. However, since the street outside was the habitual route for deliveries to the market halls nearby, and the market cars had always rattled past noisily long before dawn, it did not seem to be different from any other night in the year.

It was only later that I heard what had happened early that morning. When my old valet called me he announced three things: my bath had been prepared, revolution had broken out, and Count Mihály Károlyi was now Minister-President.

Soon afterwards István Zichy came to see me and related what he had seen and heard outside in the streets, and together we went out onto Museum Boulevard.

Most of the shops were closed, and there were many people just standing about on the pavement. It looked as if all the
cleaners and domestic servants of the district were there,
standing
about in groups of five or six before each doorway,
openmouthed
and gaping, just as Zichy and I were doing along with countless other citizens who had streamed out to gaze around in wonder.

It was both interesting and amusing. Everyone seemed in
festive
mood, smiling and wearing white asters
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Enterprising youths from the suburbs were selling the flowers, and should anyone dare to refuse to buy the friendly offers were soon suffused with unconcealed menace. Resistance to these offers swiftly melted away. However, very few did refuse for man is a
Herdentier
– an animal that always follows the herd, a
gregarious
animal – and quickly follows its neighbour’s example. It may well have been us two, Zichy and myself, who alone failed to pin on the symbolic flower, but this was not from mere
contrariness
but because it went against our nature blindly to endorse such trivial emblems. Anyhow, even without us, there were plenty of asters to be seen on the passers-by, on the sightseers standing in the doorways and decorating some shop windows, just as there were on some heavy army weapon-carriers which suddenly appeared among the crowd and just as suddenly
rumbled
away. Some of these were lavishly decorated with their rusty sides, radiators and headlights garlanded with white flowers. By contrast the army vehicles were packed with sooty-faced, heavily armed soldiers. People ran alongside wildly as the great lorries were driven directly into the crowd, regardless of anyone or
anything
that might be in their way. None could tell if they were hurrying to some unknown goal or were roaming the streets at random.

The crowd was in far too festive a mood to be worried by any of this, nor did anyone seem to notice that among the many
soldiers
wandering about so aimlessly there were a number, heavily armed, their tunics unbuttoned and dirtier than any I had seen even on the worst days at the Front. Some seemed merely to be seeking a sympathetic listener to whom they could explain in hoarse voices, perhaps for the umpteenth time, what heroic deeds they had done that night. There were others who, dead tired, tramped mechanically on like the solitary ant who has lost
his way back to the heap and pauses, looking around in
bewilderment
. No one bothered about any of these men, even though they all carried loaded rifles and were hung with hand grenades. The crowd was in too festive a mood to be worried, indeed most of them seemed to rejoice in the soldiers’ presence, as in
everything
else that day, for was it not the same for them as for everyone else? All that anyone could take in was that the terrible war was over, that now there would be no more flour tickets and food rations, and that peace would come again, at long last peace, wonderful peace. No worries, no anxiety clouded their exuberant joy, for did not every danger and every misery belong to the past, that evil past which must now be utterly forgotten? From this very day the future would hold nothing but brotherly love and friendship … and peace, wonderful peace.

Zichy and I, who also saw these soldiers from whom every
vestige
of discipline seemed to have drained away, were filled with trepidation at the thought of what would happen if this
disintegration
spread to the whole of the armed forces. For a while we saw nothing encouraging, but then we were faced with a
wonderful
example of enduring discipline and courage, a beautiful act that only we had witnessed and would remember.

A young officer appeared in the middle of the street, with some men, perhaps eight or ten, lined up behind him, all
apparently
from different units. Seeing that one of the aimless armed soldiers I have described was leaning against the railings of the Museum Garden, he stopped his little troop and walked over, alone, to speak to the man. He passed just in front of us. His emblem of rank had been wrenched off his helmet, he wore no officer’s sword tassels, and the stars had been ripped from his collar; but these humiliations had left no other mark on him and there was something serious and dignified about the way he carried himself. In a friendly voice he called upon the lounging soldier to join the little troop he had gathered around him. ‘We have to return to barracks,’ he said. ‘The revolution is over. Now all we need is a little order, a little solidarity.’ He added that if he were needed he would remain with the others … but there was also such a thing as duty. Now was the time for
discipline
… With words such as these, and without giving an order
or asking to be obeyed, he just talked to the man quietly and resolutely.

The soldier obeyed.

This young officer then collected three or four other men who had been standing about in the same way, formed them up with the others and marched them all off in the direction of Károlyi Boulevard.

‘What a man!’ said Zichy. ‘If only there were more like him … then, perhaps…’

We turned into Lajos Kossuth Street and there we met several acquaintances. Among them was Miklós Vadász, the well-known designer, who was sporting a huge aster in his lapel and had about him a somewhat comic air of self-importance, making out that he was a secret revolutionary and hinting that it was he who had brought it all about. As it turned out it was not only he but everyone else we met who, according to the character of each, exhibited the full range of pleasure from radiant ecstasy down to a sort of modest relief which could be described as a ‘
post-extraction
joy’ or ‘Thank God it’s out at last’, which, of course is not much but still in its way a sort of joy.

The general euphoria was not really surprising. Everything that the general public knew about Károlyi tended to invite their trust and gave them hope. Just before the war he had made no secret of travelling to France and America, openly admitting that this was a political mission. When war broke out he left New York for home but was for a while detained in France. Finally the French government let him go without his having to attempt to escape. He then stopped in Switzerland before returning to Budapest
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