Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/36

 packed with men on the steps, the couplings, the roofs; while unnumbered throngs were arriving from every part of the country.

But in place of the over-strained discipline of the bye-laws of the military jurisdiction, another discipline had arisen, springing splendid out of the free will of the people. The energy and organisation of the workers created out of nothing an excellent system of orderly methods, which in these days of great uncertainty made themselves felt. During the night, too, no disturbances worthy of note came to light, and it was the people themselves who held in check certain small knots of misusers of the blocked official vehicles. I saw numberless rapid emergency-motors which flew through the city with well-armed bodies of men to prevent robbery and plunder in the outer city precincts. It was satisfactory to see in these hours how the Revolution made innumerable people its unselfish friends—not friends in theory merely, but men with strong arms who were ready to prevent any discredit attaching to what had been won, and, withstanding a thousand temptations, remained true to their service in the cause of order.

Beside the Social-Democrats, who bore the chief burden, a significant share in the creation of the organisation of security was taken by the Bourgeois Radical Party, in whose Club in the Oktogon-Platz a feverish activity reigned, and they contributed much assistance to the work.

It was a quaint sight to see quite young students with red bands on their sleeves working as "Commissaries of Safety." They lacked authority, but a warm joy in their office occupied them all, even those who were mere onlookers.

Then toward midday came the first greater avalanche of rumours.

In the Underground-railway an elderly man was earnest in getting me to understand that Anarchy impended, and he informed me with the air of one "in the know" that General Kôvess was marching against the capital with an enormous army; whereupon another stranger declared that there could be no counter-revolution, since the revolutionary Government had seized all the hand-grenades. Others said they knew that the Austrian-Hungarian Bank had just been plundered,