Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/44

 whether he shall pander to the mood of the moment, or shall follow his proper calling, which may run counter to that mood.

As I was going at half-past nine by the Gresham Palace to the Police Gendarmerie, a throng of armed people surprised me. It was said that about thirty thousand Russian prisoners-of-war had broken out of the prison-camp near Budapest. The Russians had then procured weapons of all sorts—even artillery, according to some accounts—by plundering depôts.

And now was presented afresh a startling proof of the capabilities of the city and its citizens.

The news spread rapidly through the streets; officers and civilians ran through the most out-of-the-way nooks, and a quite astonishing number of volunteers offered themselves, who, just as they were, as they came out of office or shop, cafá, restaurant or house, went on foot, by tram, many too by droshky, to the Municipal Gendarmerie, to be armed there. They all came quite willingly and spontaneously, to resist the reported advance of the Russians and protect the capital from irruption, plunder and anarchy. It was a singular sight to see one heavy motor-wagon after another roll off out of the courtyard of the Gendarmerie, thickly thronged with the most dissimilar people, all carrying rifles, revolvers, and, in the bottom of the wagons, machine-guns, to pass away over the Kettenbrücke and carry help and protection to the threatened outer parts of Ofen. In the Zrinyi-utca, the street in front of the Gendarmerie, were a crowd of officers, who spontaneously took over the command of the small groups.

A more agitated evening Budapest never had.

The house-doors were hurriedly closed; the cafés let down their revolving-shutters; only a few people were to be seen.

All this lasted perhaps half-an-hour.

And then came the relief

There were no Russian hordes coming—not thirty thousand, not twenty, not ten thousand—in fact, no thousands, only some troops of prisoners, who, without arms, only armed with their cartridge belts, were making, singing, toward Buda-