Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/52

 This greatest danger, too, was overcome.

It came to plunderings in several districts, but the strict organisation of the Social Democracy and of the Soldiers' Council maintained order. It came to no anarchy, to no nightmare of plunder, and what did take place was the work of political agents provocateurs in the pay of the Nationalities, as well as of the expression of the people's fury against the oppressor in the land and the winners of the war. Yet little blood flowed, and where it flowed alcohol was the chief cause. The incredibly severe Government order, by which the sale of alcohol in every form was forbidden under heavy penalties, proved a blessing—and only where great distances prevented its execution for the time being, did some small catastrophes befall.

But the sober mind of the people was master of temperament, and almost throughout the country the local guardians of order stamped out the bands that sporadically showed themselves.

The Revolution was too popular for the great mass of the people not to be willing to guard with their own bodies what had been won.