Slovaks and Magyars
Revolution in Bohemia was carried out smoothly without the least bloodshed. It was a more complicated process in Slovakia for the slavery to which the Slovaks had been subjected was far more severe and debasing. In Bohemia the people had their Sokols, a highly developed national culture, strong economic and political organizations, a competent staff of public officials; but in Slovakia the entire public administration down to the last village constable was in the hands of Magyars. All the schools served principally the purpose of making Magyars out of Slovak children. No industrial concerns, no trading or co-operative societies, no social or educational associations were permitted to the Slovaks. The whole industrial and commercial life was in the hands of Magyar and German aristocrats and Magyarizing Jews, and so was more than half of the arable soil. Under such circumstances a revolution against the terrors of the old regime was bound to have many complications and cause some disorder.
Under Magyar rule governmental oppression to the majority of the people was personified by the village notary who executed the policies of the people higher up. This petty official was in the majority of cases the local despot. His most arbitrary actions he would back by “a decree” of the county authorities or even of Budapest government, and as the decree was in Magyar and the notary was the only man in the village who could read Magyar, there was no one to question the genuiness of his decree. One of the notary’s duties was to draw contracts and deeds, and again his exclusive knowledge of the only legal language of the country made it possible for him to insert clauses in the document quite contrary to the understanding of the Slovak signer. The notary was frequently in a conspiracy with the local Jewish dealer and thousands of cases occured annaully of Slovak peasants being cheated out of their little land through such conspiracies. For sometime prior to the war Galician Jews were migrating in large numbers to Upper Hungary and learning the Magyar language they identified themselves with the Magyar regime. During the war this group furnished the largest number of informers and many Slovaks were executed or sentenced to prison on the testimony of Jews who heard them express sentiments hostile to Hungary. The notary, too, saw many opportunities of enriching himself during the war. He made out all the last wills, and when a man was killed in the war it was very easy for the notary to change the testament to his personal advantage. The village notary was also in charge of military requisitions and he requisitioned for himself as well as for the state. Some of the notaries became millionaires during the war.
It was no wonder, therefore, that when the state authority broke down, the oppressed Slovak peasants turned on their immediate tyrants the notaries, district commissaries, the Jewish merchants and innkeepers, and the Magyar aristocrats. The gerdarmes fled from Slovak districts immediately upon the outbreak of the revolution and the people began to clean out Magyar officials and renegades. This was a simple procedure in districts bordering on Moravia; the notaries and gendarmes ran away, or if they did not they were beaten and driven out of their houses. In the northern counties, where the Czechoslovak troops could not get so easily Magyar officials determined to hold on to their privileged position and many skirmishes were fought between the people and the officials. Some regrettable incidents occured and local disorders continued for a month, until Vávro Šrobár, as representative of the Czechoslovak government, sent out emissaries to all districts calling on his countrymen to maintain order at all costs. On December 6th the provisional Slovak government made its temporary headquarters in Skalice near the Moravian boundary, and for a while everywhere in northern Hungary the Slovaks celebrated their emancipation.
But soon the Magyars got over their first scare and planned a campaign to save as much of Slovakia for Hungary as possible. The old officials returned north, of course to towns in which they were not known,
