Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/323

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
316
DIPLOMACY AND THE WAR

to colour the Danube with their dyes. A system whose maturity is such can naturally be preserved only by means of the wildest terrorism. Thousands were cast into prison without any guilt whatever, merely because they possessed property, exercised political influence, or played a leading part in society. Innumerable murders were perpetrated. All newspapers, with the exception of the official papers of the Government, were prohibited. As terrorism is one of their main means, special troops of terrorists were formed chiefly consisting of criminals and sentenced prisoners. Those who were not murdered by the terrorists suffered the most terrible anxiety as the result of the methods of the troops. It is incredible with what ability the terrorists knew how to spread fear in Budapest and everywhere where they were in power. Everyone was convinced that he was the subject of constant espionage, and everyone felt that a careless word or an inconsidered action could cost him his life. No one can form any idea as to the horror which a few thousand terrorists created who did not live through this terrible time, or who did not see immediately after the liberation the population which had suffered by starvation, become anæmic and had been aged and rendered excessively nervous by the constant danger.

Hungarian society, which had been isolated in foreign countries, only heard what the tyrants in the capital allowed to be published. They gained a wrong view of the events of the world, and believed that the revolution was victorious everywhere, and for this