Page 313 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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aCta
sion, which had been withdrawn from the Italian front, was placed in the region of Ruma in
Syrmia. One of the regiment’s battalions, reinforced by 50 gendarmes, caught 56 people in
the vicinity of Ruma between 29 and 31 August. During the last great raid between mid-Sep-
tember and early October, only a few deserters were arrested. According to official sources, in
September, there were 25,000 soldiers missing from the reserve units stationed in Croatia. 43
In the region of Temesvár (Timičoara), “The Green Cadre” beset the troops of the Arad
garrison and the 8th (Lugos [Lugoj]) Reserve Battalion, which were sent to confront them.
In Croatia, namely the regions of Károlyváros (Karlovac), Petrova, Gora and Ruma, desert-
ers put the policing troops of the 70th Infantry Division to flight several times and kept the
forests of the Fruska-Gora under their control. 44

the rOle Of the POlicing trOOPs in the cOurse Of the disintegratiOn
Of the austrO-hungarian MOnarchy
On 23 October, in Fiume (Rijeka), the soldiers of a company of the Imperial and Royal
79th Infantry Regiment, 90% of whom were former prisoners-of-war, wanted to put out a
Croatian flag on their barracks. The local police, joined by the Styrian 153rd Landsturm
Infantry Battalion as policing troops, were deployed against them. They were disarmed by
the rebels. The revolting soldiers, who were pillaging in town, could only be stopped by a
volley of fire by further detailed policing units of the 153-ers, who barricaded themselves
into their barracks. Pillage took place throughout the night. In the morning of 24, after the
arrival of a 250 strong reinforcement group, the revolting combat company of 79-ers was
disarmed, and the unit was shipped to Pola (Pula) the following day. The Fiume (Rijeka)
45
events stimulated mass desertion and pillage in Croatia. On 25 October, the participants of
the Royal Hungarian Army’s machine gun course in Pozsega (Slavonska Požega) armed
themselves with weapons, left the barracks and started to pillage. By noon of 29 October,
the military police battalions of the 65th and 26th “common” Infantry Regiments, together
with two battalions of the 32nd Infantry Division had expelled from the town of Pozsega
(Slavonska Požega) the rebels, deserters and the pillaging peasants that had joined them. On
28 October, the 65th “common” Infantry Regiment’s military police battalion was deployed
against rebels in a place called Nova Kapela. Order was only restored on 29, at a loss of 4
people, after the arrival of three companies of the 32nd Infantry Division. In Nova Gradiska,
too, order was restored by three companies of the 65th Infantry Regiment. On 29 October,
in Eszék (Osijek), the 26th “common” Infantry Regiment’s military police battalion was de-
ployed against the 23rd Rifle Regiment’s revolting soldiers who mingled with the crowd. Six
people were killed and many more were injured during the incident. The reserve battalions of
the 78th “common” and 28th Honvéd Infantry Regiments, which were stationed in the same
town, refused to obey orders. On the following day, 150 soldiers pillaged and ravaged at the
46
railway station of Brod, a place located on the Sava River.
At the end of October, a revolutionary movement started in Budapest. As a consequence

43 Ibid: 76-78.
44 Farkas: 195.
45 Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan. Vol. II: 187-189; Farkas: 267-268; Tóth: 121.
46 Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan. Vol. II: 190-196.