RIOTS IN WENSEL SQUARE
The disorders leading to the declaring of martial law were described by the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger a few days later in these terms:
The chief demonstration in the new outbreak occurred in Wensel Square in Prague on May 20. The demonstration was a big one and reached such pitch that in the evening the police had to interfere. The Czechs sang their patriotic hymn with its additional anti-German verses and raised cheers for President Wilson and Professor Masaryk, the Bohemian delegate now in the United States. Although Wensel Square was thereafter barred to the demonstrators by the police, the demonstrations were repeated at 10 o'clock at night, and not until midnight did the mounted and foot police succeed in restoring order.
Another account gave other details:
At the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Czech National Theatre speeches violently attacking Germany were delivered, and the renewal of the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary was denounced. Several deputies addressed the crowd, urging resistance to the end and the sacrifice of wealth and blood for Bohemia. The theatre was then closed and rioting occurred in the streets outside. The Jugoslavs who had participated in the Bohemian festivities were ordered to leave the city. Crowds singing patriotic songs accompanied them to the railway station.
In the next week about 800 Czechs were arrested at Prague and other Bohemian cities on a charge of seditious conspiracy.
REVOLT IN AUSTRIAN ARMY
Riots and disorders in Bohemia continued to increase during the following weeks. Crowds at Chozen, exasperated by police brutality, set fire to barracks and to the City Hall, where the mounted police were lodged. Eight of the officers were burned to death. At Kolin the people pulled down the Austrian and raised the Bohemian flag. Public buildings were burned at Tabor and in other Bohemian towns, also at Olmutz, Moravia. At Prague the offices of two German newspapers were sacked. The Neue Freie Presse of Vienna declared: "Only the tenacity and union of those who desire the preservation of the State can make the monarchy survive this great crisis."
Mutinies among the Slavic troops in the Austrian Army also assumed serious proportions. A Vienna dispatch to the Berliner Tageblatt on May 3 gave the following details:
The troubles began in the Slovene Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment at Judenbourg. The German officers were killed, after which the troops gave themselves up to acts of anarchy. In time they were driven into the mountains, where they finally were disarmed after a combat.
The Czechs of Pilsen, stationed at Fumberg, also revolted. The rising was put down by the sword. Part of the rebels, having succeeded in passing the frontier, took refuge in the mountains of Saxony, where they were made prisoner by the Germans.
A third case of serious revolt took place at Funkirchen, where a Serbian regiment from Austria revolted and massacred the officers. The exact details of these revolts are difficult to obtain. It appears, however, the instigators were Austrian soldiers returned from the prisoners' camps in Russia.