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.