An extraordinary state of things was to be seen at Teme[vs]var, where
the Magyar mayor was one of the most worried men in Europe. Until
February 1919 he was being asked to serve not two but several masters.
Some uncertainty existed as to whether the town was under French or
Serbian military command, but that was not a very serious question.
There was at Novi Sad a temporary Government for all the Voivodina, this
was the "Narodna Uprava" (National Government), consisting of eleven
commissaries, each over a department, who had been appointed by the
Voivodina Assembly of 690 Serbs, 12 Slovaks, 2 Magyars and 6
Germans--one deputy for every thousand of the population. The mayor of
Teme[vs]var could have reconciled the wishes of the Narodna Uprava and
the military authorities, but there was a Magyar Jewish Socialist, a
certain Dr. Roth, who had elected himself to be head of the "People's
Government," and was subsequently appointed by telephone from Buda-Pest
the representative of the Hungarian Government. Roth organized a civil
guard, mostly of former Hungarian soldiers, who--although he paid them
well (since Buda-Pest had given him 12 million crowns for propaganda
purposes), yet had a way of borrowing a coat or cap from Serbian
soldiers and, arrayed in these, holding up pedestrians after nightfall.
Roth had therefore been granted the right to rule, but--save for the
dubious guard--his power was only that which the Serbian or French
authorities would give him. He issued many orders to the mayor, some of
which were very questionable, as for instance when he sent provisions
out of the Banat to Hungary. This produced so great a scarcity that the
flour-mill employees thought it was the time to go on strike; they
demanded 80 per cent. increase in wages, without undertaking to go back
to work if they received it. "I am not a politician," said the harassed
mayor, "I only want to save the town from starving." But the Narodna
Uprava would send no food, since the town (that is to say Roth) would
not acknowledge its authority. There were many rumours as to how Roth
spent the sums from Buda-Pest, and a weekly Socialist sheet, which he
himself had founded, but had now made over to a couple of his friends
(likewise Magyar Jews), called Fuerth and Isaac Gara, started to bring
charges against its founder. Roth, whose previous resources were not
large and were well known to Fuerth and Gara, used now to frequent the
fashionable cafe and indulge, night after night, in potations of
champagne, inviting to his table not Fuerth nor Gara, but the French
General. This officer, in the advance through Serbia, had captured a
great many prisoners and a very large number of guns, arousing
everybody's enthusiasm by his personal bravery, his dashing tactics and
the skill with which he executed them. He was a most original person,
who would sometimes about midnight in that cafe at Teme[vs]var leap on
to one of the marble tables and there perform a _pas de seul_. Dr. Roth
succeeded in worming himself into this merry warrior's good graces, and
Fuerth and Gara looked with jaundiced eyes on the carouses of these two.
And in their newspaper, the _Teme[vs]var_, they said very biting things.
Thereupon Roth complained about them to the Serbian authorities, asking
that they should be sent to Belgrade. When the Serbs did nothing he made
application to the French, and they--not aware of all the
circumstances--sent the couple under guard to Belgrade, where they were
interned. The mayor continued to receive the orders of the various
parties, and then suddenly Roth organized a strike which lasted for two
days--the railways, the electric light, the water-supply and the shops
all joining in the movement. There was even a Magyar flag on the town
hall, and cries were raised by a procession for the Magyar Republic. But
this time he had gone too far. An order came from Belgrade, from General
Franchet d'Esperey, and Roth was taken in a car to Arad, where he was
deposited on the other side of the line of demarcation.