Banská Bystrica, a city that had risen on the strength of its mineral veins, had by now become the heart of Hungarian rule over Slovakia.
Countless shoddy weapons were being made in the city, then sent to the Hungarian front for use by the conscripts seized from all over.
The rifles often had crooked barrels, loose triggers, ugly designs, and no safety features whatsoever. Even so, the Hungarian Army took all they could get. After all, these firearms were far more intimidating than bladed weapons.
With the situation deteriorating to this point, the Hungarian Government had thrown everything it had into the effort. Yet the official Hungarian arms factories could still produce only two light cannons and 1,200 rifles a month.
Honvéd was the highest-ranking Hungarian official in Slovakia. He didn't want to make this junk either, but even after gathering every blacksmith in Slovakia, he couldn't find a single qualified gunsmith.
Without specialized equipment, the blacksmiths could only rely on their imaginations and hastily dismantled models to make guns. They had no experience, either, which was why the weapons they produced were so absurd.
Honvéd wanted to bring university students and professors into the arms factories, but there wasn't a single university in all of Slovakia, and there were barely any high schools.
Unless he could take Pressburg, he had no choice but to rely on the blacksmiths in the towns and villages to make his guns.
Historically, Honvéd had also been a winning general, keeping the troops Prince Windisch-Grätz sent to suppress the rebellion and the royalists in Slovakia dancing in the palm of his hand.
By then, he had already turned Banská Bystrica into a fortified city. In his estimation, it could hold off the Austrian Army for at least three months.
So when Honvéd learned that