Twelve days later, a Hungarian rebel force nearly a thousand strong attacked Târgu Mureș, a major town south of Eisenmarkt.
With large numbers of troops having been transferred away, fewer than three hundred defenders remained in the city.
The rebels took it in just two days.
At the same time, the Serbian rebels swept through Timișoara and did not stop until they reached Temes Fortress.
The Romanians, too, launched attacks throughout the Eastern Provinces.
For a time, beacon fires of war sprang up everywhere across southeastern Austria. The Hungarian Noble Parliament, which had originally controlled the region, was thrown into a panic. On one hand, it pulled what few troops it could from the north to march south and suppress the uprising; on the other, it hurried to Brno to plead with His Majesty the Emperor for help.
Encouraged by the rebels' string of victories, even more factions that had previously been watching from the sidelines entered the fray.
From Dolental all the way to Eisenmarkt, nearly every town answered the call of the Independence Movement, while the countryside had long since become the rebel army's stronghold.
Even Slovakia began to stir restlessly...
It could only be said that, as a "loosely assembled" empire, Austria's deep-seated flaws had been laid bare at this moment.
The Empire's various peoples were as clearly divided as rivers and boundaries, unable even to speak one another's languages. Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia, and the like had originally been principalities, merely ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor.
When the Empire was strong, it was not much of a problem. But at the slightest gust of trouble, every group immediately began entertaining thoughts of breaking away and going it alone.
Northern Austria.
Brno.
Kobzl, the Minister of the Interior, strode out of the Emperor's temporary residence with a