When he looked out of his carriage window and saw the shameful spectacle of the railway station fortified against him, his fine, sharp features were distorted with rage. He took it in at a glance: he had been trapped. Capt. Gerö went up to him and told him he was a prisoner. Then he informed him that Károlyi wanted to negotiate with him and expected him at the House of Parliament. Mackensen protested, refused to go, and desired that Károlyi or his representative should come to the station. Capt. Gerö informed him that any refusal on his part would have disastrous consequences for his army. After fierce argument the Field-Marshal reluctantly yielded, but declared that he would not leave his carriage till the machine-guns and the kinematograph apparatus were removed from the station. This was conceded. When he got out his face was white with anger and his chest heaved so that the decorations on it shook. He walked with his head erect to the closed car that was waiting for him. The meeting between him and Károlyi took place in the House of Parliament, in the Prime Minister’s room. A German friend of mine gave me the following account of it, received directly from the Field-Marshal’s lips. Károlyi received him standing and advanced a few steps to meet him. Behind him the social democratic secretary for War, the little Jewish electrician, was making himself as small as possible. Mackensen remained rigid, with both hands behind his back, glaring at the two men. He listened without a word to Károlyi, who, putting the responsibility on the powers of the Entente, requested him to give up all the arms of his army in conformity with the Belgrade Armistice. The Field-Marshal declined and said that as far as he was concerned, and according to his instructions from Spa, the conditions of the armistice concluded on the Western front were in force. He also declared that he would not leave Hungary till the last man of his army was over the frontier. Károlyi informed him that he could not leave in any case, as he, with his whole army, was going to be interned in Fóth. “I did not expect that!” said Mackensen. And hard words were spoken between them. The Hungarian Government, however, had left itself a loophole. At first Károlyi threatened to intern the whole army, but at length he conceded that disarmament would be sufficient, and this Mackensen accepted only conditionally with the consent of the German Government. During the debate Károlyi stuttered more than usual, and when this painful meeting came to an end he proffered his hand hesitatingly to Mackensen. The Field-Marshal measured him with contempt: “I have had to do with many people in my life, but I have never before met a man who was so devoid of all honour as you are.” Then, with a slight nod, he turned his back on him. And the hand of Michael Károlyi, which had already been contemptuously ignored by the French General Franchet d’Esperay, was left empty in the air.