Slovakia

After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, the economy of Slovakia was affected by structural changes in industry that led to the dissolution of dozens of key businesses. Structural changes mostly affected the metallurgy and metalworking industry in Eastern and Central Slovakia. Viable industries included the cellulose and paper industry, building material industry, brown coal mining, magnesite and asbestos mining, the power industry, electrical and technical, rubber or printing industries.

The occurrence of tree lines started to increase from the Renaissance period. At that time, however, it was merely landscaping in precisely designed ornamental gardens. Planting lines of trees along public roads started to be more frequent in the early 18th century, coming from the French school of modern road building. Trees became a fully-fledged part of a technical installation - a road. At first, their function was primarily aesthetic - helping to incorporate the road structure into the countryside. Later on, other economical and practical advantages were discovered.

Environmental history started to be formed as an autonomous discipline in the 1960s in the United States of America. Prof. Donald Worster is considered to be its founder. The discipline was formed under high pressure from a massive developing environmental movement that had emerged as a response to the deteriorating global environment. A negative mood was predominantly stirred up by the unrestrained development of industry, ruthless towards the landscape, and by the formation of a new "consumer" society.

This article explores the phenomenon of the ‘Green Cadres' at the end of the First World War in Austria-Hungary, with a focus on events in western Slovakia 1918-1920. The Green Cadres were bands of army deserters and radicalized peasants who hid in the forests and mountains of the monarchy during the last year of the war and then violently attempted to topple the social-political order in many localities as the state collapsed.