In 1918 Austria-Hungary fell apart and this city — then still Pressburg in German and Pozsony in Hungarian — became part of Czechoslovakia; Czechoslovak troops occupied it at the start of 1919 and the name Bratislava was adopted the same year. It was not a smooth handover: most of the inhabitants spoke German or Hungarian, and there was protest and shooting in the streets in February 1919. Bratislava then became the seat of Slovak administration and grew fast, but the castle stayed exactly what it had been for a century: a burnt shell belonging to the army. Every plan for what to do with it went into a drawer.V roku 1918 sa Rakúsko-Uhorsko rozpadlo a mesto, ktoré sa vtedy ešte volalo Pressburg a Pozsony, pripadlo Československu; československé vojsko doň vstúpilo na začiatku roka 1919 a v tom istom roku dostalo meno Bratislava. Nešlo to hladko — väčšina obyvateľov hovorila po nemecky a po maďarsky a vo februári 1919 sa v uliciach demonštrovalo a strieľalo. Bratislava sa potom stala sídlom slovenských úradov a rýchlo rástla, hrad však zostal presne tým, čím bol celé storočie: vyhorenou škrupinou v majetku armády. Každý plán, čo s ním, skončil v zásuvke.
