1914–1918 A war that stayed just over the mountainsVojna, ktorá ostala za horami

Men from the Spiš towns were called up into Hungarian regiments and died in Galicia, in Serbia and in Italy like everyone else in the monarchy. In the winter of 1914–15 the Russian army pushed through the Carpathian passes into the north-east of what is now Slovakia. It never reached the Poprad basin, but it came close enough for people here to understand that the empire could lose. When Austria-Hungary collapsed in the autumn of 1918, the German-speaking burghers of Poprad woke up in a state called Czechoslovakia that they had not chosen.Mužov zo spišských miest odviedli do uhorských plukov a umierali v Haliči, v Srbsku i v Taliansku ako všetci ostatní v monarchii. V zime 1914 – 1915 prenikla ruská armáda cez karpatské priesmyky na severovýchod dnešného Slovenska. Do popradskej kotliny sa nedostala, bola však dosť blízko na to, aby tu ľudia pochopili, že ríša môže prehrať. Keď sa na jeseň 1918 Rakúsko-Uhorsko rozpadlo, zobudili sa nemeckí mešťania Popradu v štáte s menom Československo, ktorý si nevybrali.