Holíč's men were conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 and sent to Serbia, to Galicia and to the Italian front, and the town spent four years short of men, horses and bread. The war finished the monarchy: Austria-Hungary broke apart in the autumn of 1918 and Czechoslovakia was declared on 28 October. For Holíč this was not an abstraction. The family that had owned the château, the model farm and much of the land around the town since 1736 had just stopped being the ruling house of anything.Holíčskych mužov odviedli v roku 1914 do rakúsko-uhorskej armády a poslali do Srbska, do Haliče a na taliansky front; mesto štyri roky trpelo nedostatkom chlapov, koní aj chleba. Vojna monarchiu ukončila: Rakúsko-Uhorsko sa na jeseň 1918 rozpadlo a 28. októbra vyhlásili Československo. Pre Holíč to nebola abstrakcia. Rodina, ktorá od roku 1736 vlastnila zámok, majer a veľkú časť pôdy okolo mesta, práve prestala byť vládnucim rodom čohokoľvek.
