forces deployed across the Danube and Sava rivers, which represented Serbia's pre-war border with Austria-Hungary. The liberation of Serbia was largely complete. By the second half of October 1918, Austria-Hungary was rapidly disintegrating, despite Charles I of Austria's offer to federalise the empire. In the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen (the Hungarian part of the dual monarchy), the government was deposed as a result of the 28–31 October Aster Revolution, and then replaced by the Hungarian National Council, which was led by Mihály Károlyi. Due to his pacifist views, Károlyi was the most popular Hungarian politician at the time. On 29 October, the Sabor of Croatia-Slavonia broke its legal ties with Austria-Hungary, and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (comprising the South Slavic-inhabited Habsburg lands) became independent. As the newly proclaimed authorities seized power, violence became widespread outside the capitals. Tens of thousands of army deserters, known as Green Cadres, resorted to banditry and looting for survival. Representatives of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs met with Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić in Geneva on 6–9 November to discuss the creation of a unified South Slavic state, which even then was sometimes referred to as Yugoslavia. Prelude Austria-Hungary signed the armistice of Villa Giusti with Italy on 3 November. The same day Bojović informed the Serbian Supreme Command that lieutenant colonels Koszlovány and Dormanti, attached to the Hungarian general staff, had reached the Dunav Division's headquarters on authority of Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza, with offers of an armistice. This information was then forwarded to d'Espèrey, who provided the Chief-of-staff of the Serbian Supreme Command, vojvoda Živojin Mišić, with a list of six conditions to be demanded from Hungary before any negotiations could commence. They included the disarmament and withdrawal of Hungarian forces from a zone extending from the pre-war Serbian and Romanian borders, the surrender of all vessels on the Danube, Sava, and Drina rivers and in the Adriatic Sea, and the supply of a delegate authorised to discuss the terms of the armistice. Mišić replied to d'Espèrey with a demand that Austro-Hungarian forces should evacuate from all territories reserved for a future South Slavic state, and requested that the Serbian Army be allowed to occupy the Banat and Bačka regions up to the Mureș–Baja–Subotica–Pécs line. He noted that Serbia had been promised these areas following the 1915 Treaty of London. In view of this