I. Returning to Hungary after a successful escape through Spain and Italy, he volunteered and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army, in the artillery, with the rank of lieutenant, and fought at the Uzsok Pass in Carpathian Ruthenia. After having been declared unfit for service on the front, he went to work as a rearguard in Pilsen (Škoda Works) and Vienna (Arsenal), then served as commander of a technical repair unit until his demobilisation from the army in 1917. Cabinet of Mihály Károlyi and the Soviet republic During the Aster Revolution at the end of World War I, he led large protests at the Royal Palace of Budapest to demand the appointment of the Károlyi government; he actively participated in and was wounded in the so-called "Battle of the Chain Bridge" on 28 October 1918. Following the formation of the government on 31 October, he was appointed Secretary of State for War in Károlyi's first cabinet on 1 November, which came under his control because of the small size of his superior, minister Béla Linder's entity. According to Károlyi, Friedrich was an "uncontrollable demagogue." The old enthusiasm between the prime minister and his deputy minister cooled quickly. Friedrich approached the more conservative section of the party, while Károlyi relied increasingly on the Social Democrats. Károlyi proclaimed himself a follower of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, thus he and his followers trusted the Entente Powers and pinned their hopes for maintaining Hungary's territorial integrity, the securing of a separate peace, and exploiting Károlyi's close connections in France. By contrast, Friedrich, as a prominent member of the moderate wing, rejected Károlyi's "naive" foreign policy and sought to set up a powerful army under the old leadership of military officers, contradicting Linder's pacifist manifesto. After the dismissal of Linder, Friedrich was a close associate of Albert Bartha, the new defence minister. He maintained a relationship with counter-revolutionary groups, thus gradually drifted into the political right-wing. In the dismemberment of the party that finally took place in January 1919 between conservatives and progressives, Friedrich left, along with the majority, while Károlyi only managed to keep less than a quarter of the party next to him. Friedrich was dismissed as Secretary of State for War on 8 February 1919. He formed an opposition party along with other former cabinet members, such as Minister of Education Márton Lovászy and Minister of the Interior Tivadar Batthyány. In the coming