The Green Cadres were originally groups of deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War which were later joined by peasants discontented with wartime requisitioning, taxation, and poverty.

The Green Cadres were often nationalistic and initially portrayed as desirable partners to the national movements working to achieve independence of Slavic peoples from Austria-Hungary.

The new authorities of independent Czechoslovakia and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs found the Green Cadres problematic because of lack of discipline and suspected Bolshevik influence.

The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, faced with large-scale unrest in the countryside had to resort to inviting the Royal Serbian Army to restore order.

The move significantly limited options available to the newly declared state, and gave the Kingdom of Serbia considerable advantage during the process of creating Yugoslavia.

Austria-Hungary joined the Central Powers with Germany and the Ottoman Empire, which were opposed by the Triple Entente, which consisted of the United Kingdom supported by France and Russia.

Most of them were conscripts from rural areas who escaped from barracks, left hospitals while recovering from wounds or illnesses, or never reported back to their units after leave.

A strong Green Cadres presence was also found in the Hungarian Bakony Mountains, Slovenian Trnovo Forest Plateau, Transylvania, as well as the Wechsel and Semmering Pass regions of Lower Austria.

[9] The Green Cadres had no centralised leadership or formal command structure, although some groups in Croatia-Slavonia had appointed leaders, and enforced rudimentary martial law.

Many peasants engaged in it as a form of social protest by stealing from the rich to give to the poor – especially in the Carpathian Mountains (in Slovakia and Moravia) and in Croatia-Slavonia.

It associated them with the legend of Slovak highwayman Juraj Jánošík, Slovene Rokovnjači highwaymen who evaded Napoleonic Wars-era conscription in Carinthia, and the Austrian Trenck's Pandurs – a skirmisher unit raised in Slavonia and famous for pillaging in the First and Second Silesian Wars.

Several contemporary Green Cadres gained notoriety for their actions – for example Alfonz Šarh [sl] in Slovenia, and Jovo Stanisavljević Čaruga in Croatia-Slavonia.

In their view, it was particularly dangerous that the armed groups were significantly influenced by rumours spread by former prisoners of war returning from Russia after the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk treaty.

[15] In October and early November 1918, as Austria-Hungary disintegrated, violence involving the Green Cadres worsened – especially in Croatia-Slavonia, western Slovakia, and Galicia.

They were aimed at restoring a perceived rightful order disrupted by the war and remedying associated injustices, such as profiteering by merchants and landowners enabled by corrupt officials.

[18] At the same time, the National Council president Anton Korošec left Zagreb for talks in Geneva with the Yugoslav Committee, Serbian government, and opposition representatives, to discuss the method of unification with Serbia.

[25] The property of the nobility and other major landowners suffered heavy damage, and virtually all large estates (including those owned by the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox Church) were plundered.

[21] Authorities were quick to assign part of the blame for the unrest on the communists and the Croatian People's Peasant Party (HPSS), and addressed genuine grievances by political repression.

[27] The peasants of Croatia-Slavonia initially understood republicanism simply as negation of the existing order, including the abolition of military conscription and taxes, and the October to November unrest set it as the ultimate political objective for them.

[31] As the result of the violence, the National Council asked the Serbian Second Army commander Field Marshal Stepa Stepanović to maintain order in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 4 November.

[36] On 6 November, the Republic of Tarnobrzeg was established in Galicia by socialist activists Tomasz Dąbal and Eugeniusz Okoń with support of the Green Cadres.

The president of the assembly Bogdan Medaković attacked them as thieves, arsonists, killers, and enemies of the people, while the HPSS leader Stjepan Radić unsuccessfully advocated a conciliatory approach, calling on the Green Cadres to join the new national armed forces.

[39] The National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs declared a general amnesty for those convicted of treason, crimes against public order, or joining the Green Cadres on 30 October.

[43] Real or perceived influence of Bolshevism on the Green Cadres was a significant obstacle to greater inclusion of its members in the new national armed forces.

[45] The October–November 1918 unrest in Croatia-Slavonia as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina limited the options available to the National Council in Zagreb, and destined the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to failure.

[46] The Green Cadres reappeared in 1919 and 1920 in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and in Czechoslovakia in response to disappointment in reforms introduced by the new countries and to land seizures.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Green Cadres were established as a paramilitary organisation with changing wartime allegiances;[48] its activities continued until the 1950 Cazin rebellion.