The Times History of the War - The Collapse of Germany

The collapse of Germany

This week's chapter examines the effects of the blockade, Ukrainian food supplies, war loans and national credit, submarine failures, socialism in the army, moral weakening of the people, Lichnowsky memoir, Herr von Kuhlmann and the peace offensive, fall of von Kuhlmann, Admiral von Hintze Foreign Minister, a ministry of failure, effect of the Battle of Amiens, Prince Max Chancellor, socialistic participation, effect of Cambrai, Main Headquarters demands peace, the Fourteen Points, socialist impatience, abdication of the Kaiser, the Armistice

The Socialists of Bavaria passed a resolution that Germany should be reconstituted into a people's State, and the Munich papers called on the Kaiser to give a shining exampIe to his people by sacrificing himself

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Abdication of the Kaiser November 11, 1918

I hear that the Kaiser with a suite of 10 gentlemen, in two court carriages, passed the Dutch frontier near Maastricht and close to Eysden this morning. Secrecy is observed concerning his movements

Read the full story The following news was transmitted on Saturday through the wireless stations of the German Government:

The German Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, has issued the following decree: The Kaiser and King has decided to renounce the Throne. The Imperial Chancellor will remain in office until the questions connected with the abdication of the Kaiser, the renouncing by the Crown Prince of the Throne of the German Empire and of Prussia, and the setting up of a Regency have been settled. For the Regency he intends to appoint Deputy Ebert as Imperial Chancellor [our Hague Correspondent gives the foregoing sentence as, “He contemplates proposing to the Regent the appointment of Deputy Ebert as Chancellor”], and he proposes that a Bill should be brought in for the establishment of a law providing for the immediate promulgation of general suffrage, and for a constitutional German National Assembly which will settle finally the future form of Government of the German nation and of those peoples which might be desirous of coming within the Empire.

Berlin, November 9, 1918.

The Imperial Chancellor, PRINCE MAX OF BADEN.

Yesterday the wireless stations of the German Government sent out the following news: Herr Ebert, the new imperial Chancellor, has issued the following manifesto: “German Citizens, Fellow Citizens! Prince Max, the previous Imperial Chancellor, with the assent of the whole of the Secretaries of State, has handed over to me the business of the Imperial Chancellor. In accord with the parties, I am about to proceed with the formation of a new Government, and I shall shortly inform the public of the result. The new Government will be a people’s Government. Its endeavour will be to bring peace to the German people as speedily as possible, and to strengthen the freedom which it has gained.

“Fellow Citizens, I beg you all to accord me your support in the difficult task that awaits us. You are aware how seriously the war has menaced the food of the people, which is the first prerequisite of political life. The political revolution must not be allowed to disturb the feeding of the people. It must be the first duty of all in town and country not to impede, but to facilitate, the production of food supplies, and their import into the towns. Shortage of supplies means plunder and robbery, which results in misery to all. The poorest would suffer the most; the industrial workers would be the most severely affected. He who obstructs the food supplies and other necessaries or the requisite means of transport for their distribution, trespasses in the most serious manner against the whole community.

Fellow Citizens, I urgently beg you all - leave the streets; preserve calm and order.

Ebert, Imperial Chancellor.

Berlin, November 9, 1918.”

COPENHAGEN, Nov. 10. An official message from Berlin states that the Government has issued the following proclamation: “Fellow Citizens. On this day the peoples have obtained their freedom. The Social Democratic Party has undertaken the Government and has invited the Independent Socialists to enter the Government with equal rights. The new Government will organize the election and constitution of a National Parliament.”

The proclamation is signed by the new Chancellor, Herr Ebert, and by Herren Scheidemann and Landsberg. The Chancellor Ebert has also issued the following proclamation: “The new Government has taken charge of the Administration in order to preserve the German people from civil war and famine and to fulfil their legitimate claim to autonomy. The Government can only solve this problem if all officials in town and country help. I know that it will be difficult for many people to work together with the new men who have taken charge of the Empire, but I appeal to their love of our people. To omit to organize would, in this serious hour, mean anarchy for Germany and would involve the country in untold misery. Therefore help the Fatherland with fearless and indefatigable work for the sake of the future. Every one to his post until relief is forthcoming.”

The following news, transmitted yesterday through the wireless stations of the German Government, deals with the formation of the new Government in Berlin: During the course of the forenoon of Saturday, November 9, the formation of the new German People’s Government was initiated. The greater part of the Berlin garrison and of other troops stationed there temporarily went over, without further ado, to the new Government. The leader of the deputations of the Social Democratic Party declared that they would not shoot against the people, but that they would in accord with the People’s Government intercede in favour of the maintenance of order. Thereupon, in the offices and other public buildings, the guards stationed there were withdrawn.

The business of the Imperial Chancellor is being carried on by the Social Democratic Deputy Herr Ebert. It is presumed that apart from the representatives of the recent Majority group, three Independent Social Democrats will also enter the future Government. In an extra edition of Vorwarts, the central organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the following call to a general strike is published: “The Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council of Berlin has decided upon a general strike. All factories are at a standstill. The necessary administration of the people is maintained. A large part of the garrison, in close (gcsc7mlessenen) bodies of troops with machine-guns and guns, has placed itself at the disposal of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council. The movement will be guided in common by the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. The Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council will take charge of the maintenance of quiet and order. Long live the Social Republic. The Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council.”

KAISER IN HOLLAND

The Hague, Nov 10.

I hear that the Kaiser with a suite of 10 gentlemen, in two court carriages, passed the Dutch frontier near Maastricht and close to Eysden this morning. Secrecy is observed concerning his movements, but I hear that he has already arrived at Middachten, in De Steseng, a popular summer resort in the province of Gelderland. Middachten is the property of Count Bentinck, an old friend of the Kaiser’s. It is an ancient house rebuilt in 1697, and the Kaiser has stayed there before. Every precaution is being taken to secure the Kaiser’s seclusion. A report reaches me that the Kaiser’s suite, so far as it consists of officers, will be interned.

William, eighth Count of Bentinck, Baron of Aldenburg, and Count of Waldeck Limpurg, is a mediatized Sovereign Count of the German Empire and a knight of the Teutonic Order. He is a hereditary member of the First Chamber of Wurtemberg and a lieutenant in the Prussian Guard, and was formerly attached to the German Embassy in London. Count Bentinck was born in London in 1880, and succeeded his father in 1912.

Kaiserism and after November 11, 1918

All over Germany dynasties and powers are disappearing from view. Prussia, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, the Mecklenburgs, Brunswick, Hesse - and the list is not complete - are suppressing their Governments

Read the full story (By Our Correspondent formerly in Berlin)

The German Empire is in process of dissolution. On the one hand, Socialist organizations, borrowing their name but not as yet, it would seem, their methods from the Russian Soviets, are assuming local powers, seizing the military and administrative machinery, and endeavouring to establish the new order. On the other hand, the Imperial Constitution and the Constitutions of the States are going by the board, and the German Socialist Majority, at first by the use of constitutional or semi-constitutional forms, is assuming responsibility. As yet it is impossible to estimate the real situation. Upon the whole, the initial movements appear to have been orderly. But news now flows irregularly out of Germany and through uncertain channels. We do not yet know whether the local risings are initiated from a single centre, and still less whether that single centre is Berlin, where the Socialist loaders are working feverishly to dominate and to co-ordinate. As yet we hear little or nothing of the revolutionary factors outside the Socialist Majority, almost nothing of the Socialist Minority except that the Socialist Majority eagerly invites their cooperation, nothing of the extremists except that Herr Liebknecht appears to be taking part in the organized demonstrations in Berlin - and, again, nothing of the Junkers and industrialists, and nothing of the Bureaucracy, upon whose attitude almost everything, and especially the food supply and transport, must depend in the coming days.

The constitutional upheaval is sweeping enough. All over Germany dynasties and powers are disappearing from view. Prussia, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, the Mecklenburgs, Brunswick, Hesse - and the list is not complete - are suppressing their Governments, and Hamburg and Bremen are becoming “Republics” in fact as well as in name. Meanwhile everything indicates that the nominal control of the Empire, for what that at the moment is worth, has passed by very rapid stages from the Kaiser to a predominantly Socialist Government.

A NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Up to Friday last the issue was the abdication of the Kaiser or the retirement of the Socialist Ministers, and possibly of non-Socialist Ministers, from their offices under Prince Max of Baden. The Kaiser ultimately agreed to renounce the Prussian Throne, and the Crown Prince agreed to renounce the succession. It appears from the so-called “decree” of Prince Max that the intention was to postpone the formal abdications until the question of a Regency had been settled, and then to obtain from the Regent the appointment to the Imperial Chancellorship of Herr Ebert as leader of the Socialist Majority in the Reichstag. And this bargain already included the proposal of legislation for the setting up of a German National Assembly to decide the future government of the peoples within the present German Empire, and - subject to their adhesion - of the people of German Austria.

Suddenly Prince Max disappears from the scene. Herr Ebert proclaims that Prince Max has transferred to him the powers of the Imperial Chancellor, and a few hours later Herr Ebert and two Socialist colleagues announce that “the Socialist Democratic Party (ie, the Socialist Majority) has undertaken the Government”, that the Socialist Minority has been invited to cooperate “with equal rights,” and that “the new Government will organize the election and constitution of a national Parliament.”

Events will soon show what reality there is in all this; whether the local movements can be pieced together, whether order sufficient for unity can be maintained through the economic crisis, the acceptance of the terms dictated by the Allies, and the demobilization, and then whether the National Assembly can be made the basis of national reorganization. The revolutionaries of 1918 are harking back to 1848, and to the “Constituent Assembly” which met in the Pauluskirche at Frankfurt. The Frankfurt Parliament was a miserable fiasco, which ended after abundant talk in the burial of German unity and the triumph of reaction - thus preparing the way for that other unification of Germany which Bismarck accomplished by “blood and iron” with the consequences that Germany is reaping now in war and defeat at the hands of the whole civilized world. It is a very different German stage that is being set in 1918. But it still remains to be seen whether, in circumstances of incalculable difficulty, this venerable expedient can bring order out of chaos. Have the forces of reaction really abdicated, or are they going into hiding?

The Kaiser's Abdication November 11, 1918

The false friend of every country in turn, the Kaiser was the greatest enemy of his own country and became the curse of the world, destined to be remembered for all time as the vain, versatile, emotional, and unscrupulous wielder of forces which he could never control

Read the full story One thing at least is certain. William II, King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Count of Hohenzollern, Imperial and Royal Majesty, has passed from the stage, never to return.

“Who are these Hohenzollerns?” asked Bismarck, whose family was settled in Brandenburg long before they were. Yet it is just 500 years since Frederick I of Hohenzollern was invested with the Electorate of Brandenburg, just 400 years since Albert of Hohenzollern secularized East Prussia, just 300 years since Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, was invested with the Duchy of East Prussia, and 217 years since Frederick I became “King in Prussia”. And now the Hohenzollerns have ruined the whole of the Germany which established their Empire less than 50 years ago.

This is not the time to estimate the whole character of the Kaiser, or to examine the extraordinary part which he has played in the history of the world. “On the ocean, and on the most remote shores beyond,” said the Kaiser when he was moulding tho first stages of the challenge to England, “no decisive events shall henceforth take place without Germany and without the German Emperor. I am not of opinion that our German peoples poured out their blood and marched to victory under the leadership of their princes 30 years ago in order that Germany should be thrust aside when momentous international decisions are being taken. To take adequate and, if necessary, the most drastic measures against such contingencies is my duty and my proudest privilege.”

He certainly acted up to this profession. There is no chapter of international affairs during his reign in which he has not played a more or less “decisive” part, now incurring galling diplomatic defeats, now sowing successfully the seeds of international dissension, and in the end provoking the greatest war in history, incurring the greatest defeat, and wrecking his country as few countries so firmly established have ever been wrecked. Has ever the heir to so splendid an inheritance achieved so much in this direction and in that, only in the end to destroy everything because he could not see the inevitable results of an ambition that was really unprincipled, however he might cloak its hypocrisies?

Probably he never himself knew to what goal he was steering. The false friend of every country in turn, he was the greatest enemy of his own country and became the curse of the world, destined to be remembered for all time as the vain, versatile, emotional, and unscrupulous wielder of forces which he could never control.

“DIVINE RIGHT”

Nearly 60 years have passed since the third German Emperor was born, just a year after the marriage of the Princess Royal of Great Britain to the future heir to the Throne of Prussia. He was 30 when he ascended the Throne on June 15, 1888. In the next two years he got rid of Bismarck, undermined the foundations of German foreign policy by his attitude towards Austria and Russia respectively, and plunged with ignorant self-confidence into “the new course” in Germany.

The making of the Great War was the work of 15 years, beginning with the creation of the modern German Navy in 1900, running through all the excitements and adventures in all parts of the world which were conducted by Prince Bulow, and culminating in the period of stealthy preparation, combined with devotion to “peace”, which marked the Chancellorship of Bethmann Hollweg.

The fruits are being harvested by the people that followed him as it waxed ever more prosperous and more arrogant. But what one thinks of now is the collapse of Hohenzollernism in its own stronghold. William II liked to be modern, and was never happier than when he was parading as the leader of a practical and businesslike people, bent on conquering the modern world by its efficiency. But in reality it was his “Divine right” that was nearest to his heart, whether he was lightly promising to solve the German social problem or proclaiming his sovereign attributes. “Leave me to deal with the Socialists,” he told Bismark in the first days of his reign, “I know how to manage them.”

“For me,he said on another occasion, “every Social Democrat is an enemy of the Empire and the Fatherland.” He could do no wrong because he was the King of Prussia. The makers of the Empire had been all very well in their way; they had been “excellent and courageous advisers who had the honour of being allowed to work out the thoughts of the great Emperor (William I).” Was he not himself marked out for canonization, like his grandfather, whom “Providence, seeking out for itself an instrument, created.” “Had William the Great lived in the Middle Ages he would have been canonized, and pilgrims would have gone forth from all countries to perform their devotions at his shrine.”

Now we are witnessing the fall of the grandson of “William the Great”, who said of himself: “I believe, as you know, that the position and task appointed to me have been committed to me by Heaven, and that I am the trustee for a Higher Power, to Whom I shall have to render account of my stewardship ... Brandenburgers, it is your Margrave who speaks to you. Follow him through thick and thin wherever he may lead you. For, rest assured, it will be to the greatness and glory of our Fatherland.”

And again: “To great things are we yet destined, and to days of renewed splendour will I lead you.”

Finally, one may remember how William II. thinking of 1848, told the Alexander Regiment of the Guard that, if their new barracks rose like a mighty fortress in the immediate neighbourhood of his palace, it was in order that they should be at hand to repress and chastise the unruly spirit of revolt, should Berlin ever show signs of rebellion against the Royal authority.

It was the same “Divine right” which really inspired the Kaiser’s monitions and threats to all the outside world.