And the Kaiser abdicates Part 14

"This declaration was approved and signed by His Majesty, and was telephoned by Excellency von Hintze to the Chancellery. At 8:10 o'clock in the evening His Majesty received from the office of the Imperial Chancellor a report of the announcement made public through the Wolff Bureau, in which the Imperial Chancellor, without waiting for the Kaiser's answer, had reported the Kaiser's abdication as Kaiser and King. His Majesty received the news with the deepest seriousness and with royal dignity. He asked my views on the situation. I answered:

"'It is a coup d'etat, an abuse of power to which your Majesty must not submit. Your Majesty is King of Prussia, and there is now more than ever a pressing necessity for Your Majesty to remain with the army as supreme commander. I guarantee that it will be true to Your Majesty.'

"His Majesty replied that he was and would remain King of Prussia, and that he would not abandon the army. Thereupon he commissioned Generals von Pless and Marschall and Excellency von Hintze to report to the Field Marshal what had happened. He then took leave of the Crown Prince and of me. After I had left, he called me back, thanked me once more and said:

"'I remain King of Prussia and I remain with the troops.'

"I answered:

"'Come to the front troops in my section. Your Majesty will be in absolute safety there. Promise me to remain with the army in all events.'

"His Majesty took leave of me with the words:

"'I remain with the army.'

"I took leave of him and have not seen him again."

In the general condemnation of the Kaiser, his flight to Holland has been construed as due to cowardice. His motives are unimportant, but this construction appears to be unjust. He was convinced that he had nothing to fear from his people, nor is there any reason to suppose that he would for a moment have been in danger if he had remained. It is also probable that he entertained hopes of leading a successful counter-revolutionary movement. But his protests were overruled by men in whom he had great confidence. Hindenburg and Groener, following an unfavorable report from nearly all the army chiefs regarding the feeling in their commands, told the Kaiser that they could not guarantee his safety for a single night. They declared even that the picked storm-battalion guarding his headquarters at Spa was not to be depended on.

Others added their entreaties, and finally, unwillingly and protestingly, the Kaiser consented to go.

With him went the Crown Prince. There was no one left in Germany to whom adherents of a counter-revolution could rally. Scheming politicians for months afterward painted on every wall the spectre of counter-revolution, and it proved a powerful weapon of agitation against the more conservative and democratic men in charge of the country's affairs, but counter-revolution from above--and that was what these leaders falsely or ignorantly pretended to fear--was never possible from the time the armistice was signed until the peace was made at Versailles. Counter-revolution ever threatened the stability of the government, but it was the gory counter-revolution of Bolshevism.

The Kaiser's flight had the double effect of encouraging the Socialists and discouraging the Conservatives, the right wing of the National Liberals and the few prominent men of other _bourgeois_ parties from whom at least a pa.s.sive resistance might otherwise have been expected.

The Junkers disappeared from view, and, disappearing, took with them the ablest administrative capacities of Germany, men whose ability was unquestioned, but who were now so severely compromised that any partic.i.p.ation by them in a democratic government was impossible. "The German People's Republic" as it had been termed for a brief two days, became the "German Socialistic Republic." Numerically the strongest party in the land, the Socialists of all wings insisted upon putting the red stamp upon the remains of Imperial Germany.

In their rejoicing at the revolution and the end of the war, the great ma.s.s of the people forgot for the moment that they were living in a conquered land. Those that did remember it were lulled into a feeling of over-optimistic security by the recollection of President Wilson's repeated declarations that the war was being waged against the German governmental system and not against the German people, and by the declaration in Secretary Lansing's note of the previous week that the Allies had accepted the President's peace points with the exception of the second.

The Soldiers' and Workmen's Councils held plenary sessions on Monday and ratified the proceedings of Sunday. The spirit of the proceedings, especially in the Soldiers' Council, was markedly moderate. Ledebour, one of the most radical of the Independent Socialists, was all but howled down when he tried to address the soldiers' meeting in the Reichstag. Colin Ross, appealing for harmonious action by all factions of Social-Democracy, was received with applause. The _Vollzugsrat_, which was now in theory the supreme governing body of Germany, also took charge of the affairs of Prussia and Berlin. Two Majority and two Independent Socialists were appointed "people's commissioners" in Berlin. It is worthy of note that all four of these men were Jews.

Almost exactly one per cent of the total population of Germany was made up of Jews, but here, as in Russia, they played a part out of all proportion to their numbers. In all the revolutionary governmental bodies formed under the German Socialistic Republic it would be difficult to find a single one in which they did not occupy from a quarter to a half of all the seats, and they preponderated in many places.

The _Vollzugsrat_ made a fairly clean sweep among the Prussian ministers, filling the majority of posts with _Genossen_. Many of the old ministers, however, were retained in the national government, including Dr. Solf as Foreign Minister and General Scheuch as Minister of War, but each of the _bourgeois_ ministers retained was placed under the supervision of two Socialists, one from each party, and he could issue no valid decrees without their counter-signature. The same plan was followed by the revolutionary governments of the various federal states. Some of the controllers selected were men of considerable ability, but even these were largely impractical theorists without any experience in administration. For the greater part, however, they were men who had no qualifications for their important posts except members.h.i.+p in one of the Socialist parties and a deep distrust of all _bourgeois_ officials. The Majority Socialist controllers, even when they inclined to agree with their _bourgeois_ department chiefs on matters of policy, rarely dared do so because of the s.h.i.+bboleth of solidarity still uniting to some degree both branches of the party.

Later, when the responsibilities of power had sobered them and rendered them more conservative, and when they found themselves more bitterly attacked than the _bourgeoisie_ by their former _Genossen_, they shook off in some degree the thralldom of old ideas, but meanwhile great and perhaps irreparable damage had been done.

The revolutionary government faced at the very outset a more difficult task than had ever confronted a similar government at any time in the world's history. The people, starving, their physical, mental and moral powers of resistance gone, were ready to follow the demagogue who made the most glowing promises. The ablest men of the Empire were sulking in their tents, or had been driven into an enforced seclusion, and the men in charge of the government were without any practical experience in governing or any knowledge of constructive statecraft. Every one knew that the war was practically ended, but thousands of men were nevertheless being slaughtered daily to no end.

In all the Empire's greater cities the revolutionaries, putting into disastrous effect their muddled theories of the "brotherhood of man,"

had opened the jails and prisons and flooded the country with criminals.

What this meant is dimly indicated by the occurrences in Berlin ten days later, when Spartacans raided Police Headquarters and liberated the prisoners confined there. Among the forty-nine persons thus set free were twenty-eight thieves and burglars and five blackmailers and deserters; most of the others were old offenders with long criminal records. This was but the grist from one jail in a sporadic raid and the first ten days of November had resulted in wholesale prison-releases of the same kind. The situation thus created would have been threatening enough in any event, but the new masters of the German cities, many of whom had good personal reasons for hating all guardians of law and order, disarmed the police and further crippled their efficiency by placing them under the control of "cla.s.s-conscious" soldiers who, at a time when every able-bodied fighting man was needed on the west front, filled the streets of the greater cities and especially of Berlin.

The result was what might have been expected. Many of the new guardians of law and order were themselves members of the criminal cla.s.ses, and those who were not had neither any acquaintance with criminals and their ways nor with methods of preventing or detecting crime. The police, deprived of their weapons and--more fatal still--of their authority, were helpless. And this occurred in the face of a steadily increasing epidemic of criminality, and especially juvenile criminality, which had been observed in all belligerent countries as one of the concomitants of war and attained greater proportions in Germany than anywhere else.

Nor was this the only encouragement of crime officially offered. In ante-bellum days, when German cities were orderly and efficient police and _gendarmerie_ carefully watched the comings and goings of every inhabitant or visitor in the land, every person coming into Germany or changing his residence was compelled to register at the police-station in his district. But now, when the retention and enforcement of this requirement would have been of inestimable value to the government, it was generally abolished. The writer, reaching Berlin a week after the revolution, went directly to the nearest police-station to report his arrival.

"You are no longer required to report to the police," said the _Beamter_ in charge.

And thus the bars were thrown down for criminals and--what was worse--for the propagandists and agents of the Russian Soviet Republic.

_Die neue Freiheit_ (the new freedom) was interpreted in a manner justifying Goethe's famous dictum of a hundred years earlier that "equality and freedom can be enjoyed only in the delirium of insanity"

(_Gleichheit und Freiheit konnen nur im Taumel des Wahnsinns genossen werden_).

The _Vollzugsrat_, from whose composition better things had been expected, immediately laid plans for the formation of a Red Guard on the Russian pattern. On November 13th it called a meeting of representatives of garrisons in Greater Berlin and of the First Corps of Konigsberg to discuss the functions of the Soldiers' Council. It laid before the meeting its plan to equip a force of two thousand "socialistically schooled and politically organized workingmen with military training" to guard against the danger of a counterrevolution. It redounds to the credit of the soldiers that they immediately saw the cloven hoof of the proposal. "Why do we need two thousand Red Guards in Berlin?" was the cry that arose. Opposition to the plan was practically unanimous, and the meeting adopted the following resolution:

"Greater Berlin's garrison, represented by its duly elected Soldiers' Council, will view with distrust the weaponing of workingmen as long as the government which they are intended to protect does not expressly declare itself in favor of summoning a national a.s.sembly as the only basis for the adoption of a const.i.tution."

The meeting took a decided stand against Bolshevism and, in general, against sweeping radicalism. All speakers condemned terrorism from whatever side it might be attempted, and declared that plundering and murder should be summarily punished. The destructive plans of the Spartacus group found universal condemnation, and nearly all speakers emphasized that the Soldiers' Council had no political role to play. Its task was merely to preserve order, protect the people and a.s.sist in bringing about an orderly administration of the government's affairs.

The council adopted a resolution calling for the speediest possible holding of elections for a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

On the following day the _Vollzugsrat_ announced that, in view of the garrisons' opposition, orders for the formation of the Red Guard had been rescinded. The Soldiers' Council deposed Captain von Beerfelde, one of their fourteen representatives on the executive council, "because he was endeavoring to lead the revolution into the course of the radicals."

It was von Beerfelde who, supporting the fourteen workmen's representatives on the _Vollzugsrat_, had been largely instrumental in the original decision to place the capital at the mercy of an armed rabble.

The steadfast att.i.tude of the soldiers was the more astonis.h.i.+ng in view of the great number of deserters in Greater Berlin at this time. Their number has been variously estimated, but it is probable that it reached nearly sixty thousand. With an impudent shamelessness impossible to understand, even when one realizes what they had suffered, these self-confessed cowards and betrayers of honest men now had the effrontery to form a "Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers," and to demand equal representation on all government bodies and in the Soviets. Liebknecht played the chief role in organizing these men, but Ledebour, already so radical that he was out of sympathy even with the reddest Independent Socialists, and certain other Independents and Spartacans a.s.sisted. This was too much for even the revolutionary and cla.s.s-conscious soldiers under arms, and nearly a month later at least one Berlin regiment still retained enough martial pride to fire on a procession of these traitors.

In these deserters and stragglers, and in the thousands of criminals of every big city, including those liberated from jails and prisons by the revolution, Liebknecht and his lieutenants found tools admirably adapted to their ends. The Spartacans had already been indirectly recognized as a separate political party in an announcement made by the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council on November 11th, which, referring to the seizure of the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ by the Spartacans and of the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ by the Independents, pointed out that "all the Socialist factions in Berlin now have their daily paper." The Spartacans now organized. Ledebour, an aged fanatic, temperamental, never able to agree with the tenets or members of any existing party, organized an "a.s.sociation of Revolutionary Foremen," which was recruited from the factories and made up of violent opponents of democratic government. To all intents and purposes this a.s.sociation must be reckoned as a wing of the Spartacus group. It played a large part in the January and March uprisings against the government, and throughout strengthened the hands of the opponents of democracy and the advocates of soviet rule in Germany.

Despite all its initial extravagances, the _bona fides_ of the Ebert-Haase government at this time cannot fairly be questioned. It honestly desired to restore order in Germany and to inst.i.tute a democratic government. With the exception of Barth, the least able and least consequential member of the cabinet, all were agreed that a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly must be summoned. Haase and Dittmann, the two other Independent Socialist members, had not yet begun to coquet with the idea of soviet government, although, in the matter of a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, they were already trying to hunt with the hounds and run with the hares by favoring its summoning, but demanding that the elections therefor be postponed until the people could be "enlightened in the Social-Democratic sense." This meant, of course, "in the Independent Social-Democratic sense," which, as we shall see, eventually degenerated into open advocacy of the domination of the proletariat.

To this government, facing multifold tasks, inexperienced in ruling, existing only on sufferance and at best a makes.h.i.+ft and compromise, the armistice of November 11th dealt a terrible moral and material blow. A wave of stupefied indignation and resentment followed the publication of its terms, and this feeling was increased by the general realization of Germany's helplessness. Hard terms had, indeed, been expected, but nothing like these. One of the chief factors that made bloodless revolution possible had been the reliance of the great ma.s.s of the German people on the declarations of leaders of enemy powers--particularly of the United States--that the war was being waged against the German governmental system, the Hohenzollerns and militarism, and not against the people themselves. There can be no doubt that these promises of fair treatment for a democratic Germany did incalculably much to paralyze opposition to the revolution.

In the conditions of the armistice the whole nation conceived itself to have been betrayed and deceived. Whether this feeling was justified is not the part of the historian to decide. It is enough that it existed.

It was confirmed and strengthened by the fact that the almost unanimous opinion of neutral lands, including even those that had been the strongest sympathizers of the Allied cause, condemned the armistice terms unqualifiedly, both on ethical and material grounds. It is ancient human experience that popular disaffection first finds its scapegoat in the government, and history repeated itself here. The unreflecting ma.s.ses forgot for the moment the government's powerlessness. It saw only the abandonment of rich German lands to the enemy, the continuance of the "hunger-blockade" and, worst of all, the retention by the enemy of the German prisoners. Of all the harsh provisions of the armistice, none other caused so much mental and moral anguish as the realization that, while enemy prisoners were to be sent back to their families, the Germans, many of whom had been in captivity since the first days of the war, must still remain in hostile prison-camps. The authority of the government that accepted these terms was thus seriously shaken at the very outset.

The government was as seriously affected materially as morally by the armistice. During the whole of the last year food and fuel conditions had been gravely affected by limited transportation facilities. Now, with an army of several millions to be brought home in a brief s.p.a.ce of time, five thousand locomotives and 150,000 freight cars had to be delivered up to the enemy. This was more than a fifth of the entire rolling stock possessed by Germany at this time. Moreover, nearly half of all available locomotives and cars were badly in need of repairs, and a considerable percentage of these were in such condition that they could not be used at all. Nor was this all. Although nothing had been stipulated in the armistice conditions regarding the size or character of the engines to be surrendered, only the larger and more powerful ones were accepted. One month later it had been found necessary to transport 810 locomotives to the places agreed upon for their surrender, and of these only 206 had been accepted. Of 15,720 cars submitted in the same period, only 9,098 had been accepted. The result was a severe over-burdening of the German railways.

What this meant for Germany's economic life and for the people generally became apparent in many ways during the winter, and in none more striking than in a fuel shortage which brought much suffering to the inhabitants of the larger cities. The coalfields of the Ruhr district required twenty-five thousand cars daily to transport even their diminis.h.i.+ng production, but the number available dropped below ten thousand. Only eight hundred cars were available to care for the production in Upper Silesia, and a minimum of three thousand was required. The effect on the transportation of foodstuffs to the cities cannot so definitely be estimated, but that it was serious is plain.

The armistice provided that the blockade should be maintained. In reality it was not only maintained, but extended. Some of the most fertile soil in Germany lies on the left bank of the Rhine, and cities along that river had depended on these districts for much of their food.

With enemy occupation, these supplies were cut off. What this meant was terribly apparent in Dusseldorf after the occupation had been completed.

Dusseldorf, with a population of nearly 400,000, had depended on the left bank of the Rhine for virtually all its dairy products. These were now cut off, and the city authorities found themselves able to secure a maximum of less than 7,000 quarts of milk daily for the inhabitants.

A further extension of the blockade came when German fishermen were forbidden to fish even in their territorial waters in the North Sea and the Baltic. The available supply of fish in Germany had already dropped, as has been described, to a point where it was possible to secure a ration only once in every three or four weeks. And now even this trifling supply was no longer available. Vast stores of food were abandoned, destroyed or sold to the inhabitants of the occupied districts when the armies began the evacuation of France and Belgium, and millions of soldiers, returning to find empty larders at home, further swelled the ranks of the discontented.

Only the old maxim that all is fair in war can explain or justify the great volume of misleading reports that were sent out regarding food conditions in Germany in the months following the armistice. Men who were able to spend a hundred marks daily for their food, or whose observations were limited to the most fertile agricultural districts of Germany, generalized carelessly and reported that there were no evidences of serious shortage anywhere, except perhaps, in one or two of the country's largest cities. Men who knew conditions thoroughly hesitated to report them because of the supposed exigencies of war and wartime policies, or, reporting them in despite thereof, saw themselves denounced as pro-German propagandists.

Months later, when perhaps irreparable damage had been done, the truth began to come out. The following a.s.sociated Press dispatch is significant:

"London, July 1.--Germany possessed a sound case in claiming early relief, according to reports of British officers who visited Silesia in April to ascertain economic conditions prevailing in Germany. A white paper issued tonight gives the text of their reports and the result of their investigations.

"It is said that there was a genuine shortage of foodstuffs and the health of the population had suffered so seriously that the working cla.s.ses had reached such a stage of desperation that they could not be trusted to keep the peace."

One is told officially that the old regime in Russia fell "because as an autocracy it did not respond to the democratic demands of the Russian people."[54] This is an ascription to the Russian people of elevated sentiments to which they have not the shadow of a claim. The old regime fell because it did not respond to the demands of the Russian people for food. Wilhelm II fell because the Germans were hungry. It was hunger that handicapped the efforts of the Ebert-Haase government throughout its existence and it was hunger that proved the best recruiting agent for Liebknecht and the other elements that were trying to make democracy impossible in Germany. If any people with experience of hunger were asked to choose between the absolutism of Peter the Great with bursting granaries and the most enlightened democracy with empty bins, democracy would go away with its hands as empty as its bins.

[54] _War Cyclopedia_, issued by the Committee on Public Information, p. 241.

"Give us this day our daily bread" is the first material pet.i.tion in the prayer of all the Christian peoples of the world, but only those who have hungered can realize its deep significance.

The fact is not generally known--and will doubtless cause surprise--that a determined effort was made by the American, French and British governments after the armistice to make first-hand independent reporting of events in Germany impossible. a.s.sistant Secretary of State Polk followed the example of the other governments named by issuing on November 13th an order, which was cabled to all American emba.s.sies and legations abroad, prohibiting any American journalist from entering Germany. The State Department refused to issue pa.s.sports to journalists desiring to go to adjoining neutral countries except upon their pledge not to enter Germany without permission. Requests for permission were either denied, or (in some instances) not even acknowledged.

There were, however, some American journalists stationed in lands adjoining Germany, and a few of these, although warned by members of their diplomatic corps, conceived it to be their duty to their papers and to their people as well, to try to learn the truth about the German situation, instead of depending longer upon hearsay and neutral journalists. Some of the most valuable reports reaching Was.h.i.+ngton in these early days came from men who had disobeyed the State Department's orders, but this did not save at least two of the disobedient ones from suffering very real punishment at the hands of resentful officials.