And the Kaiser abdicates Part 19

The Spartacans had boasted that the elections would not be permitted to be held, but the decided att.i.tude of the government made their boast an empty one. Soldiers in steel helmets, their belts filled with hand-grenades and carrying rifles with fixed bayonets, guarded the polling places whereever trouble was expected. In Harburg the ballot-boxes were burned, and reports of disorders came from two or three small districts elsewhere, but the election as a whole was quietly and honestly conducted. Election day in Manhattan has often seen more disorders than were reported from all Germany on January 19th.

The result of the election contained no surprises; it was, in general, practically what had been forecast by the best observers. The Majority Socialists, who had hoped for an absolute majority but had not expected it, polled about 43 per cent of the total popular vote and secured 163 delegates to the National Convention. This was an increase of nearly 8 per cent since the last general election of 1912. The Independent Socialists demonstrated considerable strength in Greater Berlin, but only one in every twenty-five of the whole country's voters supported them and only twenty-two of their followers were elected. Kurt Eisner, Minister-President of Bavaria, failed of election although his name was on the ticket in more than twenty election districts.

The total members.h.i.+p of the National Convention was to have been 433 delegates, but the French authorities in charge of the troops occupying Alsace-Lorraine refused to permit elections to be held there, which reduced the a.s.sembly's members.h.i.+p to 421. A majority was thus 211, and the two Socialist parties, with a combined total of 185, could accomplish nothing without 26 additional votes from some _bourgeois_ party. As it later developed, moreover, the government party could count on the support of the Independents only in matters where Socialist solidarity was sentimentally involved; on matters affecting economic policies there was much more kins.h.i.+p between the Majority Socialists and the Democrats than between them and the followers of Haase.

The Democrats, with 75 delegates, were the second strongest non-Socialist party, the former Clericals having 88. By virtue of their position midway between Right and Left they held the real balance of power.

The National People's Party, the former Conservatives and Free Conservatives, made a surprisingly good showing in the elections, securing 42 delegates. This number, however, included the delegates of the Middle and the National-Liberal parties of Bavaria and the Citizens'

Party and Peasants' and Vineyardists' League of Wurttemberg. The remnant of the old National-Liberal Party was able to elect only 21 delegates.

There were, in addition to the parties enumerated, the Bavarian Peasants' League with 4 delegates, the Schleswig-Holstein Peasants' and Farm-Laborers' Democratic League with 1 delegate, the Brunswick State Election a.s.sociation with 1 and the German-Hanoverian Party (Guelphs) with 4 delegates. Not even the urgent need of uniting dissevered elements so far as possible could conquer the old German tendency to carry metaphysical hairsplitting into politics. The German Reichstags regularly had from twelve to sixteen different parties, and even then there were generally two or three delegates who found themselves unable to agree with the tenets of any one of these parties and remained unattached, the "wild delegates" (_die Wilden_), as they were termed.

There were ten parties in the National a.s.sembly, and one of these, as has been said, was a combination of five parties.

Democracy had an overwhelming majority in the a.s.sembly. The Majority Socialists and Democrats together had a clear joint majority of 27 votes, and the Clericals' strength included many democratic delegates.

No fewer than eight of the party's delegates were secretaries of labor unions. Thirty-four women, the greatest number ever chosen to any country's parliament, were elected as delegates. The Majority Socialists, the original advocates of woman's suffrage in Germany, fittingly elected the greatest number of these--15; the Clericals were next with 7, the Democrats elected 5, the Conservatives 4, and the Independent Socialists 3.

The government announced that the National a.s.sembly would be held in Weimar on February 6th. Hardly a fortnight had pa.s.sed since the first "Bolshevik week," and the cabinet feared disorders, if nothing worse, if an attempt were made to hold the a.s.sembly in Berlin. It was also easier to afford adequate protection in a city of thirty-five thousand than in the capital. Although it was never declared in so many words, it is probable that a sentimental reason also played a part in the choice.

There was no taint of Prussianism about Weimar. As the "intellectual capital of Germany" it has an aura possessed by no other German city.

Goethe, Schiller and Herder spent the greater part of their lives in this little Thuringian city and are buried there. It has given shelter to many other men whose names are revered by educated people the world over. It is reminiscent of days when militarism and imperialism had not yet corrupted a "people of thinkers and dreamers," of days when culture had not yet given way to _Kultur_, of days before a simple, industrious people had been converted to a belief in their mission to impose the ideals of _Preussen-Deutschland_ upon the world with "the mailed fist"

and "in s.h.i.+ning armor." It is characteristic that men in high places believed--and they undoubtedly did believe--that a recollection of these things could in some way redound to the benefit of Germany.

The days between the elections and the convening of the National a.s.sembly brought further serious complications in Germany's domestic situation. Disaffection among the soldiers was increased by an order of Colonel Reinhardt, the new Minister of War, defining the respective powers of officers' and the soldiers' councils. The order declared that the power of command remained with the officers in all matters affecting tactics and strategy. The councils' functions were confined to matters of provisioning and to disciplinary punishments. This order, although in accordance with the original decree of the cabinet regarding the matter, failed to satisfy men who had become contemptuous of all authority except their own.

The Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils of the whole country were also disquieted by the announcement of the government that, with the convening of the National a.s.sembly, all political power would pa.s.s to the a.s.sembly, and revolutionary government organs everywhere and of all kinds would cease to exist. This was not at all to the taste of most of the members of the Soviets, who were affected less by political considerations than by the prospect of losing profitable sinecures and being compelled to earn a living by honest effort. The combined Soviets of Greater Berlin voted, 492 to 362, to demand the retention of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in any future state-form which might be adopted. Other Soviets followed the example, and there was talk of holding a rival congress in Berlin contemporaneously with the sessions of the National a.s.sembly in Weimar. The Spartacans, already beginning to recover from their defeats of a few days earlier, began planning another _coup_ for the first week of February.

Noske's troops were kept constantly in action. The Bolsheviki in Wilhelmshaven staged an armed uprising, but it was quickly put down.

They seized power in Bremen, defied the government to cast them out, and several regiments were required to defeat and disarm them. There was rioting in Magdeburg, and also in Dusseldorf. Polish aggressions, particularly between Thorn and Graudenz, continued. It was difficult to move troops against them because of the opposition of the Independents and Spartacans, and a great part of the soldiers, arrived at the front, refused to remain and could not be detained, since, under Socialist methods, they had the right to quit at any time on giving a week's notice. Serious strikes further embarra.s.sed and handicapped the government.

The determination and energy displayed by the cabinet in these difficult days deserve generous acknowledgment, and especially so in view of the fact that it required a high degree of moral courage for any body of Socialist rulers to brave the denunciations of even well meaning _Genossen_ by relying on armed force to compel respect for their authority and to carry out the mandate given them now by the great majority of the German people. Preparations for the National a.s.sembly were well made. No person was permitted even to buy a railway ticket to Weimar unless he was in possession of a special pa.s.s bearing his photograph, and a detachment of picked troops was sent to the city to protect the a.s.sembly against interruption. Machine-guns commanded all entrances to the beautiful National Theater which had been converted to the purposes of the a.s.sembly, and a special detail of experienced Berlin policemen and plain-clothes detectives was on hand to a.s.sist the soldiers.

The local garrisons of Weimar, Eisenach, Gotha and other nearby places made a futile attempt to prevent the sending of troops from Berlin, but never got farther than the beginning. Their att.i.tude was not due to any political considerations, but was dictated by selfishness and wounded pride: they insisted that the sending of outside troops was an insult to them, since they could furnish all the troops necessary to preserve order, and they also felt that they were ent.i.tled to the extra pay and rations dealt out to Noske's men.

The National a.s.sembly convened on February 6th with nearly a full attendance. It was called to order by Ebert, who appealed for unity and attacked the terms of the November armistice and the additional terms imposed at its renewals since. The speech received the approval of all members of the a.s.sembly except the Independent Socialists, who even on this first day, started their tactics of obstruction, abuse of all speakers except their own and rowdyish interruptions of the business of the sessions.

On February 7th Dr. Eduard David, a scholarly man who had been for many years one of the Majority Socialists' leaders, was elected president (speaker) of the National a.s.sembly. The other officers chosen came from the Christian, Democratic and Majority Socialist parties, the extreme Right and extreme Left being unrepresented. Organization having been effected, a provisional const.i.tution was adopted establis.h.i.+ng the a.s.sembly as a law-giving body. It provided for the election of a National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and various ministers of state. The const.i.tution created a so-called Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the a.s.sembly to enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly revenue and appropriation measures.

Friedrich Ebert was elected Provisional President of the German Republic on February 11th by a vote of 277 out of a total of 379 votes. Hardly a decade earlier the German Emperor had stigmatized all the members of Ebert's party as _vaterlandslose Gesellen_ and as "men unworthy to bear the name of German." Now, less than three months after that monarch had been overthrown, a Socialist was placed at the head of what was left of the German Empire. A young and inconsequential Prussian lieutenant had six years earlier been refused permission to marry the girl of his choice because her mother sold eggs. The new President of the country had been a saddler. He had once even been the owner of a small inn in Hamburg.

Ebert belongs to that cla.s.s which the French call the _pet.i.te bourgeoisie_, the lower middle cla.s.s. He possesses all the solid, domestic virtues of this cla.s.s, and is a living exemplification of old copy-book maxims about honesty as the best policy and faithfulness in little things. Without a trace of brilliancy and without any unusual mental qualities, his greatest strength lies in an honesty and dependability which, in the long run, so often outweigh great mental gifts. Few political leaders have ever enjoyed the confidence and trust of their followers to a greater degree.

The ministry chosen was headed by Scheidemann as Minister-President.

Other members were: Minister of Defense (army and navy), Noske; Interior, Hugo Preuss; Justice, Sendsberg; Commerce, Hermann Muller; Labor, Bauer; Foreign Affairs, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau; Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Baron von Richthofen; Finance, Dr. Schiffer; Posts and Telegraphs, Geisberg. Erzberger, David and Wissell were made ministers without portfolio.

The first sessions of the National a.s.sembly made on the whole a good impression. The members were for the most part earnest men and women, fully up to the intellectual average of legislative bodies anywhere; there were comparatively few among them who were compromised by relations with the old government, and these were not in a position to do no harm. The extreme Right was openly monarchic, but the members of this group realized fully the hopelessness of any attempt to restore either the Hohenzollerns or a monarchic state-form at this time, and manifested their loyalty to the former ruler only by objecting vigorously to Social-Democratic attacks on the Kaiser or to depreciation of the services of the crown in building up the Empire. Apart from the pathologically hysterical conduct of the Independent Socialists, and particularly of the three women delegates of that party, the a.s.sembly's proceedings were carried on in what was, by European parliamentary standards, a dignified manner.

From the very beginning, however, the proceedings were sicklied o'er by the pale cast of care. After the sufferings and losses of more than four years of war, the country was now rent by internal dissensions and fratricidal strife. To the costs of war had been added hundreds of millions lost to the state through the extravagance, dishonesty or incompetence of revolutionary officials and particularly Soviets. The former net earnings of the state railways of nearly a billion marks had been converted into a deficit of two billions. Available sources of revenue had been almost exhausted. The German currency had depreciated more than sixty per cent. Industry was everywhere crippled by senseless strikes.

An insight into Germany's financial situation was given by the report of Finance Minister Schiffer, who disclosed that the prodigious sum of nineteen billion marks would be required in the coming year to pay interest charges alone. The war, he declared, had cost Germany one hundred and sixty-one billion marks, which exceeded by nearly fourteen billions the credits that had been granted.

The incubus of the terrible armistice terms rested upon the a.s.sembly.

Enemy newspapers, especially those of Paris, were daily publis.h.i.+ng estimates of indemnities to be demanded from Germany, and the most modest of these far exceeded Germany's total wealth of all descriptions.

Nave German editors faithfully republished these articles, failing to realize that they were part of the enemy propaganda and designed further to weaken the Germans' morale and increase their feeling of helplessness and despondency. Not even the fiercest German patriots and loyalists of the old school could entirely shake off the feeling of helplessness that overshadowed and influenced every act of the National a.s.sembly.

The Majority Socialists had come to realize more fully the difference between theory and practice. The official organ of the German Federation of Labor had discovered a week earlier that "the socialistic conquests of the revolution can be maintained only if countries competing with German industry adopt similar inst.i.tutions." There were already concrete proofs available that socialization, even without regard to foreign compet.i.tion, was not practical under the conditions prevailing in the country. At least two large factory owners in Northern Germany had handed their plants over to their workmen and asked them to take full charge of manufacture and sale. In both instances the workmen had, after a trial, requested the owners to resume charge of the factories.

How shall we socialize when there is nothing to socialize? asked thoughtful men. The answer was obvious. _Gegen den Tod ist kein Kraut gewachsen_ (there is no remedy against death) says an old German proverb, and industry was practically dead. The government party now discovered what Marx and Engels had discovered nearly fifty years before.

"The practical application of these principles will always and everywhere depend upon historically existing conditions. * * * The Commune has supplied the proof that the laboring cla.s.s cannot simply take possession of the machinery of state and set it in motion for its own purposes."[63]

[63] Introduction to the second edition of the Manifesto of 1849, quoted in chapter iii.

The tardy realization of this fact placed the delegates of the government party in a serious dilemma. Sweeping socialization had been promised, and the rank and file of the party expected and demanded it.

In these circ.u.mstances it was obvious that a failure to carry out what was at the same time a party doctrine and a campaign pledge would have serious consequences, and it must be reckoned to the credit of the leaders of the party that they put the material welfare of the state above party considerations and refused to let themselves be hurried into disastrous experiments along untried lines. Their att.i.tude resulted in driving many of the members of the Socialist party into the ranks of the Independents, but in view of the fact that the government nevertheless remained strong enough to defeat these elements wherever they had recourse to violence, and of the further fact that to accede to the demands of these intransigeants would have given the final blow to what little remained of German industry, the leaders must be said to have acted wisely and patriotically.

With organization effected, the National a.s.sembly settled down to work.

But it was work as all similar German organizations in history had always understood it. All the political immaturity, the tendency to philosophical and abstract reasoning, the ineradicable devotion to the merely academic and the disregard of practical questions that are such prominent characteristics of the people were exhibited just as they had been at the Congress at Frankfort-on-the-Main seventy years earlier. It has been written of that Congress:

"But the Germans had had no experience of free political life.

Nearly every deputy had his own theory of the course which ought to be pursued, and felt sure that the country would go to ruin if it were not adopted. Learned professors and talkative journalists insisted on delivering interminable speeches and on examining in the light of ultimate philosophical principles every proposal laid before the a.s.sembly. Thus precious time was lost, violent antagonisms were called forth, the patience of the nation was exhausted, and the reactionary forces were able to gather strength for once more a.s.serting themselves."[64]

[64] _Encyclopedia Britannica_, t.i.tle "Germany."

Except that the reactionary forces were too weakly represented at Weimar to make them an actual source of danger this characterization of the Frankfort Congress might have been written about the proceedings of the National a.s.sembly of February. It is a significant and illuminating fact that the greatest animation exhibited at any time during the first week of the a.s.sembly was aroused by a difference of meaning as to the definition of a word. Professor Hugo Preuss, Prussian Minister of the Interior, to whom had been entrusted the task of drafting a proposed const.i.tution for the new republic, referred in a speech elucidating it, to "an absolute majority."

"Does 'absolute majority' mean a majority of the whole number of delegates?" asked some learned delegate.

The other delegates were galvanized instantly into the tensest interest.

Here was a question worth while! What does "absolute majority" mean? An animated debate followed and was listened to with a breathless interest which the most weighty financial or economic questions had never succeeded in evoking.

And while the National a.s.sembly droned thus wearily on, clouds were again gathering over Berlin and other cities in the troubled young republic.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Spartacans Rise Again.

Article xxvi of the armistice of November 11th declared:

"The Allies and the United States have in view the provisioning of Germany during the armistice to the extent deemed necessary."[65]

[65] Les Allies et les etats-Unis envisagent le ravitaillement de l'Allemagne, pendant l'armistice, dans la mesure reconnue necessaire.

Even by the end of November it had become apparent to all intelligent observers on the ground and to many outside Germany that such provisioning was urgently necessary, and that if it did not come at once the result would be a spread of Bolshevism which would endanger all Europe. Allied journalists in Germany were almost a unit in recognizing the dangers and demands of the situation, but they were greatly hampered in their efforts to picture the situation truthfully by the sentiments prevailing in their respective countries as a result of the pa.s.sions engendered by the conflict so lately ended. This was in the highest degree true as to the Americans, which was especially regrettable and unfortunate in view of the fact that America was the only power possessing a surplus of immediately available foodstuffs. American correspondents, venturing to report actual conditions in Germany, found themselves denounced as "pro-Germans" and traitors by the readers of their papers. More than this: they became the objects of unfavorable reports by officers of the American Military Intelligence, although many of these men themselves were convinced that empty stomachs were breeding Bolshevism with every pa.s.sing day. One correspondent, who had been so bitterly anti-German from the very beginning of the war that he had had to leave Germany long before America entered the struggle, was denounced in a report to the Military Intelligence at Was.h.i.+ngton on March 3d as "having shown pro-German leanings throughout the war." An American correspondent with a long and honorable record, who had taken a prominent part in carrying on American propaganda abroad and upon whose reports high diplomatic officials of three of the Allied countries had relied, was astounded to learn that the Military Intelligence, in a report of January 11, 1919, had denounced him as "having gone to Berlin to create sentiment in the United States favorable to furnis.h.i.+ng Germany food-supply."

There was less of this sort of thing in England, and many prominent Englishmen were early awake to the dangers that lay in starvation. Early in January Lord Henry Bentinck, writing to the London _Daily News_, declared there was no sense in maintaining the blockade. It was hindering the development of industry and the employment of the idle in England, and in Middle Europe it was killing children and keeping millions hungry and unemployed. The blockade, said Lord Henry, was the Bolshevists' best friend and had no purpose except to enable England to cut off her own nose in order to spite Germany's face. Many other leaders of thought in England took the same stand.