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THE NEW GERMANY
BY
GEORGE YOUNG
_Author of "Portugal Old and Young"; "Nationalism and War in
the Balkans"; "Le Corps de Droit Ottoman," etc._
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE
1920
_Printed in Great Britain_
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The following account of events in Germany during the period from the
Armistice to the Treaty of Versailles was written mostly in the summer
of 1919. But the events of the succeeding period from the signature of
the Treaty to its ratification during the autumn and winter call for
no alteration and but little addition to the text. The six months
hereinafter described from February to August were a--perhaps
the--critical period for Germany and for Europe. It was the formative
and creative stage for New Germany and for New Europe. If the whole
phase through which Central Europe passed after the collapse of the
Central Powers is considered as the genesis of a new age, then the
week of actual revolution was a phase of intense heat and fierce
energy, in which the old political organisms were boiled down to their
most simple and essential types and in which the germs of new
political institutions appeared in primitive forms such as the
Councils. Thereafter came the period under review, in which the old
and new types fought for a survival of the fittest; and the old--aided
by the general cooling off of the revolution--to some extent
reasserted their supremacy. Indeed during this last winter I have even
occasionally thought that the types of old Germany might succeed in
suppressing the new, thereby making it necessary to change the title
and tone of this book. But I know this impression is largely due to
the pessimistic and perverted point of view towards all events in
Central Europe affected by the British Press with few exceptions. For
our "Dailies" Germany is only a subject for "scare heads" and
"stories," in which adventurous special correspondents see the Kaiser
emerging from the Netherlands to re-ravage Europe like the
Brontosaurus out of the Nyassa swamp. Whereas the reality seems to be
that reaction has moderated as the revolution became more amenable,
and that a "modus vivendi" between the two is now more of a
possibility than it was.
It now seems less probable than it did last summer that the solution
in Germany will be a "second revolution" as in Russia. Weak as it is
politically, the present German governmental system seems too strong
police-ically to be overthrown by force. The situation to-day in
Germany rather suggests that in Great Britain two years hence than
that in Russia two years ago.
The new Germany of this winter of 1919-20 is essentially, then, the
same as that of last summer. It is not the old Germany of the autumn
of 1914, nor the young Germany of the autumn of 1917. But it has
developed rapidly in some respects in the course of this winter. Thus
the rough and ready rule by Frei-Corps expeditions and garrisons has
been supplemented by a gendarmerie (_Sicherheitswehr_); and the
middle-class militia (_Buergerwehr_) has been replaced by an
organisation of armed special constables (_Einwohnerwehr_).
The effect and perhaps the object of this change is to obscure the class
character of the conflict between reaction and revolution--between
property and the proletariat. The police is no longer a weapon for use
by a possible militarist reaction or monarchist restoration, and in
return it will be supported by the moderate revolutionaries.
Reaction and revolution are reuniting as reconstruction; and this
tendency appears in all regions of political activity. Thus the
revolutionary Council system now seems established as a secondary
representative institution supplementary to Parliament.
This development is, however, not due to maturity of political
experience--as it would be in similar conditions in an Anglo-Saxon
community--but merely to mortal weakness. German political vitality,
owing to mediaeval calamities, has always been low in modern times.
Now, as a result of a four years' frenzy of war and a fifth year in a
fever of revolution, German political vitality is a very flickering
flame. So long as France and Great Britain continue to enforce the
principles and procedures of the Treaty of Versailles and of the Paris
Council, Germany will remain a danger to Europe--a danger, not because
of its recent relapse into a Conservative reaction, nor even because
of the decreasing risk of a Communist "second" revolution, but because
Germany is an essential and vital member of our European body politic
that is being kept in a morbid, even moribund, condition by the
provisions of the peace. The Paris diplomatists have not yet learnt
the lesson taught by a great French diplomatist two hundred years ago
at the time of the last great European settlement but one. M. de
Callieres then wrote in his treatise on diplomacy--"We must think of
the States of which Europe is composed as being joined ... in such a
way that they may be regarded as members of one Republic, and that no
considerable change can take place in any one of them without
affecting the condition or disturbing the peace of all the others."
A majority of the rank and file of Greater Britain does so think of
Germany to-day, but unless and until it can compel its rulers to act
accordingly it will not get peace. Peace is only for men of good will.
CHRISTMAS, 1919.
65, STRAND ON THE GREEN,
CHISWICK.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE REVOLUTION 1
CHAPTER II
THE REACTION 26
CHAPTER III
THE COUNCIL REPUBLICS 63
CHAPTER IV
RUIN AND RECONSTRUCTION 120
CHAPTER V
COUNCIL GOVERNMENT 163
CHAPTER VI
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 198
CHAPTER VII
THE CONSTITUTION 242
INDEX 327
THE NEW GERMANY
THE NEW GERMANY
CHAPTER I
THE REVOLUTION
When, in January, 1919, I resigned my commission and made my way out
to Berlin as correspondent for the _Daily News_, I had two purposes in
view. One was to find out to what extent we had really won the war--in
the only way it could be won--by forcing the German people into
revolution; and incidentally to take any opportunity that might offer
of furthering that revolution. My second purpose was to find out what
prospects there were of making a more or less permanent peace--in the
only way it could be made--by establishing the forces of reform in
Germany; and incidentally to point out any openings favourable to the
furthering of such a peace. The following book brings together and
sums up conclusions communicated to the _Daily News_ from time to
time and is put forward as an answer to the double question: Have we
won the war against Prussianism and have we made a permanent peace?
The answer to this question was only to be got in Berlin. The first
mistake made by the soldiers and workers who had won the war was in
not insisting on their representatives making peace with the German
people and at Berlin. An experience of twenty years in diplomacy,
beginning with the arbitration treaties of Lord Pauncefote and ending
with those of Lord Bryce, followed by two years of war experience,
beginning with political secret service and ending in the ranks, had
convinced me from the first that true peace could only be got by
developing the forces of democracy of the defeated peoples centering
in Berlin, and not by any bickerings between diplomatic formulae of the
victorious Governments collected in Paris. That is why I preferred
going as a journalist to Berlin rather than in any other capacity to
Paris. And that is why the following papers are published. They show
that anyone who spent the first six months of 1919 in Berlin and the
big German towns would have seen easily enough how it was that, in
spite of military occupations and religious thanksgivings and bonfires
and bonuses all round, we were not winning the war but losing it: and
how, in spite of territorial partitions and financial reparations, and
signatures with gold pens and the setting-up of a League of Nations,
we were not making peace but manufacturing wars. We have not yet won
the war because we have not as yet supported in Germany the
progressive--that is, the revolutionary--elements and suppressed the
Prussian--that is, the reactionary--spirit: while we have, of late,
been really losing the war by actually assisting German reaction
against German revolution. And we are doing this just from the
ignorance of our democracy and the _insouciance_ of our diplomacy.
Our democracy has been prevented from ascertaining, and our diplomacy
has been precluded from understanding what the German revolution
really means, both to Germany and to Great Britain. Although we are
slow to understand foreign movements, yet ignorance of such a movement
as this would have been impossible but for the conditions under which
the war closed. The German revolution, banned, boycotted, and
blockaded, became to us a stone of offence, an odious ruin of the war,
and so we failed to recognise it as the only possible foundation stone
for peace.
The six months I spent in Germany were none too much to realise the
radical and rapid changes going on; and I can see how difficult it has
been for English readers to get an idea of what is really happening
there from the little that has been written about it. They cannot do
so at all unless they clear their minds of the cartoons and
caricatures and cliches forced on them during the last five years by
the propaganda and the Press. It is no use drawing Germany from the
life for people who still have before their eyes the "Boches" and
"Bolsheviks" of _Punch_ and _John Bull_. One has, indeed, to clear
away two strata of misrepresentation, that of our Government and Press
and that of the German Government and Press; for the latter is as much
opposed to the German revolution as the former.
It would have been better for Germany had it shown more courage and
collapsed less completely last autumn. A few weeks' patient endurance
under punishment in a losing fight would have gone far towards
restoring it some measure of the sympathies of the civilised world.
While the consequent occupation of the whole country would have
brought us into direct contact with the German revolution, and would
have prevented the fatal split between reformers and revolutionaries,
between Majority and Independent Socialists. As it was, we English
were left to draw such conclusions as we could from the reports of the
few correspondents who penetrated to Berlin. But, with two exceptions,
the English Press could at this time publish nothing about Germany
that was not merely malevolent. And of the few Englishmen in Berlin as
correspondents in January, almost all were replaced before the Treaty
of Peace by foreign Jews who would supply the sort of propaganda
poppycock with which public opinion is still being poisoned.
What people in England wanted to know was whether the German
revolution was a real riddance of the evil we had been fighting and a
real renascence of good that we could favour; whether it had gone far
enough and deep enough to be a sincere repentance and a sufficient
remediation. For, unless Germany was born again, it could not enter
the community of nations, and until it did so, there could be no true
peace.
They could guess that Kaiserism was dead and gone and Junkerism down
and out. But even so picturesque and positive an event as the fall of
Kaiserism had been only baldly mentioned in a bare telegram of a line
or two. How could the British public realise that the Black Eagle of
Prussia was no Phoenix and that the blaze of November 9 had left
nothing of it but a bad odour and a white feather.
But in Berlin there could be no doubt. Kaiserism was dead--deader even
than Tsarism--because the Kaiser was still alive. His shot-shattered
and mob-swept palace was the only reminder of him. And every Berliner
had more or less vivid recollections of his fall, recollections too
lamentable, too ludicrous, to allow of any restoration of the Kaiser
legend even now.
After reading your morning paper about revolution in Dublin and revolt
in Glasgow and reconstruction in London, as you walk down to your
office past the Dutch decorum of Kensington Palace, the Scotch
skimpiness of St. James's, or the generous Germanosities of Buckingham
Palace, does it ever occur to you to wonder what goes on in a palace
when there is a revolution?
Well, this is what happened to the Kaiserschloss in Berlin on November
8.
The curious crowd that always collects outside the house of anyone
mentioned in the papers, whether it's an absconded postmaster or an
abdicated potentate, found that the sentries no longer challenged
them, and first filtered, then flooded into the inner courts.
Thereupon the police and guards left, and the palace remained in
charge only of the Kastellan and a few servants and soldiers. All
doors were kept locked, and beyond some shouting everything was
orderly, for the prestige of the Imperial precincts still prevailed.
Then one Schwieringer, not otherwise distinguished, made his way to
the Kastellan and got leave to address the crowd from a window. Having
draped the balcony with a red cloth borrowed for the purpose, he
declared the palace national property. This broke the spell somewhat.
The rest of the soldiers left, and the crowd became noisy.
Late in the afternoon came Liebknecht, who engaged another balcony,
borrowed more red curtains, made another speech, and after holding a
sort of levee in the Throne Room left again. Later came soldiers and
hoisted a red flag. So far the Kastellan had remained master of the
situation, conducting his unwelcome visitors through the rooms,
unlocking and locking behind him as on ordinary occasions with any
ordinary tourists.
Then on November 10 came one Bujakowski, with a Slavonic eye for the
possibilities of the situation. Having collected such soldiers and
civilians as were hanging about, he made them a speech, and called on
them to elect a council, and himself Commandant of the Castle, which
they did. He then said he must have a suitable uniform. The council
agreed, and appointed a delegation to make selections from the
Imperial wardrobe.
Happy delegates--happy, happy Bujakowski! Five hundred uniforms and,
say, five pieces to each. How many combinations does that give in
which to find the perfect expression of a Spartacist commandant of a
Hohenzollern castle. He did his best in the time no doubt. Delegate
Schwartz, try a combination of those English and Hungarian uniforms!
Delegate Schmidt, see if that hunting costume goes with a Turkish fez!
History does not record the result, beyond a cavilling incrimination
about a diamond-headed cane. But it must have been effective, for the
Commandant returned from the Reichstag with his commission confirmed.
The rest of the company played up to his spirited lead, and the next
morning his "adjutant" attempted a _coup d'etat_. Bujakowski
suppressed it with a revolver, but was, however, deposed a day or two
later by an ex-convict, who generously appointed him his secretary.
These three men then formed a triumvirate, which spent most of its
time making excursions in fancy dress with the imperial cars, and,
oddly enough, kept the castle in fairly good condition. It was not
until the sailors' revolutionary corps turned them out that all order
disappeared. Some ten commandants then succeeded each other rapidly.
The seventh shot the sixth, and was knocked on the head by the eighth.
The palace became a resort of bad characters, and was stripped bare.
Eventually, it was retaken by force, and the sailors were ejected.
Berliners shake their heads over the loss, estimated in millions (of
war marks). But I don't know that there is much to lament. Personally,
I am grateful to Bujakowski. His burlesque buffoonery has exorcised
the Imperial incubus that still brooded over the deserted shrine of
departed littleness, and I forgive him for his share in destroying or
dispersing some of the ugliest _objets d'art_ in Europe.
Kaiserism died when William the Second fled to Amerongen and
Bujakowski broke into his wardrobe. Nor has it been revived by the
revulsion in favour of William of Hohenzollern that we have evoked by
our proposal to put him on his trial in England. We have thereby
rallied in his support many adherents of the monarchical principle who
had previously abandoned him, and by persisting in making a martyr of
him, by taking him out of this German pillory and by putting him on an
international pedestal, we have already opened the door to a
restoration of the Hohenzollern dynasty as a constitutional monarchy.
This would mean a restoration of Junkerism and Prussianism, but not of
Kaiserism. That peculiar blend of divine right and demagogy is gone
for ever.
And what about Junkerism? That cannot be so shortly answered.
Junkerism expresses itself in both regions of the ruling class to
which Germany has been hitherto subjected--the civil and the military.
It is the evil genius of both those great services; and seldom has the
world produced public services with so much power for good in them and
so much evil as in the German army and bureaucracy. And it is
indisputable that the fate of Germany and the future of Europe now
depend on whether the revolutionary spirit is strong enough to
exorcise the evil genius of Prussianism and of Junkerism from the army
and civil service. But the question as to how far, so far, Germany's
good angel has fired its bad one out can only be answered as yet by a
careful and impartial observation of events in Germany since the
revolution. And if these events seem to suggest that the revolution
has lost its impetus and that reaction has dominated it, let us
remember that the results of a renascence of public conscience, such
as occurred in the November revolutions, should be estimated by
comparing the concrete conditions of to-day, not with the abstract
principles then for a time extant, but with the concrete conditions
existing before the upheaval.
As most have already got or can easily get a general knowledge of what
general conditions in Germany were before the revolution of November
and of what were the general principles promulgated by the revolution,
much of what follows will consist of evidence as to how far the
revolution has so far failed in realising those principles. For
revolution has now resulted in a reaction in which every vantage point
gained by the first revolutionary rush is counter-attacked and every
early victory is contested again. As every consequent loss cannot be
referred back to the deadlock before the offensive the general
impression is that of failure. But the Prussianism that now fills
German prisons with political suspects is rather a reflection of
reaction abroad than a revival of the ancient _regime_.
By the first rush of revolution in November 1918, the military power
of the officer caste was broken and the political power of land and
money was reduced to insignificance. But there was no strong obstacle
to their recovery, and the power of the bureaucracy was unimpaired.
Though the instigators of the crimes of the old _regime_ had been
removed, the instruments remained; while the 'Independent'
intellectuals, the public prosecutors of those crimes, were before
long voted down. And yet before we refuse absolution to the new German
democracy we must be quite sure that these relapses are real
unregeneracy and not reactions caused by fear of Russian revolution on
the one side or Allied retribution on the other. We can only judge of
this by reviewing the revolution.
The history of the German revolution can be shortly described and
sharply defined. After the first explosion on November 9 came a month
of equilibrium between revolution and reaction. Then a month of which
the first fortnight was a swing slowly to the right until the breach
with the Independents on December 24, and a swing swiftly the second
fortnight until the fighting with the Spartacists in January.
Thereafter a month of rapid return to the point where it was before
the explosion, a point reached with the formation of the Coalition
Government by the National Assembly on February 13. Indeed the
Government of Scheidemann only differed from that of Max von Baden in
being one degree more to the left, a development which was due in any
case apart from the revolution.
The German revolution is peculiar in having reached its highest point
at once and in having then relapsed to where it started from without
any positive reaction. This in itself suggests that it was due in its
origin to external forces--propaganda from Russia on the one side and
pressure from us on the other. Our military and naval pressure broke
first the prestige then the power of Kaiserism and Militarism, while
the Russian precedent gave the forces of rebellion and revolution a
practical example how to express themselves in co-ordinated councils
of workmen and soldiers--the Soviet system. We knocked German
Kaiserism out of the saddle, and Russia gave German Socialism a leg
up. And that's why it went so far so fast.
That's also why it never got anywhere. For it came to power before it
developed its own personalities and policies, and it had, therefore,
to put its trust in pre-revolutionary politicians. The Council system
had no time to produce leaders--men with enough confidence in their
own position and enough character to impose themselves on the
permanent officials. The Central Council--the true revolutionary
Executive--and the Congress of Councils--the true revolutionary
Legislature--never got any power. It was all monopolised by the
People's Commissioners, who were not really a revolutionary
institution at all, but an ordinary Provisional Government of
parliamentarians. And though they nominally held their mandate from
the Congress of Councils a majority of them considered themselves as
trustees for a Constituent Assembly. Such parliamentarians could work
well enough with the permanent officials, and, indeed, welcomed their
assistance. Whereas the councils, of course, came into violent
collision with them.
Where the council system prevailed, as in the army, it made a real
revolution, and broke the officer caste until the Frei-Corps replaced
the conscript army. But the workmen were not so drastic in the civil
service as were the soldiers in the cadres, and they allowed the
parliamentarians to spare the Amalekite. Only the political heads of
departments were replaced by Social Democrats; and, in one case I
know, a revolutionary Minister allowed his predecessor, out of
courtesy, to keep his official residence. This was, of course, all
very nice, but it meant that the old machine was not broken up, nor
even brought under control. The result was that a coalition between
the mere reformers among the commissioners and the civil servants was
enough to counter-balance the more revolutionary commissioners and the
councils; until finally external circumstances determined the deadlock
in favour of the former.
The German revolution never took its Bastille in the Wilhelmstrasse.
The sentries set by the Soldiers' Councils at the doors of the
Government offices, who loudly demanded your pass and only looked
foolish if you ignored them, were symbolic of the failure of the
German revolution. So insignificant were these sentinels of revolution
that no one saw the significance when they were finally replaced by
steel-helmeted Frei-Corps mercenaries last April. By the first week of
December it had become evident that the course of events was leading
away from the Congress of Councils to the Constituent Assembly, and
away from social revolution to political reconstruction. The Central
Council that should have been the driving-wheel of the Socialist
engine was becoming no more than a drag shoe on the old State coach.
Before the German revolution was a month old--that is, by the end of
the first week of December--it was entering its second phase, in which
the Parliamentary Commissioners having ousted the proletarian councils
from control, then divided among themselves into reformers and
revolutionaries. And at the end of the second phase, early in January,
we find that the reformers have ousted the revolutionaries.
This came about thus. The German Social Democratic Party was
professedly revolutionary. Its political attitude had been
traditionally one of refusal of all co-operation or even compromise
with the imperial political system. On this negative basis it had been
possible to combine in a common front comrades of very different
points of view and of political thought. But this superficial
solidarity could not stand the strain of the war. A sense of
patriotism carried one section--the Majority Socialists--first into
countenancing and then into supporting the Government; while pacifist
sentiment against war in general, and this war in particular, carried
the minority into more obstinate opposition. This finally split the
party much as it split our Labour Party. The Majority Social-Democrats
moved towards the Government, while the Government towards the end of
the war came to meet them. Until finally the Ministry of Prince Max of
Baden, that ended the war, not only represented the Reichstag
majority, but also the Majority Social-Democrats.
When Prince Max went down in the revolution, he remitted the reins of
government to Ebert and Scheidemann. They, knowing that alone they could
not rule the whirlwind, called in the Minority Social-Democrats--the
Independents, offering them equal representation in the Cabinet, then
called the People's Commissaries, and in the Central Council. This
arrangement was ratified by the Congress of Councils, though very
perfunctorily, as it was considered only a provisional makeshift.
Now, while the Social-Democrats of the Majority were just
parliamentary reformers, the Independents of the Minority, Haase and
Kautsky, were revolutionaries. Liebknecht was a radical revolutionary
who would not come into the Coalition. Consequently, whereas Ebert and
Scheidemann considered themselves as merely Commissioners to prepare a
Constituent Assembly, the Independents considered themselves
Commissaries for the Congress of Councils. The former considered the
revolution was probably unnecessary, and in any case had done its work
in preparing the way for universal suffrage and a united Germany. The
latter considered that the revolution had only begun, and could only
do its work through the Soviet system and a general socialisation.
The first serious difference came over the Poles, with whom the
Independents had practically concluded an arrangement which was,
however, upset by Landsberg, a Jew from Posen, one of the People's
Commissaries. Then came serious differences over German policy
towards the Entente. The Independents were in favour of admitting
culpability in the war crisis, Belgium, submarine warfare, etc., and
of accepting such liability as might be shown to be equitable, while
frankly discussing such assets as could be realised in payment. This
the Majority rejected, preferring a negative policy of passive
inaction. But the final breach came over internal policy and the use
of force against the revolutionaries, the Communists, who were trying
to force the revolution out of the rut of parliamentary reform into
which it was slipping.
This Communist Left, commanded but not controlled by Liebknecht, was
working for a second revolution in alliance with Russian agents. Its
fighting faction, that called itself "Spartacus"--with the accent on
the second syllable--was strong in the industrial districts of the
centre and west, among the sailors in the coast towns, and in Berlin.
Its ranks were filled rapidly with discontented workmen, disbanded
soldiers, and "derailed" youths. Rifles were plentiful, and against
such irregulars, supported by sailors, the Government was at first
helpless. But as the regulars that had kept their ranks returned from
the front it was found that some regiments were ready to act against
the mob. Such a policy was denounced by the Independents, Haase and
Kautsky, while Ebert, perhaps also Scheidemann, had doubts; but
Landsberg, who had found a strong man in Noske, the Prussian War
Minister, drove matters to a breach. On the first fighting with the
sailors at the Marstall on December 23, Haase and Kautsky resigned.
Thus the intellectual and idealist element of the revolution was
removed from all influence over the conduct of affairs. The result was
to cause in January a fight to a finish between the Real-politikers of
the Government and the Radicals of the Opposition.
Police precautions against the Russian agents, combined with a Press
propaganda against the Spartacists, provoked the latter to action.
They seized the offices of the _Vorwaerts_ and other papers most
offensive to them, and used them for publishing their own pamphlets.
They had not apparently planned anything more than a demonstration,
and did not anyhow exploit the success they had seized by surprise.
The Government, however, after some difficulty in concentrating and
supplying sufficient troops, converted the "putsch" into a pitched
battle. Noske regulars with all the machinery of modern war, made
short work of the half-hearted half-armed irregulars of Eichhorn, the
Spartacist Police Commissioner. The revolution was crushed in Berlin
and driven back to the coast ports, whence it came and whither it
could later be pursued. Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, its Berlin
leaders, were arrested and at once brutally murdered by their escort
with the approval and assistance of the officers in charge. This
murder, perfectly well known in Berlin at the time, was only proved by
court-martial four months later, after which the culprits were allowed
to escape abroad.
So the Independents having committed hari-kari and the Spartacists
being hoist with their own petard, middle-class and moderate Germany
heaved a sigh of relief, and hoped that the bogey of Bolshevism was
buried. The elections to the National Assembly were held a few days
later without disturbance, and the German revolution entered its third
and last phase.
The German revolution which began in November--in old German the
"Month of Fogs"--and ended in February--the "Month of Fools"--was
fogged from the beginning and fooled to the end. Its third and last
phase began about the middle of January with the establishing of
provisional government by the moderate Majority Socialists, the
crushing of Spartacus, and the elections. The radical opposition had
tried to delay the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, partly
because it was for the moment discredited by its secession from the
Coalition and its connection with the Communists, and partly because
it recognised that a reaction towards nationalism and conservatism had
already been set up by the attitude of the Allies and would be given
exaggerated expression at the polls. The drift of a weakened and
wearied mass can raise a dictator to "save society"; only the driving
power of a devoted and determined minority can realise a social
revolution. But the Independents had missed their opportunity of
seizing power and securing such foreign support for the revolution as
they had earned by their attitude on the war. Their subsequent policy
of obstruction had as little success as it deserved.
By the middle of February, when the new Government was proclaimed at
Weimar, a communist revolution had been converted into a
constitutionalist reconstruction; and that this corresponded with the
desire of the majority of the people was shown by the election result.
Every man and woman over twenty was entitled to vote, and a high
percentage did so; while the system of proportional representation
employed, whatever its defects, at least gave a fair numerical
representation of the party presentments of public opinion. As in the
English election, nationalism decided the issue in favour of the
party in power. The Independent opposition was discredited by
Bolshevism, the Conservative opposition by Kaiserism. Apart from the
women the Social-Democrats would probably have had an independent
majority; but, as was shown by the Pfalz results in which the women's
voices were kept separate, they were more conservative and clerical
than the men. As it was, the Majority Socialists with 163 out of 423
members were forced into alliance, not with the Independent Socialists
who had only 22 votes, but with the Democratic Liberals who had 75.
And as this relieved them of all responsibility to the revolution
there was no reason why they should not further strengthen their
parliamentary position by taking in the Clerical Centre with its 55
votes as well. And thus Germany got from losing the war a coalition as
strong parliamentarily and as weak politically as that which winning
the war gave to us.
While the revolution was being side-tracked in Parliament, it was
being sandbagged in the Proletariat. A division of Frei-Corps with all
the machinery of modern war, tanks, aeroplanes, etc., was sent against
the north-western coast ports where the revolution had originated and
where Spartacus was pursuing its policy of aggravating the food
difficulty by preventing the sailing of food ships as arranged under
the armistice. Bremen was entered by force, after fighting; and the
other towns opened negotiations. On the eastern frontier a front was
formed against the Poles, who had occupied nearly all Posen province,
and fighting continued until the Allies stopped it. Great efforts were
made to get together some sort of effective force as a basis for
government; and the resultant Frei-Corps, though at this early date
still few and inferior, were already enough to give check to the
"Bolshevist" menace within and without the frontier. Meantime the
whole "soviet" system of councils was practically 'frozen out' and
politically 'snowed under.' The Central Council was got to abdicate in
favour of the Constituent Assembly: the Socialisation Commission to
which execution of the economic revolution had been referred, resigned
_re infecta_: while the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils were quietly
ignored. A Provisional Constitution was published in which all ideas
of a centralised Socialist republic were abandoned, and the federal
Reich was restored with the substitution of presidents for princes.
Finally the seat of the Assembly was transferred to Weimar,
professedly to steep it in the sedative atmosphere of the old
pre-Prussian "Kultur" of the philosophers and poets, and practically
to withdraw it from the too stimulating atmosphere of Berlin, which
was still an Independent stronghold. Even so might a demoralised and
democratised England placate a victorious and Victorian America by
transferring parliament to the Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon.
All these strong measures were really signs of weakness. Spartacus had
to be put down to please the Allies, the Poles pushed back to please
the nationalists, the Clericals bribed with Government posts to
counteract French bids for their support in separatist intrigues. The
constitution had to conciliate particularist sentiment in Prussia and
the southern principalities because this sentiment prevailed in the
general exhaustion of national and revolutionary forces. The old
driving power of national sentiment, so much abused during the war and
that might still have been called on for a desperate national defence,
was worn out. The new energy of the revolution had been wasted; and
the country, so far as its government was concerned, was back where it
was when the revolution broke out, materially much the worse for its
three months' excursion into revolution. In a word, the spirit of the
new German Government was diplomatic not democratic. The revolution
had come full circle and the Scheidemann Government of April might
have been the Government of Max von Baden of six months before.
Morally, however, it was not the old Germany that had bowed before the
"forty-seven Princes hats." It had brought back with it from the
perilous peaks and bottomless abysses of revolution a wider outlook
and a deeper insight. And if it returned from its adventure only more
weary and wasted it had at least learned to lift up its eyes to the
hills.