With the coming of the fourth year, however, conditions began to grow

bad even at the front, and the winter of 1917-18 brought a marked

decrease of rations, both in quantity and quality. Cavalrymen and

soldiers belonging to munition or work columns ate the potatoes issued

for their horses. They ground in their coffee-mills their horses' scant

rations of barley and made pancakes. A high military official who took

part in the drive for the English Channel that started in March, 1918,

assured the writer that the chief reason for the failure to reach the

objective was that the German soldiers stopped to eat the provisions

found in the enemy camps, and could not be made to resume the advance

until they had satisfied their hunger and assured themselves that none

of the captured stores had been overlooked. Ludendorff, hearing of this,

is said to have declared: "Then it's all over." This, while probably

untrue, would have been a justified and prophetic summing-up of the

situation.

Not only were the soldiers hungry by this time, but they were

insufficiently clad. Their boots were without soles, and they had

neither socks nor the _Fusslappen_ (bandages) which most of them

preferred to wear instead of socks. A shirt issued from the military

stores in the summer of 1918 to a German soldier-friend of the writer

was a woman's ribbed shirt, cut low in the neck and gathered with a

ribbon.

The military reverses of this summer thus found a soldiery hungry and

ill-clad, dispirited by complaints from their home-folk of increasing

privations, and, as we shall see in the following chapter, subjected to

a revolutionary propaganda of enormous extent by radical German

Socialists and by the enemy.

CHAPTER V.

Internationalism at Work.

No people ever entered upon a war with more enthusiasm or a firmer

conviction of the justice of their cause than did the Germans. Beset for

generations on all sides by potential enemies, they had lived under the

constant threat of impending war, and the events of the first days of

August, 1914, were hailed as that "end of terror" (_ein Ende mit

Schrecken_) which, according to an old proverb, was preferable to

"terror without end" (_Schrecken ohne Ende_). The teachings of

internationalism were forgotten for the moment even by the Socialists.

The veteran August Bebel, one of the founders of German Socialism, had

never been able entirely to overcome an inborn feeling of nationalism,

and had said in one famous speech in the Reichstag that it was

conceivable that a situation could arise where even he would shoulder

_die alte Buechse_ (the old musket) and go to the front to defend the

Fatherland.

Such a situation seemed even to the extremest internationalists to have

arisen. At the memorable meeting in the White Hall of the royal palace

in Berlin on August 4, 1914, the Socialist members of the Reichstag were

present and joined the members of the _bourgeois_ parties in swearing to

support the Fatherland. The Kaiser retracted his reference to

_vaterlandslose Gesellen_. "I no longer know any parties," he said. "I

know only Germans." Hugo Haase, one of the Socialist leaders and one of

the small group of men whose efforts later brought about the German

revolution and the downfall of the empire and dynasty, was carried away

like his colleagues by the enthusiasm of the moment. He promised in

advance the support of his party to the empire's war measures, and when,

a few hours later, the first war-appropriation measure, carrying five

billion marks, was laid before the deputies, the Socialists voted for it

without a dissenting voice, and later joined for the first time in their

history in the _Kaiserhoch_, the expression of loyalty to monarch and

country with which sessions of the Reichstag were always closed.

Nothing could testify more strongly to the universal belief that Germany

was called upon to fight a defensive and just war. For not only had the

Socialist teachings, as we have seen, denounced all warfare as in the

interests of capital alone, but their party in the Reichstag included

one man whose anti-war convictions had already resulted in his being

punished for their expression. This was Dr. Karl Liebknecht, who had

been tried at the Supreme Court in Leipsic in 1907 on a charge of high

treason for publishing an anti-military pamphlet, convicted of a lesser

degree of treason and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Haase

himself had bitterly attacked militarism and war in a speech in the

Reichstag in April, 1913, in opposition to the government's military

bills, and only his parliamentary immunity protected him from sharing

Liebknecht's fate. One of the strongest defenders of the war in Bavaria

was Kurt Eisner, already an intellectual Bolshevist and Communist, who

had been compelled earlier to leave the editorial staff of the

_Vorwaerts_ because of his far-going radicalism and dreamy

impracticality.

All these men were subsequently bitterly attacked by Socialists of

enemy lands for their surrender of principles. The feeling that

dictated these attacks is comprehensible, but adherents of the

my-country-right-or-wrong brand of patriotism are precluded from making

such attacks. It cannot be permitted to any one to blow hot and cold at

the same time. He may not say: "I shall defend my country right or

wrong, but you may defend yours only if it is right." To state the

proposition thus baldly is to destroy it. Unquestioning patriotism is

applicable everywhere or nowhere, and its supporters cannot logically

condemn its manifestation by the German Socialists in the opening months

of the World War.

The first defection in the ranks of the Socialists came in the second

war session of the Reichstag in December, 1914, when Liebknecht, alone

among all the members of the house, refused to vote for the government's

war-credit of five billion marks. Amid scenes of indignant excitement he

tried to denounce the war as imperialistic and capitalistic, but was not

permitted to finish his remarks.

There has been observable throughout the allied countries and

particularly in America a distinct tendency to regard Liebknecht as a

hero and a man of great ability and moral courage. But he was neither

the one nor the other. He was a man of great energy which was

exclusively devoted to destroying, and without any constructive ability

whatever, and what was regarded as moral courage in him was rather the

indifferent recklessness of fanaticism combined with great egotism and

personal vanity. Liebknecht's career was in a great degree determined by

his feeling that he was destined to carry on the work and fulfil the

mission of his father, Wilhelm Liebknecht, the friend of Marx, Bebel and

Engels, and one of the founders of the Socialist party in Germany. But

he lacked his father's mental ability, commonsense and balance, and the

result was that he became the _enfant terrible_ of his party at an age

when the designation applied almost literally.

Educated as a lawyer, the younger Liebknecht devoted himself almost

exclusively to politics and to writing on political subjects. Last

elected to the Reichstag from the Potsdam district in 1912, he

distinguished himself in April, 1913, by a speech in which he charged

the Krupp directors with corrupting officials and military officers. He

also named the Kaiser and Crown Prince in his speech. The result was an

investigation and trial of the army officers involved. In making these

charges Liebknecht performed a patriotic service, but even here his

personal vanity asserted itself. Before making the speech he sent word

to the newspapers that he would have something interesting to say, and

requested a full attendance of reporters. He delayed his speech after

the announced time because the press-gallery was not yet full.

A consistent enemy of war, he attacked the international armament

industry in a speech in the Reichstag on May 10, 1914. In the following

month he charged the Prussian authorities with trafficking in titles.

But in all the record of his public activities--and he was forty-three

years old when the war broke out--one will search in vain for any

constructive work or for any evidence of statesmanlike qualities.

Liebknecht visited America in 1910. When he returned to Germany he

attacked America in both speeches and writings as the most imperialistic

and capitalistic of all countries. He declared that in no European

country would the police dare handle citizens as they did in America,

and asserted that the American Constitution is "not worth the paper it

is written upon." In Berlin on December 17, 1918, he said to the writer:

"The war has proved that your constitution is no better today

than it was when I expressed my opinion of it nine years ago.

Your people have been helpless in the face of it and were drawn

into war just like the other belligerents. The National Assembly

(Weimar) now planned will bequeath to us a charter equally as

worthless. The workingmen are opposed to the perpetuation of

private ownership."

In the face of this, it must be assumed that American glorification of

Liebknecht rests upon ignorance of the man and of what principles he

supported.

For a few months after the beginning of the war Liebknecht stood almost

alone in his opposition. As late as September, 1914, we see Haase

heading a mission of Socialists to Italy to induce her to be faithful to

her pledges under the Triple Alliance and to come into the war on

Germany's side, or, failing that, at least to remain neutral. Haase, who

was a middle-aged Koenigsberg (East Prussia) lawyer, had for some years

been one of the prominent leaders of the Social-Democratic party and was

at this time one of the chairmen of the party's executive committee. He

was later to play one of the chief roles in bringing about the

revolution, but even in December, 1914, he was still a defender of the

war, although already insistent that it must not end in annexations or

the oppression of other peoples. It was not until a whole year had

passed that he finally definitely threw in his lot with those seeking to

weaken the government at home and eventually destroy it.

The real undermining work, however, had begun earlier. Several men and

at least two women were responsible for it at this stage. The men

included Liebknecht, Otto Ruehle, a former school teacher from Pirna

(Saxony), and now a member of the Reichstag, and Franz Mehring. Ruehle, a

personal friend of Liebknecht, broke with his party at the end of 1914

and devoted himself to underground propaganda with an openly

revolutionary aim, chiefly among the sailors of the High Seas fleet.

Mehring was a venerable Socialist author of the common idealistic,

non-practical variety, with extreme communistic and international views,

and enjoyed great respect in his party and even among non-Socialist

economists. The two women referred to were Clara Zetkin, a radical

suffragette of familiar type, and Rosa Luxemburg.

The Luxemburg woman was, like so many others directly concerned in the

German revolution, of Jewish blood. By birth in Russian Poland a Russian

subject, she secured German citizenship in 1870 by marrying a _Genosse_,

a certain Dr. Luebeck, at Dresden. She left him on the same day. Frau

Luxemburg had been trained in the school of Russian Socialism of the

type that produced Lenin and Trotzky. She was a woman of unusual

ability--perhaps the brainiest member of the revolutionary group in

Germany, male or female--and possessed marked oratorical talent and

great personal magnetism. Like all internationalists and especially the

Jewish internationalists, she regarded war against capitalistic and

imperialistic governments, that is to say, against all _bourgeois_

governments, as a holy war. Speaking Russian, Polish and German equally

well and inflamed by what she considered a holy mission, she was a

source of danger to any government whose hospitality she was enjoying.

She became early an intimate of Liebknecht and the little group of

radicals that gathered around him, and her contribution to the overthrow

of the German Empire can hardly be overestimated.

The first of the anti-war propaganda articles whose surreptitious

circulation later became so common were the so-called "Spartacus

Letters," which began appearing in the summer of 1915. There had been

formed during the revolution of 1848 a democratic organization calling

itself the "Spartacus Union." The name came from that Roman gladiator

who led a slave uprising in the last century of the pre-Christian era.

This name was adopted by the authors of these letters to characterize

the movement as a revolt of slaves against imperialism. The authorship

of the letters was clearly composite and is not definitely known, but

they were popularly ascribed to Liebknecht. His style marks some of

them, but others point to Frau Luxemburg, and it is probable that at

least these two and possibly other persons collaborated in them. They

opposed the war, which they termed an imperialistic war of aggression,

and summoned their readers to employ all possible obstructive tactics

against it. Revolution was not mentioned in so many words, but the

tendency was naturally revolutionary.

Despite all efforts of the authorities, these letters and other anti-war

literature continued to circulate secretly. In November, 1915,

Liebknecht, Frau Luxemburg, Mehring and Frau Zetkin gave out a

manifesto, which was published in Switzerland, in which they declared

that their views regarding the war differed from those of the rest of

the Socialists, but could not be expressed in Germany under martial law.

The manifesto was so worded that prosecution thereon could hardly have

been sustained. The Swiss newspapers circulated freely in Germany, and

the manifesto was not without its effect. The Socialist party saw itself

compelled on February 2, 1915, to expel Liebknecht from the party. This

step, although doubtless unavoidable, proved to be the first move toward

the eventual split in the party. There were already many Socialists who,

although out of sympathy with the attitude of their party, had

nevertheless hesitated to break with it. Many of these, including most

of Liebknecht's personal followers, soon followed him voluntarily, and

the allegiance of thousands of others to the old party was seriously

weakened.

Outwardly, however, what was eventually to become a revolutionary

movement made no headway during the spring and summer of 1915. The

shortage of food, although making itself felt, had not yet brought

general suffering. The German armies had won many brilliant victories

and suffered no marked reverse. Mackensen's invasion of Galicia in May

and June revived the spirits of the whole nation, in which, as among all

other belligerent nations, a certain war-weariness had already begun to

manifest itself.

The open break in the Socialist party first became apparent at the

session of the Reichstag on December 21, 1915. The government had asked

for a further war-credit of ten billion marks. Haase had a week earlier

drawn up a manifesto against the war, but the newspapers had been

forbidden to print it. At this Reichstag session he employed his

parliamentary prerogatives to get this manifesto before the people in

the form of a speech attacking the war as one of aggression, and

announced that he would vote against the credit asked. Fourteen other

members of his party voted with him. The German people's solid war-front

had been broken.

The motives of most of those who thus began the revolt against the

government and who were later responsible for the revolution are easy to

determine. Many were honest fanatics, and some of these, chief among

them Liebknecht, carried their fanaticism to a degree calling for the

serious consideration of alienists. Others again were moved by purely

selfish considerations, and some of them had criminal records. Haase

presented and still presents a riddle even for those who know him well.

Judged by his speeches alone, he appears in the light of an honest

internationalist, striving to further the welfare of his own and all

other peoples. Judged by his conduct, and particularly his conduct in

the months following the revolution, he appears in the light of a

political desperado whose acts are dictated by narrow personal

considerations. He was particularly fitted for leadership of the

government's opponents by the absence from his makeup of the blind

fanaticism that characterized the majority of these, and by an utter

unscrupulousness in his methods. He was free also from that fear of

inconsistency which has been called the vice of small minds.

The questions growing out of the manner of conducting the submarine

warfare became acute in the first months of 1916. The government was

determined to prevent any open debate on this subject in the Reichstag,

and the deputies of all parties bowed to the government's will. Haase

and his little group of malcontents, however, refused to submit. They

carried their opposition to the authority of their own party to such an

extent that a party caucus decided upon their exclusion. The caucus vote

was followed on the same day--March 24, 1916--by the formal secession

from the party of Haase and seventeen other members, who constituted

themselves as a separate party under the designation of "Socialist

Working Society" (_Arbeitsgemeinschaft_). The seceders included, among

others, Georg Ledebour, Wilhelm Dittmann, Dr. Oskar Cohn, Emil Barth,

Ernst Daeumig and Eduard Bernstein. Liebknecht, who had been excluded

from the party a year earlier, allied himself to the new group. All its

members were internationalists.

The formation of the new party furnished a rallying point for all

radical Socialists and also for the discontented generally, and the

numbers of these were increasing daily. Under the protection of their

parliamentary immunity these members were able to carry on a more

outspoken and effective agitation against the war. Haase, Ledebour and

other members of the group issued a manifesto in June, 1916, wherein it

was declared that the people were starving and that the only replies

made by the government to their protests took the form of a severe

application of martial law. "The blockade should have been foreseen,"

said the manifesto. "It is not the blockade that is a crime; the war is

a crime. The consolation that the harvest will be good is a deliberate

deception. All the food in the occupied territories has been

requisitioned, and people are dying of starvation in Poland and Serbia."

The manifesto concluded with an appeal to the men and women of the

laboring-classes to raise their voices against the continuance of the

war.

The underground propaganda against the war and the government assumed

greater proportions, and encouraged the revolutionaries in the

Reichstag. Grown bold, Haase announced that a pacifist meeting would be

held in Berlin on August 30. It was prohibited by the police. Sporadic

strikes began. Ruehle had staged the first avowedly political strike at

Leipsic on May Day. It failed, but set an example which was followed in

other parts of the empire.

Liebknecht, who had been mustered into the army and was hence subject to

military regulations, was arrested on May Day in Berlin for carrying on

an anti-war and anti-government agitation among the workingmen. On trial

he was sentenced to thirty months' imprisonment and to dishonorable

dismissal from the army. This was the signal for widespread strikes of

protest in various cities. There was serious rioting in Berlin on July

1st, and grave disorders also occurred at Stuttgart, Leipsic and other

cities. Liebknecht appealed from the conviction and the appellate court

raised the sentence to four years and one month, with loss of civil

rights for six years. This caused a recrudescence of July's

demonstrations, for a sentence of this severity was most unusual in

Germany. Liebknecht's personal followers and party friends swore

vengeance, and many others who had theretofore kept themselves apart

from a movement with which they secretly sympathized were rendered more

susceptible to radical anti-war propaganda.

The autumn of 1916 brought the government's so-called

_Hilfsdienstgesetz_, or Auxiliary Service Law, intended to apply

military rules of enrollment and discipline to the carrying out of

necessary work at home, such as wood-cutting, railway-building, etc.

This law produced widespread dissatisfaction, and Haase, by attacking it

in the Reichstag, increased his popularity and poured more oil upon the

flames of discontent. In March, 1917, he declared openly in the

Reichstag that Germany could not win the war and that peace must be made

at once.

The Russian revolution of this month was a factor whose influence and

consequences in Germany can hardly be exaggerated. Not even the wildest

dreamer had dared to believe that a revolution could be successfully

carried through in war-time while the government had millions of loyal

troops at its disposal. That it not only did succeed, but that many of

the Tsar's formerly most loyal officers, as, for example, Brussiloff,

immediately joined the revolutionaries, exerted a powerful effect. And

thus, while Germans loyal to their government hailed the revolution as

the downfall of a powerful enemy, the masses, starving through this

terrible _Kohlruebenwinter_, cold, miserable, dispirited by the bloody

sacrifices from which few families had been exempt, infected

unconsciously by the doctrines of international Socialism and skillfully

propagandized by radical agitators, began to wonder whether, after all,

their salvation did not lie along the route taken by the Russians.

The radical Socialists who had left the old party in 1916 organized as

the Independent Socialist Party of Germany at a convention held in Gotha

in April, 1917. Eighteen men had left the party a year earlier, but one

hundred and forty-eight delegates, including fifteen Reichstag deputies,

attended the convention. Haase and Ledebour were chosen chairmen of the

executive committee, and a plan of opposition to the further conduct of

the war was worked out. Party newspaper organs were established, and

some existing Socialist publications espoused the cause of the new

party. Revolution could naturally be no part of their open policy, and

there may have been many members of the party who did not realize what

the logical and inevitable consequences of their actions were. The

leaders, however, were by this time definitely and deliberately working

for the overthrow of the government, although it may be doubted whether

even they realized what would be the extent of the _debacle_ when it

should come.

Reference has already been made to strikes in various parts of the

empire. These had been, up to 1918, chiefly due to dissatisfaction

over material things--hunger (the strong undercurrent of all

dissatisfaction), inadequate clothing, low wages, long hours, etc. They

were encouraged and often manipulated by radical Socialists who

perceived their importance as a weapon against the government, and were

to that extent political, but the first great strike with revolution as

its definite aim was staged in Berlin and Essen at the end of January,

1918. The strength of the Independent Socialists and of the more radical

adherents of Liebknecht, Ledebour, Rosa Luxemburg and others of the same

stamp, while it had increased but slowly in the rural districts and the

small towns, had by this time reached great proportions in the capital

and generally in the industrial sections of Westphalia. Two great

munition plants in Berlin employing nearly a hundred thousand workers

were almost solidly Independent Socialist in profession and Bolshevist

in fact. The infection had reached the great plants in and around Essen

in almost equal degree. A great part of these malcontents was made up of

youths who, in their early teens when the war broke out, had for more

than three years been released from parental restraint owing to the

absence of their soldier-fathers and who had at the same time been

earning wages that were a temptation to lead a disordered life. They

were fertile ground for the seeds of propaganda whose sowing the

authorities were unable to stop, or even materially to check. Even

Liebknecht, from his cell, had been able to get revolutionary

communications sent out to his followers.

The January strike assumed large proportions, and so confident were the

Berlin strikers of the strength of their position that they addressed an

"ultimatum" to the government. This ultimatum demanded a speedy peace

without annexations or indemnities; the participation of workingmen's

delegates of all countries in the peace negotiations; reorganization of

the food-rationing system; abolishing of the state of siege, and freedom

of assembly and of the press; the release of all political prisoners;

the democratization of state institutions, and equal suffrage for women.

The strikers appointed a workmen's council to direct their campaign, and

this council chose an "action commission," of which Haase was a member.

The authorities, in part unable and in part unwilling to make the

concessions demanded, took determined steps to put down the strike.

Their chief weapon was one that had been used repeatedly, and, as events

proved, too often and too freely. This weapon was the so-called

_Strafversetzungen_, or punitive transfers into the front-army. The

great part of the strikers were men subject to military duty who had

been especially reclaimed and kept at work in indispensable industries

at home. They were, however, subject to military law and discipline, and

the imminent threat of being sent to the front in case of

insubordination had prevented many strikes that would otherwise have

come, and the carrying into effect of this threat had broken many

revolts in factories. Thousands of these men, who had been drawing high

wages and receiving extra allowances of food, were promptly sent into

the trenches.

Every such _Strafversetzung_ was worse than a lost battle in its effect.

The victims became missionaries of revolution, filled with a burning

hatred for the government that had pulled them from their comfortable

beds and safe occupations and thrown them into the hail of death and the

hardships of the front. They carried the gospel of discontent, rebellion

and internationalism among men who had theretofore been as sedulously

guarded against such propaganda as possible. The morale of the soldiery

was for a time restored by the successes following the offensive of

March, 1918, and it never broke entirely, even during the terrible days

of the long retreat before the victorious Allied armies, but it was

badly shaken, and the wild looting that followed the armistice was

chiefly due to the fellows of baser sort who were at the front because

they had been sent thither for punishment.

Yet another factor played an important part in increasing discontent at

the front. One can say, without fear of intelligent contradiction, that

no other country ever possessed as highly trained and efficient officers

as Germany at the outbreak of the war. There were martinets among them,

and the discipline was at best strict, but the first article of their

creed was to look after the welfare of the men committed to their

charge. Drawn from the best families and with generations of

officer-ancestors behind them, they were inspired by both family and

class pride which forbade them to spare themselves in the service of the

Fatherland. The mortality in the officer-corps was enormous. About forty

per cent of the original officers of career were killed, and a majority

of the rest incapacitated. The result was a shortage of trained men

which made itself severely felt in the last year of the war. Youths of

eighteen and nineteen, fresh from the schools and hastily trained, were

made lieutenants and placed in command of men old enough to be their

fathers. The wine of authority mounted to boyish heads. Scores of

elderly German soldiers have declared to the writer independently of

each other that the overbearing manners, arbitrary orders and arrogance

of these youths aroused the resentment of even the most loyal men and

increased inestimably the discontent already prevailing at the front.

CHAPTER VI.

Propaganda and Morale.

Even before the anti-war and revolutionary propaganda had attained great

proportions there were indications that all was not well in one branch

of the empire's armed forces. Rumblings of discontent began to come from

the navy early in the second year of the war, and in the summer of 1916

there was a serious outbreak of rioting at Kiel. Its gravity was not at

first realized, because Kiel, even in peace times, had been a turbulent

and riotous city. But a few months later the rioting broke out again,

and in the early summer of 1917 there came a menacing strike of sailors

and shipyard and dock laborers at Wilhelmshaven. This was mainly a

wage-movement, coupled with a demand for more food, but it had political

consequences of a serious nature.

The first displays of mutinous spirit among the men of the fleet were

not so much due to revolutionary and radical Socialist propaganda as to

a spontaneous internal dissatisfaction with the conditions of the

service itself. No continuously extensive use of the submarines had been

made up to the middle of the winter of 1916. There had been spurts of

activity with this weapon, but no sustained effort. By March, 1916,

however, many U-boats were being sent out. At first they were manned by

volunteers, and there had been a surplus of volunteers, for the men of

the submarine crews received special food, more pay, liberal furloughs

and the Iron Cross after the third trip. Within a year, however,

conditions changed decidedly. The percentage of U-boats lost is not yet

known, but the men of the fleet reckoned that a submarine rarely

survived its tenth trip. The Admiralty naturally published no accounts

of boats that failed to come back, and this added a new terror to this

branch of the service.

Volunteers were no longer to be had. The result was that drafts were

resorted to, at the first from the men of the High Seas fleet, and later

from the land forces. Such a draft came to be considered as equivalent

to a death-sentence.[16] Disaffection increased in the fleet. The

Independent Socialists were prompt to discover and take advantage of

these conditions. The sailors were plied with propaganda, oral and

written. The character of this propaganda was not generally known until

October 9, 1917, when the Minister of Marine, Admiral von Capelle,

speaking in the Reichstag, informed the astonished nation that a serious

mutiny had occurred in the fleet two months earlier, and that it had

been necessary to execute some of the ringleaders and imprison a number

of others.

[16] The heavy losses among army aviators had brought about a

similar state of affairs at this time in the army. Volunteers

for the fighting planes ceased offering themselves, and a

resort to forced service became necessary.

Von Capelle's disclosures came as answer to an interpellation by the

Independent Socialist deputies regarding pan-German propaganda at the

front and the prohibition of the circulation of twenty-three Socialist

newspapers among the men of the ships. The Independent Wilhelm Dittmann

made a long speech supporting the interpellation, and voiced a bitter

complaint over the fact that pan-German agitation was permitted at the

front and among the fleet, while the Independent Socialist propaganda

was forbidden. Dr. Michaelis, the Imperial Chancellor, made a brief

response, in which he announced that Admiral von Capelle would answer

the Independents. "I will merely say one thing," he said, "and that is

that Deputy Dittmann is the last man in the world who has a right to

talk about agitation in the army and navy."

Michaelis referred then to a complaint by Dittmann that he (Michaelis)

had not been true to his promise, made upon assuming office, to treat

all parties alike. "Dittmann has forgotten to add the qualification

which I made at that time," said the Chancellor. "I said all parties

that do not threaten the existence of the empire or follow aims

dangerous to the state. The party of the Independent Social-Democrats

stands on the other side of that line so far as I am concerned."

This was the first open declaration by the government of war on the

party of Haase, Dittmann, et al. The Majority Socialists--as the members

of the old or parent organization were now termed--joined in the tumult

raised by their seceding brethren. When the storm had laid itself,

Admiral von Capelle made his sensational disclosures. He said:

"It is unfortunately a fact that the Russian revolution has

turned the heads of a few persons on board our fleet and caused

them to entertain matured revolutionary ideas. The mad plan of

these few men was to secure accomplices on all ships and to

subvert the whole fleet, all members of the crews, to open

mutiny, in order, by force if necessary, to paralyze the fleet

and compel peace.

"It is a fact that these men have entered into relations with

the Independent Socialist Party. It has been formally

established by the evidence that the ringleader presented his

plans to Deputies Dittmann, Haase and Vogtherr in the

caucus-room of the Independent Socialists here in the Reichstag

building, and that it received the approval of these men.

"It is true that these deputies pointed out the extreme danger

of the proposed action and warned the conspirators to observe

the greatest caution, but they promised their whole-hearted

support through the furnishing of agitation material designed to

incite the fleet to mutiny."

Von Capelle's speech was interrupted at this point by cries of

indignation from the parties of the right and center, and by abusive

remarks directed against the speaker from the Socialists of both

factions. When the presiding-officer had succeeded in restoring a

semblance of order, the Admiral continued:

"In view of this situation it was my first duty to prevent with

all possible means at my disposal the circulation of the

incitatory literature among the fleet.

"I do not care at this time to go into details concerning the

further happenings in the fleet. Some few men who had forgotten

honor and duty committed grave crimes and have undergone the

punishment which they deserved. I will only add here that the

rumors in circulation, which have naturally come also to my

ears, are exaggerated beyond all measure. The preparedness of

the fleet for battle has not been brought in question for a

single moment, and it shall and will not be."

The three deputies named by von Capelle defended themselves in speeches

which, judged even on their merits and without reference to the

personalities and records of the men making them, did not ring quite

true or carry complete conviction. In the light of the previous and

subsequent conduct of the trio and of the occurrences of November, 1918,

their shifty and evasive character is apparent. We have already learned

something of Haase's activities, and the other two were among his ablest

and most energetic lieutenants. Dittmann, virtually a Communist and

pronounced internationalist, was later arrested for pro-revolutionary

activities. Erwin Vogtherr, the third member of the group, had from the

very beginning been one of the most perniciously active of all

revolutionary propagandists and agitators. He had been for some time the

editor of _Der Atheist_ (The Atheist), and was of that uncompromising

type of atheists who consider it necessary to keep their hats on in

church to show their disbelief in a Creator.

Haase, in his reply to the charges against him, admitted that the

mutineers' ringleader had had a conference with him, Dittmann and

Vogtherr. But this, he declared, was nothing out of the ordinary, since

it was both his custom and his duty to receive the men who came to him

from both army and navy to complain of conditions. The sailor referred

to by Admiral von Capelle had visited him during the summer and

complained bitterly about the conditions which he and his colleagues

were compelled to endure. Haase continued:

"He declared further that the sailors, and especially those of

lengthy service, felt keenly the lack of mental stimulus, that

great numbers of them had subscribed to Independent Socialist

publications, were reading them zealously and receiving stimulus

from them. It was their intention to educate themselves further

and to devote themselves to political discussions in meetings on

land. To this end they desired to have literature. Although, as

has been shown in the last days, political discussions have been

carried on under full steam, even officially, I called this

sailor's attention to the fact that what was in itself

permissible, might, under the peculiar conditions under which we

lived, become dangerous, and I warned him to be cautious. This

much is correct."

Haase denied that the sailor had submitted any revolutionary plan to him

or his colleagues, and challenged Admiral von Capelle to produce his

evidence.

It is difficult for one who, like the writer, has a thorough

acquaintance with the Independent Socialist publications, to take

seriously the statement that they were desired merely for "mental

stimulus" by sailors who wished to "educate themselves further." The

plain tendency of all these publications, disguised as cleverly as it

might be in an attempt to escape confiscation of the issue or

prosecution for treason, was revolutionary. A certain degree of

venomousness, scurrility and abuse of _bourgeois_ opponents has always

characterized all but a few Socialist publications in all lands, and the

Independent Socialist press far outdid the organs of the old party in

this respect. It preached internationalism and flouted patriotism; it

ridiculed all existing authority; it glorified the Russian revolution in

a manner calculated to induce imitation by its readers, and, following

the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in November, 1917, it published

regularly the reports of the _Isvestia_ and other Bolshevik organs, with

laudatory editorial comment. The man who "educated himself further" by a

reading of the Independent Socialist publications was educating himself

for revolution and for nothing else.

Vogtherr set up a straw man in his reply and demolished it to the

complete satisfaction of himself and his brother Socialists, including,

strangely enough, also the Majority Socialists, who, despite the fact

that the Independent Socialist press had classified them with

_bourgeoisie_ and attacked them even more bitterly, on this occasion

exhibited solidarity of feeling with their more radical colleagues.

Vogtherr declared that von Capelle had charged the Independents with

having worked out a plan for revolution in the fleet. This alleged

charge he denied. He spoke with a certain pathos of the oppressed

sailors who recognized in the Independents their real friends and

naturally came to them instead of going to deputies in whom they had no

confidence. He, too, demanded that the Minister of Marine produce his

proof. Vogtherr, like Haase before him, devoted a part of his speech to

a general attack on von Capelle and Michaelis, plainly the attempt of a

practical politician to confuse the issue.

Dittmann spoke briefly along the lines followed by Haase and Vogtherr.

He had, he said, carefully warned his sailor-visitors to keep within

safe bounds. He refused to permit either Admiral von Capelle or

Chancellor Michaelis to restrict his rights as Reichstag deputy to

receive visitors and hear their complaints. Dittmann cleverly enlisted

further the sympathy of the Majority Socialists by pointing out that

several of their publications had also come under the ban of the

Admiralty.

Von Capelle responded to the challenge of the trio to produce his

evidence. He read the following testimony, given at the court-martial by

one of the lieutenants of the mutineers' ringleader, a man named Sachse.

This witness testified:

"I, too, made a personal visit to Deputy Dittmann in the

Reichstag after Reichpietsch (the ringleader) had visited him. I

introduced myself by saying that I came from Reichpietsch and

that I came in the same matter. Dittmann indicated that he knew

what I meant. He was glad to see me and said: 'We must go ahead

in the same way, but we must use great caution.'

"Regarding his conference with the members of the party

Reichpietsch told me the following: He had not been with

Dittmann alone, but there had been a kind of a party conference,

participated in by Dittmann, Vogtherr and Haase. Reichpietsch

communicated to them the plan and the results thus far attained

by the organization, which, according to his declaration, was

very enthusiastic about the matter.

"After discussion of the details of the organization, the

deputies told Reichpietsch that this was a prohibited and

punishable undertaking and a very daring one, and he must be

very careful. So far as they were concerned, they would support

his agitation in every manner, and especially through pamphlets

and other literature."

Admiral von Capelle further read from the testimony of the ringleader,

Reichpietsch, who, after reading Sachse's testimony, had said under

oath:

"Insofar as this testimony concerns me it is correct. That is to

say, what I told Sachse was a true report of what had happened

in Berlin."

Friedrich (Fritz) Ebert, the Majority Socialist leader who later became

the first president of the German Republic, defended the Independent

Socialists and declared that the government had offered no evidence to

substantiate its accusations against Haase, Dittmann and Vogtherr.

Deputy Naumann of the Progressive party also defended them indirectly,

and both he and Deputy Trimborn of the Center (Clerical party) protested

against any effort to place a Reichstag party outside the pale.

In view of the revolutionary activities of the Independent Socialists

even before that date and of the occurrences of the succeeding year,

which culminated in the overthrow of the government, this attitude of

supposedly loyal and patriotic parties of the Reichstag appears at first

sight astonishing and almost inexplicable. There were, however, two

reasons (in the case of the Majority Socialists three reasons) for it.

Neither the _bourgeois_ parties nor the Majority Socialists had any

conception of the extent of the revolutionary propaganda being carried

on by the Independents and their more radical accomplices. As we shall

see later, even the old party Socialists were completely taken by

surprise when the actual revolution came, and revolution was almost an

accomplished fact in Berlin, six days after it had begun in Kiel, before

they awakened to what was happening. Hence the accusations against their

colleagues of another party appeared to the three parties of the

anti-annexationist wing of the Reichstag as a blow directed against all

opponents of the pan-German program of the parties of the Right.

The second reason was psychological and to be found in the atmosphere of

the day's session. It had started, as already reported, with the

discussion of an interpellation regarding pan-German propaganda at the

front and in the fleet. The anti-Chauvinist majority of the Reichstag

had earlier found its way together in a _bloc_ composed of the

Progressives, Clericals and Majority Socialists, and had adopted, on

July 19, 1917, a resolution, in the main the work of Mathias Erzberger

of the Clericals, calling for a peace without annexations or

indemnities, and reserving the right of self-determination to all

nations. Equally with the Independent Socialists, this _bloc_ had been

stirred to indignation by the shameless manner in which the high civil

and military authorities not only permitted the advocates of an

imperialistic and annexationist peace to carry on their propaganda among

the soldiers and sailors, but even encouraged and actively assisted in

that work. Not only all Socialist publications, but even many

_bourgeois_ papers of the stamp of the Berlin _Tageblatt_ were

absolutely forbidden by the commanders of many troop units, and the

soldiers were compelled to listen to speeches by members of the

pan-German _Vaterlandspartei_ (Fatherland Party) and similar

organizations. Ignorant of the extent and nature of the Independent

Socialists' efforts to undermine authority, the _bloc_ parties saw in

Admiral von Capelle's charges only another manifestation of the spirit

against which their own fight was directed. That, in these

circumstances, they should defend the Independents was but natural.

The third reason affecting the course of the Majority Socialists has

already been referred to in passing. This was the feeling of party

solidarity, which still existed despite the fact that the Independents

had had their own party organization for some six months. Most of the

prominent men in both Socialist parties had worked together in a common

cause for many years, and while, in the heat of purely partisan

conflicts this was sometimes forgotten for the moment, it nevertheless

united the two factions when, as now, the attack came from the extreme

Right.

Complete details of the mutiny of this summer have never been given out.

According to the best reports available, it started on the battleship

_Westfalen_ at Wilhelmshaven and included altogether four vessels, one

of which was the _Nuernberg_. The captain of the _Nuernberg_ is said to

have been thrown overboard. Rumor and enemy report made the most of the

affair and undoubtedly exaggerated it greatly, but there can be no doubt

that it was serious and that the morale of the fleet was greatly

affected by it. Some of the ring-leaders--how many it is not known--were

executed, and a considerable number were imprisoned for long terms. The

extent and severity of the sentences added fuel to the discontent

already prevailing throughout the fleet. The men's fighting spirit sank

as their revolutionary spirit rose. Von Capelle's boast that the fleet's

preparedness for battle "shall and will not be brought in question for a

moment" was a vain boast. The fleet was already rotten at the core.

Ironic fate had led the men who directed the affairs of the German

Empire to forge one of the weapons with which it was later to be

destroyed. On April 9, 1917, Nicholas Lenine, with thirty-two fanatical

followers, had been brought from Switzerland through Germany in a sealed

car and sent into Russia to sow the seeds of Bolshevism. How the plan

succeeded is only too well known. November brought the overthrow of the

Kerensky government. Released from the necessity of the intensive

pre-revolutionary propaganda at home, the Bolsheviki turned their

attention to imperialistic Germany. Their missionaries, liberally

equipped with corruption funds, entered Germany by secret routes and

worked with Germans in sympathy with their cause, notably Liebknecht.

Foremost among their propagandists was a man who called himself Radek.

His real name was Sobelsohn, a Jew from Austrian Galicia. Expelled from

his labor union before the war for robbing a _Genosse_, he had settled

in Bremen and was even then the guiding spirit in the most radical and

rabid circles. After the Russian Bolshevik revolution he quickly took up

the severed threads of his former connections. He was intimate with all

the Independent Socialist leaders already named, and with many others. A

man of acknowledged organizing and propagandizing ability, he

contributed markedly to making Germany ripe for revolution.

All the gates were thrown down to Bolshevism following the treaty of

Brest-Litovsk, when Joffe, the Bolshevik Ambassador, was permitted to

come to Berlin and establish himself in the palace of the former

Imperial Russian Embassy in _Unter den Linden_. He brought a staff of

men and women whose sole duty it was to carry on Bolshevist propaganda

against the government to which he was accredited. Leading Independent

Socialists were frequent visitors at the embassy, and Haase, at an

elaborate banquet held there in May, 1918, responded to the toast, "The

Red International."

Closest to Joffe of all Germans was Dr. Oskar Cohn, one of the founders

of the Independent Socialist Party. Cohn, who is a Berlin lawyer,

possesses that curious combination of characteristics so often

encountered in extreme Socialism. In his private life of undoubted

probity, he rejoiced at an opportunity to accept and distribute money

given by a foreign government to overthrow the government of his own

Fatherland. Mild-mannered and an opponent of force, he made the cause of

Liebknecht's murderous Spartacans his own. Scholarly and of deep

learning, he associated freely with the dregs of the population, with

thieves and murderers, in furtherance of the cause of the international

proletariat. He became the legal adviser of Joffe and one of the main

distributors of the Bolsheviki's corruption fund.

The political police were at all times cognizant of the revolutionary

propaganda that was being carried on, but they were greatly hampered in

their work by a limitation which had been imposed in 1917 upon the

so-called _Schutzhaft_, literally "protective arrest." This had been

freely used against suspected persons from the beginning of the war, and

hundreds had sat in jail for weeks in what was equivalent to a sentence

of imprisonment, without having had an opportunity to hear what the

charge against them was. The abuse of this right became so glaring that

it was provided in 1917 that arrested persons could not be detained

without a definite crime being charged against them. The police made a

long report on Joffe's activities in June, 1918, and the authorities,

with some hesitation, placed the matter before the "Ambassador." He lied

bravely, declaring that he cherished no plans against the integrity of

the German Empire and that his large staff existed solely to carry on

the legitimate business of the embassy.

The authorities, unconvinced, maintained a watch on the activities of

the Russians. They were particularly suspicious of the unusual number of

diplomatic couriers passing between Berlin and Petrograd. Their number

was said to reach nearly four hundred. The press began to voice these

suspicions. Joffe, with a fine show of indignation, declared that it

"was beneath his dignity" to take any notice of them. The tenuity of

Herr Joffe's dignity and the value of his word became apparent on

November 5, 1918, in the revolution week, when a box in the luggage of a

courier arriving from Russia was--"accidentally," as the official report

put it--broken open at the railway station. Its contents proved to be

Bolshevik propaganda literature inciting the Germans to institute a

reign of terror against the _bourgeoisie_, to murder the oppressors of

the proletariat and to overthrow the government. One of these appeals

came from the Spartacan _Internationale_ and contained a carefully

worked-out program for instituting a reign of terror.

Even the _Vorwaerts_, which had been reluctant to credit the charges

against _Genosse_ Joffe, was now compelled to admit that he had lied and

misused his diplomatic privileges. Joffe, still denying his guilt, was

escorted from the embassy in the middle of the following night by an

armed guard and placed aboard a special train for Moscow, with the whole

staff of the embassy and of the Rosta Telegraph Agency, ostensibly a

news agency, but really an institution for carrying on Bolshevik

propaganda. Once safe in Russia, Joffe admitted his activities in

Germany and gloried in them. In a wireless message sent on December 8,

1918, he said the Bolshevik literature had been circulated "through the

good offices of the Independent Socialists." He declared further that a

much greater number of weapons than had been alleged had been handed

over to the Independent Barth, together with "several hundred thousand

roubles." He added:

"I claim for myself the honor of having devoted all my powers to

the success of the German revolution through my activities,

which were carried on in agreement with the Independent

Socialist ministers Haase and Barth and with others."

Following the publication of this wireless message, Cohn also issued an

explanation of his activities in connection with Joffe. He said:

"Is any particular explanation or justification needed to make

it clear that I gladly accepted the funds which the Russian

comrades sent me by the hand of Comrade Joffe for the purposes

of the German revolution? Comrade Joffe gave me the money in the

night of November 5th. This had nothing to do with the money

which he had previously given me for the purchase of weapons. I

used the money for the purpose intended, namely, the spreading

of the revolutionary idea, and regret only that circumstances

made it impossible for me to use all of it in this manner."

Bolshevik centers had been organized all over Germany when the

revolution came. On the same day Joffe was expelled, the police in

Duesseldorf closed a Bolshevik nest which was ostensibly conducted as a

news agency. It was but one of scores of similar centers of revolution.

The revolutionary propaganda being carried on inside the empire was

powerfully aided and supplemented by the activities of Germany's enemies

along the same lines. No detailed report of the extent of this branch of

warfare is yet available, but it was, in the words of one of Germany's

leading generals in a talk with the writer, "devilishly clever and

effective." From the air, through secret channels, through traitors at

home, the German soldier or sailor was worked upon. He was told truths

about the forces against him that had been suppressed by the German

censors. The folly of longer trying to oppose the whole world was

pointed out, and every possible weakness in the German character was

cunningly exploited. The good effect of this propaganda cannot be

doubted.

Testimony regarding the part played by enemy propaganda in bringing

about the final collapse of Germany has been given by one of the men

best qualified to know the facts. In an article in _Everybody's

Magazine_ for February, 1919, George Creel, chairman of the American

Committee on Public Information, gives full credit to the work of the

American soldiers, but declares that, in the last analysis, Germany was

defeated by publicity. The military collapse of Germany was due to "a

disintegration of morale both on the firing line and among the civilian

population." It was the telling of the truth to the Germans by their

enemies that finally caused the _debacle_ at a time when the German Army

"was well equipped with supplies and ammunitions, and behind it still

stretched line after line almost impregnable by reason of natural

strength and military science."[17]

[17] German assertions that their armies were never defeated in a

military sense regularly arouse and will long continue to

arouse anger and scornful indignation among their enemies,

yet here we have official testimony to support their

contentions. It is no detraction from the valor and military

successes of the Allies to assert again that if the German

troops had not been weakened physically by starvation and

morally by enemy propaganda, they could have carried on the

war for many months more.

The propaganda literature was prepared by historians, journalists and

advertising specialists, and even some psychologists were enlisted to

help in its writing. Germany's borders, however, were so carefully

guarded that it was difficult to get the matter into the country. Mr.

Creel relates interestingly how this was done. Aeroplanes were employed

to some extent, but these were so badly needed for fighting purposes

that not enough could be obtained for distribution of propaganda

literature.

"The French introduced a rifle-grenade that carried pamphlets about six

hundred feet in a favoring wind, and a seventy-five millimeter shell

that carried four or five miles. The British developed a six-inch gun

that carried ten or twelve miles and scattered several thousand leaflets

from each shell. The Italians used rockets for close work on the front,

each rocket carrying forty or fifty leaflets. The obvious smash at

German morale was through America's aim and swift war-progress, and for

this reason the Allies used the President's speeches and our military

facts freely and sometimes exclusively.

"To reach further behind the lines, all fronts used paper balloons

filled with coal-gas. They would remain in the air a minimum of twenty

hours, so as to make a trip of six hundred miles in a thirty-mile wind.

On a Belgian fete-day such balloons carried four hundred thousand

greetings into Belgium, and some flew clear across Belgium. Fabric

balloons, carrying seventeen or eighteen pounds of leaflets, were also

employed, but with all the balloons the uncertainty of the wind made the

work haphazard.

"The attempt was made to fly kites over the trenches and drop leaflets

from traveling containers that were run up the kite-wire, but this

method could be used only on fronts where aeroplanes were not active,

because the wires were a menace to the planes. The paper used in the

leaflets was chemically treated so that they would not spoil if they lay

out in the rain.

"An American invention that gave promise of supplanting all others was a

balloon that carried a tin container holding about ten thousand

pamphlets. A clock attachment governed the climb of the balloon, it had

a sailing range of from six to eight hundred miles, and the mechanism

could be set in such a manner as to have the pamphlets dropped in a

bunch or one at a time at regular intervals, the whole business blowing

up conclusively with the descent of the last printed 'bullet'."

Similar methods were used against Austria-Hungary, writes Mr. Creel, and

did much to shatter their feelings of allegiance to Germany. A proof of

the effectiveness of the propaganda came when an order from the German

General Staff was found, "establishing death as a penalty for all those

seen picking up our matter or found with it in their possession.

Austria-Hungary had earlier given orders to shoot or imprison all

soldiers or citizens guilty of the abominable crime of reading 'printed

lies' against the government."

Indirectly, too, the Germans were subjected to Allied propaganda

throughout the war. In one matter the German Government's attitude was

more democratic and ethically defensible than the attitude of its

enemies. It is discouraging to the abstract moralist to find that this

worked out to the detriment of those adopting the more admirable course.

Of all belligerent countries, Germany was the only one that permitted

the free circulation and sale within its borders of the enemy press.

Leading French and English editors were able with much difficulty to

secure copies of some German papers, and occasionally the large press

associations and some of the leading newspapers in America were

permitted to see a few ancient copies, but nowhere could they be had by

the private citizen, nor even read with safety in public places by those

entitled to have them. There was never a time in Berlin, from the first

declaration of war to the armistice, when the leading American, French,

English, Italian and Russian papers could not be bought openly at a

dozen newsstands or hotels, and the same was true generally throughout

Germany.

The well-disciplined Germans at first rejected as lies all reports in

these papers differing from the official German versions of the same

happenings. Many kept this attitude to the last, but even these began

after a while, in common with the less sturdy believers, to be morally

shaken by the cumulative evidence of the worldwide unpopularity of the

Germans and to be dismayed by the tone of the enemy toward everything

that they had heretofore held holy. The average German stoically endured

for a long time to be called "Hun," but, in homely phrase, it got on his

nerves after a while. The wild atrocity stories also played their part.

All intelligent readers of history know that tremendous exaggerations of

such reports have always accompanied all wars. Before the present war

the Associated Press, the world's greatest newsgathering agency, barred

war-atrocity stories from its reports because experience had

demonstrated that these were often--perhaps generally--untrue and almost

always exaggerated. When the enemy press converted the German army's

_Kadaververwertungs-Anstalt_ (Carcass Utilization Factory) into a Corpse

Utilization Factory (_Leichenverwertungs-Anstalt_) and declared that

bodies of fallen German soldiers were being rendered out for the fat,

the Germans were at first indignant and angry. This feeling changed to

one of consternation and eventual depression when they learned from the

enemy newspapers that the story was universally believed. In the course

of the long war, the constant repetition of atrocity reports, both true

and false, had a cumulative depressive effect which seriously shook the

morale of all but the sturdiest of the people and was one of the factors

inducing the general feeling of hopelessness that made the final

_debacle_ so complete. That everybody knew some of the reports to be

true was an aggravation of their effect. A great part, perhaps, indeed,

the greater part of all Germans condemned bitterly the Belgian

deportations, just as the best minds of the nation condemned the new

_Schrecklichkeit_ of the U-boat warfare, but they were helpless so long

as their government was under the iron thumb of the military caste, and

their helplessness increased their despair when they saw the opinion of

the world embittered against their nation.

There is plenty of German testimony to show how effective this enemy

propaganda was. Siegfried Heckscher, Reichstag member and chief of the

publicity department of the Hamburg-America Line, writing at the end of

September, pointed out the need of a German propaganda ministry to

counteract the attacks being made on Germany by the propaganda work

under the direction of Lord Northcliffe.

"The German practice of silence in the face of all the pronouncements of

enemy statesmen cannot be borne any longer," said Herr Heckscher.

"Anybody who watches the effect of the Northcliffe propaganda in foreign

countries and in Germany can have only one opinion--that this silence is

equivalent to a failure of German statesmanship.

"With masterly skill every single speech of the English leaders is

adapted not only to its effect in England, but also to its influence on

public opinion among the neutrals and also, and especially, in Germany.

* * * * Hundreds of thousands of Germans, reading a pronouncement by the

President of the United States, ask themselves bitterly what the German

Government will say. Thus there is formed a cloud of discontent and dark

doubt, which, thanks to this Northcliffe propaganda, spreads itself more

and more over the German people. * * * *

"We try to protect our country from enemy espionage and from the work of

agents and scoundrels, but with open eyes we leave it defenseless while

a stream of poisonous speeches is poured over its people.

"It will not, of course, do for enemy pronouncements of importance to be

withheld from our people, but it is as necessary for our people as their

daily bread that the Anglo-Franco-American influence should be met by

the German view, and that the justice and greatness of the German cause

and of the German idea should be brought into the clear, full light of

day. Nor is defense sufficient. We must also aggressively champion our

cause in the forum of the civilized world.

"I repeat what I have said for years, that Reuter and the English news

propaganda are mightier than the English fleet and more dangerous than

the English army."

The _Koelnische Volkszeitung_ echoed the demand for a propaganda

ministry. It wrote:

"As our good name has been stolen from us and made despicable

throughout the world, one of our peace demands must be that our

enemies publicly and officially confess that they have

circulated nothing but lies and slanders. * * * The greatest

need of the moment is a campaign of enlightenment, organized by

all the competent authorities, to hammer into German heads that,

if further sacrifices and efforts are required of us, it is not

the caprice of a few dozen people in Germany nor German

obstinacy, but the enemy's impulse to destroy, that imposes them

on people at home and at the front."

CHAPTER VII.

Germany Requests an Armistice.

Dr. Michaelis, unequal to his task, laid down the Imperial

Chancellorship. His successor was Count Hertling, Minister-President of

Bavaria. The decision to appoint this man Imperial Chancellor may have

been influenced largely by a desire to strengthen the bonds between

Prussia and the next largest German state. It is possible also that

Hertling's intimate relations with the Papal Court were taken into

consideration, but the choice was a striking commentary on the dearth of

good chancellorship material in Germany. Count Hertling's age alone

unfitted him to bear the terrible burdens of this post, for he was well

along in the seventies, and not strong physically. He had distinguished

himself as an educator and as a writer on certain topics, especially

Roman Catholic Church history, and had a record of honorable and

faithful service as a member of the Bavarian Government. In his role as

statesman he had exhibited perhaps a little more than average ability,

but never those qualities which the responsible head of a great state

should possess.

A monarchist by birth and conviction, Count Hertling was particularly

unfitted for the chancellorship at a time when the nation-wide demand

for democratic reforms of government was increasing in strength every

moment. In assuming his post he declared that he was fully cognizant of

the strength and justice of the demand for an increased share of

participation by the people in the government, and he pledged himself to

use his best efforts to see that this demand was met. There is no reason

to doubt the honesty of his intentions, but it was too much to expect

that an aged Conservative of the old school should so easily shake off

old notions or even realize adequately what the great mass of the people

meant when they cried out for a change of system. Probably no man could

have carried out the task confronting the Chancellor; that Count

Hertling would fail was inevitable.

The empire was honeycombed with sedition when the military reverses of

the summer began. These reverses, disastrous enough in themselves, were

greatly magnified by faint-hearted or malicious rumor. The military

commander in the Marches (Brandenburg) issued a decree on September 9th

providing for a year's imprisonment or a fine of 1,500 marks for persons

spreading false rumors. The decree applied not only to rumors of

defeats, but also to reports exaggerating the enemy's strength, casting

doubts on the ability of the German armies to withstand the attack or

bringing in question the soundness of the empire's economic situation.

Reports of serious dissensions in Austria-Hungary came at the same time

to add to the general depression. The Vienna _Arbeiterzeitung_ said:

"In questions regarding food we are compelled to negotiate with

Hungary as if we were negotiating with a foreign power. The

harvest is the best since the war began, but the Hungarians are

ruthlessly starving the Austrians, although there is plenty for

us all."

The Austro-Hungarian Government saw the trend of events. Premier Baron

Burian told Berlin that the Dual Monarchy could not keep up the struggle

much longer. The people, he said, were starving, and disloyalty and

treachery on the part of subject non-German races in Hungary, Bohemia

and the Slav population had attained alarming proportions.

"If the rulers do not make peace the people will make it over their

heads," said the Premier, "and that will be the end of rulers."

He appealed to Germany to join with Austria-Hungary in making an offer

of peace. Berlin counseled against such a step. The German Government

had long lost any illusions it might have cherished in respect to

Austria-Hungary's value as an ally, and it was fully informed of the

desperateness of the situation there. Despite this it realized that such

a step as Vienna proposed would be taken by the enemy as a confession of

weakness, and it clung desperately to the hope that the situation on the

west front might still be saved.

Burian, however, cherished no illusions. Austria asked for peace, but

made it clear that she did not mean a separate peace. The German people

saw in Vienna's action the shadow of coming events, and their

despondency was increased.

Prince Lichnowsky, Germany's Ambassador at the Court of St. James at the

out-break of the war, had earlier confided to a few personal friends

copies of his memoirs regarding the events leading up to the war.

Captain von Beerfelde of the German General Staff, into whose hands a

copy came, had a number of copies made and circulated them generally.

The memoirs were a frank disclosure of Germany's great share of the

guilt for the war. The authorities tried to stop their circulation, but

they were read by hundreds of thousands, and did much to destroy general

confidence in the justice of Germany's cause.

Count Hertling, trying blunderingly to redeem his democratic promises,

made a tactlessly naive speech in the Prussian House of Lords in favor

of the government's franchise-reform measures. These bills, although

representing a decided improvement of the existing system, had been

bitterly criticized by all liberal elements because they did not go far

enough, but had finally been reluctantly accepted as the best that could

be hoped for in the circumstances. A majority existed for them in the

Prussian Diet, but the Junkers and noble industrialists of the House of

Lords would hear of no surrender of their ancient rights and privileges.

The Chancellor in his speech warned the Lords that they could avoid the

necessity of making still more far-reaching concessions later by

adopting the government's measures as they stood. To reject them, he

declared, would be seriously to imperil the crown and dynasty. He closed

with an appeal to his hearers to remember the services rendered to the

Fatherland by men of all political creeds, including the Socialists.

Count Hertling's speech displeased everybody. The Conservative press

assailed him bitterly. The _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, chief organ of the

Junkers, called him "the gravedigger of the Prussian monarchy." The

_Kreuzzeitung_ charged him with minimizing the crown's deserts and

exaggerating the services of the Socialists. The liberal _bourgeois_ and

the Socialist press said in effect: "And so this is our new democratic

Chancellor who advises the House of Lords to block an honest democratic

reform of Prussia's iniquitous franchise system." The _Germania_, chief

organ of the Clericals, Hertling's own party, damned the speech with

faint praise.

Talk of a "chancellor crisis" was soon heard, and by the middle of

September there was little doubt that Hertling's days were numbered.

Nothing else can so adequately indicate the reversal of conditions in

Germany as the fact that one of the men named oftenest even in

_bourgeois_ circles as a likely successor to Count Hertling was Philip

Scheidemann, a leader of the Majority Socialists. The _vaterlandslose

Gesellen_ were coming into their own.

The crisis became acute on September 20th. The government unofficially

sounded the Majority Socialists as to their willingness to participate

in a coalition government. The question was discussed on September 22d,

at a joint conference of the Socialist Reichstag deputies and the

members of the party's executive committee. Although one of the cardinal

tenets of Socialism had always forbidden participation in any but a

purely Socialist government, the final vote was nearly four to one in

favor of abandoning this tenet in view of the extraordinary situation

confronting the empire. With eighty votes against twenty-two the

conference decided to send representatives into a coalition government

under the following conditions:

1. The government shall unqualifiedly accept the declaration of

the Reichstag of July 19, 1917,[18] and declare its willingness

to enter a League of Nations whose fundamental principles shall

be the peaceful adjustment of all conflicts and universal

disarmament.

[18] _Vide_ chapter vi.

2. The government shall make an absolutely unambiguous

declaration of its willingness to rehabilitate

(_wiederherstellen_) Belgium and reach an understanding

regarding compensation to that land, and also to rehabilitate

Serbia and Montenegro.

3. The peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest shall not

be permitted to stand in the way of a general treaty of peace;

civil government shall be immediately established in all

occupied territories; occupied territories shall be evacuated

when peace is concluded; democratic representative assemblies

shall be established at once.

4. Autonomy shall be granted to Alsace-Lorraine; general, equal,

secret and direct right of franchise shall be granted in all

German federal states; the Prussian Diet shall be dissolved if

the deliberations of the House of Lords do not immediately

result in the adoption of the franchise-reform bills.

5. There shall be uniformity in the imperial government, and

irresponsible unofficial auxiliary governments

(_Nebenregierungen_) are to be eliminated; representatives of

the government shall be chosen from the majority of the

Reichstag or shall be persons who adhere to the policies of this

majority; political announcements by the crown or by military

authorities shall be communicated to the Imperial Chancellor

before they are promulgated.

6. Immediate rescission of all decrees limiting the right of

assembly or the freedom of the press; the censorship shall be

employed only in purely military matters (questions of tactics

and strategy, movements of troops, fabrication of munitions of

war, etc.); a political control shall be instituted for all

measures resorted to under the authority of the state of siege;

all military institutions that serve to exert political

influence shall be abolished.

On the whole this was a program which appealed to the vast majority of

the German people. The Conservatives and one wing of the National

Liberals would have none of it, but the conviction that nothing but a

change of system would save Germany had been making rapid headway in the

last few weeks. Even many of those opposed in principle to democratic

government began to recognize that nothing else could unite the people.

An article in the _Vorwaerts_ by Scheidemann and another in the

International Correspondence, an ably conducted news agency, pointing

out the vital necessity of making any sacrifices that would save the

country, were widely reprinted and made a strong appeal.

Chancellor Count Hertling, addressing the Reichstag on September 24th,

made a speech which, read between the lines, was a veiled admission of

the desperateness of the situation and the increasingly discouraged

condition of the people. He admitted frankly that the German armies had

met serious reverses on the west front. But Germany, he declared, had

met and triumphed over more serious situations. Russia and Roumania had

been eliminated from the list of enemies, and he was confident that the

people would not lose heart because of temporary setbacks and that the

soldiers would continue to show their old spirit. Austria's peace

_demarche_ had been taken in the face of serious doubts on the part of

the German Government regarding its advisability, but Germany, now as

always, was ready to conclude a just peace.

General von Wrisberg, said the Chancellor, reported that the English

successes against the Marne position and between the Ancre and the Aisne

had been due to fog and the extensive employment of tanks.

Counter-measures had been taken and there was no reason for uneasiness.

The Germans had lost many prisoners and guns, but the enemy's losses had

been frightful.

"The American armies need not frighten us," said Count Hertling. "We

shall take care of them."[19]

[19] The German Government deceived its own people grossly in the

matter of the American forces in France. Hans Delbrueck,

editor of the _Preussische Jahrbuecher_, published on December

10, 1918, a statement that the government had forbidden him

to publish Secretary Baker's figures of the American

strength, as republished in the London _Times_. In response

to his protest, the Supreme Army Command declared that

Baker's figures were "purely American bluff, calculated and

intended to mislead the German people." But the government

not only concealed the truth; it lied about the number of

Americans in France and even compelled the press to lie. A

confidential communication issued to the press in the middle

of May, 1918, declared that "the number of American combatant

troops in France is about ten divisions, of which only four

are at the front. The total of all troops, both at the front

and behind the lines, does not exceed 150,000 to 200,000.

Press notices concerning these matters should state that

America has not been able to fulfil its expectations in the

way of sending troops, and that the earlier estimates of the

German General Staff as to what America could accomplish have

proved to be true. The actual figures given above should in

no case be mentioned." At this time there were nearly one

million Americans in France, and it is inconceivable that the

German Supreme Army Command did not know it.

Captain von Brueninghaus of the Admiralty reported that the U-boats were

sinking much more tonnage than was being built, and that the losses of

submarines were much smaller than those reported by the enemy.

The tone of the aged Chancellor's speech was such that his words carried

no conviction. The war-weary, discouraged people could not but see in

them an admission that all was lost.

And then came a blow that was felt by everybody. Bulgaria surrendered.

The first breach had been made in the alliance of the Central Powers;

the collapse had begun and its significance was plain to the humblest

German. Bulgaria's defection came as no surprise to the government,

which had known for nearly a week that such an event was at least

probable. On September 23d, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria had summoned a

grand council to consider the situation. The result was that a formal

demand was made on Berlin and Vienna for immediate assistance. Germany

and Austria recognized the urgency of the situation, but they were

unable to meet Bulgaria's demands. Both governments promised help in the

near future and besought King Ferdinand to keep up the struggle for a

short time.

The King realized the emptiness of these promises. There was, moreover,

a powerful personal dynastic interest at stake. Revolution of the

reddest type already threatened his crown. Workmen and soldiers were

organizing soviets in Sofia on the familiar Bolshevik plan, and riotous

demonstrations had been held in front of the royal palace. Help from

Berlin and Vienna was obviously out of the question. Ferdinand turned to

the Entente.

The negotiations were brief. Bulgaria surrendered unconditionally. Her

railways and all other means of transportation were handed over to the

Allies to be used for military or any other purposes. All strategic

points in the kingdom were likewise given into the control of Germany's

enemies, and Bulgaria undertook to withdraw immediately all her troops

from Greece and Serbia and disarm them.

As an ally Bulgaria had long ceased to play a decisive part in Germany's

military operations, but her surrender, apart from its moral effect, was

nevertheless disastrous for Germany. General Mackensen's army suddenly

found itself in a hostile land, with its route of retreat threatened.

Thousands of German locomotives and cars, badly needed at home, stood on

tracks now handed over to the control of Germany's enemies.

Worst of all, completed enemy occupation of Bulgaria meant the isolation

of Germany from another ally, for the only route to Constantinople ran

through Bulgaria. The days of the Balkan Express, whose initial trip had

been acclaimed as the inauguration of what would some day become the

Berlin-to-Bagdad line, were numbered. Turkey, isolated, would no longer

be able to carry on the war, and reports were already current that

Turkey would follow Bulgaria's example. British troops were but a few

miles from Damascus, and Bonar Law, reporting in a speech at Guildhall

the surrender of Bulgaria, added:

"There is also something in connection with Turkey which I

cannot say, but which we can all think."

Uneasy rumors that Austria was also about to follow the lead of Bulgaria

spread through Germany.

The Kaiser, wiser than his reactionary advisers, issued on the last day

of September a proclamation, in which he declared it to be his will that

"the German people shall henceforth more effectively cooperate in

deciding the destinies of the Fatherland."

But the destinies of the Fatherland had already been decided by other

than political forces. The iron wall in the West that had for more than

four years withstood the shocks of the armies of a great part of the

civilized world was disintegrating or bending back. In the North the

Belgians, fighting on open ground, were encircling Roulers, lying on the

railway connecting Lille with the German submarine bases in Zeebrugge

and Ostende, and another junction on this important route, Menin, was

menaced by the British. Unless the enemy could be stopped here, all the

railways in the important triangle of Lille, Ghent, and Bruges must soon

be lost, and their loss meant the end of the U-boats as an important

factor in the war.

To the north and west of Cambrai the British, only a mile from the

center of the city, were forcing their way forward relentlessly, and the

French were closing in from the south on the doomed city, which was in

flames. British and American troops were advancing steadily on St.

Quentin and the French were approaching from the south. The American

forces between the Argonnes and the Meuse were moving ahead, but slowly,

for the Germans had weakened their lines elsewhere in order to

concentrate heavy forces against the men from across the sea.

Count Hertling confessed political shipwreck by resigning the

chancellorship. With him went Vice Chancellor von Payer and Foreign

Minister von Hintze. The Kaiser asked Prince Max (Maximilian), heir to

the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden, to accept the post. He complied.

The choice of Prince Max was plainly a concession to and an

acknowledgement of the fact that Germany had become overwhelmingly

democratic, and it was at the same time a virtual confession that the

military situation was desperate and that peace must soon be sought.

Baden had always been one of the most democratic of the German federal

states, and the Prince was, despite his rank, a decidedly democratic

man. In the first years of the war he had distinguished himself as a

humane enemy, and had well earned the tribute paid to him by Ambassador

James W. Gerard in the Ambassador's book, _My Four Years in Germany_.

This tribute was paid in connection with a proposal to place Prince Max

at the head of a central organization for prisoners of war in Germany.

The appointment, said Gerard, would have redounded to the benefit of

Germany and the prisoners.

Prince Max had for some years been recognized as the leader of the

Delbrueck group of moderates, and his name had been considered for the

chancellorship when Dr. Michaelis resigned. That he was not then

appointed was due chiefly to his own reluctance, based upon dynastic

reasons. He had never been in sympathy with _Schrecklichkeit_ in any of

its manifestations, and was known to be out of sympathy with the ruling

caste in Prussia. Early in 1918 he had made public a semi-official

interview outlining his ideas as to what Germany's peace terms should

be. These were in general in accordance with the resolution of the

majority _bloc_ of the Reichstag of July 19, 1917, and condemned all

annexations of foreign territory and all punitive indemnities. He

declared also that the interests of Europe and America would be best

served by a peace which should not disrupt the Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic

peoples, since Germany must be maintained as a bulwark against the

spread of Bolshevism to the nations westward. The conclusion seems

justified that the government believed that Prince Max, uncompromised

and with known democratic leanings, could secure a more favorable peace

for Germany than any other man who could be named.

And the government knew that peace must be had. It had heard so on

October 2, the day before Prince Max's appointment, from the lips of a

man who brought a message from Hindenburg and Ludendorff. What had long

been feared had become a reality--an armistice must be requested. The

bearer of these calamitous tidings was Major von Busche. Word had been

sent that he was coming, and the leaders of the various Reichstag

parties assembled to hear his message. Nominally the message came from

Hindenburg, as commander-in-chief, but really it was Ludendorff speaking

through Hindenburg and his emissary.

The message was brief; Hindenburg, said Major von Busche, had become

convinced that a request for an armistice must be made. The General

Field Marshal had declared, however, that if the request should be

refused, or if dishonoring conditions should be imposed, the fight must

and could go on. He had no intention of throwing his rifle into the

ditch. If necessary, Germany could continue fighting in enemy territory

for months. Von Busche did not admit in so many words that all hope of

an eventual victory had been lost, but that was the effect of his

message.

The men who heard from the highest military authorities in this blunt

manner that the situation was even worse than they had feared were

dumfounded. If Hindenburg and Ludendorff had given up, there was nothing

to be said. It was decided to ask for an armistice.

Prince Max was inclined to refuse to become Imperial Chancellor if it

meant that his first act must be a confession of the impossibility of

carrying on the war longer--for that, he perceived clearly, would be the

natural and logical deduction from a request for an armistice. He

particularly disapproved of making the request as the first act of his

chancellorship. This, he pointed out, would give a needless appearance

of desperate haste and increase the depressing effect of the action,

which would in any event be serious enough.

Prince Max's attitude at this crisis was explained by him in an article

in the _Preussische Jahrbuecher_ following the armistice. He wrote then:

"My peace policy was gravely hampered by the request for an

armistice, which was presented to me completely formulated when

I reached Berlin. I opposed it on practical political grounds.

It seemed to me to be a great mistake to permit the new

government's first step toward peace to be followed by such a

surprising confession of German weakness. Neither our own people

nor the enemy countries estimated our military situation to be

such that a desperate step of this kind was necessary. I made a

counter-proposal. The government should as its first act draw up

a detailed program of its war-aims, and this program should

demonstrate to the whole world our agreement with Wilson's

principles and our honest willingness to make heavy national

sacrifices for these principles.

"The military authorities replied that it was impossible to

await the result of such a declaration. The situation at the

front required that a request for an armistice be made within

twenty-four hours. If I refused to make it, the old government

would make it. I thereupon decided to form a new government and

to support the unavoidable request for an armistice with the

authority of a cabinet of uncompromised men. A week later the

military authorities informed me that they had erred in their

estimate of the situation at the front on October 1st."

Dr. Solf, formerly head of the German Colonial Office, became Foreign

Minister, and Philip Scheidemann, the Socialist leader, and Deputy

Groeber, a Clerical leader, also entered the new ministry. It was the

first German ministry to contain a Social-Democrat, and the first which

could be said to have strong democratic leanings. Opinion in Washington,

according to a cablegram reaching Copenhagen early on October 4th, was

that the makeup of the cabinet was regarded in America "as a desperate

attempt of German militarists to hoodwink the Entente and the German

people into the belief that Germany is being democratized." This opinion

was inspired more by the passions of war than by clear thinking. Germany

was being democratized. That the democratic concessions attempted by

various state rulers were inspired by fear is true, but their motives

are of no importance. It is fruits that count, and the time had come

when the German people could not longer be hoodwinked themselves by the

militarists, nor be used as tools in hoodwinking anybody else. That

time, however, had come too late.

On October 6th, Prince Max, addressing the Reichstag, announced that a

request for an armistice had been made. This request, which was

addressed to President Wilson, said:

"The German Government requests the President of the United

States to take in hand the restoring of peace, to acquaint all

the belligerent states with this request, and to invite them to

send plenipotentiaries for the purpose of opening negotiations.

"It accepts the program set forth by the President of the United

States in his message to Congress on January 8th, and in his

later pronouncements, particularly his speech of September 27th,

as a basis for peace negotiations.

"With a view to avoiding further bloodshed, the German

Government requests the immediate conclusion of an armistice on

land and water and in the air."

Secretary of State Lansing sent the following reply on October 8th:

"Before replying to the request of the Imperial[20] German

Government, and in order that that reply shall be as candid and

straightforward as the momentous interests involved require, the

President of the United States deems it necessary to assure

himself of the exact meaning of the note of the Imperial

Chancellor. Does the Imperial Chancellor mean that the Imperial

German Government accepts the terms laid down by the President

in his address to the Congress of the United States on the 8th

of January last and in subsequent addresses, and that its object

in entering into discussions would be only to agree upon the

practical details of their application?

[20] It will be noticed that Prince Max did not use the

designation "Imperial" in connection with the government.

The omission was undoubtedly deliberate and intended to

emphasize the democratic nature of the new cabinet.

"The President feels bound to say with regard to the suggestion

of an armistice that he would not feel at liberty to propose a

cessation of arms to the governments with which the Government

of the United States is associated against the Central Powers so

long as the armies of those powers are upon their soil. The good

faith of any discussion would manifestly depend upon the consent

of the Central Powers immediately to withdraw their forces

everywhere from invaded territory. The President also feels that

he is justified in asking whether the Imperial Chancellor is

speaking merely for the constituted authorities of the Empire

who have so far conducted the war. He deems the answer to these

questions vital from every point of view."

Foreign Secretary Solf replied four days later with a note accepting

President Wilson's peace terms as laid down in the "fourteen points" and

the supplementary five points later enunciated. He declared that the

German Government was prepared to evacuate occupied territory, and

suggested the appointment of a mixed commission to arrange the details.

He asserted that the Chancellor, in making his request, was supported by

the vast majority of the Reichstag and spoke in the name of the German

Government and the German people.

The effect of the request for an armistice was, so far as the enemy

countries were concerned, precisely what Prince Max had foreseen: it was

everywhere taken as an admission of the hopelessness of the German

cause. But its first effect within the Empire was not unfavorable.

Indeed, there is reason to declare that it was favorable. The mass of

the people reposed much confidence in the new cabinet, and the prospect

of an early peace buoyed up both the civil population and the soldiers.

The front, still being forced slowly back, nevertheless held on to every

available position with grim tenacity and in the face of heavy losses.

On October 8th, they repulsed a determined assault at the center of

their long front and even counter-attacked in quite the old style.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Last Days of Imperial Germany.

Prince Max, although inspired by the best intentions and filled with

modern and liberal ideas, failed to realize that what was needed was not

a change of men, but a change of methods. Radical, fearless and

immediate action was necessary, but the government did not perceive that

every passing day lessened its chances and possibilities. It relied upon

the slow progress of ordinary business routine. It accomplished much, it

is true, but it accomplished it too slowly and too late.

Too late the Conservatives in the Prussian Diet abandoned their

opposition to a reform of the franchise system. On October 10th, they

adopted this resolution:

"In the hour of the Fatherland's greatest distress and with a

realization that we must be equipped for hard battles for the

integrity of the Fatherland's soil, the Conservative Party in

the Diet considers it its duty to lay aside all internal

conflicts. It is also ready to make heavy sacrifices for the

ends in view. It believes now, as ever, that a far-reaching

radicalization of the Prussian Constitution will not further the

welfare of the Prussian people. It is nevertheless prepared to

abandon its opposition to the introduction of equal franchise in

Prussia in accordance with the latest decisions of its friends

in the House of Lords in order to assure the formation of a

harmonious front against the outside world."

This resolution removed the last obstacle to a real reform of the

Prussian franchise.

Too late the Federal Council adopted radical amendments to the Imperial

Constitution. On October 13th and 16th, it accepted measures repealing

Article 21, paragraph 2, which provided that Reichstag members should

forfeit their seats if they accepted salaried state or imperial offices,

and providing that cabinet members should no longer be required to be

members of the Federal Council, but should at all times have the right

to demand a hearing before the Reichstag. It also amended Article 2 to

read: "The consent of the Federal Council and the Reichstag is required

for a declaration of war in the Empire's name, except in a case where

imperial territory has already been invaded or its coasts attacked."

Section 3 of the same article was amended to read: "Treaties of peace

and treaties with foreign states which deal with affairs coming under

the competence of the Imperial law-giving bodies require the consent of

the Federal Council and the Reichstag."

Too late the rulers of different states promised democratic reforms. The

crown council of Saxony on October 10th summoned the Landtag (Diet) for

October 26th, and directed the minister of the interior to draft a

measure "which shall substitute for the franchise now obtaining for the

Landtag's second chamber a franchise based on a broader foundation."

Saxony then had a four-class system. The crown council also considered

requesting the Socialists to join the government.

The King of Bavaria caused it to be announced that the crown had decided

to introduce reforms enabling Bavaria's popularly elected

representatives to participate directly in governing the kingdom.

Minister Dandl was directed to form a new ministry with some Socialist

members. It was announced also that a proportional franchise system was

to be introduced and the upper chamber reformed along progressive lines.

The government of Baden announced that steps would be taken to abolish

the three-class franchise and to introduce the proportional system. In

Wuerttemberg measures were prepared providing that the kingdom's

representatives in the Federal Council should take their instructions

direct from the people's elected representatives, instead of from the

government. A democratization of the first chamber was also promised.

The Grand Duke of Oldenburg, in the address from the throne at the

opening of the Landtag, declared that reforms were contemplated giving

the people increased power to decide all important questions of state.

The Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar accepted the resignation of his whole

ministry and announced that a new ministry would be formed from among

the members of the Diet. The Diet at Darmstadt unanimously adopted

measures providing for a parliamentary form of government in Hesse.

But while these concessions were being made at home, _Schrecklichkeit_

continued to rule unhampered on the sea. The _Leinster_, a passenger

boat plying between Kingston and Holyhead, was torpedoed by a submarine,

and 480 of her 687 passengers were lost. The wave of indignation in

enemy countries following this act was reflected at home in an uneasy

feeling that the new Chancellor could as little curb militarism as could

his predecessors. Ludendorff, too, had regained his lost nerve. He told

Prince Max that the military situation was better than he had believed

when he recommended that an armistice be requested. Minister of War

General Scheuch had promised to send six hundred thousand new troops to

the front.

The Chancellor's position was also rendered more difficult at this time

by an agitation for a _levee en masse_ begun by some fire-eating Germans

of the old school. The possibility of a military dictatorship was

discussed, and an appeal was made to "the spirit of 1813." The natural

result was to increase the prevailing hostility to everybody in

authority, whether he had been connected with the former governments or

not.

The Independent Socialists and their Spartacan brethren grew bolder. Dr.

Oskar Cohn, who had made a speech in the Reichstag four months earlier,

denouncing the war as "a Hohenzollern family affair," now openly

declared in the same assembly that the Kaiser must go.

"The question can no longer be evaded," he said. "Shall it be war with

the Hohenzollerns or peace without the Hohenzollerns? World-revolution

will follow on world-imperialism and world-militarism, and we shall

overcome them. We extend our hands to our friends beyond the frontiers

in this struggle."

Liebknecht, released from prison on October 20th by a general amnesty,

celebrated his release by attacking the Kaiser and the government that

released him. On October 27th, he addressed a half dozen Independent

Socialist meetings, and called for a revolution of the proletariat and

the overthrow of the capitalists and _bourgeoisie_ of all lands. He

closed each speech with cries of "Down with the Hohenzollerns!" and

"Long live the Socialist Republic!" Nothing could more clearly

demonstrate the helplessness of the government than the fact that

Liebknecht was neither compelled to stop talking nor arrested. There

were outbreaks of rioting in Berlin on the same day, but they were

largely due to the unwise and provocatory measures of the police, who to

the last preserved a steadfast loyalty to the government and to that

grim sense of duty that had marked the Prussian _Beamter_ in former

days.

The Reichstag passed on last reading the measures sent from the Federal

Council to put into effect the Kaiser's recommendations of September

30th. Their most important provision was one placing the military

command under control of the civil government, which had been demanded

by the Majority Socialists as one of their conditions for participation

in the government. The Kaiser sent to the Imperial Chancellor on October

28th the following decree:

"I send your Grand Ducal Highness in the enclosure the measures

for the alteration of the Imperial Constitution and of the laws

concerning the representative powers of the Chancellor, of March

17, 1878, for immediate promulgation. It is my wish, in

connection with this step, which is so full of meaning for the

German people, to give expression to the feelings that move me.

Prepared by a number of acts of the government, a new order of

things now becomes effective, transferring fundamental rights

from the person of the Kaiser to the people. Thus there is

closed a period which will endure in honor in the eyes of future

generations.

"Despite all struggles between inherited powers and forces

striving to raise themselves, this period discloses itself

unforgettably in the wonderful accomplishments of the war. In

the fearful storms of the four years of the war, however, old

formulae have been shattered, not to leave ruins, but rather to

give way to new forms of life. In view of the accomplishments of

this period, the German people can demand that no right shall be

withheld from them which insures a free and happy future. The

measures proposed by the allied governments[21] and now accepted

by the Reichstag owe their existence to this conviction.

[21] Here meaning merely the German federal states.

"I accept these decisions of the people's representatives,

together with my exalted allies, in the firm desire to

cooperate, as far as lies in my power, in rendering them

effective, and in the conviction that I shall thus serve the

interests of the German people.

"The post of Kaiser means service of the people (_Das Kaiseramt

ist Dienst am Volke_).

"May the new order release all good forces which our people need

in order to endure the hard trials that have been visited upon

the Empire, and to win the way, with firm step, from out the

dark present to a bright future."

These were fine phrases, but, like all other pronunciamentos and reforms

of October, they came too late. The political censorship had recently

been relaxed, and the people, ignorant though they may have been of

actual conditions at home, knew what was going on within the borders of

their greatest ally. Ten days earlier a strike had been begun at Prague

as a peace demonstration, and had involved much of Bohemia and Moravia.

At Budapest revolution was in the air, and the Magyar deputies of the

Parliament were openly discussing the question of declaring Hungary's

independence. On October 17th, Kaiser Karl announced that steps were to

be taken to reorganize the Monarchy on a federalized basis.

Two days later President Wilson rejected Baron Burian's peace offer.

He declared that the United States Government had recognized the

Czecho-Slovak state and the aspirations of the Jugo-Slavs, and he was

therefore "no longer at liberty to accept the mere autonomy of these

peoples as a basis of peace, but is obliged to insist that they and

not he shall be the judges of what action on the part of the

Austro-Hungarian Government will satisfy their aspirations and their

conception of their rights and destiny as members of the family of

nations."

Count Michael Karolyi, leader of the opposition in Hungary, on the same

day, in a speech in the lower house of Parliament at Budapest, attacked

the alliance of Austria-Hungary with Germany. He admitted that the

Central Powers had lost the war, and appealed to his countrymen to "try

to save the peace." A memorial was sent to Kaiser Karl declaring that

"Hungary must return to its autonomy and complete independence."

The Czechs were already in virtual control in Prague. Magyar Hungary was

rotten with Bolshevism, the fruits of the propaganda of returned

soldiers and Russian agents. Croatian soldiers at Fiume had revolted.

Baron Burian retired and was succeeded by Count Andrassy.

Much of this was known to all Germans when the Kaiser's decree was

issued. But they did not know what the Kaiser and his advisers knew, and

they did not know why Ludendorff had deserted the sinking ship a day

earlier, sending his resignation to the Kaiser and being succeeded as

Quartermaster-General by General Groener. All indications had, indeed,

pointed to the defection of Austria, but so long as it did not come the

Germans--that is, such of them as had not completely lost hope or been

infected with internationalist doctrines--still had a straw to cling to.

On October 26th Kaiser Karl informed the German Emperor that he intended

to ask for peace "within twenty-four hours." He invited Germany to join

in the request. Before the German reply could be received Count Andrassy

sent a note to Washington accepting President Wilson's conditions for an

armistice and for peace, and declaring that Austria-Hungary was ready,

"without awaiting the result of other negotiations, to enter into

negotiations upon peace between Austria-Hungary and the states in the

opposing group, and for an immediate armistice upon all the Dual

Monarchy's fronts."

On October 29th the government at Vienna issued a report declaring that

a note had been sent to Secretary Lansing, asking him to "have the

goodness to intervene with the President of the United States in order

that, in the interests of humanity as well as in the interests of all

those peoples who live in Austria-Hungary, an immediate armistice may be

concluded on all fronts, and for an overture that immediate negotiations

for peace may follow." A semi-official statement was issued the same day

in an attempt to make it appear that the Dual Monarchy had not been

recreant to its treaty agreement not to conclude a separate peace. Count

Andrassy's note to Lansing, it was explained, did not "necessarily mean

an offer of a separate peace. It means merely that Austria-Hungary is

ready to act separately in the interests of the reestablishment of

peace."

The fine distinction between "separate peace" and "separate action to

reestablish peace" could deceive nobody. All Germany staggered under the

blow, and while she was still staggering, there came another. Turkey

quit. Germany stood alone, deserted, betrayed.

Fast on the heels of the Austrian collapse came the terror of defeated

governments--revolution. The ink had not dried on Vienna's note on

October 29th before students and workingmen began assembling in front of

the Parliament buildings in the Austrian capital. Officers in uniform

addressed cheering thousands, and called on the soldiers among their

hearers to remove the national colors from their caps and uniforms.

President Dinghofer of the National Council declared that the council

would take over the whole administration of the country, "but without

the Habsburgs." When, on the same afternoon, the National Assembly came

together for its regular session, a crowd gathered in front of the Diet

and cheered a huge red flag unfurled by workingmen on the very steps of

the Diet building.

Revolution is both contagious and spontaneous in defeat. The news from

Vienna was followed by reports of revolution in Hungary. In Budapest

laborers plundered the military depots and armed themselves. In Prague

the _Prager Haus-Regiment_, No. 28, took charge of the revolution. This

was one of the regiments that had been disbanded in 1915 for treachery

in the Carpathians. Now it came into its own. Count Michael Karolyi

telegraphed on October 31st to the Berlin _Tageblatt_:

"Revolution in Budapest. National Council has taken over the

government. Military and police acknowledge National Council

completely. Inhabitants rejoicing."

The message was signed by Karolyi as president of the National Council.

The revolution in Bohemia exercised a particularly depressing effect

upon loyal Germans because of its outspoken anti-German character. Even

in these first days the Czechish newspapers began discussing the

division of German territories. The _Vecer_ demanded Vienna as a part of

the new Czecho-Slovak state on the ground that a majority of the city's

inhabitants or their ancestors originally came from Bohemia and Moravia.

The _Narodini Listy_ gave notice that the Germans of Northern Bohemia

would not be permitted to join Germany. These were among the more

moderate demands made by this press.

"What will the Kaiser do?" asked the Berlin _Vorwaerts_ in its leading

Article on the last day of October. The article voiced a question which

all but the most extreme reactionaries had been asking for two weeks.

Even men devoted to the monarch personally and themselves convinced

monarchists in principle realized that the only hope of securing a just

peace lay in sacrificing Kaiser Wilhelm. Scheidemann, the Socialist

Secretary of State, wrote to Chancellor Prince Max, declaring that the

Kaiser must retire, and that his letter had been written "in agreement

with the leaders of the Socialist party and its representatives in the

Reichstag." Up to the time of the publication of the _Vorwaerts_ leader

the authorities had forbidden any public discussion of the Kaiser's

abdication. The censorship restrictions on this subject were now removed

and the press was permitted to discuss it freely.

But while many of the party leaders were already inwardly convinced that

the supreme sacrifice of abdication must be made by the Kaiser, none of

the Empire's political parties except the two Socialist parties

considered it politically expedient to make the demand. Even the

Progressives, farthest to the left of all the _bourgeois_ parties, not

only refused to follow the Socialists' lead, but went on record as

opposed to abdication. At a convention of the party in Greater Berlin on

November 6th, Dr. Mugdan, one of the party's prominent Reichstag

deputies, reporting the attitude of the party on the question of

abdication, said:

"The Progressives do not desire to sow further unrest and

confusion among the German people."

This was the attitude of a majority of the leaders among the people. It

was dictated less by loyalty to the sovereign than by a realization that

the disintegrating propaganda of the Internationalists had affected so

large a part of the people that the abdication of the Kaiser would

almost inevitably bring the collapse of the state. They could not yet

realize that this collapse was inevitable in any case, nor that the

number of those devoted to the Kaiser was comparatively so small that it

was of little consequence whether he remained on the throne or

abdicated.

The Kaiser himself, as will be seen later,[22] was mainly moved by the

same considerations. He believed chaos would certainly follow his

abdication. It is also far from improbable that he had not yet abandoned

all hope of military victory. The German army leaders, in trying to

deceive the people into a belief that a successful termination of the

war was still possible, had doubtless deceived their monarch as well.

Possibly they had even deceived themselves. Field Marshal von Hindenburg

sent a message to the press on November 3d, wherein he declared:

"Our honor, freedom and future are now at stake. We are

invincible if we are united. If the German army be strongly

supported by the will of the people, our Fatherland will brave

all onslaughts."

[22] _Vide_ chapter X.

But while Hindenburg was writing the situation was altering for the

worse with every hour. Kaiser Karl had fled from Vienna. German officers

had been attacked in Bucharest. Bavarian troops had been refused

permission to use railways in Austrian Tirol. German troops had been

disarmed and robbed in Bohemia and even in Hungary. The German armies in

the West were still fighting bravely, but even the ingeniously worded

communiques of Great Headquarters could not conceal the fact that they

were being steadily thrown back, with heavy loss of prisoners and guns.

Rumors of serious revolts in the fleet were circulating from mouth to

mouth and, after the manner of rumors, growing as they circulated. Even

the monarchist, Conservative _Lokal-Anzeiger_ had to admit the gravity

of the situation. On November 6th it declared that "a mighty stream" was

rolling through the land, and every one who had eyes to see and ears to

hear could perceive "whither this current is setting." It continued:

"New factors of great importance have increased the confusion:

the collapse of our allies, their complete submission to the

will of our enemies, the multiplication thereby of the military

dangers that surround us, and, not least, the catastrophic

dissolution of all order in Austria-Hungary. The blind

fanaticism of Bolshevism, which would with brutal force tear

down everything in its way and destroy in Germany as well every

remnant of authority, is planning now, in the very moment when

the final decision must be reached, to play into the hands of

our enemies through internal revolution. We will not at this

time discuss whether the authorities have done their complete

duty in putting down this movement, which everyone could see

growing. It is enough to say that the danger is here, and duty

demands that we stand together from left to right, from the top

to the bottom, to render these destroying elements harmless or,

if it be too late for that, to strike them to the ground.

"And another thing must be said. Just as the people's government

has undertaken to bring about a peace that does not destroy the

vital interests of the German people, * * * it must just as

energetically endeavor to protect us from internal collapse with

all the strength and all the authority which its constitution as

a people's government confers upon it. * * * When, as now, the

overthrow of all existing institutions is being preached, when

the people's government is disregarded and recourse is had to

force, the government must realize that there is but one thing

to do. The people, whose representatives the members of

government are, want concrete evidence that an insignificant

minority will not be permitted to trample upon the institutions

of state and society under whose protection we have heretofore

lived. * * * The German Empire is not yet ripe for the disciples

of Lenine and Trotzky."

General von Hellingrath, Bavarian Minister of War, issued a proclamation

calling on the people to preserve order and not to lose their confidence

in the government. A report that Bavarian troops had been sent to the

North Tirol to protect Bavaria's borders against possible aggression by

Czechish and Jugo-Slavic troops of the former ally further depressed all

Germans, and particularly the South Germans.

The new government made an appeal to the people's reason. In a

proclamation issued on November 4th and signed by Prince Max and all

other members of the cabinet, including Scheidemann, it called attention

to the parliamentary reforms already accomplished and summoned the

people to give their fullest support to the government. These reforms

were:

Equal franchise in Prussia; the formation of a government from

the majority parties of the Reichstag; the Chancellor and his

ministers could retain office only if they possessed the

confidence of the Reichstag and hence of the people;

declarations of war and conclusions of peace now required the

assent of the Reichstag; the military had been subordinated to

the civil authorities; a broad amnesty had been declared, and

the freedom of assemblage and of the press assured.

"The alteration of Germany into a people's state, which shall not stand

in the rear of any state in the world in respect of political freedom

and social reforms, will be carried further with decision," said the

proclamation.

It was a very respectable array of real reforms that was thus set forth.

If they had come a few months earlier the subsequent course of Germany's

and the whole world's history would doubtless have been changed. But,

unknown to the great mass of Germans except through wild rumor,

revolution had already come and the German Empire was tottering to its

fall.

CHAPTER IX.

A Revolt Which Became a Revolution.

The elements that had long been working to bring about a revolution had

for months been nearer their goal than even they themselves suspected,

but they were nevertheless not ready for the final step when events,

taking the bit into their teeth, ran away with the revolutionists along

the very road which they had wanted to follow.

It lies in the nature of the employment of those that go down to the sea

in ships that they are more resolute and reckless than their

shore-keeping brothers, and less amenable to discipline. They are also

subject to certain cosmopolitan, international influences which do not

further blind patriotism. Furthermore, the percentage of rude, violent

and even criminally inclined men is proportionately higher afloat than

ashore. The Russian revolution of 1905 started among the sailors in

Cronstadt. The same men set the example in atrocities against officers

in the Russian revolution of 1917. Sailors played a prominent part in

the Portuguese revolution, and there are few fleets in the world without

their history of rough deeds done by mutinous mariners.