To this government, facing multifold tasks, inexperienced in ruling,

existing only on sufferance and at best a makeshift and compromise,

the armistice of November 11th dealt a terrible moral and material

blow. A wave of stupefied indignation and resentment followed the

publication of its terms, and this feeling was increased by the

general realization of Germany's helplessness. Hard terms had, indeed,

been expected, but nothing like these. One of the chief factors that

made bloodless revolution possible had been the reliance of the great

mass of the German people on the declarations of leaders of enemy

powers--particularly of the United States--that the war was being waged

against the German governmental system, the Hohenzollerns and

militarism, and not against the people themselves. There can be no doubt

that these promises of fair treatment for a democratic Germany did

incalculably much to paralyze opposition to the revolution.

In the conditions of the armistice the whole nation conceived itself to

have been betrayed and deceived. Whether this feeling was justified is

not the part of the historian to decide. It is enough that it existed.

It was confirmed and strengthened by the fact that the almost unanimous

opinion of neutral lands, including even those that had been the

strongest sympathizers of the Allied cause, condemned the armistice

terms unqualifiedly, both on ethical and material grounds. It is ancient

human experience that popular disaffection first finds its scapegoat in

the government, and history repeated itself here. The unreflecting

masses forgot for the moment the government's powerlessness. It saw only

the abandonment of rich German lands to the enemy, the continuance of

the "hunger-blockade" and, worst of all, the retention by the enemy of

the German prisoners. Of all the harsh provisions of the armistice, none

other caused so much mental and moral anguish as the realization that,

while enemy prisoners were to be sent back to their families, the

Germans, many of whom had been in captivity since the first days of the

war, must still remain in hostile prison-camps. The authority of the

government that accepted these terms was thus seriously shaken at the

very outset.

The government was as seriously affected materially as morally by the

armistice. During the whole of the last year food and fuel conditions

had been gravely affected by limited transportation facilities. Now,

with an army of several millions to be brought home in a brief space of

time, five thousand locomotives and 150,000 freight cars had to be

delivered up to the enemy. This was more than a fifth of the entire

rolling stock possessed by Germany at this time. Moreover, nearly half

of all available locomotives and cars were badly in need of repairs, and

a considerable percentage of these were in such condition that they

could not be used at all. Nor was this all. Although nothing had been

stipulated in the armistice conditions regarding the size or character

of the engines to be surrendered, only the larger and more powerful ones

were accepted. One month later it had been found necessary to transport

810 locomotives to the places agreed upon for their surrender, and of

these only 206 had been accepted. Of 15,720 cars submitted in the same

period, only 9,098 had been accepted. The result was a severe

over-burdening of the German railways.

What this meant for Germany's economic life and for the people generally

became apparent in many ways during the winter, and in none more

striking than in a fuel shortage which brought much suffering to the

inhabitants of the larger cities. The coalfields of the Ruhr district

required twenty-five thousand cars daily to transport even their

diminishing production, but the number available dropped below ten

thousand. Only eight hundred cars were available to care for the

production in Upper Silesia, and a minimum of three thousand was

required. The effect on the transportation of foodstuffs to the cities

cannot so definitely be estimated, but that it was serious is plain.

The armistice provided that the blockade should be maintained. In

reality it was not only maintained, but extended. Some of the most

fertile soil in Germany lies on the left bank of the Rhine, and cities

along that river had depended on these districts for much of their food.

With enemy occupation, these supplies were cut off. What this meant was

terribly apparent in Duesseldorf after the occupation had been completed.

Duesseldorf, with a population of nearly 400,000, had depended on the

left bank of the Rhine for virtually all its dairy products. These were

now cut off, and the city authorities found themselves able to secure a

maximum of less than 7,000 quarts of milk daily for the inhabitants.

A further extension of the blockade came when German fishermen were

forbidden to fish even in their territorial waters in the North Sea and

the Baltic. The available supply of fish in Germany had already dropped,

as has been described, to a point where it was possible to secure a

ration only once in every three or four weeks. And now even this

trifling supply was no longer available. Vast stores of food were

abandoned, destroyed or sold to the inhabitants of the occupied

districts when the armies began the evacuation of France and Belgium,

and millions of soldiers, returning to find empty larders at home,

further swelled the ranks of the discontented.

Only the old maxim that all is fair in war can explain or justify the

great volume of misleading reports that were sent out regarding food

conditions in Germany in the months following the armistice. Men who

were able to spend a hundred marks daily for their food, or whose

observations were limited to the most fertile agricultural districts of

Germany, generalized carelessly and reported that there were no

evidences of serious shortage anywhere, except perhaps, in one or two of

the country's largest cities. Men who knew conditions thoroughly

hesitated to report them because of the supposed exigencies of war and

wartime policies, or, reporting them in despite thereof, saw themselves

denounced as pro-German propagandists.

Months later, when perhaps irreparable damage had been done, the truth

began to come out. The following Associated Press dispatch is

significant:

"London, July 1.--Germany possessed a sound case in claiming

early relief, according to reports of British officers who

visited Silesia in April to ascertain economic conditions

prevailing in Germany. A white paper issued tonight gives the

text of their reports and the result of their investigations.

"It is said that there was a genuine shortage of foodstuffs and

the health of the population had suffered so seriously that the

working classes had reached such a stage of desperation that

they could not be trusted to keep the peace."

One is told officially that the old regime in Russia fell "because as an

autocracy it did not respond to the democratic demands of the Russian

people."[54] This is an ascription to the Russian people of elevated

sentiments to which they have not the shadow of a claim. The old regime

fell because it did not respond to the demands of the Russian people for

food. Wilhelm II fell because the Germans were hungry. It was hunger

that handicapped the efforts of the Ebert-Haase government throughout

its existence and it was hunger that proved the best recruiting agent

for Liebknecht and the other elements that were trying to make democracy

impossible in Germany. If any people with experience of hunger were

asked to choose between the absolutism of Peter the Great with bursting

granaries and the most enlightened democracy with empty bins, democracy

would go away with its hands as empty as its bins.

[54] _War Cyclopedia_, issued by the Committee on Public

Information, p. 241.

"Give us this day our daily bread" is the first material petition in the

prayer of all the Christian peoples of the world, but only those who

have hungered can realize its deep significance.

The fact is not generally known--and will doubtless cause surprise--that

a determined effort was made by the American, French and British

governments after the armistice to make first-hand independent reporting

of events in Germany impossible. Assistant Secretary of State Polk

followed the example of the other governments named by issuing on

November 13th an order, which was cabled to all American embassies and

legations abroad, prohibiting any American journalist from entering

Germany. The State Department refused to issue passports to journalists

desiring to go to adjoining neutral countries except upon their pledge

not to enter Germany without permission. Requests for permission were

either denied, or (in some instances) not even acknowledged.

There were, however, some American journalists stationed in lands

adjoining Germany, and a few of these, although warned by members of

their diplomatic corps, conceived it to be their duty to their papers

and to their people as well, to try to learn the truth about the German

situation, instead of depending longer upon hearsay and neutral

journalists. Some of the most valuable reports reaching Washington in

these early days came from men who had disobeyed the State Department's

orders, but this did not save at least two of the disobedient ones from

suffering very real punishment at the hands of resentful officials.

What the purpose of the State Department was in thus attempting to

prevent any but army officers or government officials from reporting on

conditions in Germany the writer does not know. It is probable, however,

that the initiative did not come from Washington.

CHAPTER XIII.

"The New Freedom."

The conclusion of the armistice was the signal for a general collapse

among Germany's armed forces. This did not at first affect the troops in

the trenches, and many of them preserved an almost exemplary spirit and

discipline until they reached home, but the men of the _etappe_--the

positions back of the front and at the military bases--threw order and

discipline to the winds. It was here that revolutionary propaganda and

red doctrines had secured the most adherents in the army, and the effect

was quickly seen. Abandoning provisions, munitions and military stores

generally, looting and terrifying the people of their own villages and

cities, the troops of the _etappe_ straggled back to the homeland, where

they were welcomed by the elements responsible for Germany's collapse.

The government sent a telegram to the Supreme Army Command, pointing out

the necessity of an orderly demobilization and emphasizing the chaotic

conditions that would result if army units arbitrarily left their posts.

Commanding officers were directed to promulgate these orders:

"1. Relations between officers and men must rest upon mutual

confidence. The soldier's voluntary submission to his officer

and comradely treatment of the soldier by his superior are

conditions precedent for this.

"2. Officers retain their power of command. Unconditional

obedience when on duty is of decisive importance if the return

march to the German homeland is to be successfully carried out.

Military discipline and order in the armies must be maintained

in all circumstances.

"3. For the maintenance of confidence between officers and men

the soldiers' councils have advisory powers in matters relating

to provisioning, furloughs and the infliction of military

punishments. It is their highest duty to endeavor to prevent

disorder and mutiny.

"4. Officers and men shall have the same rations.

"5. Officers and men shall receive the same extra allowances of

pay and perquisites."

"Voluntary submission" by soldiers to officers might be feasible in a

victorious and patriotic army, but it is impracticable among troops

infected with Socialist doctrines and retreating before their

conquerors. Authority, once destroyed, can never be regained. This was

proved not only at the front, but at home as well. _Die neue Freiheit_

(the new freedom), a phrase glibly mouthed by all supporters of the

revolution, assumed the same grotesque forms in Germany as in Russia.

Automobiles, commandeered by soldiers from army depots or from the royal

garages, flying red flags, darted through the streets at speeds defying

all regulations, filled with unwashed and unshaven occupants lolling on

the cushioned seats. Cabmen drove serenely up the left side of Unter den

Linden, twiddling their fingers at the few personally escorted and

disarmed policemen whom they saw. Gambling games ran openly at

street-corners. Soldiers mounted improvised booths in the streets and

sold cigarettes and soap looted from army stores.

Earnest revolutionaries traveled through the city looking for signs

containing the word _kaiserlich_ (imperial) or _koeniglich_ (royal), and

mutilated or destroyed them. Court purveyors took down their signs or

draped them. The _Kaiser Keller_ in Friedrichstrasse became simply a

_Keller_ and the bust of the Kaiser over the door was covered with a

piece of canvas. The Royal Opera-House became the "Opera-House Unter den

Linden."

One of the most outstanding characteristics of the German people in

peace times had been their love of order. Even the superficial observer

could not help noticing it, and one of its manifestations earned general

commendation. This was that the unsightly billboards and placarded walls

that disfigure American cities were never seen in Germany. Neat and

sightly columns were erected in various places for official, theatrical

or business announcements, and no posters might be affixed anywhere

else. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the character of the collapse

in Germany than the fact that it destroyed even this deeply ingrained

love of order. _Genossen_ with brushes and paste-pots calmly defaced

house-walls and even show windows on main streets with placards whose

quality showed that German art, too, had suffered in the general

collapse of the Empire.

There was something so essentially childish in the manner in which a

great part of the people reacted to _die neue Freiheit_ that one is not

surprised to hear that it also turned juvenile heads. Several hundred

schoolboys and schoolgirls, from twelve to seventeen years old, paraded

through the main streets of Berlin, carrying red flags and placards with

incendiary inscriptions. The procession stopped before the Prussian Diet

building, where the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was in session, and

presented a list of demands. These included the vote for all persons

eighteen years old or over, the abolition of corporal punishment and

participation by the school-children in the administration of the

schools. The chairman of the _Vollzugsrat_ of the council addressed the

juvenile paraders, and declared that he was in complete sympathy with

their demands.

A seventeen-year-old lad replied with a speech in which he warned the

council that there would be terrible consequences if the demands were

not granted. The procession then went on to the Reichstag building,

where speeches were made by several juvenile orators, demanding the

resignation or removal of Ebert and Scheidemann and threatening a

general juvenile strike if this demand was not accepted immediately.

Enthusiasm was heightened in the first week of the revolutionary

government's existence by reports that enemy countries were also in the

grip of revolution. Tuesday's papers published a report that Foch had

been murdered, Poincare had fled from Paris and the French government

had been overthrown. Reports came from Hamburg and Kiel that English

sailors had hoisted the red flag and were fraternizing with German

ships' crews on the North Sea. The Soldiers' Council at Paderborn

reported that the red flag had been hoisted in the French trenches from

the Belgian border to Mons, and that French soldiers were fraternizing

with the Germans. That these reports found considerable credence throws

a certain light on the German psychology of these days. The reaction

when they were found to be false further increased the former

despondency.

The six-man cabinet decreed on November 15th the dissolution of the

Prussian Diet and the abolishment of the House of Lords. Replying to a

telegram from President Fehrenbach of the Reichstag, asking whether the

government intended to prevent the Reichstag from coming together in the

following week, the cabinet telegraphed:

"As a consequence of the political overturn, which has done away

with the institution of German Kaiserdom as well as with the

Federal Council in its capacity of a lawgiving body, the

Reichstag which was elected in 1912 can also not reconvene."

The cabinet--subject to the control theoretically exercisable by the

_Vollzugsrat_--was thus untrammeled by other legislative or

administrative institutions. But it was, as we have seen, trammeled from

without by the disastrous material conditions in Germany, by the mental

and moral shipwreck of its people, by the peculiar German psychology and

by the political immaturity of the whole nation--a political immaturity,

moreover, which even certain cabinet members shared. From within the

cabinet was also seriously handicapped from the start by its "parity"

composition, that is to say, the fact that power was equally divided

between Majority and Independent Socialists without a deciding casting

vote in case of disagreement along party lines. If the Independent

Socialist cabinet members and the rank and file of their party had

comprehended the real character and completeness of the revolution, as

it was comprehended by some of the theorists of the party--notably Karl

Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein--and if they had avoided their disastrous

fellowship with Joffe and other Bolshevik agents, the subsequent course

of events would have been different. But they lacked this comprehension

and they had been defiled in handling the pitch of Bolshevism.

All the revolutions of the last century and a quarter had been of

_bourgeois_ origin. They had, however, been carried into effect with the

aid of the proletariat, since the _bourgeoisie_, being numerically much

weaker than the proletariat, does not command the actual brute force to

make revolution. At first the _bourgeoisie_, as planners of the

overthrow, took control of the authority of the state and exercised it

for their own ends. The proletariat, which had learned its own strength

and resources in the revolutionary contests, used its power to compel a

further development of the revolution in a more radical direction and

eventually compelled the first holders of authority to give way to a

government more responsive to the demands of the lower classes. Thus the

events of 1789 in Paris were followed by the victory of the Montane

party, the events of September 4, 1870, by those of March 18, 1871, and

the Kerensky revolution in Petrograd by the Bolshevik revolution of

November, 1917.

The German revolution, however, alone among the great revolutions of the

world, was, as has already been pointed out, both in its origins and

execution, proletarian and Socialistic. The _bourgeoisie_ had no part in

it and no participation in the revolutionary government. Any attempt to

develop the revolution further by overthrowing or opposing the first

revolutionary government could therefore serve only factional and not

class interests. Factional clashes were, of course, inevitable. The

members of the Paris Commune split into four distinct factions,

Jacobins, Blanquists, Proudhonists and a small group of Marxist

Internationalists. But these, bitterly as they attacked each other's

methods and views, nevertheless presented at all times a united front

against the _bourgeoisie_, whereas the German Independent Socialists,

from whom better things might have been expected, almost from the

beginning played into the hands of the Spartacans, from whom nothing

good could have been expected, and thus seriously weakened the

government and eventually made a violent second phase of the revolution

unavoidable.

If it be admitted that Socialist government was the proper form of

government for Germany at this time, it is clear that the Independent

Socialists had a very real mission. This was well expressed in the first

month of the revolution in a pamphlet by Kautsky, in which he wrote:

"The extremes (Majority Socialists and Spartacans) can best be

described thus: the one side (Majority) has not yet completely

freed itself from _bourgeois_ habits of thought and still has

much confidence in the _bourgeois_ world, whose inner strength

it overestimates. The other side (Spartacans) totally lacks all

comprehension of the _bourgeois_ world and regards it as a

collection of scoundrels. It despises the mental and economic

accomplishments of the _bourgeoisie_ and believes that the

proletarians, without any special knowledge or any kind of

training, are able to take over immediately all political and

economic functions formerly exercised by the _bourgeois_

authorities.

"Between these two extremes we find those (the Independents) who

have studied the _bourgeois_ world and comprehend it, who regard

it objectively and critically, but who know how properly to

value its accomplishments and realize the difficulties of

replacing it with a better system. This Marxist center must, on

the one hand, spur the timorous on and awaken the blindly

confiding, and on the other, put a check upon the blind

impetuosity of the ignorant and thoughtless. It has the double

task of driving and applying the brakes.

"These are the three tendencies that contend with each other

within the ranks of the proletariat."

Indications of the coming split with the cabinet were observable even in

the first week of the government's existence. Together with its decree

dissolving the Diet, the cabinet announced that "the national government

is engaged in making preparations for the summoning of a constituent

assembly at the earliest possible moment." The overwhelming majority of

the German people already demanded the convening of such a body. Only

the Spartacans, who had formally effected organization on November 14th,

openly opposed it as a party, but there was much anti-assembly sentiment

in Independent Socialist ranks, although the party had as yet taken no

stand against it. Richard Mueller, the dangerous Independent Socialist

demagogue at the head of the workmen's section of the _Vollzugsrat_, was

one of the most rabid opponents of a national assembly and one of the

men responsible for his party's subsequent opposition to it. Speaking at

a meeting of the _Vollzugsrat_ on November 19th he said:

"There is a cry now for a national assembly. The purpose is

plain. The plan is to use this assembly to rob the proletariat

of its power and lay it back in the hands of the _bourgeoisie_.

But it will not succeed. We want no democratic republic. We want

a social republic."

Haase, speaking for the cabinet, cleverly avoided putting himself on

record as to whether or not a national assembly would eventually be

called. It could not be called together yet, he said, because

preparations must first be made. Election lists must be drawn up and the

soldiers in the field must have an opportunity to vote. Moreover, the

soldiers, who had been "mentally befogged" by the pan-German propaganda

at the front, must be "enlightened" before they could be permitted to

vote. Large industries must also be socialized before time could be

taken to summon a _constituante_.

It soon became apparent that the work in the cabinet was not going

smoothly. Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, Socialists though they were,

lacked any trace of that fanaticism which marks so many Socialist

leaders. They were sobered by their new responsibilities. Looked at from

above, administrative problems presented a different picture from that

which they had when viewed from below by men whose chief role had been

one of opposition and criticism. Sweeping socialization of all

industries, regulation of wages and hours of work, the protection of

society against criminals, the raising of revenue, the abolishing of

capitalism and capitalists--these things were less simple than they had

seemed. To socialize the administration of the state was not difficult,

for that was a mechanism which had been built up. But society, as these

novices in government now comprehended more clearly than before, is an

organism which has grown up. The product of centuries of growth cannot

be recklessly made over in a few weeks.

The Majority Socialist trio, realizing the impracticability of tearing

down old institutions before there was something better to take their

place, moved slowly in instituting reforms. This was little to the

liking of the radicals within and without the cabinet. Haase,

politician before all else, and Dittmann, class-conscious fanatic,

insisted on speedier reforms along orthodox Socialist lines, and

particularly on a far-reaching socialization of big industries. Nearly

a year earlier Haase, Cohn and Ledebour, attending the notorious Joffe

banquet, had approved Bolshevik attacks on the Majority Socialists and

excused the slow progress of the revolutionary propaganda by saying

that "those--Eberts and Scheidemanns" could not be brought to see

reason. It was hardly to be expected that the Independents would be

milder now. The work of the cabinet was hampered already, although the

Independent members kept up a pretense of working with the old party's

representatives.

Haase, Dittmann and Barth were supported by the _Vollzugsrat_. This

body, which had started out by ordering the restoration to their

owners of the newspapers seized during the revolution, had so far

faced about two days later that Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were

able to exhibit to the publishers of the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ an order from

the _Vollzugsrat_ directing them to place their plant at the disposal

of the Spartacans for the printing of _Die rote Fahne_, whose editor

the Luxemburg woman was to be. The order did not even hint at any

compensation for the publishers. Naturally they refused flatly to obey

it, and the Greater Berlin Soldiers' Council, still dominated by men of

the better sort, meeting two days later, indignantly denounced the

action of the _Vollzugsrat_ and compelled the withdrawal of the order.

Despite the fact that the Majority and Independent Socialists were

evenly represented on this council, the latter dominated it. Brutus

Molkenbuhr, the Majority Socialist co-chairman with Richard Mueller was

no match for his fanatic colleague, and most of the other members were

nobodies of at most not more than average intelligence. A more poorly

equipped body of men never ruled any great state, and whatever of good

was accomplished by the cabinet in the first month of its existence was

accomplished against the opposition of a majority of these men. Mueller's

radicalism grew daily greater. "The way to a national assembly must lead

over my dead body" he declared in a speech filled with braggadocio, and

his hearers applauded.

The Soldiers' Council noted with increasing displeasure the drift of the

_Vollzugsrat_ toward the left. At the end of November, after a stormy

session, the council adopted a resolution expressing dissatisfaction

with the attitude of the _Vollzugsrat_ and appointing one representative

from each of the seven regiments stationed in Berlin to weigh charges

against the executive council and, if necessary, to reform it. The

resolution charged the _Vollzugsrat_ with holding secret sessions,

usurping powers, grafting, nepotism,[55] failure to take steps to

protect the country's eastern border against the aggressions of the

Poles and hindering all practical work.

[55] A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The

trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the

national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism.

Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of

Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily

reports required of him and never accounted for moneys

passing through his hands. Himself drawing salary from

_Rosta_ and also as police-president, he appointed his wife

to a highly paid clerkship and his young daughter drew a

salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist

minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. The

_Vollzugsrat_ employed a hundred stenographers and messengers

who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The _53er

Ausschuss_, a committee of marines and soldiers which took

entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs

without any regard to the national government, voted itself

sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of

the whole department in other days. The police captain of a

Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a

day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he

demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The

first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to

defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. The

_Vollzugsrat_ never made an honest accounting for the

tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and

workmen's committees constituted themselves into soviets in

tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the

highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery

through official requisition became so common that the people

had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.

The Independent Socialists' ascendancy in the executive body was assured

on December 5th, when an election was held to fill two vacancies among

the soldier members. Two Independents were chosen, which gave that party

sixteen of the council's twenty-eight members.

Even by this time the shift of sentiment in the ranks of Independent

Socialism had proceeded to a point where this party's continued

ascendancy would have been as great a menace to democratic government

as would Liebknecht's Spartacans. Adolph Hoffmann, the party's Prussian

Minister of Cults, openly declared that if an attempt were made to

summon the national assembly it must never be permitted to meet, even

if it had to be dispersed as the Russian Bolsheviki dispersed the

constituent assembly in Petrograd, and his pronouncement was hailed

with delight by _Die Freiheit_, the party's official organ in Berlin,

and by Independents generally. Emil Eichhorn, who was once one of the

editors of _Vorwaerts_ but now prominent in the Independent Socialist

party, and who had been appointed police-president of Berlin, was on

the payroll of _Rosta_, the Russian telegraph agency which served as a

central for the carrying on of Bolshevik propaganda in Germany. He did

as much as any other man to make the subsequent fighting and bloodshed

in Berlin possible by handing out arms and ammunition to Liebknecht's

followers, and by dismissing from the city's Republican Guard--the

soldier-policemen appointed to assist and control the policemen--men

loyal to the new government.

The Spartacans were feverishly active. Liebknecht and his lieutenants

organized and campaigned tirelessly. _Der rote Soldatenbund_ (the Red

Soldiers' League) was formed from deserters and criminals and armed with

weapons furnished by Eichhorn from the police depots, stolen from

government stores or bought with money furnished by Russian agents. The

funds received from this source were sufficient also to enable the

Spartacan leaders to pay their armed supporters twenty marks a day, a

sum which proved a great temptation to many of the city's unemployed

whose sufferings had overcome their scruples.

The first demonstration of strength by the Spartacans came on November

26th, when they forcibly seized the Piechatzek Crane Works and the

Imperator Motor Company, both big Berlin plants. Spartacan employees

assisted Liebknecht's red soldiery to throw the management out. The

funds and books of both plants were seized, soldiers remained in charge

and plans were made to run the plants for the sole benefit of the

workers. The cabinet ordered the plants restored to their owners, and

the order was obeyed after it became apparent that the _Vollzugsrat_,

although in sympathy with the usurpers, did not dare oppose the cabinet

on such an issue.

The openly revolutionary attitude of the Liebknecht cohorts and their

insolent defiance of the government, resulted in armed guards being

stationed in front of all public buildings in Berlin. But here was again

exhibited that peculiar unpractical kink in the Socialist mentality: the

guards were directed not to shoot!

The reason for the existence of this kink will be apparent to one who

has read carefully the preceding chapters regarding Socialism's origin

and the passages therein reporting the attitude of the two wings of the

party in the Reichstag following Admiral von Capelle's charges in the

autumn of 1917. The first article in the Socialist creed is solidarity.

"Proletarians of all lands: Unite!" cried Marx and Engels in their

Communist Manifesto seven decades ago. The average Socialist brings to

his party an almost religious faith; for hundreds of thousands Socialism

is their only religion. All members of the party are their "comrades,"

the sheep of one fold, and their common enemies are the _bourgeois_

elements of society, the wolves. Black sheep there may be in the fold,

but they are, after all, sheep, and like must not slaughter like,

_Genossen_ must not shoot _Genossen_.

The supporters of the government were to learn later by bitter

experience that some sheep are worse than wolves, but they had not yet

learned it. Spartacans coolly disarmed the four guards placed at the old

palace in Unter den Linden and stole their guns. They disarmed the

guards at the Chancellor's Palace, the seat of the government, picked

the pockets and stole the lunch of the man in charge of the machine-gun

there, and took the machine-gun away in their automobile. They staged a

demonstration against Otto Wels, a Majority Socialist who had been

appointed city commandant, and had no difficulty in invading his private

quarters because the guards posted in front had orders not to shoot and

were simply brushed aside. When the demonstration was ended, the

Spartacans proceeded on their way rejoicing, taking with them the arms

of the government soldiers.

The Spartacans were by this time well equipped with rifles, revolvers

and ammunition, and had a large number of machine-guns. They secured one

auto-truck full of these from the government arsenal at Spandau on a

forged order. They even had a few light field guns and two or three

minethrowers. In the absence of any opposition except the futile

denunciations of the _bourgeois_ press and the _Vorwaerts_, their numbers

were increasing daily and they were rapidly fortifying themselves in

various points of vantage. Neukoelln, one of the cities making up Greater

Berlin, was already completely in their power. The Workmen's and

Soldiers' Council of this city consisted of seventy-eight men, all of

whom were Spartacans. This council forcibly dissolved the old city

council, drove the mayor from the city hall and constituted itself the

sole legislative and administrative organ in the city. A decree was

issued imposing special taxes upon all non-Socialist residents, and

merchants were despoiled by requisitions enforced by armed hooligans.

The "Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers" announced

a number of meetings for the afternoon of December 6th to enforce a

demand for participation in the government. The largest of these

meetings was held in the Germania Hall in the Chausseestrasse, just

above Invalidenstrasse and near the barracks of the _Franzer_, as the

Kaiser Franz Regiment was popularly known. The main speaker was a man

introduced as "Comrade Schultz," but whose Hebraic features indicated

that this was a revolutionary pseudonym. He had hardly finished

outlining the demands of "us deserters" when word came that the

_Vollzugsrat_ had been arrested. It developed later that some misguided

patriots of the old school had actually made an attempt to arrest the

members of this council, which had developed into such a hindrance to

honest government, but the attempt failed.

The report, however, threw the meeting into great excitement. A

motion to adjourn and march to the Chancellor's Palace to protest

against the supposed arrest was carried and the crowd started

marching down Chausseestrasse, singing the laborers' Marseillaise.

At the same time the crowd present at a similar meeting in a hall a

few blocks away started marching up Chausseestrasse to join the

Germania Hall demonstrants. Both processions found their way blocked

by a company of _Franzer_, drawn up in front of their barracks, standing

at "ready" and with bayonets fixed. The officer in command ordered the

paraders to stop:

"Come on!" cried the leaders of the demonstration. "They won't

shoot their comrades!"

But the _Franzer_ had not yet been "enlightened." A rattling volley rang

out and the deserters, stragglers and furloughed paraders fled. Fifteen

of them lay dead in the street and one young woman aboard a passing

street car was also killed.

The incident aroused deep indignation not only among the Spartacans,

but among the Independent Socialists as well. The bulk of the

Independents were naturally excited over the killing of "comrades," and

the leaders saw in it a welcome opportunity further to shake the

authority of the Majority Socialist members of the government. Even the

_Vorwaerts_, hesitating between love and duty, apologetically demanded an

investigation. The government eventually shook off all responsibility

and it was placed on the shoulders of an over-zealous officer acting

without instructions. This may have been--indeed, probably was--the

case. The cabinet's record up to this time makes it highly improbable

that any of its members had yet begun to understand that there are

limits beyond which no government can with impunity permit its authority

to be flouted.

The day following the shooting saw the first of those demonstrations

that later became so common. Liebknecht summoned a meeting in the

Siegesallee in the Tiergarten. Surrounded by motor-trucks carrying

machine-guns manned by surly ruffians, he addressed the assembled

thousands, attacking the government, demanding its forcible overthrow

and summoning his hearers to organize a Red Guard.

It is significant that, although actual adherents of Spartacus in Berlin

could at this time be numbered in thousands, tens of thousands attended

the meeting. Between the Spartacans and thousands of Independent

Socialists of the rank and file there were already only tenuous dividing

lines.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Majority Socialists in Control.

The Independent Socialist trio in the cabinet had been compelled to give

up--at least outwardly--their opposition to the summoning of a national

assembly. Popular sentiment too plainly demanded such a congress to make

it possible to resist the demand. Also the Majority members of the

cabinet had been strengthened by two occurrences early in December.

Joffe, the former Russian Bolshevik ambassador, had published his

charges against Haase, Barth and Cohn, and, although these were merely a

confirmation of what was generally suspected or even definitely known by

many, they had an ugly look in the black and white of a printed page and

found a temporary reaction which visibly shook the authority of these

men who had accepted foreign funds to overthrow their government.

The other factor strengthening the hands of Ebert, Scheidemann and

Landsberg was the manner of the return of the German front-soldiers.

Gratifying reports had come of the conduct of these men on their

homeward march. Where the soldiers of the _etappe_ had thrown discipline

and honor to the winds and straggled home, a chaotic collection of

looters, the men who, until noon on November 11th, had kept up the

unequal struggle against victorious armies, brought back with them some

of the spirit that kept them at their hopeless posts. They marched in

good order, singing the old songs, and scores of reports came of rough

treatment meted out by them to misguided _Genossen_ who tried to compel

them to substitute the red flag for their national or state flags, or

for their regimental banners.

The first returning soldiers poured through the Brandenburger Tor on

December 10th. A victorious army could not have comported itself

differently. The imperial black-white-red, the black-and-white of

Prussia, the white-and-blue of Bavaria and the flags of other states

floated from the ranks of the veterans. Flowers decked their helmets.

Flowers and evergreens covered gun-carriages and caissons, flowers

peeped from the muzzles of the rifles. Women, children and old men

trudged alongside, cheering, laughing, weeping. Time was for the moment

rolled back. It was not December, 1918, but August, 1914.

The people greeted the troops as if they were a conquering army. They

jammed the broad Unter den Linden; cheering and handclapping were almost

continuous. The red flags had disappeared from the buildings along the

street and been replaced by the imperial or Prussian colors. Only the

_Kultusministerium_, presided over by Adolph Hoffmann, illiterate

director of schools and atheistic master of churches, stayed red. The

flag of revolution floated over it and a huge red carpet hung

challengingly from a second-story window.

It was evident on this first day, as also on the following days, that

red doctrines had not yet destroyed discipline and order. The men

marched with the cadenced step of veterans, their ranks were correctly

aligned, their rifles snapped from hand to shoulder at the command of

their officers. The bands blared national songs as the long lines of

field-gray troops defiled through the central arch of the great gate,

once sacredly reserved for the royal family.

A hush fell on the waiting crowds. The soldiers' helmets came off. A

massed band played softly and a chorus of school-children sang the old

German anthem:

_Wie sie so sanft ruh'n,

Alle die Seligen,

In ihren Graebern._

Ebert delivered the address of welcome, which was followed by three

cheers for "the German Republic." It was no time for cheers for the

"German Socialist Republic." The soldiers had not yet been

"enlightened."

The scenes of this first day were repeated on each day of the week. The

self-respecting, sound attitude of the front-soldiers angered the

Spartacans and Independents, but was hailed with delight by the great

majority of the people. The _Vollzugsrat_, resenting the fact that it

had not been asked, as the real governing body of Germany, to take part

officially in welcoming the soldiers, sent one of its members to deliver

an address of welcome. He had hardly started when bands began to play,

officers shouted out commands, the men's rifles sprang to their

shoulders and they marched away, leaving him talking to an empty square.

The six-man cabinet announced that a national assembly would be

convened. The date tentatively fixed for the elections was February 2d,

which was a compromise, for the Majority Socialists wanted an earlier

date, while the Independent trio desired April. It was announced also

that a central congress of all Germany's workmen's and soldiers'

councils had been summoned to meet in Berlin on December 16th. This

congress was to have power to fix the date for the national assembly and

to make the necessary preparations.

No definite rules were laid down covering the manner of choosing

delegates to the congress. Despite the consequent possibility that the

elections of delegates would be manipulated by the less scrupulous

Spartacans and Independents, the congress chosen was a remarkably

representative body. The numerical weakness of the two radical wings of

Socialism found striking illustration in the makeup of the congress. Of

its total membership of some four hundred and fifty, the Spartacans and

Independents together had only about forty delegates. That this

accurately represented the proportionate strengths of the conservative

and the radical camps was proved at the elections for the national

assembly a month later, when the Independents, with four per cent of the

total popular vote, again had one-eleventh of the Majority Socialists'

forty-four per cent. In considering the role played by the radicals in

the second phase of the revolution it must be remembered that the

majority of their strength lay in Berlin, where they eventually won a

greater following than that of the old party. If Berlin and the free

cities of Hamburg and Bremen could have been isolated from the empire

and allowed to go their own way, ordered government in Germany would

have come months sooner.[56]

[56] It is not merely in very recent times that the largest

cities have become the strongholds of radicalism. In a

session of the Prussian Diet on March 20, 1852, a deputy

charged the government with lack of confidence in the people.

Bismarck replied: "The deputy having declared here that the

government distrusts the people, I can say to him that it is

true that I distrust the inhabitants of the larger cities so

long as they let themselves be led by self-seeking and lying

demagogues, but that I do not find the real people there. If

the larger cities rise up again in rebellion, the real people

will have ways of bringing them to obedience, even if these

must include wiping them off the face of the earth."

The following account of the sessions of the central congress is copied

from the author's diary of those days. There is nothing to add to or

take from the estimates and comments set down at that time.

"December 16th. The Central Congress of Germany's Workmen's and

Soldiers' Councils convened today in the _Abgeordnetenhaus_

(Prussian Diet). There are about four hundred and fifty

delegates present, including two women. There is a fair

sprinkling of intelligent faces in the crowd, and the average of

intelligence and manners is far above that of the Berlin

Soldiers' Council. None of the delegates keeps his hat on in the

chamber and a few who have started smoking throw their cigars

and cigarettes away at the request of the presiding officer,

Leinert from Hanover, who was for some years a member of the

Prussian Diet and is a man of ability and some parliamentary

training.

"After organization, which is effected with a show of

parliamentary form, Richard Mueller, chairman of the executive

committee of the _Vollzugsrat_, mounts the speaker's tribune to

give an extended report of the committee's activities. The

report, which turns out to be really a defense of the committee,

gets a cool reception. The _Vollzugsrat_ has drifted steadily to

the left ever since it was appointed, and is strongly

Independent Socialist and Spartacan, and it is already evident

that the Majority Socialists have an overwhelming majority in

the Congress.

"Chairman Leinert interrupts Mueller's speech with an

announcement that a _Genosse_ has an important communication to

make. A man who declares that he speaks 'in the name of at least

250,000 of Berlin's proletariat, now assembled before this

building,' reads a series of demands. The first, calling for the

strengthening of the socialist republic, is greeted with general

applause, but then come the familiar Spartacan (Bolshevik)

demands for the disarming of the _bourgeoisie_, weaponing of

'the revolutionary proletariat,' formation of a Red Guard (loud

cries of 'No!'), and 'all power to remain in the hands of the

workmen's and soldiers' councils.' In other words, the Russian

Soviet republic.

"A half dozen officer-delegates present join in the protests

against the demands. Loud cries of '_raus die Offiziere!_' (out

with the officers!) come from a little group of Spartacans and

Independent Socialists at the right of the room. Order is

finally restored and Mueller completes his defense of the

_Vollzugsrat_.

"A delegate moves that 'Comrades Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

be invited to attend the session as guests with advisory powers,

in view of their great services to the revolution.'[57] The

motion is voted down, five to one. It is renewed in the

afternoon, but meets the same fate, after a turbulent scene in

which the Spartacans and their Independent Socialist allies howl

and shout insults at the top of their voices.

[57] Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg had been chosen as

delegate, although desperate efforts were made to have

them elected.

"Liebknecht, who has entered the building while this was going

on, addresses his followers in the street in front from the

ledge of a third-story window. The '250,000 of Berlin's

proletariat' prove to be about seven thousand, nearly half of

them women and girls and a great majority of the rest

down-at-the-heels youths. His speech is the usual Bolshevik

rodomontade. A middle-aged workman who leaves the crowd with me

tells me:

"'Two-thirds of the people there are there because they

have to come or lose their jobs. One has to eat, you know.'

"I learned later in the day that many of the paraders had been

induced to attend by the representation that it was to be a

demonstration in favor of the national assembly. It is also

asserted that others were forced by Spartacans with drawn

revolvers to leave their factories.

"December 17th. The second day's session of the Congress was

marked by a virulent attack on Ebert by Ledebour, between whom

and Liebknecht there is little difference. The reception of his

speech by the delegates again demonstrated that the Majority

Socialists make up nine-tenths of the assembly. Barth also took

it upon himself to attack Ebert and to disclose secrets of the

inner workings of the cabinet. Ebert answered with an indignant

protest against being thus attacked from the rear. Barth has the

lowest mentality of all the six cabinet members, and I am

informed on good authority that he has an unsavory record. His

alleged offenses are of a nature regarded by advanced

penologists as pathological rather than criminal, but however

that may be, he seems hardly fitted for participation in any

governing body.

"Liebknecht's followers staged another demonstration like that

of yesterday. The Congress had decided that no outsiders should

be permitted again to interrupt the proceedings, but a

delegation of some forty men and women from the Schwarzkopff,

Knorr and other red factories, bearing banners inscribed with

Bolshevik demands, insisted on entering and nobody dared oppose

them. They filed onto the platform and read their stock

resolutions, cheered by the little group of their soul-brothers

among the deputies and by fanatics in the public galleries.

Beyond temporarily interrupting the proceedings of the Congress

they accomplished nothing.

"The incompetence--to use no stronger word--of the _Vollzugsrat_

was again demonstrated today, as well as its careless financial

methods.

"December 18th. A well-dressed German who stands beside me in

the diplomatic gallery insists on explaining to all occupants of

the gallery that it is intolerable that the speaker now in the

tribune should be permitted to speak of the late 'revolt.' 'It

was not a revolt; it was a revolution, and they ought to compel

him to call it that,' he says. How typical of the mentality of a

great number of the delegates themselves! They have spent

precious hours discussing Marx and Bebel and the brotherhood of

man--which, however, appears to extend only to the

proletariat--but only two or three clear heads have talked of

practical things. The failure of the Socialists generally to

realize that it is not now a question of doing what they would

like to do, but what they must do, is extraordinary and amazing.

One speaker has read nearly a chapter from one of Bebel's books.

Only a few leaders are clear-sighted enough to insist that it is

more important just now to save Germany from disintegration and

the German people from starvation than to impose the doctrines

of internationalism upon a world not yet ready for them. The

members of the average high school debating club in any American

city have a keener sense for practical questions than has the

great majority of this Congress.[58]

[58] This may appear to be an extravagant comparison, but it

is so near the truth that I let it stand.

"December 19th. The Congress tonight changed the date for the

National Assembly from February 16th to January 19th. Hardly

forty of the delegates opposed the change. These

forty--Independents and Spartacans--tried vainly to have a

resolution passed committing Germany to the Russian Soviet

system, but the vast majority would have none of it. Haase spoke

in favor of the National Assembly. If he maintains this course

his cooperation with the three Majority members of the cabinet

will be valuable, but he is a trimmer and undependable.

"The Congress was enabled by a bolt of the Independents to

accomplish another valuable bit of work, viz., the appointment

of a new central _Vollzugsrat_ made up entirely of Majority

Socialists. It includes some excellent men, notably Cohen of

Reuss, whose speech in advocacy of the National Assembly and of

changing its date has been the most logical and irrefutable

speech made during the Congress, and Leinert, first chairman of

the Congress. With the support of this new executive committee

the cabinet will have no excuse if it continues to shilly-shally

along and fails to exhibit some backbone.

"But I am apprehensive. A scraggly-bearded fanatic in one of the

public galleries today repeatedly howled insults at Majority

Socialist speakers, and, although repeated remonstrances were

made, nobody had enough energy or courage to throw him out.

Leinert once threatened to clear the galleries if the

demonstrations there were repeated. The spectators promptly

responded with hoots, hisses and the shaking of fists, but the

galleries were not cleared.

"German government in miniature! The same mentality that places

guards before public buildings and orders them not to use their

weapons! _Sancta simplicitas!_"

It will be observed that the foregoing report, comparatively lengthy

though it is, fails to record an amount of legislative business

commensurate with the length of the session. And yet there is little to

add to it, for but two things of importance were done--the alteration of

the date for holding the elections for the National Assembly and the

appointment of the new _Vollzugsrat_. Outside this the accomplishments

of the Congress were mainly along the line of refusing to yield to

Independent and Spartacan pressure designed to anchor the soviet scheme

in the government. New light is thrown on the old _Vollzugsrat_ by the

fact that it had invited the Russian Government to send delegates to the

Congress. The cabinet had learned of this in time, and a week before the

Congress was to assemble it sent a wireless message to Petrograd, asking

the government to abstain from sending delegates "in view of the present

situation in Germany." The Russians nevertheless tried to come, but were

stopped at the frontier.

The manner in which Haase and Dittmann had supported their Majority

Socialist colleagues in the cabinet by their speeches during the

Congress had demonstrated that, while there were differences between the

two groups, they were not insurmountable. The events of the week

following the Congress of Soviets, however, altered the situation

completely.

It has been related how, in the days preceding the actual revolution in

Berlin, the so-called "People's Marine Division" had been summoned to

the capital to protect the government. It was quartered in the Royal

Stables and the Royal Palace, and was entrusted with the custody of the

Palace and its treasures.

It speedily became apparent that a wolf had been placed in charge of the

sheepfold. The division, which had originally consisted of slightly more

than six hundred men, gradually swelled to more than three thousand,

despite the fact that no recruiting for it nor increase in its numbers

had been authorized. A great part of the men performed no service

whatever, terrorized inoffending people, and, as investigation by the

Finance Ministry disclosed, stole everything movable in the Palace.

The division demanded that it be permitted to increase its numbers to

five thousand and that it be made a part of the Republican Soldier Guard

in charge of the city's police service. This demand was refused by the

City Commandant, Otto Wels, since the ranks of the Soldier Guard were

already full. A compromise was eventually reached by which those of the

division who had formerly been employed on police duty and who were

fathers of families and residents of Berlin, would be added to the

police force if the Marine Division would surrender the keys to the

Palace which it was looting. The Marines agreed to this, but failed to

surrender the keys. On December 21st a payment of eighty thousand marks

was to be made to them for their supposed services. Wels refused to hand

over the money until the keys to the Palace had been surrendered.

Wels had incurred the deep hatred of the more radical elements of the

capital by his sturdy opposition to lawlessness. He was almost the

only Majority Socialist functionary who had displayed unbending energy

in his efforts to uphold the authority of the government, and public

demonstrations against him had already been held, in which he was

classed with Ebert and Scheidemann as a "bloodhound." The leaders of the

Marine Division decided reluctantly to give up the Palace keys, but they

would not hand them over to the hated Wels. Early in the afternoon of

December 23d they sought out Barth, the member of the cabinet who stood

closest to them, and gave the keys to him. Barth telephoned to Wels that

the keys had been surrendered. Wels pointed out that Ebert was the

member of the cabinet in charge of military affairs, and declared that

he would pay out the eighty thousand marks only upon receipt of advices

that the keys were in Ebert's possession.

The delivery to Barth of the keys had been entrusted two marines who

constituted the military post at the Chancellor's Palace. These men,

informed of Wels's attitude, occupied the telephone central in the

palace, and informed Ebert and Landsberg that Dorrenbach, their

commander, had ordered that no one be permitted to leave or enter the

building. An hour later, at five-thirty o'clock, the Marines left the

building, but in the evening the whole division appeared before the

palace and occupied it.

Government troops, summoned by telephone, also appeared, and an armed

clash appeared imminent. Ebert, however, finally induced the Marines to

leave on condition that the government troops also left.

While this was going on, a detachment of Marines had entered Wels's

office, compelled him at the point of their guns to pay out the eighty

thousand marks due them, and had then marched him to the Royal Stables,

where he was locked up in a cellar and threatened with death. Ebert,

Scheidemann and Landsberg, without consulting their colleagues, ordered

the Minister of War to employ all force necessary for the release of

Wels. At the last moment, however, negotiations were entered into and

Wels was released shortly after midnight on the Marines' terms.

Spartacans and radical Independents took the part of the Marines.

Richard Mueller, Ledebour, Daeumig and other members of the defunct

original _Vollzugsrat_ were galvanized into new opposition. Ledebour's

"Revolutionary Foremen of Greater Berlin Industries" demanded the

retirement of the Independent Socialist members of the cabinet, and the

demand was approvingly published by _Die Freiheit_, the party's official

organ. The head and forefront of the Majority cabinet members' offending

was their order to the War Minister to use force in upholding the

government's authority, and radical revolutionists condemn force when it

is employed against themselves.

The position of Haase and Dittmann as party leaders was seriously

shaken. The left wing of their party, led by Eichhorn and Ledebour, was

on the point of disavowing them as leaders and even as members of the

party. At the party's caucuses in Greater Berlin on December 26th, held

to nominate candidates for delegates to the coming National Assembly,

Ledebour refused to permit his name to be printed on the same ticket

with Haase's, and Eichhorn secured 326 votes to 271 for the party's

head.

On the evening of the same day the Independents in the cabinet submitted

eight formulated questions to the _Vollzugsrat_, in which this body was

asked to define its attitude as to various matters. The _Vollzugsrat_

answered a majority of the questions in a sense favorable to the

Independents. Its answer to one important question, however, gave the

Independents the pretext for which they were looking. The question ran:

"Does the _Vollzugsrat_ approve that the cabinet members Ebert,

Scheidemann and Lansberg on the night of December 23d conferred

upon the Minister of War the authority, in no manner limited, to

employ military force against the People's Marine Division in

the Palace and Stables?"

The executive council's answer was:

"The people's commissioners merely gave the order to do what was

necessary to liberate Comrade Wels. Nor was this done until

after the three commissioners had been advised by telephone by

the leader of the People's Marine Division that he could not

longer guarantee the life of Comrade Wels. The _Vollzugsrat_

approves."

The _Vollzugsrat_ itself presented a question. It asked:

"Are the People's Commissioners prepared to protect public order

and safety, and also and especially private and public property,

against forcible attacks? Are they also prepared to use the

powers at their disposal to prevent themselves and their organs

from being interfered with in their conduct of public affairs by

acts of violence, irrespective of whence these may come?"

The Independents, for whom Dittmann spoke, hereupon declared that they

retired from the government. Thus they avoided the necessity of

answering the _Vollzugsrat's_ question. In a subsequent statement

published in their press the trio declared that the Majority members

were encouraging counter-revolution by refusing to check the power of

the military. They themselves, they asserted, were a short while earlier

in a position to take over the government alone, but they could not do

so since their principles did not permit them to work with a Majority

Socialist _Vollzugsrat_. What they meant by saying that they could have

assumed complete control of the cabinet was not explained, and it was

probably an over-optimistic statement. There is no reason to believe

that the Independents had up to this time been in a position enabling

them to throw the Majority Socialists out of the cabinet.

Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, in a manifesto to the people, declared

that the Independents had, by their resignations, refused to take a

stand in favor of assuring the safety of the state. The manifesto said:

"By rejecting the means of assuring the state's safety, the

Independents have demonstrated their incapacity to govern. For

us the revolution is not a party watchword, but the most

valuable possession of the whole wealth-producing folk.

"We take over their tasks as people's commissioners with the

oath: All for the revolution, all through the revolution. But we

take them over at the same time with the firm purpose to oppose

immovably all who would convert the revolution of the people

into terror by a minority."

The _Vollzugsrat_ elected to fill the three vacancies: Gustav Noske,

still governor of Kiel: Herr Wissell, a member of the old Reichstag, and

Herr Loebe, editor of the Socialist _Volkswacht_ of Breslau. Loebe,

however, never assumed office, and the cabinet consisted of five members

until it was abolished by act of the National Assembly in February.

The Majority Socialists staged a big demonstration on Sunday, December

29th, in favor of the new government. Thousands of the _bourgeoisie_

joined in a great parade, which ended with a tremendous assembly in

front of the government offices in the Wilhelmstrasse. The size and

character of the demonstration showed that the great majority of

Berlin's law-abiding residents were on the side of Ebert and his

colleagues.

The Majority Socialists did not take over the sole responsibility for

the government with a light heart. They had begun to realize something

of the character of the forces working against them and were saddened

because they had been compelled to abandon party traditions by relying

upon armed force. Yet there was clearly no way of avoiding it. The

Spartacans were organizing their cohorts in Bremen, Hamburg, Kiel and

other cities, and had already seized the government of Duesseldorf, where

they had dissolved the city council and arrested Mayor Oehler. The

Soviets of Solingen and Remscheid had accepted the Spartacan program by

a heavy majority. The state government of Brunswick had adopted

resolutions declaring that the National Assembly could not be permitted

to meet. At a meeting of the Munich Communists Emil Muehsam[59] had been

greeted with applause when he declared that the summons for the assembly

was "the common battle-cry of reaction." Resolutions were passed

favoring the nullification of all war-loans.[60]

[59] Muehsam was one of the characteristic types of Bolsheviki.

For years he had been an unwashed, unshorn and unshaven

literary loafer in Berlin cafes, whose chief ability

consisted in securing a following of naive persons willing to

buy drinks for him.

[60] The left wing of the Independent Socialist Party already

demanded nullification, and the whole party drifted so

rapidly leftward that a platform adopted by it in the first

week of the following March definitely demanded nullification.

The Spartacans (on December 30th) had reorganized as the "Communist

Laborers' Party of Germany--Spartacus League." Radek-Sobelsohn, who had

for some weeks been carrying on his Bolshevik propaganda from various

hiding places, attended the meeting and made a speech in which he

declared that the Spartacans must not let themselves be frightened by

the fear of civil war. Rosa Luxemburg openly summoned her hearers to

battle.

The authority of the national government was small in any event, and was

openly flouted and opposed in some places. Sailors and marines had

organized the Republic of Oldenburg-East Frisia and elected an

unlettered sailor named Bernhard Kuhnt as president. The president of

the Republic of Brunswick was a bushelman tailor named Leo Merges, and

the minister of education was a woman who had been a charwoman and had

been discharged by a woman's club for which she had worked for petty

peculations. Kurt Eisner, minister-president of Bavaria, was a dreamy,

long-haired Communist writer who had earlier had to leave the editorial

staff of _Vorwaerts_ because of an utter lack of practical common-sense.

He was a fair poet and an excellent feuilletonist, but quite unfitted to

participate in governmental affairs. His opposition to the national

government severely handicapped it, and the Bavarian state government

was at the same time crippled by the natural antagonism of a

predominantly Catholic people to a Jewish president.

To the south the Czechs had occupied Bodenbach and Tetschen in German

Bohemia, and were threatening the border. To the east the Poles,

unwilling to await the awards of the peace conference, had seized the

city of Posen, were taxing the German residents there for the

maintenance of an army to be used against their own government, and had

given notice that a war loan was to be issued. Paderewski, head of the

new Polish Government, had been permitted to land at Danzig on the

promise that he would proceed directly to Warsaw. Instead, he went to

Posen and made inflammatory speeches against the Germans until the

English officer accompanying him was directed by the British Government

to see that the terms of the promise to the German government were

obeyed. The German Government, endeavoring to assemble and transport

sufficient forces to repel Polish aggressions against German territory,

found opposition among the Spartacans and Independent Socialists at

home, and from the Bolshevik Brunswick authorities, who announced that

no government troops would be permitted to pass through the state, or to

be recruited there. Government troops entering Brunswick were disarmed.

The state government gave the Berlin cabinet notice that decrees of the

Minister of War had no validity in Brunswick. General Scheuch, the

Minister of War, resigned in disgust.

What later became an epidemic of strikes began. Seventy thousand workers

were idle in Berlin. Upper Silesia reported serious labor troubles

throughout the mining districts, due to Russian and German Bolshevist

agitators and Poles.

A less happy New Year for men responsible for the affairs of a great

state was doubtless never recorded.

CHAPTER XV.

Liebknecht Tries to Overthrow the

Government; Is Arrested and Killed.

In the six weeks that Emil Eichhorn had been Police-President of Berlin

the situation in his department had become a public scandal. The arming

of the criminal and hooligan classes by this guardian of public safety,

which had at first been carried on quietly, was now being done openly

and shamelessly, and had reached great proportions. Liebknecht and

Ledebour, Spartacan and Independent, were in constant and close

fellowship with him. A considerable part of the Republican Soldier Guard

had been turned from allegiance to the government that had appointed

them and could be reckoned as adherents of Eichhorn. The Berlin police

department had become an _imperium in imperio_.

The _Vollzugsrat_ conducted a formal investigation of Eichhorn's

official acts. The investigation, which was conducted honestly and with

dignity, convicted the Police-President of gross inefficiency,

insubordination, diversion and conversion of public funds, and conduct

designed to weaken and eventually overthrow the government. _Vorwaerts_

was able to disclose the further fact that Eichhorn had throughout his

term of office been drawing a salary of 1,800 marks monthly from

Lenine's _Rosta_, the Bolshevik propaganda-central for Germany. The

_Vollzugsrat_ removed Eichhorn from office.

Eichhorn, relying on the armed forces at his disposal and doubtless

equally on the probability that a Socialist government would not dare

use actual force against _Genossen_, refused to comply with the order

for his removal. The more ignorant of his followers--and this embraced a

great proportion--saw in the _Vollzugsrat's_ action the first move in

that counter-revolution whose specter had so artfully been kept before

their eyes by their leaders.

It is a current saying in England that when an Englishman has a

grievance, he writes to the _Times_ about it. When a German has a

grievance, he organizes a parade and marches through the city carrying

banners and transparencies, and shouting _hoch_! (hurrah!) for his

friends and _nieder_! (down) with his enemies. On Sunday, January 5th, a

great demonstration was staged as a protest against Eichhorn's removal.

It is significant that, although Eichhorn was an Independent Socialist,

the moving spirit and chief orator of the day was the Spartacan

Liebknecht. This, too, despite the fact that at the convention where the

Spartacus League had been reorganized a week earlier, the Independents

had been roundly denounced as timorous individuals and enemies of

Simon-Pure Socialism. Similar denunciations of the Spartacans had come

from the Independents. The psychology of it all is puzzling, and the

author contents himself with recording the facts without attempting to

explain them.

Sunday's parade was of imposing proportions, and it was marked by a grim

earnestness that foreboded trouble. The organizers claimed that 150,000

persons were in the line of march. The real number was probably around

twenty thousand. Transparencies bore defiant inscriptions. "Down with

Ebert and Scheidemann, the Bloodhounds and Grave-diggers of the

Revolution!" was a favorite device. "Down with the Bloodhound Wels!" was

another. Cheers for "our Police-President" and groans for the cabinet

were continuous along the line of march. The great mass of the paraders

were ragged, underfed, miserable men and women, mute testimony to the

sufferings of the war-years.

Liebknecht addressed the paraders. Counter-revolution, he declared, was

already showing its head. The Ebert-Scheidemann government must be

overthrown and the real friends of the revolution must not shrink from

using violence if violence were necessary. Others spoke in a similar

vein.

Conditions appeared propitious for the _coup_ that had been preparing

for a month. Late Sunday evening armed Spartacans occupied the plants of

the _Vorwaerts_, _Tageblatt_, the Ullstein Company (publishers of _Die

Morgenpost_ and _Berliner Zeitung-am-Mittag_), the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and

the Wolff Bureau.

The Spartacans in the _Vorwaerts_ plant published on Monday morning _Der

rote Vorwaerts_ (the Red _Vorwaerts_). It contained a boastful leading

Article announcing that the paper had been taken over by "real

revolutionists," and that "no power on earth shall take it from us." The

Liebknechtians also seized on Monday the Buexenstein plant, where the

_Kreuz-Zeitung_ is printed. There was much promiscuous shooting in

various parts of the city. Spartacans fired on unarmed government

supporters in front of the war ministry, killing one man and wounding

two. There were also bloody clashes at Wilhelm Platz, Potsdamer Platz

and in Unter den Linden.

The _Vollzugsrat_ rose to the occasion like a _bourgeois_ governing

body. It conferred extraordinary powers on the cabinet and authorized it

to use all force at its disposal to put down the Bolshevist uprising.

That it was Bolshevist was now apparent to everybody. The cabinet, still

hesitant about firing on _Genossen_, conferred with the Independents

Haase, Dittmann, Cohn and Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid, the last named one of

the so-called "intellectual leaders" of the Independent Socialists.

These men wanted the government to "compromise." The cabinet declared it

could listen to no proposals until the occupied newspaper plants should

have been restored to their rightful owners. The delegation withdrew to

confer with the Spartacan leaders. These refused flatly to surrender

their usurped strongholds.

Several lively street battles marked the course of Tuesday, January 7th.

The Spartacans succeeded in driving the government troops from the

Brandenburger Tor, but after a short time were in turn driven out.

Spartacan and Independent Socialist parades filled the streets of the

old city. The government did nothing to stop these demonstrations. Haase

and the other members of Monday's delegation spent most of the day

trying to induce the government to compromise. Their ingenious idea of a

"compromise" was for the entire cabinet to resign and be replaced by a

"parity" government made up of two Majority Socialists, two Independents

and two Spartacans. This, of course, would have meant in effect a

government of four Bolsheviki and two Majority Socialists. Despite their

traditions of and training in party "solidarity," the cabinet could not

help seeing that the "compromise" proposed would mean handing the

government over bodily to Liebknecht, for Haase and Dittmann had long

lost all power to lead their former followers back into democratic

paths. The bulk of the party was already irrevocably committed to

practical Bolshevism. The scholarly Eduard Bernstein, who had followed

Haase and the other seceders from the Majority Socialists in 1916, had

announced his return to the parent party. In a long explanation of the

reasons for his course he denounced the Independents as lacking any

constructive program and with having departed from their real mission.

They had become, he declared, a party committed to tearing down existing

institutions. Other adherents of the party's right wing refused to have

anything to do with the new course.

The night of January 7th was marked by hard fighting. Spartacans

repeatedly attacked government troops at the Anhalt Railway Station in

the Koeniggraetzerstrasse, but were repulsed with heavy losses. They also

attacked the government troops defending the Potsdam Railway Station, a

quarter of a mile north from the Anhalt Station, but were also repulsed

there. Government soldiers, however, had considerable losses in an

unsuccessful attempt to retake the Wolff Bureau building at

Charlottenstrasse and Zimmerstrasse. On Wednesday, the section of the

city around the Brandenburger Tor was again filled with parading

Bolsheviki, but the government had plucked up enough courage and

decision to decree that no parades should be permitted to enter

Wilhelmstrasse, where the seat of government is situated. Spartacans

attempted to invade this street in the afternoon, but scattered when

government soldiers fired a few shots, although the soldiers fired into

the air. The Independent go-betweens again assailed the cabinet in an

effort to secure the "compromise" government suggested the day before.

The delegation was hampered, however, both by the fact that the cabinet

realized what such a compromise would mean and by the fact that the

Independents could promise nothing. The Spartacans stubbornly refused to

surrender the captured newspaper plants, and the Independents themselves

were committed to the retention in office of Eichhorn.

Eichhorn, still at his desk in Police Headquarters, refused even to

admit to the building Police-President Richter of Charlottenburg, who

had been named as his successor, and he and his aides were still busily

arming deluded workingmen and young hooligans of sixteen and seventeen,

as well as some women. The People's Marine Division announced that it

sided with the government, but it played little part in its defense.

The rattle of machine-guns and the crack of rifles kept Berliners awake

nearly all night. The hardest fighting was at the _Tageblatt_ plant, in

front of the Foreign Office and the Chancellor's Palace, and around the

Brandenburger Tor. Thursday morning found the government decided to put

an end to the unbearable conditions. It was announced that no parades

would be tolerated and that government soldiers had been ordered to

shoot to kill if any such aggregations disobeyed orders to disperse.

Spartacus, realizing that the government meant what it said, called no

meetings, and the streets were free of howling demonstrants for the

first time since Sunday.

The government further addressed a proclamation to the people,

addressing them this time as _Mitbuerger_ (fellow-citizens), instead of

_Genossen_. It announced that negotiations had been broken off with the

rebels, and assailed the dishonest and dishonorable tactics of the

Independent Socialists represented by the Haase-Dittmann delegation.

_Die Freiheit_ and _Der rote Vorwaerts_ assailed the government; still

the proclamation had a good effect and decent elements generally rallied

to the government's support. The day's fighting was confined to the

_Tageblatt_ plant, where three hundred Bolsheviki were entrenched to

defend the liberty of other people's property. The place could have been

taken with artillery, but it was desired to spare the building if

possible.

Friday passed with only scattered sniping. The Spartacans and their

Independent helpers grew boastful. They had not yet learned to know what

manner of man Gustav Noske, the new cabinet member, was. They made his

acquaintance early Saturday morning. Before the sun had risen government

troops had posted themselves with artillery and mine-throwers a few

hundred yards from the _Vorwaerts_ plant. The battle was short and

decisive. A single mine swept out of existence the Spartacans' barricade

in front of the building, and a few more shots made the building ripe

for storm. The government troops lost only two or three men, but more

than a score of Bolsheviki were killed and more than a hundred,

including some Russians and women, were captured. The _Vorwaerts_ plant

was a new building and much more valuable than some of the other plants

occupied by the Spartacans, but it was selected for bombardment because

the cabinet members wished to show, by sacrificing their own party's

property first, that they were not playing favorites.

The fall of the _Vorwaerts_ stronghold and the firm stand of the

government disheartened the mercenary and criminal recruits of the

Spartacans. Police Headquarters, the real center of the revolutionary

movement, was taken early Sunday morning after a few 10.5-centimeter

shells had been fired into it. The official report told of twelve

Spartacans killed, but their casualties were actually much higher.

Eichhorn had chosen the better part of valor and disappeared. The

Bolsheviki occupying the various newspaper plants began deserting _en

masse_ over neighboring roofs and the plants were occupied by government

troops without a contest. News came that Liebknecht's followers had also

abandoned the Boetzow Brewery in the eastern part of the city, one of

their main strongholds. Late in the afternoon they also fled from the

Silesian Railway Station, where they had been storing up stolen

provisions, assembling arms and ammunition and preparing to make a last

desperate stand.

The government, averse though it was to the employment of force to

maintain its authority, had realized at the beginning of December the

increasing strength of the Spartacans, and had begun assembling a

military force of loyal soldiers in various garrisons outside the city.

Three thousand of these troops now marched into the city. Hundreds of

the men in the ranks carried rifles slung across officers'

shoulder-straps. They marched as troops ought to march, sang patriotic

songs and looked grimly determined. For miles along their route they

were greeted by frantic cheering and even by joyous tears from the

law-abiding citizens who had been terrorized by the scum of a great

capital.[61]

[61] The task of the government was made harder throughout its

darkest days by the aid and comfort given its enemies by the

character of the reports published in certain enemy papers

regarding conditions in Germany. Nearly the entire Paris

press regularly published extravagantly untrue reports

concerning the situation, and many English and American

papers followed suit. The London _Times_ of December 10th

gravely told its readers that "in a political sense Ebert is

suspected of being a mere tool of the old regime, whose

difficult task it is to pave the first stages of the road to

the restoration of the Hohenzollerns months or years hence."

Three days later it declared that "the German army chiefs

propose to let the Spartacans upset the government so that

they can summon Hindenburg to save the day and reestablish

the monarchy."Articles of this stamp were eagerly pounced

upon and republished by Independent Socialist and Spartacan

organs of the stamp of _Die Freiheit_, _Die Republik_,

Liebknecht's _Die rote Fahne_, and others, and were of great

assistance to the enemies of good government in their efforts

to convince the ignorant and fanatical that the government

was organizing a "white guard" for counter-revolutionary

purposes and was plotting the restoration of the monarchy.

One dispatch from Paris, published extensively in the

American press on February 26th, quoted in all seriousness "a

prominent American Socialist in close touch with German

Liberals and with exceptional sources of secret information,"

who had learned that "the German revolution was a piece of

theatrical manipulation by agents of the militaristic

oligarchy to win an armistice." That such a report could be

published in responsible organs is a staggering commentary on

the manner in which the war-psychosis inhibited clear

thinking. The Conservative Deputy Hergt, speaking in the

Prussian Diet on March 15th, said: "We Conservatives are not

conscienceless enough to plunge the land into civil warfare.

We shall wait patiently until the sound sense of the German

people shall demand a return to the monarchic form of

government." American papers carried the following report of

this statement: "Speaking before the new Prussian Diet in

Berlin, Deputy Hergt proposed that Prussia should restore the

monarchy." Volumes could be written about these false reports

alone.

The week of terror had practically ended. There was still some

sniping from housetops and some looting, but organized resistance had

been crushed. Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had gone into hiding.

Liebknecht's seventeen-year-old son and sister had been arrested.

Ledebour, more courageous or, perhaps, more confident that a veteran

_Genosse_ had nothing to fear from a Socialist government, remained

and was arrested.

It had been no part of the cabinet's plan or desire to have their

veteran colleague of former days arrested. On January 12th the writer,

speaking with one of the most prominent Majority Socialist leaders,

said:

"You can now hardly avoid having Ledebour locked up."

The man addressed shrugged his shoulders reflectively and answered:

"Well, you see, Herr Kollege, we can't very well do so. Ledebour

is an old comrade, he was for many years one of the party's

secretaries and has done great services for the party."

"But he has taken part in an armed uprising to overthrow the government

and to destroy that same party," persisted the writer. The Socialist

leader admitted it.

"But he is acting from ideal motives," he said.

This refusal to judge opponents by their acts instead of by their

motives hampered the government throughout its career. It is less

specifically Socialistic than German, and is the outgrowth of what is

termed _Rechthaberei_ in German an untranslatable word exactly

illustrated by the colloquy reported above. It is not the least among

the mental traits that make it impossible for the average German ever to

become what is popularly known as a practical politician; a trait that

kept the German people in their condition of political immaturity.

In Ledebour's case, however, the government found itself compelled to

act drastically. A proclamation was found which declared the government

deposed and taken over temporarily by the three men who signed it. These

were Liebknecht, Ledebour and another Independent Socialist named

Scholtze. In the first days of the uprising they had sent a detachment

of Spartacans to the War Ministry to present the proclamation and take

charge of that department's affairs, and only the presence of mind and

courage of a young officer had prevented the scheme from succeeding. In

the face of this, no government that demanded respect for its authority

could permit Ledebour to remain at liberty. His arrest was nevertheless

the signal for some adverse criticism even from Majority Socialists

whose class-conscious solidarity was greater than their intelligence.

Liebknecht was still in hiding, but it was less easy to hide in

Berlin than it had been a month earlier, for the old criminal police

were at work again. The experiment with soldier-policemen had

resulted so disastrously that every Berliner who had anything to lose

welcomed the return of these men who had been so denounced and hated

in other days. The search lasted but two days. On January 15th

Liebknecht's apartment was searched, and great amounts of propagandist

pamphlets and correspondence showing him to be in constant touch with

the Russian Soviet Government were found. On the evening of the next day

policemen and soldiers surrounded the house of a distant relative of

Liebknecht's wife in the western part of the city and Liebknecht was

found. He denied his identity at first, but finally admitted that he was

the man wanted.

He was taken to the Eden Hotel in Charlottenburg, which had been

occupied in part by the staff of the government troops. Rosa Luxemburg,

found hiding in another house, was brought to the hotel at the same

time. After the two had been questioned, preparations were made to take

them to the city prison in Moabit.

Despite all precautions, news of the arrests had transpired, and the

hotel was surrounded by a vast crowd, mainly made up of better class

citizens, since the district where the hotel is situated is one of the

best residential districts of Greater Berlin. The feeling of these

people against the two persons who were in so great measure responsible

for the terrors of the week just past naturally ran high. The appearance

of the soldiers guarding the two was the signal for a wild rush. The

Luxemburg woman was struck repeatedly and Liebknecht received a blow on

the head which caused a bloody wound.

Neither the man nor woman ever reached prison. Soldiers brought to the

morgue late that night the body of "an unidentified man," alleged to

have been shot while running away from his guards. One bullet had struck

him between the shoulders and another in the middle of the back of the

neck. The woman disappeared utterly.

On the following day (January 16th) it became known that both Liebknecht

and Luxemburg had been killed. Exactly who fired the fatal shots was

never clearly established, but an investigation did establish that the

officers in charge of the men guarding the two prisoners were guilty of

a negligence which was undoubtedly deliberate, and intended to make the

killings possible.

The impression was profound. The _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, while

deploring lynch law and summary justice, declared that the deaths of the

two agitators must be regarded as "almost a Divine judgment." This was

the tenor of all _bourgeois_ comment, and even _Vorwaerts_ admitted that

the dead man and woman had fallen as victims of the base passions which

they themselves had aroused. They had summoned up spirits which they

could not exorcise. There was nevertheless much apprehension regarding

the form which the vengeance of the victims' followers might take, but

this confined itself in the main to verbal attacks on the _bourgeoisie_

and Majority Socialists, and denunciation of Noske's "White Guard," as

the loyal soldiers who protected the law-abiding part of the population

were termed. Disorders were feared on the day of Liebknecht's funeral,

but none came.

The government gained a much needed breathing spell through these

events. With Liebknecht and Luxemburg dead, Radek in hiding, Ledebour

locked up and Eichhorn--as it transpired later--fled to Brunswick, the

Spartacans, deprived of their most energetic leaders and shaken by their

bloody losses of Bolshevik week, could not so quickly rally their forces

for another _coup_. Their losses are not definitely known, but they were

estimated at approximately two hundred dead and nearly a thousand

wounded. The losses of the government troops were negligible.

Noske, who had taken over from Ebert the administration of military

affairs, announced that there would be no further temporizing with

persons endeavoring to overthrow the government by force. He issued a

decree setting forth the duty of the soldiers to preserve order, protect

property and defend themselves in all circumstances.

The decree said further:

"No soldier can be excused for failure to perform his duty if he

have not, in the cases specified above, made timely and adequate

use of his weapons to attain the purpose set forth."

Some six years earlier Police-President von Jagow had brought a flood of

Socialist abuse on his head because, in a general order to the police,

he referred to the fact that there had been an unusual number of escapes

of criminals and attacks on policemen and added: "Henceforth I shall

punish any policeman who in such case has failed to make timely use of

his weapons." And now a Socialist issued an order of much the same

tenor. The _Genossen_ had learned by bitter experience that there is a

difference between criticizing and governing, and that moral suasion

occasionally fails with the lowest elements of a great city.

Defeated in Berlin, the Bolsheviki turned their attention to the coast

cities. The "Republic of Cuxhaven" was proclaimed, with a school-teacher

as president. It collapsed in five days as a result of the government's

decisive action. An attempted _coup_ in Bremen also failed, but both

these uprisings left the Spartacans and Independents of these cities in

possession of large supplies of arms and ammunition.

January 18th, the forty-seventh anniversary of the founding of the

German Empire, brought melancholy reflections for all Germans. The

Bolshevist-hued Socialists were impotently raging in defeat; the

_bourgeoisie_ lamented past glories; the Majority Socialists were under

a crossfire from both sides. The Conservative _Kreuz-Zeitung_ wrote:

"January 18th: What feelings are awakened on this day under

prevailing conditions! In other times we celebrated today the

Empire's glory, its resurrection from impotence and dissension

to unity and strength. We believed its existence and power

assured for centuries. And today? After less than half a century

the old misery has come upon us and has cast us down lower than

ever. This time, too, Germany could be conquered only because it

was disunited. In the last analysis it was from the

Social-Democratic poison of Internationalism and negation of

state that the Empire became infected and defenseless. How

painfully wrong were those who, in smiling optimism, ever made

light of all warnings against the Social-Democratic danger. It

will be our real danger in the future also. If we do not

overcome the Social-Democratic spirit among our people we cannot

recover our health."

The _Kreuz-Zeitung's_ diagnosis was correct, but it had required a

national post-mortem to establish it.

CHAPTER XVI.

The National Assembly.

In preparation for the National Assembly, the various existing

political parties effected generally a sweeping reorganization, which

included, for the most part, changes of designations as well. The

Conservatives and Free Conservatives coalesced as The German National

People's Party (_Deutsch-nationale Volkspartei_). The right wing of

the National-Liberals, under the leadership of Dr. Stresemann, became

the German People's Party (_Deutsche Volkspartei_). The left wing of the

old party, under the leadership of Baron von Richthofen joined with the

former Progressives (_Fortschrittliche Volkspartei_) to form the German

Democratic Party (_Deutsch-demokratische Partei_). The Clericals

retained their party solidarity but christened themselves German

Christian Party (_Deutsch-Christliche Partei_). The Majority and

Independent Socialists retained their old organizations and party

designations. The Spartacans, as outspoken enemies of any national

assembly, could not consistently have anything to do with it and placed

no ticket in the field. Most of the Independent Socialists were also

opponents of a constituent assembly, but the party organization was

still trying to blow both hot and cold and had not yet gone on record

officially as favoring a soviet government and the dictatorship of the

proletariat.

Of the parties as reorganized, the National People's and the People's

parties were monarchic. The Christian Party (Clericals) contained many

men who believed a limited monarchy to be the best form of government

for Germany, but as a whole the party was democratically inclined and

out of sympathy with any attempt at that time to restore the monarchy.

The two Socialist parties were, of course, advocates of a republic and

bitter opponents of monarchs and monarchies.

The Democratic Party came into existence mainly through the efforts of

Theodor Wolff, the brilliant editor of the Berlin _Tageblatt_. No other

non-Socialist editor realized so early or so completely as Wolff whither

the policy of the old government was taking Germany. He had opposed the

submarine warfare, condemned the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, attacked the

methods and influence of the pan-Germans and constantly advocated

drastic democratic reforms. Probably no other _bourgeois_ newspaper had

been so often suppressed as the _Tageblatt_, and it shared with

Socialist organs the distinction of being prohibited in many army units

and in some military departments at home. Although Wolff held no

political office, his influence in the Progressive Party and with the

left wing of the National-Liberals was great, and even many Socialists

regularly read his leading articles, which were more often cabled to

America than were the editorials of any other German publicist, not

excepting even the _poseur_ Maximilian Harden-Witkowski.

The revolution was hardly an accomplished fact before Wolff saw the

necessity for a democratic, non-Socialist political party which must be

free of elements compromised in any manner by participation in the old

government or by support of its militaristic and imperialistic policies.

He took it upon himself to issue the summons for the formation of such a

party. The response was immediate and gratifying. Help came even from

unexpected quarters. Prince Lichnowsky, former Ambassador to Great

Britain; Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, who had succeeded Dr. Solf as Foreign

Minister; Baron von Richthofen of the National-Liberals, Count Johannes

Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, and many other

prominent members of the higher German nobility[62] joined with

_bourgeois_ political leaders to organize the new party. Not all

compromised elements could be kept out of the party, but they were

excluded from any active participation in the conduct of its affairs or

the shaping of its policies.

[62] A surprisingly large number of Americans cannot or will not

believe that a prince or a count can be a real democrat. This

is plainly due to a too prevalent confusion of the words

democratic with republican. All republics are, Footnote: in

theory at least, democratic, but a monarchist can

consistently be a democrat. The two most democratic countries

in the world are Denmark and Norway, yet both are kingdoms.

The democratic sentiments of the men named above, with the

possible exception of one, were of no recent growth; they

long antedated the revolution.

Taken as a whole, the party stood far to the left. Wolff, at the extreme

left of his organization, might be described either as a _bourgeois_

Socialist or a Socialistic _bourgeois_ politician. The recruits from the

former National-Liberal Party were less radical, but even they

subscribed to a platform which called for the nationalization

(socialization) of a long list of essential industries, notably mines

and water and electrical power, and, in general, for sweeping economic

reforms and the most direct participation of the people in the

government. The fact that the new party was chiefly financed by big

Jewish capitalists caused it to be attacked by anti-Semites and

proletarians alike, but this detracted little from its strength at the

polls, since Germany's anti-Semites were never found in any considerable

numbers among the _bourgeois_ parties of the Left, and the proletarians

were already for the most part adherents of one of the Socialist

factions.

The campaign for the elections to the National Assembly was conducted

with great energy and equally great bitterness by all parties. Despite

an alleged shortage of paper which had for months made it impossible for

the newspapers to print more than a small part of the advertisements

submitted to them, tons of paper were used for handbills and placards.

The streets, already filthy enough, were strewn ankle-deep in places

with appeals for this or that party and vilifications of opponents.

Aeroplanes dropped thousands of dodgers over the chief cities. New daily

papers, most of them unlovely excrescences on the body of the press,

made their appearance and secured paper grants for their consumption.

One feature of the campaign illustrated strikingly what had already been

clear to dispassionate observers: Germany's new government was

unashamedly a party government first and a general government second.

Majority Socialist election posters were placed in public buildings,

railway stations, etc., to the exclusion of all other parties. Its

handbills were distributed by government employees and from government

automobiles and aeroplanes. The _bourgeois Hallesche Zeitung's_ paper

supply was cut in half in order that the new Socialist _Volkszeitung_

might be established, and its protest was dismissed by the Soldiers'

Council with the statement that the _Volkszeitung_ was "more important."

Not even the most reactionary of the old German governments would have

dared abuse its power in this manner. It may be doubted whether the

revolutionary government was at all conscious of the impropriety of its

course, but even if it had been it would have made no difference. One of

the great sources of strength of Socialism is its conviction that all

means are sacred for the furtherance of the class struggle.

The Spartacans had boasted that the elections would not be permitted to

be held, but the decided attitude of the government made their boast an

empty one. Soldiers in steel helmets, their belts filled with

hand-grenades and carrying rifles with fixed bayonets, guarded the

polling places whereever trouble was expected. In Harburg the

ballot-boxes were burned, and reports of disorders came from two or

three small districts elsewhere, but the election as a whole was quietly

and honestly conducted. Election day in Manhattan has often seen more

disorders than were reported from all Germany on January 19th.

The result of the election contained no surprises; it was, in general,

practically what had been forecast by the best observers. The Majority

Socialists, who had hoped for an absolute majority but had not expected

it, polled about 43 per cent of the total popular vote and secured 163

delegates to the National Convention. This was an increase of nearly 8

per cent since the last general election of 1912. The Independent

Socialists demonstrated considerable strength in Greater Berlin, but

only one in every twenty-five of the whole country's voters supported

them and only twenty-two of their followers were elected. Kurt Eisner,

Minister-President of Bavaria, failed of election although his name was

on the ticket in more than twenty election districts.

The total membership of the National Convention was to have been 433

delegates, but the French authorities in charge of the troops occupying

Alsace-Lorraine refused to permit elections to be held there, which

reduced the assembly's membership to 421. A majority was thus 211, and

the two Socialist parties, with a combined total of 185, could

accomplish nothing without 26 additional votes from some _bourgeois_

party. As it later developed, moreover, the government party could count

on the support of the Independents only in matters where Socialist

solidarity was sentimentally involved; on matters affecting economic

policies there was much more kinship between the Majority Socialists and

the Democrats than between them and the followers of Haase.

The Democrats, with 75 delegates, were the second strongest

non-Socialist party, the former Clericals having 88. By virtue of their

position midway between Right and Left they held the real balance of

power.

The National People's Party, the former Conservatives and Free

Conservatives, made a surprisingly good showing in the elections,

securing 42 delegates. This number, however, included the delegates of

the Middle and the National-Liberal parties of Bavaria and the Citizens'

Party and Peasants' and Vineyardists' League of Wuerttemberg. The remnant

of the old National-Liberal Party was able to elect only 21 delegates.

There were, in addition to the parties enumerated, the Bavarian

Peasants' League with 4 delegates, the Schleswig-Holstein Peasants' and

Farm-Laborers' Democratic League with 1 delegate, the Brunswick State

Election Association with 1 and the German-Hanoverian Party (Guelphs)

with 4 delegates. Not even the urgent need of uniting dissevered

elements so far as possible could conquer the old German tendency to

carry metaphysical hairsplitting into politics. The German Reichstags

regularly had from twelve to sixteen different parties, and even then

there were generally two or three delegates who found themselves unable

to agree with the tenets of any one of these parties and remained

unattached, the "wild delegates" (_die Wilden_), as they were termed.

There were ten parties in the National Assembly, and one of these, as

has been said, was a combination of five parties.

Democracy had an overwhelming majority in the assembly. The Majority

Socialists and Democrats together had a clear joint majority of 27

votes, and the Clericals' strength included many democratic delegates.

No fewer than eight of the party's delegates were secretaries of labor

unions. Thirty-four women, the greatest number ever chosen to any

country's parliament, were elected as delegates. The Majority

Socialists, the original advocates of woman's suffrage in Germany,

fittingly elected the greatest number of these--15; the Clericals were

next with 7, the Democrats elected 5, the Conservatives 4, and the

Independent Socialists 3.

The government announced that the National Assembly would be held in

Weimar on February 6th. Hardly a fortnight had passed since the first

"Bolshevik week," and the cabinet feared disorders, if nothing worse, if

an attempt were made to hold the assembly in Berlin. It was also easier

to afford adequate protection in a city of thirty-five thousand than in

the capital. Although it was never declared in so many words, it is

probable that a sentimental reason also played a part in the choice.

There was no taint of Prussianism about Weimar. As the "intellectual

capital of Germany" it has an aura possessed by no other German city.

Goethe, Schiller and Herder spent the greater part of their lives in

this little Thuringian city and are buried there. It has given shelter

to many other men whose names are revered by educated people the world

over. It is reminiscent of days when militarism and imperialism had not

yet corrupted a "people of thinkers and dreamers," of days when culture

had not yet given way to _Kultur_, of days before a simple, industrious

people had been converted to a belief in their mission to impose the

ideals of _Preussen-Deutschland_ upon the world with "the mailed fist"

and "in shining armor." It is characteristic that men in high places

believed--and they undoubtedly did believe--that a recollection of these

things could in some way redound to the benefit of Germany.

The days between the elections and the convening of the National

Assembly brought further serious complications in Germany's domestic

situation. Disaffection among the soldiers was increased by an order of

Colonel Reinhardt, the new Minister of War, defining the respective

powers of officers' and the soldiers' councils. The order declared that

the power of command remained with the officers in all matters affecting

tactics and strategy. The councils' functions were confined to matters

of provisioning and to disciplinary punishments. This order, although in

accordance with the original decree of the cabinet regarding the matter,

failed to satisfy men who had become contemptuous of all authority

except their own.

The Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils of the whole country were also

disquieted by the announcement of the government that, with the

convening of the National Assembly, all political power would pass to

the assembly, and revolutionary government organs everywhere and of all

kinds would cease to exist. This was not at all to the taste of most of

the members of the Soviets, who were affected less by political

considerations than by the prospect of losing profitable sinecures and

being compelled to earn a living by honest effort. The combined Soviets

of Greater Berlin voted, 492 to 362, to demand the retention of the

Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in any future state-form which might be

adopted. Other Soviets followed the example, and there was talk of

holding a rival congress in Berlin contemporaneously with the sessions

of the National Assembly in Weimar. The Spartacans, already beginning to

recover from their defeats of a few days earlier, began planning another

_coup_ for the first week of February.

Noske's troops were kept constantly in action. The Bolsheviki in

Wilhelmshaven staged an armed uprising, but it was quickly put down.

They seized power in Bremen, defied the government to cast them out, and

several regiments were required to defeat and disarm them. There was

rioting in Magdeburg, and also in Duesseldorf. Polish aggressions,

particularly between Thorn and Graudenz, continued. It was difficult to

move troops against them because of the opposition of the Independents

and Spartacans, and a great part of the soldiers, arrived at the front,

refused to remain and could not be detained, since, under Socialist

methods, they had the right to quit at any time on giving a week's

notice. Serious strikes further embarrassed and handicapped the

government.

The determination and energy displayed by the cabinet in these difficult

days deserve generous acknowledgment, and especially so in view of the

fact that it required a high degree of moral courage for any body of

Socialist rulers to brave the denunciations of even well meaning

_Genossen_ by relying on armed force to compel respect for their

authority and to carry out the mandate given them now by the great

majority of the German people. Preparations for the National Assembly

were well made. No person was permitted even to buy a railway ticket to

Weimar unless he was in possession of a special pass bearing his

photograph, and a detachment of picked troops was sent to the city to

protect the assembly against interruption. Machine-guns commanded all

entrances to the beautiful National Theater which had been converted to

the purposes of the assembly, and a special detail of experienced Berlin

policemen and plain-clothes detectives was on hand to assist the

soldiers.

The local garrisons of Weimar, Eisenach, Gotha and other nearby places

made a futile attempt to prevent the sending of troops from Berlin, but

never got farther than the beginning. Their attitude was not due to any

political considerations, but was dictated by selfishness and wounded

pride: they insisted that the sending of outside troops was an insult to

them, since they could furnish all the troops necessary to preserve

order, and they also felt that they were entitled to the extra pay and

rations dealt out to Noske's men.

The National Assembly convened on February 6th with nearly a full

attendance. It was called to order by Ebert, who appealed for unity and

attacked the terms of the November armistice and the additional terms

imposed at its renewals since. The speech received the approval of all

members of the assembly except the Independent Socialists, who even on

this first day, started their tactics of obstruction, abuse of all

speakers except their own and rowdyish interruptions of the business of

the sessions.

On February 7th Dr. Eduard David, a scholarly man who had been for many

years one of the Majority Socialists' leaders, was elected president

(speaker) of the National Assembly. The other officers chosen came from

the Christian, Democratic and Majority Socialist parties, the extreme

Right and extreme Left being unrepresented. Organization having been

effected, a provisional constitution was adopted establishing the

Assembly as a law-giving body. It provided for the election of a

National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a

general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and

various ministers of state. The constitution created a so-called

Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to

occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the assembly to

enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly

revenue and appropriation measures.

Friedrich Ebert was elected Provisional President of the German Republic

on February 11th by a vote of 277 out of a total of 379 votes. Hardly a

decade earlier the German Emperor had stigmatized all the members of

Ebert's party as _vaterlandslose Gesellen_ and as "men unworthy to bear

the name of German." Now, less than three months after that monarch had

been overthrown, a Socialist was placed at the head of what was left of

the German Empire. A young and inconsequential Prussian lieutenant had

six years earlier been refused permission to marry the girl of his

choice because her mother sold eggs. The new President of the country

had been a saddler. He had once even been the owner of a small inn in

Hamburg.

Ebert belongs to that class which the French call the _petite

bourgeoisie_, the lower middle class. He possesses all the solid,

domestic virtues of this class, and is a living exemplification of old

copy-book maxims about honesty as the best policy and faithfulness in

little things. Without a trace of brilliancy and without any unusual

mental qualities, his greatest strength lies in an honesty and

dependability which, in the long run, so often outweigh great mental

gifts. Few political leaders have ever enjoyed the confidence and trust

of their followers to a greater degree.

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

Other members were: Minister of Defense (army and navy), Noske;

Interior, Hugo Preuss; Justice, Sendsberg; Commerce, Hermann Mueller;

Labor, Bauer; Foreign Affairs, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau; Under-Secretary

for Foreign Affairs, Baron von Richthofen; Finance, Dr. Schiffer; Posts

and Telegraphs, Geisberg. Erzberger, David and Wissell were made

ministers without portfolio.

The first sessions of the National Assembly made on the whole a good

impression. The members were for the most part earnest men and women,

fully up to the intellectual average of legislative bodies anywhere;

there were comparatively few among them who were compromised by

relations with the old government, and these were not in a position to

do no harm. The extreme Right was openly monarchic, but the members of

this group realized fully the hopelessness of any attempt to restore

either the Hohenzollerns or a monarchic state-form at this time, and

manifested their loyalty to the former ruler only by objecting

vigorously to Social-Democratic attacks on the Kaiser or to depreciation

of the services of the crown in building up the Empire. Apart from the

pathologically hysterical conduct of the Independent Socialists, and

particularly of the three women delegates of that party, the assembly's

proceedings were carried on in what was, by European parliamentary

standards, a dignified manner.

From the very beginning, however, the proceedings were sicklied o'er by

the pale cast of care. After the sufferings and losses of more than four

years of war, the country was now rent by internal dissensions and

fratricidal strife. To the costs of war had been added hundreds of

millions lost to the state through the extravagance, dishonesty or

incompetence of revolutionary officials and particularly Soviets. The

former net earnings of the state railways of nearly a billion marks had

been converted into a deficit of two billions. Available sources of

revenue had been almost exhausted. The German currency had depreciated

more than sixty per cent. Industry was everywhere crippled by senseless

strikes.

An insight into Germany's financial situation was given by the report of

Finance Minister Schiffer, who disclosed that the prodigious sum of

nineteen billion marks would be required in the coming year to pay

interest charges alone. The war, he declared, had cost Germany one

hundred and sixty-one billion marks, which exceeded by nearly fourteen

billions the credits that had been granted.

The incubus of the terrible armistice terms rested upon the assembly.

Enemy newspapers, especially those of Paris, were daily publishing

estimates of indemnities to be demanded from Germany, and the most

modest of these far exceeded Germany's total wealth of all descriptions.

Naive German editors faithfully republished these articles, failing to

realize that they were part of the enemy propaganda and designed further

to weaken the Germans' morale and increase their feeling of helplessness

and despondency. Not even the fiercest German patriots and loyalists of

the old school could entirely shake off the feeling of helplessness that

overshadowed and influenced every act of the National Assembly.

The Majority Socialists had come to realize more fully the difference

between theory and practice. The official organ of the German Federation

of Labor had discovered a week earlier that "the socialistic conquests

of the revolution can be maintained only if countries competing with

German industry adopt similar institutions." There were already concrete

proofs available that socialization, even without regard to foreign

competition, was not practical under the conditions prevailing in the

country. At least two large factory owners in Northern Germany had

handed their plants over to their workmen and asked them to take full

charge of manufacture and sale. In both instances the workmen had, after

a trial, requested the owners to resume charge of the factories.

How shall we socialize when there is nothing to socialize? asked

thoughtful men. The answer was obvious. _Gegen den Tod ist kein Kraut

gewachsen_ (there is no remedy against death) says an old German

proverb, and industry was practically dead. The government party now

discovered what Marx and Engels had discovered nearly fifty years

before.