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The Kaiser

Page 46

by Virginia Cowles


  On September 2nd the news became infinitely worse. The English broke through in strength at Cambrai and the Kaiser was in such a state of agitation that Admiral Müller departed from his usual role and tried to comfort him; whereupon William II retired to bed. Meanwhile the High Command was growing desperate. Hindenburg had told the Kaiser on August 14th that peace would have to be made, but nothing had been done beyond asking the Queen of Holland if a conference could be held in The Hague. On September 4th Ludendorff got in touch with Herr Ballin and asked him if he would go immediately to Wilhelmshöhe and urge the Kaiser to set peace negotiations in motion. Ballin complied but he was only permitted to see the Kaiser in the presence of his chief of the military cabinet, Herr von Berg, who kept interrupting the conversation in order to soften Ballin’s message. When the latter suggested mediation on the basis of President Wilson’s fourteen points, Berg deliberately changed the subject. He later explained to Ballin that he must not make the Kaiser “too pessimistic.” “The Emperor talked about a Second Punic War,” wrote Ballin. “I thought he seemed very much misled, and in the arrogant mood which he affects in the presence of the third person.… The poor monarch is so humbugged that he has no idea how catastrophic things have become.”[447] “It was infinitely difficult,” wrote Lt. Colonel Niemann, who was attached to the Kaiser as military aide, “to give the Emperor a clear idea of the situation without disturbing his equilibrium.”[448]

  We know from Müller’s diary that this was not true; that the Kaiser had a perfectly clear idea of the situation; but that he did not want to face up to it. The slaughter on the western front continued, and he remained at Wilhelmshöhe (except for a brief trip to Essen to talk to the workers) for another six days. On the eleventh of September he went to Great Headquarters at Spa. His Chancellor also had been informed by the High Command of the urgency of the situation which was deteriorating each day. By now Austria was trying to make a separate peace. On the 25th of September the Kaiser travelled to Kiel to inspect the submarine school. As he was about to depart he received news of Bulgaria’s collapse which, everyone knew, meant the finish of Turkey’s resistance as well. “His Majesty commented: ‘This can bring the war to an end, but not in the way we wanted.’” “Even now,” added Müller, “he did not find the courage to travel to Berlin or even to Spa; instead he returned to Wilhelmshöhe.”

  The Kaiser’s advisers enlisted the Empress’s help, however, and told her that William II was doing himself harm by remaining with her. On the 29th of September he arrived back in Spa. This time Hindenburg and Ludendorff allowed no doubt to linger in his mind. They told him that Germany must seek an armistice immediately; the army was at the end of its tether; they no longer could hold even the Flemish coast. Afterwards Müller remarked: “However the war ends, our people have behaved most gallantly.” “Yes,” replied the Kaiser, “but our politicians have fallen down appallingly on the job.”[449]

  Now everything came in a rush. A new Chancellor would have to be found to make the peace; and a new Government would have to be formed representing all parties, even the Social Democrats. This meant the “modernisation” of the Constitution (the word democratisation was avoided to spare the Emperor’s sensibilities) and a severe curtailment of monarchical authority. William II offered no resistance but by this time Ludendorff was at his wit’s end. While the Kaiser and Chancellor Herding were conferring on October 1st he burst into the room. “Is the new Government formed?” “I cannot work miracles,” replied the Kaiser. “It must be formed at once,” said Ludendorff. “The request for peace must go to-day.” Six precious weeks had slipped by, and now there was not a minute to be lost or the whole German front might split wide open, and allow the enemy to pour into the country.

  On October 3rd Prince Max of Baden, the Kaiser’s cousin, was appointed Chancellor and that same night a request for an armistice on the basis of the fourteen points was sent to the American President. Four days later, on the 8th, Wilson replied, demanding an evacuation of enemy territory, and asking whom he was dealing with. The Kaiser spotted the implication. “Don’t you see?” he said excitedly to Colonel Niemann. “The object of this is to bring down my House, to set the monarchy aside.” On October 14th a second note arrived, demanding the abandonment of the U-boat war, and insisting that “the arbitrary power” which had governed Germany up till now must be removed, or rendered harmless.

  This time the Kaiser did not refer to Wilson’s pointed demand; instead he pretended he did not understand, and much to Müller’s surprise said he would like to associate himself with Berlin’s response which assured the American President that a democratic government controlled the destinies of Germany. The population, however, understood only too clearly; the Kaiser was an obstacle to peace. The people had no hatred for William II, but no love for him either. He seemed a remote, far-away figure, and if his presence meant that Germany could not get a good peace, then he must go. “Now that his time has come,” wrote Princess Blucher, “one pities him. A deplorable position for a great king to be the object of pity. Why has he let things go so far? Why has he not already abdicated, instead of waiting until he is forced to do so? Every child in the street is saying, ‘The Kaiser must go.’ He absolutely seems to cling to his shadow of a throne, and people say, curiously enough, it is the Kaiserin who is advising him and begging him not to go.”[450]

  It was not the Kaiserin. It was William II who stubbornly refused to hear. On October 21st he summoned the members of his new Government to the Schloss Bellevue in Berlin and said: “I feel myself one with you in the sacred purpose of leading back the German Empire out of the present distress to tranquil and peaceful development.” On October 24th, however, Wilson’s voice spoke out with unmistakable clarity. The power of the King of Prussia appeared to be unbroken; and if the United States had to deal with “military leaders and monarchical autocracy… it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender.” This clearly was a call not only for the abdication of the Kaiser, but for the resignation of Hindenburg and Ludendorff as well. Ludendorff made things easy for the Emperor, although he issued a manifesto to the army describing Wilson’s terms as “unacceptable to us soldiers.” Prince Max threatened to resign unless he was dismissed; and on October 27th the Kaiser had a stormy scene with the General which ended with the latter handing in his resignation.

  But what about the Kaiser? Public pressure was increasing and most German officials regarded his abdication as inevitable. The monarchists felt that the only hope for the dynasty lay in the establishment of a Regency, for no one believed that the country would stand for the Crown Prince. For years Berlin had been repeating a bon mot uttered by Herr Kiderlen at a shooting party: “Be careful not to shoot the Kaiser, or we’ll get something much worse.” “Not only Wilson but the whole German nation would willingly renounce the Crown Prince,” wrote Müller on October 10th.

  Admiral Müller was astonished by the Kaiser’s resilience. Although he looked “hollow-eyed” he was surprisingly cheerful as the tension mounted. He continued to talk about a Second Punic War, and his imagination already had conjured up exciting new circumstances. “The Kaiser,” wrote Müller on the 29th, “painted a very bold picture in conclusion: an agreement with England to include a treaty with Japan to fling the Americans out of Europe. (A European Monroe Doctrine therefore which I outlined to Hintze at Spa as the policy to be followed in the future.’ The Kaiser already envisaged Japanese Divisions arriving via Serbia on the Western Front to help throw out the Americans. In this way we could obtain a good peace, for the English had no interest in weakening us and would gladly see us in possession of a strong fleet and an even stronger submarine force.”[451]

  The Kaiser announced his intention of leaving Berlin for Spa that same evening. Prince Max was distraught when he learned of this plan. He could not bring himself to tell William II that the question of his abdication was on everyone’s lips; that the public were convinced that he alone stood in the way of “a good peace and that
the Social Democrats, who were willing to support a Regency in favour of one of the Kaiser’s grandsons, were threatening to withdraw their support from the Government unless he gave up the throne. The reason given by the Social Democrats was that they could not continue to restrain their pro-Communist colleagues from establishing a republic unless the Kaiser sacrificed himself without delay.

  Although Prince Max saw clearly that the continuance of the monarchy was at stake he was too frightened to present the Kaiser with the facts. For the past week he had been hoping that William would renounce the throne of his own accord. But now all that he could summon the courage to do was to beg the Kaiser not to leave the capital and to ask him why he wished to go to Spa. “I said,” wrote William in his memoirs, “that I considered my return to the front to be my duty as Commander-in-Chief, after I had been nearly a month away from the desperately struggling army. To the Chancellor’s objection that I was wanted at home I answered that there was a war on, and that the Emperor belonged to his soldiers.”[452]

  This was not the whole truth; although the Kaiser feigned innocence, he was well aware that pressure for his abdication was mounting. His officers, who had taken an oath of fealty to him personally, scarcely could ask him to give up his throne. They had sworn to defend him to the end. William II had been weak and vacillating about many things but not this; he sat on his throne by the grace of God and he would not renounce it without a bitter struggle. Indeed, he had taken the pains to extract a promise from each one of his six sons not to precipitate his abdication by agreeing to accept a regency. If William II was to be deposed it would mean the end of the monarchy. The German people were not to have their cake and to eat it too.

  Prince Max was becoming desperate. He was not a coward, but the mystical bond between the Sovereign and those who served him was so strong that a straight request to the Emperor to abdicate seemed to smack of high treason. So he tried to find other people to broach the subject. No sooner had the Emperor departed than he asked one of the Kaiser’s sons, Prince August Wilhelm, if he would go after his father and persuade him to abdicate, but the young man refused indignantly. On October 31st Max wired to the Kaiser asking him to return to Berlin, but this time William refused. The next day, November 1st, the Chancellor sent the Home Secretary, Herr Drews, to Spa to put the matter clearly before the Kaiser. Drews did so in the presence of Hindenburg and General Gröner. The Emperor felt warm and secure at Spa, for his two generals expressed shocked indignation, and Hindenburg told Drews “in the strongest words possible” that the army would not hold together if the Emperor went, “but would simply stream back home, like a horde of marauding bandits.”

  But would the army hold together if he stayed? On November 2nd news arrived in Berlin that the navy had mutinied. On the 29th and 30th of October the Third Squadron of the High Seas Fleet had been assembled on the Schilling quay at Kiel in preparation for a raid to force the exit to the Channel, to relieve the evacuation operations in Flanders and Belgium. The crews, however, believed that the officers were planning a decisive battle with the British Fleet and refused to obey. “If the English attack us,” they declared in a proclamation, “we will defend our coasts to the last, but we will not ourselves attack. Further than Heligoland we will not go.”

  There were wholesale arrests, but the mutiny was spreading so fast that discipline could not be restored. On November 1st the seamen held a meeting at the Kiel Town Hall and demanded the release of their comrades; on the 3rd a monster demonstration of sailors and workmen took place, with cheers for “the Republic;” on the 4th the Red Flag was hoisted on all the warships; and on the 5th the whole working population joined the insurrectionists, red badges appeared by the thousands, and it was apparent that the mutiny had become a revolution. Not only Kiel but Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen had passed into the hands of Soldier and Worker Councils. On this same day, November 5th, a message from President Wilson reached Berlin announcing that the Allies had agreed to an armistice. The following morning Germany’s representatives, headed by Deputy Erzberger, were conducted through the enemy lines and received by General Foch with the brutal words: “What do you want?”

  By November 7th almost all the cities of Germany were in the hands of the insurrectionists. They were not revolutionaries in the true sense, for the mass of the people who had thronged to the red banner did not favour Bolshevism or even Socialism. They merely were people determined to bring the war to an end, an impossibility, they believed, as long as the Kaiser remained on the throne. On the morning of the 7th the Social Democrat members of the Government, led by Herr Scheidemann, informed Prince Max that unless the Kaiser abdicated by noon the following day, they would walk out of the Government and organise the revolutionaries. Dr. Gwinner, a member of the Prussian upper chamber, called on Admiral Müller, who was working at Naval Headquarters in Berlin, and asked if he would travel to Spa and persuade the Kaiser to abdicate. Müller replied that he had no authority to do so, and Gwinner told him that if the Social Democrats quit the Government and organised the insurrectionists “it would mean the scaffold for the Kaiser.”

  Prince Max telegraphed Spa informing the Emperor of the Socialists’ ultimatum. He said that since he could not ask his sovereign to abdicate he must offer his resignation. That night, however, he partially overcame his scruples and telegraphed again saying that civil war would develop unless the Kaiser went. No, replied William II; and Prince Max must not go either. To avoid misunderstanding the Kaiser put his commands into written messages ending: “His Majesty emphatically declines to consider the dynastic question raised in Your Grand Ducal Highness’s proposals, and considers it as much as ever his duty to remain at his post.”[453] So at midday on November 8th the Socialists left the Government, and on the same day Bavaria split away from the German Empire and proclaimed itself a free state. The Munich Palace guard was disarmed as the population cried: “Down with the Kaiser, long live the Republic.” In Berlin the Social Democrats were busy organising the masses to take part in a giant rally. The atmosphere was electric.

  While all this was going on the Kaiser was talking of leading his troops against the revolutionaries. He called a Crown Council for the morning of the 9th to discuss “the operation in the interior commanded by the Emperor.” On the night of the 8th however Hindenburg and Gröner at last realised that they had been far too optimistic. Reports were flowing into Great Headquarters showing that even the army was disintegrating. That night they asked sixteen officers in Schulenburg’s Army Group whether the troops would follow the Kaiser into Berlin to re-establish monarchical control, and twelve replied no.

  Hindenburg admitted to Gröner that the Kaiser’s plan was hopeless. As the two generals set out from their headquarters at the Hotel Britannique to attend the Emperor’s Crown Council in the Chateau de la Fraineuse, Hindenburg was in the grip of a fierce emotion. He wept freely and when he arrived for the historic meeting he was unable to speak. The Council was held in the large cold garden house at the back of the Chateau. Among those present was Field Marshal von Hindenburg, Generals Gröner and Plessen, Count von der Schulenburg the Crown Prince’s Chief of Staff, Freiherr von Grunau, and Lt.-Colonel Niemann. The only heat in the room was a dimly burning wood fire and the Emperor leaned against the chimney-piece and shivered. As it was too painful for von Hindenburg to disillusion his Emperor, General Gröner was obliged to do the speaking. In sombre tones he told the Kaiser that an operation against the interior was out of the question. It was no longer a matter of suppressing an insurrection but of civil war. The rebels controlled most of the key points on the Rhine and troops in many parts of the country were joining the revolutionaries. Count von der Schulenburg was furious at Gröner’s estimate and began to argue wildly. He said that in a week’s time it would be possible to gather a force of picked men on the Rhine upon whom the Emperor could rely. But the Emperor was beginning to waver. He had been prepared for a fight until he had seen from von Hindenburg’s attitude that the old Field Mars
hal did not believe it could succeed. Now he groped for a compromise. He would not ask the troops to fire on their comrades. “I want to spare the Fatherland a civil war; but after the armistice it is my desire to come home to peace at the head of my army.”

  The generals were not to be spared embarrassment. The Kaiser still had not grasped the full significance of the situation. The moment had come to tell him plainly that the revolution was not organised by a handful of Communists, but that it had become a nation-wide rebellion, born of an anguished desire for peace, and that no one felt this peace would be procured unless the Kaiser gave up his throne. Hindenburg remained silent, only General Gröner had the courage to utter the fateful words. “Sire, you no longer have an army. The army will march home in peace and order under its leaders and commanding generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty, for it no longer stands behind Your Majesty.”

  The Kaiser’s face turned scarlet and he started towards General Gröner in a movement of rage. “Your Excellency! I demand a written statement of this opinion! I will have an announcement in black and white from all the generals commanding that the army is no longer behind its Supreme War Lord. Have they not sworn The Kaiser it to me in their military oath?” “In the present situation, Sire,” replied Gröner sadly, “the oath is mere fiction.”

  The Kaiser’s world had collapsed. As though to emphasise it, a laconic message arrived from the Commandant of Berlin: “All troops deserted — completely out of hand.” William II adjourned his Council and walked through the French windows of the lodge into the garden, where he talked for a few minutes with Freiherr von Grunau, the Foreign Office representative at Great Headquarters. He “spoke with bitterness of the way in which the Democratic Government, in spite of his ready acquiescence in all the reforms and changes of personnel, had neglected to take any effective steps to counter the attacks which had been directed against his person and which aimed ultimately at destroying the institution of the Monarchy itself; it had allowed itself to be taken in tow by the Social Democrats, who were only concerned to establish their own supremacy. Finally the Kaiser expressed his willingness to abdicate, if that was what the German people really wanted; he had reigned long enough to know what a thankless business it was; far from clinging to his imperial position, he had only done his duty in remaining at his post and not deserting army and people at such a time as the present. Now the others might show whether they would manage things any better.”[454]

 

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