by Adam Tooze
Orlando and Sonnino’s position was untenable, and on 19 June they both resigned. They were replaced by a cabinet headed by ‘L’Americano’, Francesco Nitti, who promptly signed the Versailles Treaty with Germany. Striking a refreshing tone of reasonableness, the new Prime Minister pointed out that the treaty provision barring any move to unify Germany and Austria would mean that whatever the terms of the settlement with Yugoslavia, Italy’s borders would be the most secure in Europe. But Nitti was boxed in by his predecessor’s pandering to the nationalists. He could not simply abandon the claim to Fiume. Instead, his government proposed the neutralization of the city and its hinterland under the League of Nations. On 12 September 1919 this provoked the ultra-nationalist poet-demagogue Gabriele d’Annunzio into launching an occupation of Fiume at the head of a force of several thousand volunteers. The army was too unreliable for Nitti to order d’Annunzio expelled. So instead he called a general election in the hope that a truly representative national parliament would give him the support necessary to carry through the overdue reorientation of Italian foreign policy.
The election result on 16 November 1919 vindicated Nitti’s government in at least one sense. The right-wing cheerleaders of the Fiume coup were crushed. Of the 168 members of the Fascio of national defence that had rallied around Sonnino in the final year of the war, only 15 were returned. Mussolini’s first attempt to launch Fascism as a parliamentary party ended in humiliation. In Turin his movement won only 4,796 votes to the 170,315 cast for the Socialists and 74,000 for the Catholic Popolari. Mussolini himself was briefly arrested.27 But Nitti’s Liberals themselves suffered shattering losses. From controlling 75 per cent of the seats in parliament their share fell to just over 40 per cent. Like most forward-thinking Italians, Nitti hoped that he might be able to govern in cooperation with the moderate wing of the Socialist Party. And it was the left that triumphed in the polls, winning over 30 per cent of the seats. But at its party conference in Bologna in October 1919 the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), fatefully, had voted three to one in favour of joining Lenin’s radical Comintern.28 Fired by their surging electoral success and a huge wave of strikes and land seizures, the most intransigent wing of the PSI expected an imminent revolution. That in turn opened the door to Mussolini’s second coming, no longer as a journalist or parliamentary politician, but as the leader of a new breed of right-wing enforcers, dedicated to destroying the Italian socialist movement physically. Unfortunately for Nitti, the reformist socialists who might have helped to avoid this escalation did not break away from their radical comrades until 1922. Instead, Nitti remained in office only thanks to the toleration of the new Popular Catholic Party, which had secured a solid 20 per cent of the vote at its first attempt. Faced with strikes and land seizures, Nitti clung to the guiding idea of both his business and political career. If European liberalism was facing a profound crisis, it must look to support from the New World. The political and economic crises afflicting Italy could only be resolved with the help of the United States. Throughout the war Nitti had worked to secure finance and supplies from the US. Now he hoped that by riding out the storm of Fiume and forcing his countrymen to accept the ‘mutilated victory’, Italy would gain acceptance as a favoured partner in a new world order, the centre of which would be on Wall Street.
II
In May 1919 the Versailles peace process entered its final, critical phase. On the morning of 8 May, as the German cabinet met to consider the terms of the peace that been presented to them overnight, President Friedrich Ebert called on his colleagues to curb ‘the passion’ that ‘trembled through’ all those present. They must calmly consider the document in front of them.29 Otto Landsberg, the Social Democratic Minister of Justice who was responsible for preserving public order, called for a state of siege. By dampening the popular reaction this would maximize the government’s freedom of manoeuvre and limit the political damage if it was forced to accept the humiliating terms. Both Philipp Scheidemann for the Social Democratic Party and Matthias Erzberger for the Centre Party understood the need not to provoke the Entente. But both were furious at the terms offered to them. Furthermore, they feared that unless they took a strong stance against the treaty the position of their friends in the Progressive Liberal Party would become untenable as their bourgeois support moved to the right. Germany’s first democratic government therefore opted to place itself at the head of a wave of orchestrated patriotic indignation.30 The risk that the extreme right would take control of the theatre of outrage was obvious. But after the election of January the governing coalition of SPD, Centre Party and Left Liberal Party had reason to believe that they had support from every segment of German society. To create a suitably sombre mood, an immediate ban was declared on inappropriate theatrical performances and popular entertainments.31
On the afternoon of 12 May, Scheidemann, the veteran leader of the majority Social Democrats and first Chancellor of the German Republic, who as an itinerant teenage printer ‘on the tramp’ had once been reduced to begging a meal from Count Bismarck’s soup kitchen, solemnly declared to the National Assembly that the Versailles Treaty was ‘unacceptable [unanehmbar]’.32 The hand that signed it would wither. Across Germany public opinion rallied in well-choreographed mass protests. The trade union leadership proclaimed the treaty a death sentence. Earlier in the year the USPD had made some headway in broaching the question of German war guilt. A confidential commission of inquiry had been set up to investigate the events of the July crisis of 1914. It had already produced damning evidence of German complicity in Austria’s provocative ultimatum to Serbia.33 But now any thought of publishing the incriminating findings was silenced.34 The trade union leader Carl Legien declared that the Versailles peace terms dispelled any doubt about the true nature of the war. Whatever the guilt of the Kaiser and his entourage in starting the war, the people of Germany must now unite against the rapacious imperialism of the Entente. As Foreign Secretary Graf Brockdorff put it, the Republic should work to bring together ‘workers, bourgeois and civil servants’ in united opposition to the peace.35
Amidst the patriotic uproar, on 29 May the German government submitted a skilfully worded counter-proposal that sought to minimize territorial losses by making concessions on disarmament and reparations.36 No party of the first Weimar coalition had any principled objection to disarmament. On Erzberger’s urging, they embraced the abolition of conscription and agreed to reduce the army to 100,000 professional soldiers within three years.37 In return they asked that Germany should be given a security guarantee by the League of Nations, which should take up the cause of disarmament across the board. The cabinet also agreed to make a substantial initial offer of reparations.38 With the French and British unable to reach agreement on a final total, Germany offered 100 billion Goldmarks ($24 billion), starting with an initial tranche of 20 billion Goldmarks.39 On closer inspection the offer was far less generous than it at first seemed. Whilst the French faced enormous up-front costs for reconstruction, the Germans were offering annual payments of only 1 billion Goldmarks. During the long wait for repayment, the principal was to carry no interest. Berlin also claimed credit for large quantities of requisitioned goods. More constructively, they asked for foreign credits to enable the cycle of trade and repayment to begin. Financing the reparations, the Germans hoped, would become a mechanism for their reintegration into the global economy.40 At least as far as posterity was concerned, this counter-offer was a triumph. In his Economic Consequences of the Peace John Maynard Keynes made the German offer into his benchmark of reasonableness.41 In early June 1919 Berlin came close to repeating the feat of October 1918 by splitting the coalition arrayed against them. This time it was not Wilson but Lloyd George who made a disruptive last-minute appeal for more generous terms. Recognizing that Poland was by far the most sensitive issue, London insisted that the division of Silesia must be settled by plebiscite. But this was as much as either Wilson or Clemenceau was willing to concede. On 16 June the Ge
rmans were handed back the treaty and told that they must give their assent within a week or face invasion. Though the Allies had demobilized the bulk of their armies, in June 1919 they still had the equivalent of 44 combat-ready divisions, more than enough to overwhelm any possible resistance.42 The German situation was truly desperate. But even at this moment of crisis the Reich retained its sovereignty. The peculiar agony of Versailles was that it forced the vanquished to will their own defeat as a conscious choice.
Amongst the officer class and Junker barons of Prussia, the peace terms triggered the threat of open rebellion.43 The territory to be handed to the Poles was Prussian heartland.44 Why should Prussia accept a ruinous and humiliating peace in the East, where they had won a triumphant victory? There was talk of the legendary Graf David von York, who at Tauroggen in December 1812 had defied his King and had thrown the weight of patriotic Prussia behind Russia in its fight against Napoleon.45 The state government of Prussia half-heartedly warned against acts of desperation. But it made clear that if the Reich failed to defend the ‘vital interests [Lebensinteressen]’ of the state of Prussia, then the ‘healthy elements’ would have no choice but to break away. A newly founded Eastern State (Oststaat) would create the launching pad for a future ‘resurrection of the German Empire’.46
The position of the Foreign Office and the majority of the Weimar coalition was reflected in the memorandum drafted by the German peace delegation on 17 June.47 They too advised rejection. The peace was insupportable because its terms were deliberately calculated to violate German self-respect. It was impractical. It was at odds with the terms of the Armistice. It was in bad faith because it asked Germany to admit against the truth its sole responsibility for the war and to recognize as a just peace what was in fact an act of violence. Honesty, the delegation insisted, was the only lasting foundation for a peace. It was not consistent with this basic axiom to sign a treaty that Germany was convinced it could not fulfil. By refusing to engage in direct face-to-face negotiations, the Allies had betrayed their own lack of conviction in the justice of their cause. For the Liberal Democrats, Hugo Preuss, the architect of the Weimar constitution, declared that accepting the treaty would be akin to committing suicide for fear of death. Prime Minister Scheidemann announced that if the Allies wanted to impose the treaty, they should come to Berlin themselves to do their own dirty work. So long as it remained true to itself, Scheidemann insisted, ‘even a Germany that has been torn apart will find itself back together’.48 This was a repeated refrain in 1919. If Germany agreed to be its own executioner, it would rob itself of any hope of regeneration. For the sake of the future, it must uphold its honour and accept the consequences, however disastrous. Unlike the Oststaat fantasists, the cabinet never contemplated armed resistance. But surprisingly serious consideration was given to Scheidemann’s vision of simply abandoning German sovereignty to the Allies. Germany would surrender itself whilst declaring its faith that ‘the progressive, peaceful development of the world will soon bring us a non-partisan court of justice, in front of which we will ask for our rights’.49
It took the level-headed courage of Matthias Erzberger to point out the dangers involved in a flirtation with Trotsky’s tactic of ‘No Peace. No War.’ The French and British would never be foolish enough to fall in with Scheidemann’s fantasy. They would not relieve the Germans of the burden of governing themselves in the face of defeat. They would not occupy the whole of Germany. They would simply lop off those assets that were profitable, reducing the rump to a state of impoverished chaos. The League of Nations was an attractive court of appeal. But this neutral arbiter would only be called into existence through Germany’s ratification of the treaty. If German liberals still hoped for a ‘progressive, peaceful development’ of world politics, they would have to make a painful down-payment, by choosing the path of cooperation rather than confrontation.50 However unjust and dishonest the terms, the Versailles Treaty did at least offer the chance of preserving the German nation state intact. As Erzberger sensed in his democratic bones, what the vast majority of the population yearned for was not national heroics but peace. This was dramatically confirmed at an emergency meeting of the prime ministers of the 17 member states of the Reich, at which Bavaria, Württemburg, Baden and Hesse spoke strongly in favour of acceptance.51 It might be painful for Prussia to cede territory to Poland, but if the Reich did not comply with the peace it would be the west and south that would face a French invasion. In this regard, as Brockdorff commented with ill-concealed scorn, Erzberger’s demagoguery knew no bounds. He had ‘let it be discretely known,’ Brockdorff sneered, ‘that he did not want to dilate on the rape of German women by Senegalese and negro troops, but that the invasion would inevitably lead to the collapse and disintegration of the Reich’.52
This was distasteful, no doubt. But Erzberger and the other advocates of acceptance, notably Eduard David, his long-time associate on the right wing of the SPD, were dogged in their commitment to securing the future of the Reich. If Berlin failed to respond to the German population’s desire for peace, there would be disaster. In October 1918 the Reichstag majority had taken responsibility for opening armistice negotiations and despite the mutinous heroics of the navy and the socialist revolution, they had at least avoided an unconditional surrender or wholescale occupation. If the Reichstag majority did not steel itself for a further act of courage, Germany was once again threatened with disaster. A government led by the USPD, the one party that had forsworn any loyalty to the continuity of the German state, would sign a humiliating peace on terms congenial to either the Entente or Moscow. The result would be an all-out civil war. Germany would follow Russia toward disintegration and anarchy. Insofar as there was a specific scenario fuelling the violence against the left in post-war Germany, it was not the fear of the overthrow of capitalism so much as this nightmare of a rerun of Trotsky’s disastrous gamble in western Europe. If maintaining the integrity of the Reich was the uppermost goal, then the only option was to take the step that Tsereteli and Kerensky had not dared to take in the summer of 1917. Germany must fashion a broad-based national government to accept a humbling peace.53 The question was how to find the necessary majority for acceptance.54
Throughout early June, General Wilhelm Groener and Defence Minister Gustav Noske struggled day by day to stem the mounting tide of military rebellion.55 Their efforts allowed the civilian politicians to have the last word. When President Ebert put the question to Prime Minister Scheidemann’s cabinet on 18 June, the result was a split. Erzberger and the two other Centre Party members voted to approve the treaty. But the Social Democrats were divided, with Prime Minister Scheidemann voting against, along with Foreign Minister Brockdorff and three other Liberal Democrats. The meeting ended inconclusively at 3 a.m.56 A few hours later a majority of the SPD parliamentary party voted to accept the treaty with conditions. But since there was no prospect of the Allies accepting any conditions, the only effect of the vote was to render the position of Prime Minister Scheidemann untenable. He had pledged to reject the treaty and was forced to resign. With four days to go to the Allied deadline, Germany had no government. In the National Assembly the parties continued vainly to discuss conditions.57
The naval officer corps, whose recklessness had precipitated the final collapse in November 1918, gave a more emphatic response. On the morning of 21 June 1919, with the Kaiser’s Ensign flying, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter replied to the peacemakers at Versailles by ordering the scuttle of the German High Seas fleet interned in the British naval base of Scapa Flow. Though British marines struggled to prevent this violation of the Armistice, killing nine German seamen in the process, the Germans managed to sink the vast bulk of the Kaiser’s navy – 15 battleships, 5 cruisers and 32 destroyers – the largest loss of ships on any single day in the annals of naval history. Back in Germany, Field Marshal Hindenburg insisted that his soldiers’ honour dictated a similar course. Though they would be overwhelmed in the West, the German Army s
hould retreat to a defensive bastion in the East and resume the struggle. President Ebert, in choosing Scheidemann’s replacement, kept his options open by nominating a solid trade union patriot, Gustav Bauer, who had previously spoken strongly against the treaty.
It was not until 12 noon on 23 June, the final day of grace, that President Ebert finally accepted that the oppositional forces had no majority. Both the SPD and the Centre Party, the parties on which the Republic depended, were profoundly split. The minimal national solidarity necessary to enable democratic politics to function hung by the most tenuous of threads. As Ebert, Bauer and the government ministers condemned by default to take responsibility for the treaty left the final all-party conference, the rejectionist leader of the Liberal Democrats recorded that he was suddenly seized by ‘a sense of responsibility’.58 In an important concession, which was henceforth to define those who accepted the basic parameters of democratic politics in the Weimar Republic, the Democrats and at least some of the Nationalists gave an assurance to their colleagues that despite their differences, they would respect the patriotic motives of those who took responsibility for signing the peace. It was a fragile commitment soon renounced by an irresponsible nationalist backlash, but on 23 June 1919 the mere promise was enough. At 3.15 p.m. with only hours remaining, the National Assembly delivered the crucial vote. No names were recorded. Nor was the Assembly asked directly to approve the Versailles Treaty. A ‘large majority of the Assembly’ was declared to have confirmed the cabinet’s view that it had authority to sign. Ninety minutes later the Allies were formally notified.
Whilst Paris celebrated, Berlin faced the disillusioned reality of defeat.59 Warnings from General Groener and Defence Minister Noske were enough to abort an attempted coup by Prussian guards units at the end of July.60 But amongst the advocates of an Oststaat, the kernel of a putschist movement had formed. In the autumn of 1919 the nationalists built momentum by launching vituperative public attacks against the SPD and Erzberger, which by the following spring would drive Erzberger out of politics amidst corruption allegations. The stab-in-the-back legend began to develop real momentum. The critical moment was reached in March 1920 when, under the disarmament clauses of the treaty, it came time to disband the paramilitary Freikorps units.61 On 13 March, Wolfgang Kapp, one of the original organizers of the Vaterlandspartei that had spearheaded the rally against peace in 1917, and General Walther von Lüttwitz, the orchestrator of the Freikorps, led their men in a march on Berlin. They demanded a non-party ministry dominated by soldiers and an end to compliance with the treaty. They also wanted immediate national elections, which they believed would sweep away the left-wing National Assembly that had been an aberration of the immediate post-war moment. As it turned out, the electoral calculation of the putschists was not entirely awry. But their practical preparations were woeful. Kapp had few influential friends in Berlin. Furthermore, the putschists had fundamentally misjudged the balance of real force that underpinned the Weimar Republic. During the revolutionary upheaval of November 1918 the trade unions had played a deliberately low-key role, preferring to dampen down shop-floor radicalism. But faced with a direct attack on the Republic, their response was decisive. A nationwide general strike paralysed the country. By 17 March the putsch was over.