There were several failed peace initiatives as the war efforts strained the nation’s resources. Ludendorff’s attempts at negotiation failed while using language that would avoid any appearance of weakness. The German government tried to arrive at a separate peace with the Russians, but the chances were very limited, since the Central Powers could not promise the Russians nearly as much as the Entente had done, and the German generals insisted on the annexation of so-called security zones in the Russian border areas. When a separate peace with Russia seemed implausible, Bethmann-Hollweg issued an appeal for an equitable peace to the allies on ambiguous terms through the American embassy on 12 December 1916 without mentioning any concessions Germany would be willing to make, without citing any specific war aims while primarily asserting that the war effort would be maintained if this proposal was disregarded. This proposal failed to make any impression on the allies, including in view of Germany’s exploitation of Belgium’s economic resources for its war industry, using Belgians as forced labourers, and encouraging Flemish and Walloon separatism, which raised suspicions about Germany’s willingness to restore Belgium’s sovereignty. Peace initiative attempts by neutral countries and the papacy to mediate peace likewise all failed in the face of the stalemate conditions, as well as in the face of enormous human and material costs that the combatants expended that made reaching a compromise peace practically impossible.
Militarism dominated statecraft at the highest levels of political German life as the military establishment became involved in political issues, especially since the war was supported by imperialist-minded conservatives and the public had more confidence in the military leadership than in the civilian government. The general staff assumed an increasingly large role in German public life, concerning itself with the press, films, propaganda, armaments and food, while the emperor and the chancellor seemed to have resigned from taking responsibility in many areas and did not make any effort to resist increasing military influence superseding civil authority decision-making. Twenty-three deputy military commanders governed Germany in military administrative districts based on the emergency siege legislation of 1914. Hindenburg and Ludendorff who became supreme army commanders in August 1916 created a prominent position of power for the purpose military expediency by imposing assertive control in German domestic politics by the end of 1916 that became known as the “silent dictatorship” in political as well as military affairs while marshalling economic resources to intensify war production. Ludendorff established economic controls in the hands of the military, as the General War Office under General Wilhelm Gröner gradually began to control food, raw materials and munitions, which stimulated war-related production. In December 1916, the auxiliary service law brought a great many women into the factories, along with prisoners-of-war and labour conscripted from Poland and Belgium. Ludendorff and Hindenburg’s influence in political life also resulted in forcing Bethmann-Hollweg’s resignation in June 1917, and hereafter determined major political appointments.
Bethmann-Hollweg’s had earlier issued an appeal for general peace in December 1916, without stating any concessions Germany would be willing to make, which was followed by the left to centre Reichstag majority, presented by Matthias Erzberger, the head of the Centre Party, issuing a peace resolution in the Reichstag on 19 July 1917 in reaction to the ongoing hardships on the home front, which passed by a vote of 212 to 126. This proposal sought peace without major annexations or indemnities, freedom of the seas, and international arbitration. The German High Command rebuffed this peace proposal, since they sought to sustain the war effort until achieving total victory that would allay political and social upheaval, and led to the dismissal of Bethmann-Hollweg. This proposal became subject to the new chancellor Georg Michaelis’s interpretations. However, the German general staff refused to support such an initiative. A separate papal initiative to all belligerents on 1 August 1917 on the basis of renouncing all previous conquests, which did not include ceding Alsace and Lorraine back to France, was likewise dismissed altogether by both the French government and the German general staff that maintained its refractory stance of maintaining its demands for postwar annexations. Meanwhile, Germany’s war plans to maintain its international position and preserve the Hapsburg empire made a compromise peace impossible while the fierce fighting continuing in an ongoing war of attrition.
The war effort was unsuccessful for the Central Powers in other respects. The German submarines failed to reach the goal of knocking Britain out of the war, and the Americans and British together continued building ships and learned to protect their merchant navies by forming large convoys, which made the gamble of waging unrestricted submarine warfare inefficient by the end of 1917, and the winter of 1917-1918 once again brought famine and unrest on the German home front. Increased military government repression on the home front was characterised by severe restrictions on the right of political assembly, stricter surveillance of meetings to discuss grievances, the return to military service of exempted workers who engaged in instigating strikes, and imposing force and militarisation of factories as a means of breaking workers’ strikes. These measures caused widespread disaffection, as was indicated by waves of strikes in Berlin, Kiel, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Cologne and Munich in January 1918, while life necessities, such as food, fuel and clothing, were in short supply as a result of the expanding war industries.
The Central Powers began counteroffensives in the autumn of 1917 that led to Rumania’s capitulation and helped prepare the ground for the revolution in Russia. A bourgeois revolution that established a provisional republican rule overthrew the Tsar in March 1917, which pledged to democratize Russia and stay in the war. In reaction to Russia keeping up the eastern front, the German supreme command hoped to destabilise Russia and make it more willing to accept a separate peace. Hindenburg and Ludendorff offered to send Lenin, the leader of the revolutionary socialist Bolsheviks, to Russia from Zürich in April 1917, where he was living in exile, in an armoured train through Germany to neutral Finland. He then arrived in Petrograd in April 1917 where he started planning the next Bolshevik revolution, which overthrew the democratic government on 7 November 1917. Lenin was more disposed toward peace with Germany than any other politician in Russia since he expected that a socialist revolution would break out in Germany and elsewhere, and therefore any concessions he made to the German military would be temporary. The Bolsheviks sued for peace on 26 November, and an armistice was subsequently concluded in December, and since the Entente declined to enter into general peace negotiations with Russia, separate German-Russian negotiations began, culminating in the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918 (See Eurodocs, World War I Archive: Brest Litovsk) with exceedingly harsh conditions to meet wartime exigencies at a time when the war was ongoing in the west and Germany remained subject to the effects of the British blockade and destroy Russia’s ability to wage war in the east, along with destroying the Communist regime, and enable Germany to transfer forces to the west before the full effect of American military power could be applied in Europe, and provide access to desperately needed supplies of food and raw materials.
Russia was forced to cede Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic States, parts of Armenia and the Crimea, and pay colossal amounts of reparation, and thereby losing one-third of its population and agricultural land, in addition to a higher percentage of key raw materials. The subsequent Treaty of Bucharest on 7 May 1918 likewise forced harsh conditions upon Romania, by which Romania had to return southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, give Austria-Hungary control of the passes in the Carpathian Mountains, and lease its oil wells to Germany for ninety years. However, the war in the west remained ongoing, while the western Allied determination to achieve victory could not be underestimated. German forces therefore remained engaged on two different fronts. The eastern front was not altogether subdued, and greater amounts of forces were required than in 1917 to exploit the resources in the east while maintaining German troops in eastern Europe.
The overall military position later favoured the Central Powers in 1917, as a result of the failed French Nivelle offensive in April-May 1917 leading to a defensive stance, and the British offensive at Paschendaele in September, the decisive Italian defeat at Caporetto in October that relieved pressure on the western front, and particularly due to the end of the fighting on the eastern front following the Bolshevik takeover of power. The French and the British had attempted to launch new offensives to defeat Germany before the Americans could have a moderating influence on peace terms, and for the first time, they coordinated their offensives with the Russians and the Italians, so the Central Powers were under simultaneous pressure from all sides. However, American power did not arrive on time to contribute to the third battle of Ypres at Passchendaele that ended with German gains, which were partially compensated by limited British success at Cambrai in November 1917, when tanks were deployed in large numbers for the first time. Other Allied reverse took place when the Italians were routed at Caporetto in October 1917, and Russia withdrawing from the war in November 1917 following the overthrow of the tsarist regime in the Bolshevik revolution. Nevertheless, the onerous terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the Treaty of Bucharest reinforced western allied resolve to sustain the war effort, as well as opposition to military occupation in eastern Europe that required maintaining 1,500,000 occupation troops in the east from the Baltic Sea to maintain control of these territories in April 1918 while grain was forcibly requisitioned from the local peasanty, which led to limited economic results and was met with armed partisan resistance at a time when all German troops were needed to be deployed for the final spring offensive. During this time, the fighting strength of the Hapsburg empire’s military was also beginning to dissolve as a result of defeats, supply problems, and desertions by minority nationalities.
There was yet hope for a German victory as a result of the collapse of the Russian war effort, which led to shifting forty divisions to the western front, which gave German forces a numerical advantage for the first time since 1914. The German High Command opted not to attempt negotiating a peace settlement as civilian authorities were calling for, and launched a final offensive to defeat the allies by dividing British and French forces in the Somme region. Russia’s collapse prompted Ludendorff to gamble on the possibility of striking a decisive blow in the west. Although German forces composed approximately eighty percent of allied strength, while others were engaged in the occupation of eastern Europe, and the allied forces were well-provisioned and better equipped with superior amounts of machine guns, artillery, aircraft and trucks, with an absolutely unconditional superiority in tanks. A final unprecedented spring offensive composed of four consecutive assaults, with the objective of expecting to deliver a knockout blow to the British Fifth Army to drive these troops back to the English Channel with over seventy divisions supported by 6,500 guns facing thirty-four British divisions, and also force the French to retreat to defend Paris. However, this Ludendorff Offensive proved to lack sufficient strength and mobility to induce defeating the allies and win the war on the western front.
Operation Michael was launched on 21 March 1918 with an estimated 3,500,000 troops against the British between St. Quentin and Arras, at the junction between the British and French forces along the Somme River, which included with reinforcements from the east that relieved the material and logistical strains of maintaining a two-front war. This was to be a decisive battle to pursue the goal of victory with annexations by breaking the static deadlock of static trench warfare by using surprise, shock and speed, aiming to break the pivotal junction of British and French forces to divide and overwhelm their personnel and material superiority, and end the war before American troops could considerably bolster their strength. This initial assault against British forces was highly successful, with new tactics devised to maximise mobility led by fifty-man teams of stormtrooper shock troops to destabilise the defenders, followed by other attack troops, in coordination with artillery firing smoke and mostly gas shells, composing eighty percent of the enormous total number, to disrupt allied communications on a wide scale. Although the British lines were penetrated, a great deal of the energy that was expended on this offensive was advancing through territory that had been abandoned during Operation Alberich – abandoning the extensive front line to allow for available personnel to be redeployed into defensible positions by withdrawing to the Hindenburg Line in February and March 1917, while maintaining an elastic defensive in depth that had been introduced in December 1916 following earlier difficult to replace losses, which allowed for rapid withdrawals and counterattacks, rather than leaving their troops vulnerable to allied artillery fire. One or two front lightly defended front line trenches faced the allied lines, from which troops could be withdrawn in the event of an attack in force to a flexible defence zone, from which counterattacks could be staged from reinforced defensive positions in the forms of trenches and fortifications. A third rear battle zone behind it provided support facilities, with units prepared for a counterattack.
The advance could not be sustained while Germany did not possess the necessary manpower superiority to exploit the initial breakthrough, as well as lacking fuel for motorised units, and slowed while incurring horrendous losses, facing logistical supply problems while facing the organization of resolute allied defensive efforts and the timely deployment of French reinforcements, as well as using air power to attack roads to slow resupply efforts, targeting artillery positions, and strafing vulnerable German troops who were not entrenched. Although this offensive thus considerably slowed from 27 March and by 4 April when French reinforcements stabilised the front line. The British were further defeated on 9 April. The French were forced to retreat on 15 July in an indecisive victory. The western allies would ultimately recover from the shocks inflicted through these initial blows, this major offensive would eventually degenerate into a series of uncoordinated and unproductive separate thrusts concentrate on attacks on whichever points breakthroughs could be achieved, rather than following a coherent strategy to achieve a set aim.
Ludendorff stubbornly continued launching further costly and incoherent offensives along the western front, including Operation Georgette to the north of the initial advance from 9 to 29 April, striking at British forces in Flanders, south of Ypres. Ludendorff then turned to striking at French forces following the breakdown of the two earlier assaults. Operation Blücher-Yorck from 27 May to 4June and Operation Gneisenau from 9 to 12 June, and Operation Marneschutz-Reims/Friedensturm from 15 to 17 July to the south. These attacks resulted in tactical successes, but failed to achieve operational breakthroughs, and had not acquired any strategic or industrial objectives. The consequent severe defeats constituted the beginning of the end on the western front as the Germans had to withdraw behind the lines they had held in March. The final German offensive composed of these major advance attempts ultimately failed in the face of unrealistic expectations with highly depleted and irreplaceable reserves. Unlike on the eastern front, did not result in armistice negotiations as the western allies remained bringing in newly available reinforcements while the allies coordinate their forces and deployed mechanized forces that brought greater firepower through those technological advancements and material amount advantages.
The German advances in which the final crucial resources were expended were then met with a combination of French, British and American counterattacks, beginning with a French counteroffensive on 18 July against overextended German forces that had incurred an estimated 700,000 casualties, whereas the western allies contented with approximately 865,000. There were also already approximately 300,000 American troops in France, with another roughly 250,000 arriving each month, whereas the German forces could not match these reinforcements, in addition to being weakened by effects of the Spanish influenza epidemic effects that affected a million German troops between May and July. Over one million American troops contributed to stabilising the front line by fending off German attacks by July 1918, and defeated Ludendorff’s final initiative at Chȃteau-Thierry on 15-17 July, while their numbers continued increasing as the allies counterattacked in the Second Battle of the Marne during July that halted the German advance.
French forces led by General Ferdinand Foch led a successful counteroffensive on 20 July that pressed German troops to retreat from the Marne River. A successful British counteroffensive, forwarded by Canadian and Australian troops on 8 August in the Amiens region, overran the German positions between the Somme and the Luce, with considerably reinforced strength of five hundred tanks, along with artillery support and air superiority. These forces made rapid advances, in conjunction with French troops to the south until 10 August, when German reinforcements managed to stabilise the front in the face of overextended allied supply lines. Following the successes of this counteroffensive to reach its objectives, General Foch pressed for making efforts to make further advances, leading to a resumed allied offensive on 21 August, leading to further advances by 4 September, forcing the German forces to retreat from the Somme River, and placed the allies to stage an assault on the Hindenburg Line – the final German defensive line on the western front to which they had retreated in March and April 1917. Further allied advances continued along the western front, such as at St. Mihiel, prior to an assault on the Hindenburg Line on 26 September. While the German could not completely contain all of the front sectors, further allied advances were made at Ypres and Cambrai, and thus breaching the Hindenburg Line in a steady advance that became known as the One Hundred Days Offensive as the Germans were in a fighting retreat with increasingly demoralized troops, as was marked by increasingly higher numbers of desertions and surrenders in the face of heavy losses that undermined unit cohesion.
Demoralised German troops were holding a line running from Antwerp to the Meuse, but was devoid of power, and had to withdraw from the left bank of the Rhine, and the British naval blockade remained in place. Austria-Hungary was unable to maintain dominion over Slav national populations, and the Turkish front in Syria had also completely collapsed in September. The Balkan front collapsed as the invasion route to Hungary was opened when Bulgaria surrendered on 29 September in the Salonika Armistice, and the Austrian emperor petitioned for peace in early October as the collapse of Austria-Hungary was imminent, which further weakened the German reserves in the west that had already been depleted by heavy losses, and could not sustain defending another front. Turkey surrendered on 30 October in the Armistice of Mudros, and Austria-Hungary surrendered on 3 November in the Armistice of Villa-Giusti. Hence, Germany could not establish defensive efforts in the south and the southeast. The land war hereafter was definitely on the defensive when the allies breached the Hindenburg Line in the Meuse-Argonne offensive in September 1918, in which American troops played a significant role.
The main hope for a favourable end to the war lay in a successful U-boat offensive campaign. This was in the face of how the successes of the individual U-boats during the previous months had steadily decreased, which was mainly due to the stronger and improved defensive measures that the Allies had taken, in addition to the losses of more improved commanders. As hostilities continued during the final negotiations toward a cease fire, the fighting continued with the hope of reaching an acceptable peace settlement. While waging the U-boat weapon proved inconsequential, the land warfare situation continued deteriorating that had consequent consequences for the domestic German political order, which would have to face taking responsibility for the impending military defeat. The German army high command concealed the accurate state of affairs, and would accuse political elements as internal enemies of betraying the army, which nationalist conservative elements cultivated as a common “stab in the back” explanation that caused the downfall of the military effort. This was in fact nothing more than a groundless conspiracy theory that would become a postwar myth that would have disastrous consequences for Germany’s political life.
The allied successes created a sudden wave of pessimism in the German High Command, and Ludendorff abruptly demanded an immediate armistice on 29 September to prevent the army from being totally defeated, while expressing willingness to negotiate on the basis of Wilson’s fourteen points for a peace settlement, and assumed establishing a parliamentary democracy would be more respectable in view of the American political authorities, and would not negotiate with a military dictatorship. It became evident by this time that Germany could no longer win the war while Germany’s reserves of manpower were exhausted and could not resist a breakthrough that could cross the Rhine, while the Entente allies could compensate for their losses with aid from the United States. The war therefore needed to be ended immediately, as well as precluding the military from actively taking part in a possible political revolution in Germany, and transferring power to a civilian government composed of a Reichstag majority of democratic and socialist representatives who would accept the responsibility for the military defeat and a “dishonourable peace.” Even conservatives would not oppose Ludendorff’s pressing and urgent demand for an immediate armistice in the face of a total military collapse in the face of Allied strength, and demands for political reform in the Reichstag that could no longer be resisted on the strength of military authority. Ludendorff thus issued his final orders as Germany’s military dictator – establishing a constitutional monarchy that would offer a peace settlement on the basis of Wilson’s Fourteen Point peace plan.
William II dismissed the cabinet on 30 September, and issued a proclamation establishing parliamentary government, and a for parliamentary reform of German political life by forming a new democratic government responsible to the Reichstag was granted immediately, in view of a hopeless military situation with the underlying hope of securing the best possible terms for a peace settlement. The German High Command, without influence from the political parties, admitted the failure of its policy, while the democratic parties did not make any effort to seize political control. William II requested Prince Max of Baden on 1 October to form a new government as the constitutional Chancellor with the emperor as the ceremonial head of state. The Reichstag majority accepted this candidate as Chancellor on 3 October 1918 to introduce a new parliamentary constitution at a time when the war was irretrievably lost. Prince Max wrote to President Wilson asking for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points on the same day, but this proposal was rejected on 8 October, as any armistice agreement was to follow the evacuation of all occupied territory.
The Reichstag met and agreed in principle on 5 October to institute democratic reforms, which included reforming suffrage by abolishing the Prussian three class voting system, ministerial responsibility to government, and shifting the control of the military to the civilian government, rather than the monarchy. and later prepared the necessary bills for this purpose, including instituting universal suffrage in Prussia on 15 October, largely due to Ludendorff’s influence, that were passed when it met on 22 October. The new chancellor appointed new ministers from the Reichstag majority to establish a new constitutional monarchy, and at Ludendorff’s request, immediately sent a note to Wilson on 7 October requesting an armistice. This request was immediately rejected, with the demand that Germany withdraw from all occupied territories, while the allies continued their rapid advances against diminishing resistance.
Constitutional changes instituting political reforms established a parliamentary monarchy on 28 October. The Reichstag received the right to dismiss the chancellor and his government, and Reichstag members could become ministers. The Prussian three class suffrage was abolished. However, the emperor retained the right to appoint the chancellor and the ministers. Moreover, these reforms did not bring about a sufficiently decisive break with the old system with more profound changes, and the prospect of imminent defeat undermined the authority of the old regime while they believed the government was prolonging the war to postpone reform. It also appeared that Wilhelm II was the only obstacle to peace. Calls for his abdication became overwhelming, while Wilson’s notes made it evident that he was not to play a role in the peace negotiations. Many Germans also did not realise that the Entente was delaying the armistice negotiations, while the British and French pressured Wilson to delay his answers and to continue demanding increasingly further concessions.
While the military influenced the Kaiser’s hesitation about abdication, there then came a decisive spark for revolutionary change that was in place after four years of wartime privation and hardship that had gradually undermined support for the monarchy, culminating in the shock of military defeat. The German admiralty ordered launching a final attack on the British navy in late October 1918, without informing the Kaiser or the chancellor, in the interest of preserving military honour and demonstrating the value of fleet building when Wilson announced terms for a truce that forced the Germans to concede defeat, and thereby counteract the ongoing negotiations. The navy leadership maintained the activity of warships taking action in the interest of having a positive influence on the peace terms, and also provide encourage the population to maintain resistance against the Allies and their demands, including after President Wilson’s note on 24 October that demanded complete capitulation.
Meanwhile, the fighting continued since Ludendorff suddenly claimed it was necessary to go on fighting at all cost in the face of the harsh conditions for a truce, and perhaps as a suicidal struggle to save the “honour” of the army or there being the possibility of Germany receiving better conditions. As the fighting continued, President Wilson then demanded to negotiate with the “true representatives of the German people,” thus implicitly calling for the Kaiser’s abdication, and immediately halting of submarine warfare. The submarine war stopped on 21 October, but Max hesitated to change the system of government, claiming that his government already represented the interests of the German people. Maximillian von Baden accepted allied peace proposal conditions while being aware of imminent defeat, and had William II dismiss Ludendorff on 26 October in response to his meaningless demand to continue the war, and accepted Wilson’s armistice conditions on the following day, while the Kaiser kept Hindenburg as supreme commander. The government issued several legislative measures with the William II’s support that fulfilled the “revolution from above,” which decisively reformed the constitution that Bismarck had introduced. Prince Max replied to Wilson’s last note on 27 October, reiterating the armistice request, and emphasized that the military authorities were finally subject to civilian political authorities. These measures composed a first phase of a German political revolution leading to instituting parliamentary democracy from above.
The spark to the revolution took place among sailors in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel on 30 October, upon a rumour that said the German fleet had been readied for a futile final battle against the English fleet in the North Sea. Admiral Reinhard Scheer considered a revised strategy for offensive action to strengthen Germany’s bargaining position during the proposed armistice negotiations. Without informing either the Kaiser or the Chancellor, he at once sent his chief of staff, Commodore Magnus von Levetzow. from Berlin to Kiel with an unofficial order for the fleet commander, Admiral Hipper to prepare for attack and battle with the English fleet in the English Channel. Scheer hoped that the Imperial Germany Navy would accomplish what was now beyond the army’s powers – a surprise attack on the enemy that could save Germany from a dishonourable peace if it was successful that would redeem the navy’s honour, whereas a failure would create a legend. Plans for a new assault were made, and the fleet was assembled on 28 October as preparation. It was suspected aboard the capital ships that some operation was contemplated, and many junior officers spoke excitedly to ratings about the glorious prospect of a final battle in a cruiser raid in the English Channel to ease the pressure on the already demoralized German troops.
German sailors serving on a few battleships and first-class cruisers thought a final battle at sea while peace was imminent as armistice negotiations were underway would be a meaningless suicidal sacrifice, and that the naval commanders were acting without government consent were likely to endanger the armistice negotiations. Moreover, spending a great deal of time in port put them in closer contact with the German population that the soldiers on duty with the German armies, and were consequently more exposed to revolutionary ideas that began to spread among the people and the discontent in the face of defeat, which imbued the German navy with a revolutionary spirit.
Sailors thus became demoralized during two years of inactivity with ongoing disputes over rations and working conditons, and then openly mutinous who merely tolerated officers on board the ships, and then passed a resolution refusing to take the offensive. The crews of the cruisers Thüringen and Helgoland mutinied and put the ships fires out. Naval authorities replied by ordering the arrest of four hundred sailors on these ships, which in turn led to mass demonstrations on 3 November. These demonstrations were fired on, resulting in eight deaths and twenty-nine wounded, which led to sailors taking control of nearly all of the ships by setting up sailors’ councils, and dockworkers and the local garrison at the Kiel naval base set up their own workers’ and soldiers’ councils, which in turn triggered unrest in the surrounding area and elsewhere in genuine protests against intolerable conditions.
Soldiers in nearby Hamburg and workers in Kiel created the first soldiers and workers’ council on the Soviet model in Germany on 4 November to defy the authorities, demanding the release of political prisoners, freedom of speech and the press, abolition of censorship, better conditions for the sailors, and that no orders be given for the fleet to take the offensive. This action then became a movement that spread to other cities, where soldiers and workers councils mostly consisting of socialists took over local authority and articulated the demands of those sectors of the population that had withdrawn their allegiance from the monarchical system and its doomed war effort. A sailors’ council took effective control of Germany’s largest naval base at Wilhelshaven, sailors and workers demanded control of regulations of communications and food distribution at the city hall in Hamburg on 6 November, while a contingent of sailors from Kiel seized control of the police headquarters in Braunschweig. Others arrested the commanding general in Hanover, and the same taking place in Cologne on 7 November where they seized control of the city. One after another, the local and provincial Prussian administrations capitulated to the insurgents.
A clearer revolutionary movement evolved in Munich when Austria-Hungary capitulated as a result of military defeat and internal collapse, leaving Bavaria exposed to invasion. The population then turned to the independent socialists under Kurt Eisner for leadership since they were well known peace advocates, while this peace movement was accompanied by separatist feelings. A mass workers’ demonstration on 7 November made demands for bread and peace, an eight-hour workday, and the elimination of the dynasty. The king abdicated, and Eisner seized the initiative by organizing a “Constituent Soldiers’ Workers’ and Peasants’ Council,” which proclaimed the establishment of a Bavarian Democratic and Socialist Republic on 8 November. Revolutionary soldiers’ and workers’ councils likewise took over control in Brunswick, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Halle, Osnabrück and Cologne.
At the same time in Berlin, the two major issues were the armistice and the abdication of the Kaiser, while both the government and the public believed that the armistice would be easier to negotiate if Wilhelm and the entire ruling class were removed from responsibility. The majority socialist party executive presented a list of demands to Prince Max on 6 November: 1. freedom of assembly; 2. abdication of the Kaiser and the crown prince by 8 November; 3. greater representation of the SPD in the cabinet; 4. changes in the Prussian cabinet in line with the majority parties in the Reichstag. The government accepted all of these demands, while the emperor remained hesitant about abdicating. Although the army command decided on 8 November that the army units returning from the front should restore order, insufficient numbers of loyal troops could be found to repress what had become a mass movement all over the country to uphold the monarchy. The psychological burdens that the troops had endured at the front had become oppressive following the prolonged fighting that had not led to any tangible results, including in view of food shortages that had been caused by the naval blockade that the troops and the civilian populations also faced firsthand, and not any view toward achieving victory in the face of overwhelming allied power on the western front during the final hundred day allied counteroffensive, along with the increasingly widespread effects of the Spanish flu epidemic that weakened the fighting forces all contributed to undermining motivation to maintain the monarchy.
A second phase of a political revolution from below took place during a collapse of authority in reaction to the emperor’s remaining in power threatened to trigger civil war and undermine peace negotiations, SPD ordered a general strike and mass demonstrations on the morning of 9 November if the emperor did not abdicate, while a Workers’ and Soldiers’ council was formed in Berlin. When Germany began appreciating the extent of the defeat and humiliation, there were loud popular outcries for the Kaiser’s abdication, which led to his leaving Berlin for the General Headquarters at Spa, as minority socialists were openly inciting revolution, there were navy mutinies that gained control of the bases in Kiel, Wilhelshaven, Heligoland, Borkum, and Cuxhaven, and the southern German states threatened to secede unless the Kaiser abdicated. Meanwhile, the pressure of Eisner’s proclamation of a people’s republic in Bavaria following the deposition of the Bavarian king Ludwig III on 8 November. The agitation of the Independent Social Democrats and the radical socialist in an independent Spartacus League, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were preparing to declare the establishment of a Soviet German republic during a time of unmanageable public disorder. These events forced the Social Democratic deputy Philip Scheidemann who had just formed a provisional national government with, the moderate SPD leader, to proclaim a republic on 9 November superseding the monarchy to preclude the Spartacist movement from acquiring greater momentum. With the knowledge that the troops had joined the cause for forming a democratic government under the SPD, Prince Max decided to announce the Kaiser’s abdication without his consent on 9 November, resign his government, and turned his office as chancellor over to Friedrich Ebert.
General Gröner meanwhile told Wilhelm II that no other solution other than surrender remained, and his personal safety could no longer be ensured in the face of widespread dissention in the military. the emperor’s resignation was announced as the logical conclusion to a lost war before a constituent assembly could meet to form a new constitution, and forestalling a Bolshevik-type revolution that the Spartacists were preparing, rather than stopping short with the establishment of a National Assembly. Wilhelm II abdicated a few hours after Prince Max had handed over to the SPD, and fled to the Netherlands on the next day. On the following day, 10 November, all of the dynastic rulers of the local states abdicated and were replaced by revolutionary governments in view of the military defeat and collapse of autocratic authority.
Although the monarchy was toppled in what constituted a limited political and constitutional revolution, the conservative military establishment remained intact, and the terms of the relationship were set on the first day of the new republic. On the morning of 9 November, Gröner, who had replaced Ludendorff as Quartermaster-General informed William II that the army no longer support him, and only his abdication would arrest the Allied advance and secure the German army while it was still intact. Ebert acting as the chairman of the Council of People’s Representatives made a phone call on that evening to the First Quartermaster-General, Groener, who had replaced Ludendorff following his dismissal, in which they agreed to cooperate in restoring order in Germany. Gröner undertook to bring about an efficient and swift demobilization, and in return, he demanded Ebert’s assurance that the government would secure supply sources, assist the army in maintaining discipline, prevent disruption of the railway network, and generally respect the autonomy of the military command. Gröner also made it clear that the army’s chief objective was to prevent a Bolshevik revolution in Germany, and expected Ebert’s support to suppress the activities of the radical socialists while establishing a democratic republic. This pact secured socialist republican authority by acquiring the means to enforce order and protect itself against further upheavals, while it had no armed force of its own and no constitutional foundation for its authority, apart from having usurped power through the revolution.
With a view toward establishing peaceful conditions and distancing the government from the revolutionary elements, Ebert pledged to take power on the basis of the constitution, rather than the soldiers’ and workers’ councils. The new government thus clearly indicated that it did not intend to stage a Russian-type revolution while emphasizing legal continuity by transferring power from Prince Max and creating a democratic state. The SPD had tried to lead a gradual and orderly takeover, but the competition and agitation of more radical leftist elements forced them to harness the revolutionary movement, rather than allow the vacuum of authority to be filled with radical elements from below and seize control over state affairs. Ebert then made the effort to share power with the left wing Independent Socialists (USPD), which had been formed in April 1917 as a result of voting against further war credits, in a coalition government that was formed on 14 November, although the latter were a minority in the Reichstag, upon meeting the conditions that the entire cabinet should be socialist, political power should be vested in the Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils, and the formation of a constituent assembly for drafting a new constitution should be postponed until the revolution was consolidated. The initial government was a compromise with a Council of the People’s Representatives, consisting of three SPD and three USPD representatives with Ebert and Haase as co-chairmen set out to implement the socialist program, while the army command, without the power to dominate politics, accepted supporting the existing government against more radical efforts to start a revolution under the Bolshevik model. The army command with no longer having any power to dominate political life, accepted supporting this existing government that was loosely controlled by a council of workers’, soldiers’ and farmers’ councils in which the SPD had a majority.
The new government then signed the armistice on 11 November without having any chance to change its conditions. A German armistice delegation led by civilians met Allied representatives who laid the groundwork for the legend that the army had not capitulated, and that victory was undermined by civilian politicians, or as Ludendorff and then Hindenburg claimed, the civilian government had stabbed the military in the back. Meanwhile, the allies would place the blame on the outbreak of the war solely on Germany, and these factors would both undermine the future of postwar Germany. See documentary archive of World War I/H-German: Rosa Luxemburg, The War and the Workers.
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