Part 1 (1/2)
And the Kaiser abdicates.
by S. Miles Bouton.
Foreword.
The developments leading up to the German Revolution of November, 1918, and the events marking the course of the revolution itself are still but imperfectly known or understood in America. For nearly two years preceding the overthrow of the monarchy, Americans, like the people of all other countries opposing Germany, were dependent for their direct information upon the reports of neutral correspondents, and a stringent censors.h.i.+p prevented these from reporting anything of value regarding the conditions that were throughout this period gradually making the German Empire ripe for its fall. To a great extent, indeed, not only these foreign journalists, but the great ma.s.s of the Germans themselves, had little knowledge of the manner in which the Empire was being undermined.
During the crucial days of the revolution, up to the complete overthrow of the central government at Berlin, a sharpened censors.h.i.+p prevented any valuable direct news from being sent out, and the progress of events was told to the outside world mainly by travelers, excited soldiers on the Danish frontier and two or three-day-old German newspapers whose editors were themselves not only handicapped by the censors.h.i.+p, but also ignorant of much that had happened and unable to present a clear picture of events as a whole. When the bars were finally thrown down to enemy correspondents, the exigencies of daily newspaper work required them to devote their undivided attention to the events that were then occurring.
Hence the developments preceding and attending the revolution could not receive that careful consideration and portrayal which is necessary if they are to be properly understood.
An attempt is made in this book to make clear the factors and events that made the revolution possible, and to give a broad outline of its second phase, from the middle of November, 1918, to the ratification by Germany of the Peace of Versailles. A preliminary description of Germany's governmental structure, although it may contain nothing new to readers who know Germany well, could not be omitted. It is requisite for a comprehension of the strength of the forces and events that finally overthrew the Kaiser.
Much of the history told deals with matters of which the author has personal knowledge. He had been for several years before the war resident in Berlin as an a.s.sociated Press correspondent. He was in Vienna when the Dual Monarchy declared war on Serbia, and in Berlin during mobilization and the declarations of war on Russia and France. He was with the German armies on all fronts during the first two years of the war as correspondent, and was in Berlin two weeks before America severed diplomatic relations with Germany. The author spent the summer of 1917 in Russia, and watched the progress of affairs in Germany from Stockholm and Copenhagen during the winter of 1917-18. He spent the three months preceding the German Revolution in Copenhagen, in daily touch with many proved sources of information, and was the first enemy correspondent to enter Germany after the armistice, going to Berlin on November 18, 1918. He attended the opening sessions of the National a.s.sembly at Weimar in February, 1919, and remained in Germany until the end of March, witnessing both the first and second attempts of the Spartacans to overthrow the Ebert-Haase government.
The author's aim in writing this book has been to give a truthful and adequate picture of the matters treated, without any ”tendency”
whatever. It is not pretended that the book exhausts the subject. Many matters which might be of interest, but which would hinder the straightforward narration of essentials, have been omitted, but it is believed that nothing essential to a comprehension of the world's greatest political event has been left out.
A word in conclusion regarding terminology.
_Proletariat_ does not mean, as is popularly supposed in America, merely the lowest grade of manual laborers. It includes all persons whose work is ”exploited” by others, i. e., who depend for their existence upon wages or salaries. Thus actors, journalists, clerks, stenographers, etc., are reckoned as proletarians.
The _bourgeoisie_ includes all persons who live from the income of investments or from businesses or properties (including real estate) owned by them. In practice, however, owners of small one-man or one-family businesses, although belonging to what the French term the _pet.i.te bourgeoisie_, are regarded as proletarians. The n.o.bility, formerly a cla.s.s by itself, is now _de facto_ included under the name _bourgeoisie_, despite the contradiction of terms thus involved.
No effort has been made toward consistency in the spelling of German names. Where the German form might not be generally understood, the English form has been used. In the main, however, the German forms have been retained.
Socialism and Social-Democracy, Socialist and Social-Democrat, have been used interchangeably throughout. There is no difference of meaning between the words.
S. MILES BOUTON
Asheville, New York, November 1, 1919.
CHAPTER I.
The Governmental Structure of Germany.
The peoples of this generation--at least, those of highly civilized and cultured communities--had little or no familiarity with revolutions and the history of revolutions before March, 1917, when Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown. There was and still is something about the very word ”revolution” which is repugnant to all who love ordered and orderly government. It conjures up pictures of rude violence, of murder, pillage and wanton destruction. It violates the sentiments of those that respect the law, for it is by its very nature a negation of the force of existing laws. It breaks with traditions and is an overcoming of inertia; and inertia rules powerfully the majority of all peoples.
The average American is comparatively little versed in the history of other countries. He knows that the United States of America came into existence by a revolution, but ”revolutionary” is for him in this connection merely an adjective of time used to locate and describe a war fought between two powers toward the end of the eighteenth century. He does not realize, or realizes but dimly, the essential kins.h.i.+p of all revolutions. Nor does he realize that most of the governments existing today came into being as the result of revolutions, some of them bloodless, it is true, but all at bottom a revolt against existing laws and governmental forms. The extortion of the Magna Charta from King John in 1215 was not the less a revolution because it was the bloodless work of the English barons. It took two b.l.o.o.d.y revolutions to establish France as a republic. All the Balkan states are the products of revolution. A man need not be old to remember the overthrow of the monarchy in Brazil; the revolution in Portugal was but yesterday as historians count time. Only the great wisdom and humanitarianism of the aged King Oscar II prevented fighting and bloodshed between Sweden and Norway when Norway announced her intention of breaking away from the dual kingdom. The list could be extended indefinitely.
The failure to recall or realize these things was one of the factors responsible for the universal surprise and amazement when the Hohenzollerns were overthrown. The other factor was the general--and justified--impression that the government of Germany was one of the strongest, most ably administered and most h.o.m.ogeneous governments of the world. And yet Germany, too, or what subsequently became the nucleus of Germany, had known revolution. It was but seventy years since the King of Prussia had been forced to stand bareheaded in the presence of the bodies of the ”March patriots,” who had given their lives in a revolt which resulted in a new const.i.tution and far-reaching concessions to the people.
Even to those who did recall and realize these things, however, the German revolution came as a shock. The closest observers, men who knew Germany intimately, doubted to the very last the possibility of successful revolution there. And yet, viewed in the light of subsequent happenings, it will be seen how natural, even unavoidable, the revolution was. It came as the inevitable result of conditions created by the war and the blockade. It will be the purpose of this book to make clear the inevitableness of the _debacle_, and to explain the events that followed it.
For a better understanding of the whole subject a brief explanation of the structure of Germany's governmental system is in place. This will serve the double purpose of showing the strength of the system which the revolution was able to overturn and of dispelling a too general ignorance regarding it.
The general condemnation of Prussia, the Prussians and the Hohenzollerns must not be permitted to obscure their merits and deserts. For more than five hundred years without a break in the male line this dynasty handed down its inherited rights and produced an array of great administrators who, within three centuries, raised Prussia to the rank of a first-rate power.
The kingdom that subsequently became the nucleus for the German Empire lost fully half its territory by the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, when, following the reverses in the Napoleonic wars, Germany was formally dissolved and the Confederation of the Rhine was formed by Napoleon. The standing army was limited to 42,000 men, and trade with Great Britain was prohibited. The Confederation obeyed the letter of the military terms, but evaded its spirit by successively training levies of 42,000 men, and within six years enough trained troops were available to make a revolt against Napoleonic slavery possible. The French were routed and cut to pieces at the Battle of the Nations near Leipsic in 1813, and Prussian Germany was again launched on the road to greatness.