Part 7 (1/2)

The Austro-Hungarian Government saw the trend of events. Premier Baron Burian told Berlin that the Dual Monarchy could not keep up the struggle much longer. The people, he said, were starving, and disloyalty and treachery on the part of subject non-German races in Hungary, Bohemia and the Slav population had attained alarming proportions.

”If the rulers do not make peace the people will make it over their heads,” said the Premier, ”and that will be the end of rulers.”

He appealed to Germany to join with Austria-Hungary in making an offer of peace. Berlin counseled against such a step. The German Government had long lost any illusions it might have cherished in respect to Austria-Hungary's value as an ally, and it was fully informed of the desperateness of the situation there. Despite this it realized that such a step as Vienna proposed would be taken by the enemy as a confession of weakness, and it clung desperately to the hope that the situation on the west front might still be saved.

Burian, however, cherished no illusions. Austria asked for peace, but made it clear that she did not mean a separate peace. The German people saw in Vienna's action the shadow of coming events, and their despondency was increased.

Prince Lichnowsky, Germany's Amba.s.sador at the Court of St. James at the out-break of the war, had earlier confided to a few personal friends copies of his memoirs regarding the events leading up to the war.

Captain von Beerfelde of the German General Staff, into whose hands a copy came, had a number of copies made and circulated them generally.

The memoirs were a frank disclosure of Germany's great share of the guilt for the war. The authorities tried to stop their circulation, but they were read by hundreds of thousands, and did much to destroy general confidence in the justice of Germany's cause.

Count Hertling, trying blunderingly to redeem his democratic promises, made a tactlessly nave speech in the Prussian House of Lords in favor of the government's franchise-reform measures. These bills, although representing a decided improvement of the existing system, had been bitterly criticized by all liberal elements because they did not go far enough, but had finally been reluctantly accepted as the best that could be hoped for in the circ.u.mstances. A majority existed for them in the Prussian Diet, but the Junkers and n.o.ble industrialists of the House of Lords would hear of no surrender of their ancient rights and privileges.

The Chancellor in his speech warned the Lords that they could avoid the necessity of making still more far-reaching concessions later by adopting the government's measures as they stood. To reject them, he declared, would be seriously to imperil the crown and dynasty. He closed with an appeal to his hearers to remember the services rendered to the Fatherland by men of all political creeds, including the Socialists.

Count Hertling's speech displeased everybody. The Conservative press a.s.sailed him bitterly. The _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, chief organ of the Junkers, called him ”the gravedigger of the Prussian monarchy.” The _Kreuzzeitung_ charged him with minimizing the crown's deserts and exaggerating the services of the Socialists. The liberal _bourgeois_ and the Socialist press said in effect: ”And so this is our new democratic Chancellor who advises the House of Lords to block an honest democratic reform of Prussia's iniquitous franchise system.” The _Germania_, chief organ of the Clericals, Hertling's own party, d.a.m.ned the speech with faint praise.

Talk of a ”chancellor crisis” was soon heard, and by the middle of September there was little doubt that Hertling's days were numbered.

Nothing else can so adequately indicate the reversal of conditions in Germany as the fact that one of the men named oftenest even in _bourgeois_ circles as a likely successor to Count Hertling was Philip Scheidemann, a leader of the Majority Socialists. The _vaterlandslose Gesellen_ were coming into their own.

The crisis became acute on September 20th. The government unofficially sounded the Majority Socialists as to their willingness to partic.i.p.ate in a coalition government. The question was discussed on September 22d, at a joint conference of the Socialist Reichstag deputies and the members of the party's executive committee. Although one of the cardinal tenets of Socialism had always forbidden partic.i.p.ation in any but a purely Socialist government, the final vote was nearly four to one in favor of abandoning this tenet in view of the extraordinary situation confronting the empire. With eighty votes against twenty-two the conference decided to send representatives into a coalition government under the following conditions:

1. The government shall unqualifiedly accept the declaration of the Reichstag of July 19, 1917,[18] and declare its willingness to enter a League of Nations whose fundamental principles shall be the peaceful adjustment of all conflicts and universal disarmament.

[18] _Vide_ chapter vi.

2. The government shall make an absolutely unambiguous declaration of its willingness to rehabilitate (_wiederherstellen_) Belgium and reach an understanding regarding compensation to that land, and also to rehabilitate Serbia and Montenegro.

3. The peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest shall not be permitted to stand in the way of a general treaty of peace; civil government shall be immediately established in all occupied territories; occupied territories shall be evacuated when peace is concluded; democratic representative a.s.semblies shall be established at once.

4. Autonomy shall be granted to Alsace-Lorraine; general, equal, secret and direct right of franchise shall be granted in all German federal states; the Prussian Diet shall be dissolved if the deliberations of the House of Lords do not immediately result in the adoption of the franchise-reform bills.

5. There shall be uniformity in the imperial government, and irresponsible unofficial auxiliary governments (_Nebenregierungen_) are to be eliminated; representatives of the government shall be chosen from the majority of the Reichstag or shall be persons who adhere to the policies of this majority; political announcements by the crown or by military authorities shall be communicated to the Imperial Chancellor before they are promulgated.

6. Immediate rescission of all decrees limiting the right of a.s.sembly or the freedom of the press; the censors.h.i.+p shall be employed only in purely military matters (questions of tactics and strategy, movements of troops, fabrication of munitions of war, etc.); a political control shall be inst.i.tuted for all measures resorted to under the authority of the state of siege; all military inst.i.tutions that serve to exert political influence shall be abolished.

On the whole this was a program which appealed to the vast majority of the German people. The Conservatives and one wing of the National Liberals would have none of it, but the conviction that nothing but a change of system would save Germany had been making rapid headway in the last few weeks. Even many of those opposed in principle to democratic government began to recognize that nothing else could unite the people.

An article in the _Vorwarts_ by Scheidemann and another in the International Correspondence, an ably conducted news agency, pointing out the vital necessity of making any sacrifices that would save the country, were widely reprinted and made a strong appeal.

Chancellor Count Hertling, addressing the Reichstag on September 24th, made a speech which, read between the lines, was a veiled admission of the desperateness of the situation and the increasingly discouraged condition of the people. He admitted frankly that the German armies had met serious reverses on the west front. But Germany, he declared, had met and triumphed over more serious situations. Russia and Roumania had been eliminated from the list of enemies, and he was confident that the people would not lose heart because of temporary setbacks and that the soldiers would continue to show their old spirit. Austria's peace _demarche_ had been taken in the face of serious doubts on the part of the German Government regarding its advisability, but Germany, now as always, was ready to conclude a just peace.

General von Wrisberg, said the Chancellor, reported that the English successes against the Marne position and between the Ancre and the Aisne had been due to fog and the extensive employment of tanks.

Counter-measures had been taken and there was no reason for uneasiness.

The Germans had lost many prisoners and guns, but the enemy's losses had been frightful.

”The American armies need not frighten us,” said Count Hertling. ”We shall take care of them.”[19]

[19] The German Government deceived its own people grossly in the matter of the American forces in France. Hans Delbruck, editor of the _Preussische Jahrbucher_, published on December 10, 1918, a statement that the government had forbidden him to publish Secretary Baker's figures of the American strength, as republished in the London _Times_. In response to his protest, the Supreme Army Command declared that Baker's figures were ”purely American bluff, calculated and intended to mislead the German people.” But the government not only concealed the truth; it lied about the number of Americans in France and even compelled the press to lie. A confidential communication issued to the press in the middle of May, 1918, declared that ”the number of American combatant troops in France is about ten divisions, of which only four are at the front. The total of all troops, both at the front and behind the lines, does not exceed 150,000 to 200,000.

Press notices concerning these matters should state that America has not been able to fulfil its expectations in the way of sending troops, and that the earlier estimates of the German General Staff as to what America could accomplish have proved to be true. The actual figures given above should in no case be mentioned.” At this time there were nearly one million Americans in France, and it is inconceivable that the German Supreme Army Command did not know it.