The Last Imperial Chancellor
Juneau, Solomon
OLD uniforms did service for Memorial Day. Most of them, of course, are not so very old— these millions of khaki coats spangled with fading service stripes, with clumsy bronzed buttons in...
...On November 9, the popular demand had become more emphatic...
...As a matter of fact, the revolution was already triumphant...
...On October 24, Noske attacked the Conservatives in the Reichstag by saying that their attitude could not alter the popular conviction that a single great gesture on the part of him who bore the crown would unburden the shoulders of millions...
...They had discovered a fact which uprooted all their calculations—a division of fighting troops, commissioned to defend the rear against revolutionists, had refused to obey its officers and had marched home...
...Gradually he felt his way into the circle which Paul Rohrbach had grouped more or less in the shadow of the German Foreign Office, and which (like Lord Landsdowne's party in England) was interested iri carrying out a "political offensive" against the obstacles that barred the road to peace...
...Today I know that an hour after my conversation had taken place, Von Hindenburg and General Groner had come to the joint conclusion: the Kaiser's idea of restoring order at home was futile...
...Thus it opposed the attitude of the government to Mr...
...Prince Max castigates the Michaelis epoch severely, particularly for its reactionary attitude toward internal political affairs, its incompetent formalities and its repudiation of the spirit of leadership...
...But the world was tired of battle, the collapse of Russia seemed to offset the entry of the United States intoj the conflict, and the last great Ludendorff offensive had not yet squandered the force of the German troops...
...He said to me: "I earnestly request you to remain...
...and with that the will to resist, to carry on for another bitter month, was dissipated...
...The situation was not basically altered by the treaty with Russia, by the military operations of 1918, or by the accession of Count von Hertling to the office of chancellor...
...This more and more obviously depended, however, upon their attitude toward the Kaiser himself...
...Words and deeds of the German government were merely symptoms of the military situation...
...But the machine which had rolled ahead through several war-ridden years had lost all elasticity and power of adaptation...
...Its task was difficult and even relatively incapable of accomplishment...
...He declares: I had no hope...
...Meanwhile the Socialist party, long faithful to the war-ridden government, began to descry unmistakable evidences of revolution...
...During the early years of the struggle he had devoted his energies to the fate of prisoners of war, lightening the burden of thousands of young fellows in all the armies, and using his influence with royalty in neutral countries to better conditions in detention camps everywhere...
...Even yet, however, the Kaiser had not seen light...
...There every turn of the worker's hand is still dictated by the fate of 1914...
...His Majesty interrupted...
...This no one doubts who has investigated a little the currents of thought which bore the cargo of decision, or who has seen in perspective the confluence of world emotion at critical points...
...I asked: "For what purpose...
...Ebert replied: "I wish you would remain as gerent of the realm...
...His Majesty replied that he considered it his "duty to remain at his post...
...if it had answered the papal note and the inquiry of Lord Asquith promptly, generously and frankly—then the world would have been spared a year of war, the Russian revolution would have halted at the brink of communistic excesses, and the work of reconstruction would have been advanced by a decade...
...Our plight could not be concealed from the outer world for twenty-four hours...
...Wherever the truth of the matterl may lie, this discursive chapter is a document eminently worth reading...
...Prince Max, however, expresses the conviction that the incident was brought about primarily by the unwillingness of Von Kiihlmann, secretary of foreign affairs, to surrender a "hostage" which would offset French claims upon Alsace-Lorraine at a peace conference then regarded as near at hand...
...If his choice had fallen upon someone who out of conviction stood for suffrage reform and a policy of no annexations, the majority of popular representatives cculd have been guided without recourse to any curtailment of liberty...
...Under the old German constitution, the king of Prussia automatically became German kaiser...
...The drift to Soviet principles was apparent...
...The Kaiser was not immediately informed of this development, however...
...The chance for a clear-cut military victory had, of course, long since gone by...
...Many war books have come, adding their bit to the turgid narrative...
...But the commanding generals insisted that the fatal hour was struck, and the request for an armistice, coupled with an acceptance of the fourteen points, went out signed with the chancellor's name...
...On November 6, Ebert demanded the abdication of the Kaiser, "if the government wished to prevent the masses from going over wholesale into the revolutionary camp...
...Personally I am inclined to agree that the defeat of Germany was sealed by the Michaelis government...
...At the time I could only assume that the military command shared his optimism...
...Troops in Berlin refused to oppose rebellious crowds, there was a constant stream of revolutionary news from all parts of the empire...
...Remarkable is the suspense created by this succinct, matter-of-fact narrative—on the one hand the iron necessities of the situation, on the other the blindness of the sovereign to obvious realities...
...it refused to halt unrestricted submarine warfare, staking every hope on a sharp, speedy military victory rather than upon a slower but more effective political sentiment...
...I think this shred of reminiscence, honoring the memory of Germany's first President, is representative of the character of Prince Max's book...
...It is, however, well worth knowing that wartime Germany had a group of prominent men who believed in them and tried to reach them...
...What followed is history, but the detailed narration of Germany's actions during the critical weeks of the debacle is certainly the most significant and original portion of Prince Max's book...
...This request had been made to me during the last hours of my stay in office by a number of my fellow-officials...
...He also feels that the right moment for an open declaration against the annexation of Belgium came rather with Lord Asquith's reference to this question in the House of Commons...
...This good and intellectually great man was too old, too rigid and perhaps too academic for the desperate circumstances in which he found himself...
...The Hessian prince upon whom the chancellor had placed all his hopes, refused at the last moment to undertake the painful mission...
...Already during the middle of October Count Lerchenfeld had frankly told William II that there existed a growing demand for his abdication...
...This antithesis was plain to many clear-sighted statesmen, but no one had the courage to approach William with a brutal statement of the facts...
...Recently an able apologist has declared that the Evangelical feeling of Michaelis himself was responsible for this fatal lack of courtesy and dignity...
...He replied, "I have lost two sons for it...
...On October i of the final war year...
...it strained every nerve to prevent the declaration of intensified submarine warfare which led to the break with the United States...
...Historians may question the pertinence of these conclusions, and It is of course too late to put them into practice...
...In July, 1917, the Kaiser had the power, by reason of constitutional and traditional usage, to select the right man for the chancellor's office...
...Wilson's peace note of 1916...
...His object as an aristocrat, a public servant and a statesman was to cooperate loyally with the public forces interested in a principled development of the nation's welfare...
...The demand for an armistice acted like a miracle...
...As is well known, this epoch of "one hundred days" is characterized chiefly by the failure of Germany to respond immediately and cordially to the papal peace note...
...The Kaiser was firmly convinced that the regular army could be depended upon even when there was question of defending his person against popular feeling...
...But in the old world the plow went pitilessly deep...
...The Prince turned to politics, he confides, as considerable of a novice...
...Meanwhile the Socialist leaders were experiencing the greatest difficulty in keeping their followers in check...
...His Majesty is ready," declared the official document, "to abdicate as German kaiser but not as king of Prussia...
...There the shadows of thrones are even yet respected and mourned...
...The abiding symbols—if even they abide—are a soldier unknown and a President misunderstood as well as misunderstanding...
...but few have contributed so definitely to the final picture we shall have to form of the great conflict as the convincing and informative pages written by this "philanthropic prince...
...Most of them, of course, are not so very old— these millions of khaki coats spangled with fading service stripes, with clumsy bronzed buttons in irregular array...
...To an official request from the Cabinet which followed the next day...
...Soon the business of government had been narrowed to stimulating the people of the Reich to a last resolute summoning of their forces in the interests of national self-defense...
...Prince Max of Baden was certainly on the right road, however quixotic his attempts to travel on it may have been...
...It might all have been different...
...The sentiment of opposition to the Kaiser grew with each day...
...Naturally a great deal might be said in criticism of the Prince's views...
...and Prince Max records his temptation to announce the abdication on his own responsibility...
...but, he added very earnestly, a successor of Frederick the Great would do no such thing...
...and its negotiations with Russia were futile exercises in old-fashioned diplomacy which came at a time when supreme, generous statesmanship was In order...
...I said to Ebert: "I know that you are about to effect an agreement with the Independent Socialists, and with them I cannot work in common...
...What is the glory of illustrious causes the significance of which was never assimilated...
...It is as easy to disagree afterl the making of history as during the period of its making...
...To such a one confirmation is offered by| the volume of memoirs just published in Berlin by Prince Max of Baden, last German imperial chancellor...
...Prince Max assumed the duties of the chancellorship and found that the army had already reached the decision to address President Wilson and seek an armistice...
...This group, with which the Prince became definitely associated in 1917, was governed by the principle that the war must not be fought for its own sake but for certain ends which it was the business of political leadership to propose...
...A few hours later, Ebert was proclaimed chancellor...
...The cause of a peace by agreement had been lost...
...and it tried hard to get a definite declaration that Germany would not strive to annex Belgium in case of a decisive victory...
...But all these attempts failed for reasons which were partly bound up with the nature of war-time German government and partly with the constitutional weakness of prominent officials...
...In so far as the book has an argumentative scheme, it is this: Germany's debacle was due largely to misunderstanding of public opinion as an operative force...
...To them the Kaiser was the commander-in-chief, who could not surrender before the army did...
...Never before, it seems to me, has an authoritative statement of war history revealed more clearly the part played by Prussia and the Kaiser in the German catastrophe...
...Even yet,' however, the military authorities did not grasp the political situation...
...This part is not that constructed by popular enemy imagination, but it is large and calamitous enough to establish an historical verdict...
...if it had instituted certain reforms in civil as well as military control...
...nobody had expected such an overwhelming eventuality...
...Soon he had come to represent to the world at large the highminded, liberal section of German opinion...
...This proposal he quite properly viewed as disastrous, in view of the political consequences which must follow...
...Now it was no longer a question of the Kaiser but of the coming republic...
...He knew that many were asking that he step aside...
...Then came the reign of Michaells...
...What followed Is dramatic enough: Between five and six o'clock [November 9] I went to Ebert to take my departure...
...A whole generation is rendering homage to a most essential memory...
...In an agreeable manner his book shows how many of the lesser German rulers stood with him in principle and practice, thus strongly offsetting the wholly military and autocratic views of the chief HohenzoUern...
...it failed to effect the abdication of the Kaiser at a moment when he had become the symbol of militaristic autocracy both at home and abroad...
...and it is one of the conundrums of history that he clung to his post as long as he did...
...Before going out, I turned and said: "Herr Ebert, 1 confide the German nation to your heart...
...If the imperial government had acceded to the demands of the Reichstag majority...
...All testify to a struggle for which the United States prepared with a tremendous summons of hasty force, and which on the whole has, perhaps, been just as hastily and mightily forgotten...
...As events proceeded, the empire failed to make use of four critical moments—it neglected to issue a frank statement regarding its attitude toward Belgium, in which British and American opinion was vitally interested...
...Why should we remember what was after all merely a surface wound...
...He felt, rightly no doubt, that his reputation for humanitarian, ideahstlc enterprise was something of a personal asset to the empire and might serve it well in the gloomy days of approaching defeat...
...William's formal abdication and Scheidemann's proclamation of the republic were almost simultaneous...
...Prince Max's final personal effort to induce the emperor to bow to implacable fate was unsuccessful...
...To differ with Germany's last imperial chancellor, however, will, it seems, remain definitely dependent upon conceding his right to speak authoritatively...
...Everything was sacrificed to immediate military requirements, no use was made of that "political elasticity" which is as productive of vitality as it is a testimonial to vitality...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 4
