Chapter I: Front Matter

And the Kaiser Abdicates.

PUBLISHED BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
IN MEMORY OF
LIEUTENANT EARL TRUMBULL WILLIAMS
301ST UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY
OF THE CLASS OF 1910 YALE COLLEGE

WHO DIED MAY 7TH 1918

AND THE KAISER
ABDICATES

THE GERMAN REVOLUTION
NOVEMBER 1918--AUGUST 1919

BY S. MILES BOUTON

WITH THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN
COMMONWEALTH TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO AND
ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE

REVISED EDITION

NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD : OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXXI

COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921 BY
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

_First published October, 1920._
_Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged,_
_September, 1921._

TO THE
HONORABLE IRA NELSON MORRIS
AMERICAN MINISTER TO SWEDEN

THE MAN, THE DIPLOMAT, AND THE LOYAL
FRIEND, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR

Contents.

Chapter I. The Governmental Structure of Germany. 17

Revolutions--Not unknown in Germany--Prussia and the
Hohenzollerns--Frederick the Great--Germany under foreign
domination--The Battle of the brotherhood of man--Lassalle's
national Socialists join the _Internationale_--Germany's
political backwardness--The war of 1870-71--Erection of the
German Empire--Why the Reichstag failed to become a real
parliament--The Emperor's powers as Kaiser and as King of
Prussia.

Chapter II. The German Conception of the State. 31

Individualism repressed for efficiency's sake--Authority the
keynote--The _Beamter_ and his special privileges--Prussian
ideals of duty--Education--The Officer corps as supporters of
the throne--Militarism--Dreams of a _Welt-Imperium_--The fatal
cancer of Socialism.

Chapter III. Internationalism and _Vaterlandslose Gesellen_. 45

The menace of internationalism--Marx and Engels--Socialist
teachings of the brotherhood of man--Lassalle's national
Socialists join the _Internationale_ of Marx, Engels and
Liebknecht--Socialism becomes a political factor--Bismarck's
special laws fail--He tries State Socialism--Kaiser Wilhelm
denounces the Socialists--Labor-union movement a child of
Socialism--German "particularism"--Socialism weakens feelings of
patriotism and undermines the church.

Chapter IV. Germany under the "Hunger-Blockade." 61

Germany's inability to feed and clothe her inhabitants--The war
reduces production--Germany's imports in 1913--Food
conservation--The "turnip-winter"--Everybody goes
hungry--Terrible increase of mortality--Discontent engendered
and increased by suffering--Illegitimate trade in the
necessaries of life--Rations at the front become insufficient.

Chapter V. Internationalism at Work. 75

General enthusiasm at the war's outbreak--Socialists support the
government--Liebknecht denounces the war--Otto Ruehle, Franz
Mehring, Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg--The "Spartacus
Letters"--Extreme Socialists begin to follow Liebknecht--The
first open break in the party--The seceders attack the
war--Liebknecht sent to prison--The Russian Revolution as a
factor--The political strikes of January, 1918--The army
disaffected--Shortage of trained officers.

Chapter VI. Propaganda and Morale. 89

Submarine losses shake sailors' morale--Independent Socialists'
propaganda--Admiral von Cappelle admits serious mutiny at
Wilhelmshafen--Haase, Dittmann and Vogtherr denounced--Lenine
passes through Germany--Russian Bolshevist propaganda in
Germany--Treaty of Brest-Litovsk throws down the
bars--Activities of the Bolshevist Ambassador Joffe--Haase, Cohn
and other Independent Socialists work with him--Joffe expelled
from Germany--Allied propaganda helps weaken German morale at
home and on the fronts--Atrocity stories.

Chapter VII. Germany Requests an Armistice. 107

Chancellor Michaelis resigns and is succeeded by Count
Hertling--Empire honeycombed with sedition--Count Lichnowsky's
memoirs--Another Chancellor crisis--Socialists consent to enter
a coalition government--Bulgaria surrenders--Hertling admits
desperateness of situation--The German front begins to
disintegrate--Prince Max of Baden becomes Chancellor, with the
Socialist Philip Scheidemann as a cabinet member--Max requests
an armistice--Lansing's reply.

Chapter VIII. The Last Days of Imperial Germany. 121

Reforms come too late--The Independent Socialists attack the
government--Liebknecht released from prison and defies the
authorities--The Kaiser makes sweeping surrenders of
powers--Austria-Hungary's defection--Revolution in
Vienna--Socialists demand the Kaiser's abdication--The new
cabinet promises parliamentary reforms.

Chapter IX. A Revolt Which Became a Revolution. 133

Mutiny at Kiel--Troops fire on mutinous sailors--Demands of the
mutineers granted--Noske arrives--The red flag replaces the
imperial standard--Prince Henry's flight--Independent Socialists
and Spartacans seize their opportunity--Soviets erected
throughout Northwestern Germany--Official cowardice at
Swinemuende--Noske becomes Governor of Kiel.

Chapter X. The Revolution Reaches Berlin. 147

Lansing announces that the allied governments accept Wilson's
fourteen points with one reservation--Max appeals to the
people--Hamburg revolutionaries reach Berlin--Government troops
brought to the capital--Independent Socialists meet in the
Reichstag building--The revolution spreads--Majority Socialists
join hands with the revolutionaries--Supposedly loyal troops
mutiny--Revolution.

Chapter XI. The Kaiser Abdicates. 159

Ebert becomes Premier for a day--The German Republic
proclaimed--Liebknecht at the royal palace--Officers hunted down
in the streets--The rape of the _bourgeois_ newspapers by
revolutionaries--The first shooting--Ebert issues a proclamation
and an appeal--A red Sunday--Revolutionary meeting at the Circus
Busch--A six-man cabinet formed--The _Vollzugsrat_--Far-reaching
reforms are decreed.

Chapter XII. "The German Socialistic Republic." 177

The end of the dynasties--The Kaiser flees--Central Soviet
displays moderate tendencies--Wholesale jail-releases--The
police disarmed--_Die neue Freiheit_--A Red Guard is planned,
but meets opposition from the soldiers--Liebknecht organizes the
deserters--Armistice terms a blow to the cabinet--The blockade
is extended.

Chapter XIII. "The New Freedom." 195

Germany's armed forces collapse--Some effects of "the new
freedom"--The Reichstag is declared dissolved--The cabinet's
helplessness--Opposition to a national assembly--Radicals
dominate the _Vollzugsrat_--Charges are made against it--The Red
Soldiers' League--The first bloodshed under the new regime.

Chapter XIV. The Majority Socialists in Control. 209

Front soldiers return--The central congress of Germany's
Soviets--Radicals in an insignificant minority--A new
_Vollzugsrat_ of Majority Socialists appointed--The People's
Marine Division revolts--Independent Socialists leave the
cabinet--The Spartacus League organized--The national
government's authority flouted--Aggressions by Czechs and
Poles--An epidemic of strikes.

Chapter XV. Liebknecht Tries to Overthrow the Government; Is
Arrested and Killed. 225

The first Bolshevist uprising--Prominent Berlin newspapers
seized by the Spartacans--The Independent Socialists'
double-dealing--Capture of the _Vorwaerts_ plant--Ledebour,
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg arrested--Liebknecht and Luxemburg
killed--The Bolsheviki turn their attention to coast cities.

Chapter XVI. The National Assembly. 237

Germany's political parties reorganize--Theodor
Wolff--Composition of the National Assembly--Convenes at
Weimar--Spartacans stage various uprisings--Friedrich Ebert
elected provisional president of the German Republic--Germany's
desperate financial situation--The difference between theory and
practice.

Chapter XVII. The Spartacans Rise Again. 251

Germany still hungering--Promised supplies of food delayed--Gas
and coal shortage--Strikes add to people's sufferings--The
Spartacans plan another uprising--Severe fighting in Berlin--The
radical newspaper _Die rote Fahne_ suppressed--Independent
Socialists go over to the Spartacans--Independent Socialist and
Spartacan Platforms contrasted.

Chapter XVIII. Red or White Internationalism: Which? 265

Radicalism encouraged by Bolshevism's success in Hungary.