The End of the German Empire

This series has five easy 5-minute installments. This first installment: Movement for Abdication.

Introduction
At the end of World War I there was a revolution in Germany. The German Emperor (Kaiser) abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. Here he gives his side of that story.

This selection is from Memoirs by Kaiser Willhelm II published in 1922. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Kaiser Willhelm II (1859-1941) was the last Emperor of the German Empire.

Time: November 9, 1918
Place: German-Dutch Border

A Few days after August 8, 1918, I summoned a Crown Council, in order to get a clear conception of the situation and to draw therefrom the necessary conclusions upon which to base the policy to be followed by Count Hertling. The Chief Military Command approved the idea that the Imperial Chancellor should keep in sight the possibility of getting into closer touch with the enemy, but laid stress on the necessity of first occupying the Siegfried line and there thoroughly beating off the foe, and on the fact that negotiations must not begin before this occurred. Thereupon I directed that the Chancellor get into communication with a neutral power, the Netherlands, in order to ascertain whether it was ready to undertake such a step toward mediation. What rendered the contemplated action through Dutch channels very difficult was that Austria could not be brought to a definite agreement, but continually postponed the declaration which had been requested of her. Even a verbal agreement given to me by the Emperor Charles was afterward broken by him under Burian’s influence.

The Dutch government had already been informed by me and had signified its readiness to act. Meanwhile, Austria, without notifying us, made her first separate peace offer, which set the ball rolling. The Emperor Charles had indeed got into touch secretly with the Entente and had long since resolved to abandon us. He acted according to the plan which he had explained thus to his entourage: “When I go to the Germans, I agree to everything they say, and when I return home, I do whatever I please.”

Thus, it happened that my government and I were constantly deceived by actions in Vienna, without being able to do anything against it, since from there we constantly received the hint: “If you make things hard for us, we shall leave you in the lurch; in other words, our army will no longer fight by your side.” In view of our situation, such action on Austria’s part had to be avoided in any way possible, both on military and political grounds.

The defection of Hungary and Austria brought a crisis upon us. Had Emperor Charles kept control of his nerves for three weeks longer, many things would have turned out differently. But Andrassy as he himself admitted had been negotiating for a long time in Switzerland, behind our backs, with the Entente. Thus, Emperor Charles believed that he would assure himself of good treatment at the hands of the Entente.

After our failure of August 8th, General Ludendorff had declared that he could no longer guarantee a military victory. Therefore, the preparation of peace negotiations was necessary. Since diplomacy had not succeeded in initiating any promising negotiations and the military situation had become even worse in the meantime, on account of revolutionary agitation, Ludendorff, on the 29th of September, demanded that preparations be made for an armistice instead of for peace negotiations,

At this critical time a strong movement began at home in favor of setting up a new government for the now necessary termination of the war, I could not ignore this movement, since the old government, during the seven weeks from August 8th to the end of September, had not managed to initiate peace negotiations offering any hope of success.

Meanwhile, General von Gallwitz and General von Mudra, summoned from the front, appeared before me. They gave a picture of the inner situation of the army, laying due emphasis upon the great number of shirkers behind the front, the frequency of insubordination, the displaying of the red flag upon trains filled with soldiers returning from furloughs at home and other similar phenomena*

The two generals considered that the principal cause of the bad conditions was to be sought in the unfavorable influence exerted upon the soldiers by the spirit predominating behind the front and in the general desire for ending the fighting and getting peace, which was spreading from the homeland along the lines of communication behind the front and was already becoming noticeable even among some of the troops at the front itself. The generals advanced the opinion that, owing to these reasons, the army must immediately be withdrawn behind the Antwerp-Meuse line.

On that same day I commanded Field Marshal von Hindenburg by telephone to effect as soon as possible the retreat to the Antwerp-Meuse line. The falling back of the tired, but nowhere decisively beaten, army to this position merely signified occupying an essentially shorter line, possessing far greater natural advantages. It was not yet completed, to be sure, but the fact was to be borne in mind that we had engaged in battle on the Somme while occupying positions composed largely of shell craters. What we had to do was to regain operative freedom, which, to my way of thinking, was by no means impossible; in the course of the war, had we not often retreated in order to put ourselves in a situation that was more advantageous from the military point of view?

The army, to be sure, was no longer the old army. The new 1918 troops particularly were badly tainted with revolutionary propaganda and often took advantage of the darkness at night to sneak away from the firing and vanish to the rear.

But the majority of my divisions fought flawlessly to the very end and preserved their discipline and military spirit to the very end; they were always a match for the foe in morale; despite superiority in numbers, cannon, munitions, tanks, and airplanes, the foe invariably succumbed when he ran up against serious resistance. Therefore, the associations of our ex-fighters at the front are right in bearing upon their banners the motto: “Unbeaten on land and sea!”

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