THE LAST WEEK - THE ROAD TO WAR
Chapter 5
August 30, 1939

Why has the Army changed its tune? The answer is more sinister: knowing that Germany has lost the war, the Generalstab now seeks to determine the course and make-up of Germany's future on its own terms. They fear and loathe Bolshevism and its rowdy adherents in the Fatherland's streets. They are determined to bring the army back to the Reich, reasonably intact, to crush this rebellion. Most importantly, they want to keep the core of the officer corps and the Army organization intact so they can plan the next round. Already the seeds of German aggression 20 years ahead are being sown.

Prince Max tries a tap-dance on October 20. U-boat warfare is not inhumane, but the practice of torpedoing passenger ships will cease. An armistice, he points out, is between military forces, and should not involve changes in government. And any new government in Germany requires changes in the German constitution, which cannot be done overnight. Ludendorff and many other Army and Navy officers are outraged by this concession. Ludendorff calls it the "heaviest blow to the Army and especially the Navy. The injury to the morale of the fleet must have been immeasurable. The Cabinet had thrown up the sponge."

Wilson gets the message on October 22, just as Prince Max announces more constitutional changes in Germany, further eroding the Kaiser's power, trying to save his throne. Prince Max in an effort to ease tension, releases political prisoners, which puts Socialist firebrand Karl Liebknecht back out making speeches on the Under Den Linden.

Wilson and British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French Premier Clemenceau swap more telegrams. They agree that Marshal Foch, the Allied supremo, can offer armistice terms.

Foch hauls in his top generals, Haig and Pershing, to prepare those terms. Meanwhile, Wilson sends a third note to Germany, which says that the only terms Germany can be offered an armistice will leave her defenseless. Ludendorff is enraged. The army is not broken, he says. It can continue the war. The note must be rejected.

German newspapers, newly freed from censorship, report this story on October 25, and riots break out across the Reich. Prince Max tells the Kaiser that if the general isn't fired, the government will resign.

The Kaiser summons Ludendorff, and the two have a shouting match on the 26th. The Kaiser yells, "Excellency, I must remind you that you are in the presence of Your Emperor."

Ludendorff says, "If you have no confidence in me, then you must accept my resignation."

The Kaiser accepts it. The two men never see each other again.

The new First Quartermaster-General of the Imperial German Army is Col. Gen. Wilhelm Groener, 51, a bluff Swabian who looks like a banker in uniform. The son of a non-commissioned officer, an expert on military transportation, he knows his job: to organize the German Army's evacuation of France and Belgium, whether in peace or war. He arrives at Spa on October 30 to serve as "one of the great tragic figures of German military history."

Right after Groener arrives, so does the Kaiser. With revolution brewing in Berlin, the All-Highest feels that he's safer surrounded by the Generalstab, with their snappy salutes, red pants, and deference. "Prince Max's government is trying to throw me out," he says. "At Berlin I should be less able to oppose them than in the midst of my generals." Hindenburg greets Seine Majestat as "Most Gracious Kaiser, King, and Lord."

With Ludendorff out, Prince Max fires off an answer to Wilson's telegram on October 27, assuring Wilson that negotiations will be conducted by a people's government, in which the military is subordinate to the civil power. "The German government now awaits proposals for an Armistice which shall be a first step towards a just peace." In other words, unconditional surrender.

Austria-Hungary sends an identical note the same day.

With Germany disintegrating, so is the army. The 18th Landwehr Division refuses to go into quiet trenches in the Lorraine. 17th Army replacements from the Eastern Front mutiny and have to be disarmed by a Stoss battalion. The 2nd Guards Division has to go to Cologne to maintain order and round up the thousands of deserters streaming through the city, looting and drinking.

On October 29, the Imperial German Navy assembles under Admiral Franz Hipper in the Schillig Roads. The battleships are to put to sea for a massive raid on the Thames Estuary, backed by U-boats. This will shred British shipping and gravely damage the British fleet. Such a gesture is more than a last gamble to save naval honor, it is an attempt to influence armistice negotiations. Admiral Reinhard Scheer tells his men, "Vanquish or perish honorably."

The sailors, worn down by defeat and blockade, will have none of it. They have already tried to pierce the British blockade at Jutland. They sank some of Britain's finest ships, but failed to break the barrier. Now the British have solved the tactical weaknesses of Jutland and added powerful American squadrons to the Grand Fleet. Germany's Sailors have no desire to sail out on a "death ride" and become the last casualties of the last battle.

When they leave their barracks and board their ships, they refuse to sortie. Five times a stunned Hipper gives the order to sail and five times the stokers extinguish the fires in the boilers. "We do not put to sea, for us the war is over," they hoist on their signal flag blocks.

Hipper says, "I could not have carried out the operation even if weather conditions had permitted it." He has to train his big guns on his own ships and cancel the sortie. He throws 600 mutineers in the brig, and orders the High Seas Fleet to disperse back to its homeports.

There the mutinies break out again. Sailors murder their officers on proud dreadnoughts like the Friedrich Der Grosse and hoist red flags instead of the Imperial Ensign. Sailors leave their ships and set up Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. Others board trains and head to cities across the Reich to suborn mutiny and revolution. Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, Governor of Kiel, sends in his only loyal troops, the officer cadets, to suppress the revolt. They kill eight out of 3,000 mutineers, but can't put it down.

At the front, Britain's Col. Alan Brooke visits Douai to find the 1914 military cemetery well-kept, including a new German monument honoring the French, English, and German dead.

On October 30, Turkey signs an armistice with the Allies. The following day, the Hapsburg monarchy falls. Students and workers march through Budapest and Vienna, shouting, "Down with the Hapsburgs!" Revolutionaries take over Prague's Hradcany Castle, and declare an independent Czech state. The new Austrian Republic asks the Allies for an armistice.

On the same day, the Imperial War Cabinet meets in the Reichstag, and four members say that the Kaiser's abdication is both desirable and inevitable. Who should take the throne? Prince Max can't help. He's knocked into a three-day coma by Spanish Influenza, one of millions hit by this speedy and virulent germ. Prussian Minister of the Interior Dr. Wilhelm Drews draws the short straw and has to go to Spa to persuade S.M. to yield the Hohenzollern throne.

He does so on Friday, November 1, and the Kaiser is enraged, shouting "How comes it that you, a Prussian official, one of my subjects who have taken an oath of allegiance to me, have the insolence and effrontery to appear before me with a request like this?"

All Drews can do is offer a deep bow.

"Very well then, supposing I did," the All-Highest continues, yelling at the deaf Drews. "What do you suppose would happen next, you, an administrative official? My sons have assured me that none of them will take my place. So the whole house of Hohenzollern would go along with me. And who would then take on the regency for a 12-year-old child, my grandson? The Imperial Chancellor perhaps? I gather from Munich that they haven't the least intention of recognizing him down there. So what would happen? Chaos."

Drews is stunned. Wilhelm then gives out the "form chaos would take."

"I abdicate. All the dynasties fall along with me, the army is left leaderless, the front-line troops disband and stream across the Rhine. The disaffected gang up together, hang, murder, and plunder - assisted by the enemy. That is why I have no intention of abdicating. The King of Prussia cannot betray Germany. I have no intention of quitting the throne because of a few hundred Jews and a thousand workmen. Tell that to your masters in Berlin!"

The All-Highest summons Hindenburg and Groener and they also yell at Drews. After that, Hindenburg suggests the Kaiser go to the front and "look for death," saying that if he was killed or wounded, the German people's views of him would change dramatically. S.M. has no recorded answer.

The internal German political deadlock continues while the Allied military advance roars on. On November 3, Austria and Hungary sign an armistice with the Allies. The New Zealand Division storms the fortified town of Le Quesnoy, taking 2,500 POWs and 100 guns. Between November 1 and November 4, the three British armies haul in 19,000 POWs and more than 450 guns. On November 4, British poet Wilfred Owen is killed by German shellfire.

That day, the German government, facing 100,000 mutinous Navy sailors in all of its ports, issues a decree saying that the fleet will not be sacrificed in a needless battle. In Kiel, factory workers and 20,000 garrison troops join the revolt.

Also that day, Hindenburg sends Groener to Berlin, to tell Prince Max that the Army is defeated, and an immediate armistice must be sought.

Groener arrives in Berlin on the 6th, to find a telegram from the Kaiser waiting for him: it urges the Army to approach the enemy about an armistice. Groener tells Prince Max, "We must cross the lines with a white flag."

"But not for a week, at least," begs Prince Max, hoping for a miracle.

"A week is too long a time."

"But still not before Monday," the Chancellor says.

"Even that is too late. Saturday is the very latest." Prince Max hopes to gain some concessions between the 6th and the 12th. But Groener and Hindenburg want the war ended now, while the Army is still intact.

"I am convinced that we must take the step, however painful it is, and ask Foch," Groener tells the cabinet. It is Wednesday, November 6, and talks must be initiated no later than Friday, November 8. The Cabinet approves sending the delegation unanimously, just before noon. The High Command quickly seconds the resolution.

Now Ebert tells Groener that the Kaiser must be gone by Thursday, if the peace offer is to be taken seriously. Groener has to dash back to Spa and tell the All-Highest to step down.

No way, retorts Groener. The Army cannot be deprived of its Supreme War Lord. Scheidemann points out that the revolution is spreading. "This is not the time for further discussion; it is time to act. We do not know whether we will be sitting in these chairs tomorrow."

No. Groener won't violate his Fahnenheide to the Kaiser. Ebert says that events must therefore take their own course, and he thanks Groener for his outstanding work during the war. Groener heads back to Spa, racking up the railway mileage. Unfortunately for Groener, frequent flier miles are also a marvel yet to come.

In Munich comes more proof that quick action is needed. Mutinous sailors arrive there from Kiel and they join with dramatist Kurt Eisner to march on the local barracks, demanding an end to the Bavarian King Ludwig III's regime. Eisner comes straight out of a cartoon: wild hair, beard, unkempt clothes, spouting crazy rhetoric. Normally he is a comical figure.

Today, as he and his sailors and followers march on the barracks, the troops inside immediately hoist red flags, and join the revolt.

King Ludwig III is walking in the English Gardens when a passerby tells him his life is in danger. He returns to his palace to find his subjects packing the grounds, demanding his abdication. Unnoticed, he walks in the back entrance, packs his sick wife and four princesses, grabs a box of cigars, and the whole Wittelsbach family gets a ride from a passing car through the mob.

Supposedly, King Ludwig's last words to his subjects are "Take care of your own filth now!" While Ludwig drives off and into a potato field in the fog, Eisner is named Chairman of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of the Bavarian Republic, which opens shop in the Parliament building. Eisner's first move as head of the Bavarian Free State is to bar newspaper drama critics from harshly reviewing plays.

Now Prince Max has to create an Armistice delegation. In a land where obedience to authority and adherence to duty is the greatest virtue, nobody seems ready to assume the duty of signing Germany's surrender. The Foreign Ministry's liaison at Spa, Baron Kurt von Lessner, recommends Matthias Erzberger to head the team.

Erzberger, 43, plump, pince-nezed, is a rural schoolteacher turned Catholic Party politician. During the war, he has served as Director of Propaganda for Neutral Countries, but is regarded as a decent and honorable man. Count Alfred von Oberndorff, formerly Minister to Bulgaria is assigned from the Foreign Ministry. Maj. Gen. Detlev von Winterfeldt is assigned to represent the Army, while Captain Ernst Vanselow will provide the Navy's gold braid. No members of the Generalstab or field-marshals join this delegation. The field marshals are distancing themselves from the Armistice.

The train is set to leave Berlin at 5:05 p.m., but Erzberger doesn't have his credentials or even the names of his team as late as 3 p.m. A German Foreign Office mandarin complains to Erzberger, "The entire course of world history knew no precedents for making out the kind of document which was required."

Erzberger retorts, "There are no precedents for a World War in the Foreign Office files, either."

At 5:05 the train is ready to go, but Erzberger won't until he has his papers. At 5:15 a messenger arrives from the Wilhelmstrasse with a pile of papers headed, "Full Power." They authorize Erzberger "to conduct in the name of the German Government with the plenipotentiaries of the Powers allied against Germany negotiations for an armistice and to conclude an agreement to that effect, provided the same be approved by the German Government."

Also a note from Prince Max: "Obtain what mercy you can, Matthias, but for God's sake, make peace." Hoping that's enough, Erzberger hops into his train and off he goes, with Groener on the train as far as Spa.

As the train clatters across Germany, Erzberger scribbles out notes about his mission, including arguments to help the Kaiser keep his job. He also thinks about his son, Oskar, who died three weeks before of Spanish Influenza at the Karlruhe officers' school.

The train reaches Spa at 8 a.m. on Thursday, November 7, amid drenching rain. The OHL mechanics have a group of cars ready for Erzberger's trip across the lines, the Imperial eagles emblazoned on them, and two volunteer Army captains to drive. Hindenburg tells Erzberger, "Go with God's blessing and try to secure what you can for our Fatherland."

At noon, the five cars rumble off, a delegate in each, bouncing along narrow dirty roads. Autobahns have not been invented yet. The two lead cars smash into each other, so they are left behind. By 6 p.m., the party has reached Chimay, east of the French frontier, and the local general tells Erzberger they can go no further by night: the retreating troops have knocked down trees to block the roads against Allied advance.

Erzberger finds a field phone, and has the nearest corps commander send in troops to clear the road and remove land-mines. The commander promises to send troops, but points out that one of his divisions is down to 349 men and another to 437. According to OHL doctrine, a 1914 German infantry division is supposed to consist of 16,000 men.

With the roads cleared, the Germans start driving down the road, through a cease-fire area, a white towel mounted on the lead car. A trumpeter sitting in the lead car blasts four notes on his bugle to let the French know they are coming.

At the last German outpost, a Frontkämpfer calls out in Swabian dialect, "Where are you going?"

Erzberger answers, "To conclude an armistice."

"Do you really think that just the two of you can bring that off?" the Swabian shouts, only seeing Erzberger in the lead car. Erzberger doesn't know either.

At 9:20 p.m., his car jolts across the front line and into French territory. 150 meters beyond the German lines, the first poilus of the 171st Infantry appear, lanterns blazing. They halt Erzberger's convoy and Winterfeldt pops out of his car to make the introductions. A Captain Lhuillier squeezes into the car, and off they go through fog and rain, the bugle still trumpeting.

The French take the Germans across even worse roads, through blasted villages. Winterfeldt tells a French officer, "We are prepared to sign one of the most shameful capitulations in history. We are obliged to, because of the revolution. We don't even know if there will be a Germany tomorrow." The French are amazed. Passing poilus ask the Germans for cigarettes, but the Germans don't smoke.

At La Capelle, the Germans meet some higher-ranking French officers, at 1 a.m. on Friday, November 8th. They get their first meal since Spa, soup, salt meat, and peas. Replacement cars arrive for the battered German vehicles, and the delegation climbs aboard. These cars head west through even worse roads - they are now in the old trench zone. The French officers point out that the Germans are responsible for the destruction.

Finally, they reach the railhead, lit by torches, guarded by Chasseurs. The Germans shuffle aboard the carriage to discover it is Napoleon III's personal train. Winterfeldt ponders that his father helped settle the terms of Napoleon's surrender to Prussia in 1870.

A French officer points out a shell hole near the tracks, and says, "That was a delayed-action shell. It exploded three weeks after the Germans left. I hope there are none under our train. I don't wish to blow you up, or be blown up with you."

Winterfeldt answers, "The High Command has never ordered destruction of this sort, which are very regrettable and must be ascribed to isolated incidents."

The Germans are offered brandy and allowed to rest. They fall asleep on the plush couches in their fancy suits. The train chugs off into the night, headed for a railway artillery operating area near Réthondes, in the forest of Compiegne, 40 miles from Paris.

At 9 a.m., Paris time, the train creaks to a halt in the forest at Réthondes, next to another three-car private train. The Germans cross a wooden platform in the foggy, drizzly, morning, led by Marshal Ferdinand Foch's senior aide, the wiry, weasel-like General Maxime Weygand.

The Germans face two Allied flag officers: Britain's First Sea Lord Sir Rosslyn Wemyss and Foch, opposite a huge table in the Wagon-Lits. No Americans, Belgians, or Italians. Foch gives the Germans a military salute and places his kepi on the table.

The Germans bow in respect. Foch asks for the German credentials, and Foch retires with his staff to examine them. A few minutes later, he returns, motions everyone to the conference table and its chairs. There he asks Erzberger to introduce his exhausted delegation, in their wrinkly suits and uniforms. After that, Foch introduces his own staff.

Finally Foch turns to his official interpreter and asks the opening icy question. "Ask these gentlemen what they want." Field Marshal Montgomery will echo this question 25 years later to another group of surrendering Germans.

Erzberger is stunned. "We have come to inquire into the terms of an armistice, to be concluded on land, on sea, and in the air," he says.

Foch half rises from his chair and answers: "Tell these gentlemen that I have no proposals to make."

The Germans are puzzled. Oberndorff asks in French, "Monsieur le Maréchal, surely this is too serious a moment to quarrel over words. How would you like us to express ourselves? It is a matter of complete indifference to us."

"It is for you gentlemen to say what you want."

Erzberger gestures Oberndorff to continue. "As you are aware, Monsieur le Maréchal, we are here as a result of a note from the President of the United States." Oberndorff reads the note in English. It concludes by saying that Foch is authorized to furnish armistice conditions to a German delegation. "If I understand this aright," Oberndorff says, "this means that you will communicate to us the armistice terms."

Foch says, "I will acquaint you with the Allies' conditions when you have asked for an armistice. Do you ask for an armistice?"

"Yes!" Erzberger and Oberndorff shout in German and relief.

Foch is satisfied. He gestures to Weygand to read the Armistice terms, which have been decided by Foch, Pershing, and Haig the days before. Of the three generals, Haig is the most skeptical about the terms. He has written his wife that "The war to end all wars is ending in a peace to end all peace." For once, the bullheaded British field marshal is accurate. Weygand's terms are unbelievably harsh and firm.

An apocryphal story about this meeting says that it starts with Weygand reading a set of terms that cause Erzberger to gasp, "There must be some mistake. These are terms which no civilized nation could impose on another."

Supposedly Foch's reply is as follows: "I am very glad to hear you say so. No gentlemen, those are not our terms. You have been listening to a careful translation of the terms imposed upon Lille by the German commander when that city surrendered. Here are my terms."

Weygand reads them aloud.

There are 34 clauses all told. The Germans must immediately evacuate all occupied territory including the Alsace-Lorraine. They must also pull all their troops east of the Rhine River and allow Allied bridgeheads at Mainz, Coblenz, and Cologne, all up to 30 kilometers radius. This must be accomplished in 14 days.

The Germans must repatriate all Allied POWs and civilian prisoners, while the Allies retain their captives.

Germany must also surrender, in good condition, the following: 2,500 heavy guns, 2,500 field guns, 25,000 machine-guns, 3,000 trench mortars, 1,700 airplanes, including all night bombers, and 120 U-boats. When Erzberger points out that the German Navy doesn't have that many left, the clause is changed to "all German submarines."

The Germans must also turn over for internment in British ports with only caretaker crews: six battlecruisers, 10 battleships, eight light cruisers, and 50 modern destroyers.

The Reich must also yield up to Allied control 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 railway cars "in good repair" and 10,000 trucks.

Also left in place in Clause 26 is the Allied blockade of Germany. Although the war is over, the Germans still cannot import food.

Clause 19 contains Clemenceau's time bomb: "With the reservation that any subsequent concessions and claims by the Allies and United States remain unaffected, the following financial conditions are imposed: Reparations for damage done…"

This will begin the French drive for economic reprisals that will make Germany "pay for the war" and hopefully devitalize their great enemy.

Vanselow listens to the terms in tears. The other Germans are stunned and silent. They are facing the abject defeat they inflicted on Belgium, Rumania, and Russia.

Weygand finishes reading, snaps his folder shut, and tells the Germans they have 72 hours in which to accept the terms.

Erzberger is horrified. He begs for hostilities to end immediately, pointing out that the German army is disintegrating. Foch, who took command of an army to defend Paris on the day he learned of the deaths of his son and son-in-law, is cold, staring straight ahead, with steely eyes.

"It is impossible to stop military operations until the German delegation has accepted and signed the conditions which are the consequence of those operations."

The Germans plead communications problems. Foch is unmoved. Erzberger can use Weygand's good offices to contact Berlin. The 72-hour time period begins at the moment Foch rises and checks his watch, 11 a.m., Paris time.

The Germans walk back to their dining car through the rain and then bring a message to send to Spa at 11:30. They confess failure to achieve an immediate cease-fire and say a courier is headed to Spa with the terms. Erzberger doesn't want to transmit the terms by radio, as any operator might pick them up and broadcast them to the mutinous and disaffected German troops.

Capt. Von Helldorf sets off at noon to head back to the German lines and finds that nobody on his side is aware he's coming. His white flags and bugle calls are greeted with bullets. By nightfall, he still hasn't made it through the outposts.

But the rain has let up, so another courier, Captain Geyer, with a French pilot, takes off in a two-seat Breguet biplane, trailing two white streamers. After that, the German delegation can do nothing but sit glumly in their train, held incommunicado, staring at the poilu sentries and their Lebel rifles.

The day of Saturday, November 9, 1918, is one of the most decisive in German history, and it is an astounding irony that so many of Germany's major events will follow on November 9: the Munich Putsch of 1923, Kristallnacht of 1938, the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Yet two of those following events directly owe their existence to November 9, 1918.

As the sun rises on the forest at Réthondes and Erzberger's weary team on November 9, 1918, it also rises on Germany's divided cities and tries to cut through rain and mist at the OHL, the Oberkommando das Heeresleitung, the Army supreme headquarters, at Spa. Germany's military, civilian, and dynastic leaders confront with varying degrees of belief and acceptance that a nation is disintegrating before their eyes.

The reports of the disasters of November 8 trickle in to Berlin and Spa. In Metz, 10,000 mutineers take over the fortress city and proclaim a Soldiers' Council. Red flags fly over German ports, Munich, and even Berlin, where the Social Democrats are demanding the Kaiser's ouster. The division selected to cover the rear of the OHL has instead begun to disintegrate, with men going home.

All across Germany, thrones are being toppled or renounced: in Bavaria, Brunswick, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The Cabinet votes late on the 8th to recommend abdication as the only means of staving off civil war. If the Kaiser refuses, the government will collapse. Prince Max begs the Kaiser do abdicate as "your relative and as a German prince. This voluntary sacrifice is necessary to keep your good name in history…"

The Kaiser listens to this phone call and retorts that if necessary he will return as head of the Army, and fight the civilians. And he will not let Prince Max resign. "You sent out the armistice offer; you will also have to accept the conditions," the All-Highest barks.

Then the Kaiser goes to bed.

After the sun rises on Berlin on November 9, Social Democrat Philipp Schiedemann resigns from the Cabinet, citing the Kaiser's refusal to step down. Admiral Paul von Hintze, the Foreign Office liaison in Spa, phones Berlin to say that the Generalstab has decided to inform the Kaiser that the Army will not support an effort to put down the revolution.

"Too late!" Ebert answers. "The ball has been set rolling. One factory has already gone into the streets."

It has indeed. Tens of thousands of Berliners defy the "state of siege" declared in 1917 and march down the Unter Den Linden, demanding abdication. They carry placards aimed at the Army, reading, "Brothers, don't shoot!"

Workers drive trucks festooned with red flags through the streets, singing radical songs. By early morning, the Reichshauptstadt is under a general strike, and the police officers, who normally command obedience by their mere presence, are nowhere to be found.

Prince Max stares down from the Reichstag at the marching workers and their red banners, and knows the Kaiser must go. He repeatedly phones the Kaiser's residence at Spa, only getting busy signals. The signal clerks have left the phones off their hooks.

All across the Reich, the old order collapses. On the 8th, Duke Ernst of Brunswick can only lock his doors in his castle. A Workers' Council has taken over the rest of Brunswick, occupying civil offices and releasing all the prisoners.

Now, on the 9th, mutinous soldiers and the council break down the locks and demand to see His Highness. The Duke says he will only talk to his own people. That request sends most of the people out of the room. The Duke tells his countrymen that he has no military authority, and sympathizes with their plight. The citizens leave sheepishly. One man pockets a cigarette box, but puts it back when his pals note the act.

A short time later, the actual Workers' Council arrives, wearing red armbands and cockades, demanding the Duke's abdication. All of the top officials have been arrested. "If you want to do that," says the Duke, "believe me, it's a great relief to be absolved of all responsibilities."

Off he goes, with his wife and children, including the one daughter who will become Queen Frederika of Greece.

But at the Kaiser's headquarters at Spa, all is still calm and relatively Kaisertreu. The city is shrouded by fog, which figuratively shrouds it from the outside world.

No one will suggest to S.M. that he abdicate. But privately, Groener, Hindenburg, and the other officers know that the All-Highest has to flee. Even the troops around fog-covered Spa can no longer be trusted. Spa is only 60 kilometers from the neutral Dutch border. If the Kaiser flees, his departure could save the crown for a son or grandson.

But no one is willing to bell the cat. Generals who swear oaths of obedience to an All-Highest do not break them lightly. This German trait will come back to haunt the Reich in a second war when the Generalstab confronts the battle between their consciences and their oaths to their Fuhrer.

While the phones are off the hooks at the Chateau de la Fraineuse, the Kaiser's residence, there is less detachment from reality at OHL. Hindenburg and Groener study the grim telegrams and memoranda from their subordinates and head by car from headquarters to the Chateau. On the way over, the laconic Hindenburg tells Groener that the latest news has convinced Hindenburg that the Kaiser must abdicate and leave Germany. The two top Army officers must recommend that to S.M.

At the Chateau, the Kaiser has just returned from a walk in the black pinewoods with his aide, Lt. Col. Alfred Niemann. Hindenburg begins by asking his "liege, lord, and king" to accept his resignation. As an officer of the Prussian Army he cannot recommend abdication to his Kaiser.

Groener, however, holds his commission from the Duchy of Wurttemberg, and to him, the All-Highest is President of the German Confederation with the title of Emperor (Kaiser). It is a feudal subtlety that Groener may not appreciate, but he assumes the role. At the very least, Groener enjoys the Kaiser's warmth, as he has always given the All-Highest complete reports on the Field Railway Department's workings.

S.M. stands with his back to the fireplace, withered left arm tucked behind him, as Groener lays out the alternatives. The front-line situation is hopeless, deteriorating daily and even hourly. There is no possibility of a military action against the mutineers, who control the Reich's transport, communications, and supply depots. Berlin and other major cities are in revolt, dynasties collapsing. An armistice must be accepted on whatever terms are offered, and as soon as possible. Groener doesn't say it, but he doesn't have to: the Kaiser must go.

S.M. turns to the handy Count Friedrich von der Schulenberg, chief of staff of the Crown Prince's Army Group, for an opinion. The Count gives an opposite opinion. The troops are loyal, fighting heroically, and they could easily move against Bolshevik mutineers when they are told "how they had been disgracefully betrayed by the Navy and how their food supplies were threatened by a crowd of Jews, war profiteers, slackers and deserters."

Schulenberg knows his audience. The All-Highest has already stated that "I wouldn't dream of abandoning the throne on account of a few hundred Jews and a few thousand workers." The Kaiser's anti-Semitism is huge. Yet the only German of importance who commits suicide over the Kaiser's impending abdication is a Jew, Albert Ballin, head of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. That very day, he shoots himself, aware that he will face a revolutionary court for his work as a financial backer of the Kaiser's war.

This paradox is unknown in Spa. Schulenberg continues, saying that the solution would be to attack cities in revolt, using all the modern weapons: bombers, gas, and flamethrowers, on German streets, towns, and people.

Before anyone can register shock, the Adjutant General, Hans von Plessen, says, "His Majesty cannot purely and simply capitulate to the revolution. Everything must be done to restore order." He backs Schulenberg.

Groener brings the medaled courtiers to earth. "Sire, you no longer have an Army. The army will march home in peace and order under its leaders and generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty."

Groener's bluntness stuns the court. Wilhelm turns icy. "Excellency, I shall require that statement from you in black and white, signed by all my generals, that the army no longer stands behind its Commander-in-Chief. Have they not taken the military oath to me?"

With the air growing thick in the chateau, all hands move into the garden, and walk around in separate groups through the chilly fog, pondering their next moves.

Admiral Paul von Hintze, the Foreign Office deputy, and Baron Wernher von Grunau from the Chancellery soon arrive with the latest news from Berlin. The city is on strike, although vast tracts of businesses and government agencies have been granted union exemption. Butchers, bakers, brewers, restaurant workers, custodial and nursing personnel, electrical, even street-cleaning workers are on a vast list of exempted employees that must go to their jobs. Coffee-house workers are the only food-and-beverage handlers allowed to strike. But there are still enough disaffected munitions workers and mutinous soldiers and sailors to create an atmosphere of chaos in the Reichhauptstadt.

General von Plessen finds a way out: perhaps the Kaiser can just yield the Imperial throne, not that of Prussia.

Schulenberg, kaisertreu to the end, says, "In any and every circumstance the Emperor should remain King of Prussia. He should gather his Prussians around him, and then see what the nation would do! If the Emperor's abdication was inevitable, the crown of Prussia should be saved from the wreck." Everybody except Groener grabs this subtle ambiguity immediately, and suggests it to the Crown Prince when he arrives from his beleaguered Tac HQ.

The puffy-faced Crown Prince looks soft, but his rhetoric is ferocious. "See what you gain by widening the government? When the process is complete you are shown the door," he observes caustically.

He says the mutinous sailors should be shot. Once he's put in the picture, the Crown Prince agrees his father should remain King of Prussia.

"Obviously," agrees the All-Highest.

At 1 p.m., Groener returns with Col. Wilhelm Heye, who will spend a good chunk of the next 10 years secretly re-arming the Reichswehr. Heye has a report from regimental rank officers on whether the army will follow the Kaiser to crush the Bolshevik revolt.

Heye has bad news: "The troops remain loyal to His Majesty, but they are tired and indifferent and want nothing but rest and peace. At the present moment, they would not march against Germany, even with Your Majesty at their head. They would not march against Bolshevism. They want one thing only - an armistice at the earliest possible moment. For the conclusion of an armistice every hour gained is of importance."

The Kaiser takes this without emotion. The Generalstab shift from one foot to another nervously. Finally, Schulenberg asks whether German troops would abandon their "War Lord" and their oath to the colors.

Groener blurts out, "Oath to the colors? War Lord? Der Fahnenheide ist jetzt nur eine Idee." The loyalty oath is only words, not an idea.

Schulenberg roars that no officer would so disgrace himself as to desert the Emperor in the face of the enemy.

Groener's answer is cold and harsh. "I have other information."

Stunned silence. The generalstab, with their red-striped pants, chateaux, and good meals served on Dresden china, cannot argue with Groener, a Frontkampfer.

Heye suggests: "If Your Majesty wishes to march with them the troops will ask nothing better and be delighted; but the army will fight no more, either abroad or at home."

Schulenberg suggests that perhaps the Kaiser can still go home. Von Hintze snorts, "His Majesty has no need of an army in order to take a walk. His Majesty needs an army which would fight for him."

Amid this discussion, the phone rings: Prince Max again, finally getting through. The Kaiser must "save a desperate situation by abdicating." It is 1:15 on the clock.

That's it. In a hoarse voice, the All-Highest orders Von Hintze to phone Berlin: the Kaiser is prepared to renounce the Imperial Crown, if "thereby alone general civil war in Germany were to be avoided," but he will remain King of Prussia. The Kaiser will also yield his post as Commander-in-Chief to Hindenburg. Wilhelm will remain with the Prussian troops.

Schulenberg points out that a statement of this magnitude must be written, so he and Von Hintze reach for the Imperial Stationery and telegraph forms to do so.

Meanwhile, the All-Highest and his flunkies stride off to have lunch in the Imperial railway train, leaving the Crown Prince to observe, "After a good lunch and a good cigar, things will look better."

Nobody believes that. Back in Berlin, strikers and mutineers are marching down the Unter Den Linden and the Wilhelmstrasse, waving red flags. They shout, "Down with the Kaiser! Down with the War!"

When an ancient white-haired general drives down the Koniggratzerstrasse in an open cab, strikers haul him out of the taxi. "I am no longer active. I have taken an honorable part in three campaigns. Give me leave to go home," the general begs. The mob strips him of his epaulets and decorations and sends him home on foot.

Among the shocked witnesses is Prince Max, who gropes for solution as the day wears on until noon. With no answer to his phone calls, he suggests that Hindenburg be named Imperial Deputy until a Hohenzollern is chosen as Kaiser. But the president of the Supreme Court scotches that notion. The alternatives are either abdication and handing the government to Ebert or a Spartacist-Bolshevik revolution.

Prince Max gives up the ghost. He summons Ebert and a crew of Social Democrats head for the Reichskanzlei to take over the government. They claim full confidence of the people and support of the city's army garrisons. All the barracks commanders are wearing Social Democrat badges.

Prince Max has one more order before handing over the seals to Ebert: loyal troops are not to fire on the crowds ready to seize the Wilhelmstrasse. Guards are to be withdrawn. Most of them have gone anyway.

Next, Prince Max asks Ebert if he is ready to accept the office of Imperial Chancellor.

"It is a hard task, but I am prepared to take it on," Ebert says.

Will Ebert take the office under the Monarchical Constitution?

Ebert must consult his colleagues.

"Now," says Prince Max, "We must solve the question of the Regency."

"It is too late for that," Ebert answers. But the job is his. He starts working out his cabinet and issuing proclamations to maintain law and order. He'll worry about the Hohenzollern family later.

Meanwhile, Liebknecht and some like-minded supporters stage the other coup of the day, invading the vacant Imperial Castle, where they will announce a Soviet Republic, doing so one year and two days after the coup in Russia. Someone from the new government will have to forestall the revolutionary, at least with rhetoric. Someone suggests Schiedemann, the Social Democratic Party leader, who is having lunch in the Reichstag while awaiting his new cabinet post in the Ebert government.

Schiedemann is hustled from his watery potato soup at 2 p.m. to address the crowd, which is singing revolutionary songs. Spontaneously, he leans over the Reichstag rail, yelling, "Workers and Soldiers! This cursed war is at an end! Most of the garrisons have joined us! The people have won all along the line. Long live the new! Long live the great German Republic!" Then back to his soup.

When Ebert hears of this impromptu address, he storms over to Schiedemann, and thumps the table, spilling the soup. "Is it true?" Ebert shouts.

Yes, Schiedemann has merely acknowledged the inevitable.

Ebert bangs the table again, scattering more potato. "You have no right to proclaim the Republic! What Germany is to be - a republic or whatever - is for a Constituent Assembly to decide!" Now Ebert has no choice. Despite all the vagueness, the German public accepts the abdication as a fact.

At 4 p.m., Liebknecht proclaims the "Free Socialist Republic of Germany" anyway, saying: "A Hohenzollern will never again stand at this place. Those among you who want world revolution, raise your hands and swear!" Thousands of arms shoot up, but nobody seems to want to fight. The mid-day Postdamer Platz traffic rumbles past the demonstration anyway. Hjalmar Schacht, Nazi Germany's future finance minister and war crimes defendant, watches the spectacle and sees it as Germany's disrupted condition, "revolution in trucks, apathy in the streets."

Liebknecht makes a few more speeches, but joins Ebert's government the next day. Still, the damage is done: the Ebert government has announced the Kaiser's abdication anyway.

The word of Schiedemann's announcement reaches Spa quickly, but not from Ebert. It comes from the German Wolff news agency, who fires off this scoop to the waiting world. The Kaiser is out of a job, and he doesn't even know it. When he learns, he is stunned, asking in a faltering voice if this news is true.

"It is a coup d'etat," Schulenberg gasps, "An act of violence to which Your Majesty should not yield."

The Kaiser is livid. "Treason, gentlemen!" he bellows "Barefaced, outrageous treason!" He grabs a telegraph form - his usual weapon - and starts writing a manifesto of protest.

Back in Berlin, Wilhelm's brother, Prince Henry, who reads and enjoys the anti-Semitic forgery "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," slaps a red band on his sleeve and flees the city. Revolutionaries enter the Crown Princess's palace and coolly tell her that revolutionary soldiers have been detailed for her protection.

A shopkeeper named Schlesinger hoists a red blanket over the Imperial Palace's main balcony as a revolutionary flag, and begs the crowd not to ransack it, as it is now public property. Rebellious sailors from Kiel seize the place anyway and start looting it for food. They find plenty: 800 sacks of snow-white Ukrainian flour, countless bags of coffee, boxes of tea, preserves, thousands of eggs, pots of lard, bottles of sauce, rows of sugar-loaf, dried beans, chocolate, cigars, and cigarettes.

After gorging themselves, the Sailors fire off shots in all directions, one of which smashes through a window and mirror above the fireplace in the Adlon Hotel, where Count Bernstorff, the last German ambassador to America, and his wife are taking refuge.

Emil Eichhorn of the extreme left-wing Independent Socialists marches into the Chief of Police's Office and proclaims himself in that role, backed by a mob. The cops don't resist. They stack their arms in neat piles, discard their uniforms, and go home. Eichhorn recruits 650 prisoners from the police prison, who were jailed during earlier demonstrations and some likely-looking recruits from his mob to support him. They head off into the gathering dusk to seize the newspaper offices, town halls, and the telegraph office.

At 5 p.m., Prince Max returns to the Chancellery, pushing through the crowds to say farewell to Ebert and history. By now the Reich Chancellery is empty, and Max's heels clack and re-echo through the halls.

"I should like you to remain on as Administrator of the Empire," Ebert says, making one more try to keep the monarchy, or least a legal fiction to validate his occupancy of the Reichskanzlei.

Max politely declines. At the door, he turns back. "Herr Ebert, I commit the German Empire to your keeping!"

Ebert has a grim answer. "I have lost two sons for this Empire."

At 3:30 in Spa, the Crown Prince heads back to his HQ, shaking hands with his father. They won't see each other for another year.

Hintze meets with Hindenburg and Groener, to figure out what to do next. Can the Kaiser in Spa annul an abdication proclaimed in Berlin? No, that would lead to civil war. What about a written protest to say the Berlin statements have no value. That won't work, either.

They cannot turn the All-Highest over to the revolutionary government. The certainty is that S.M. and his family will face a firing squad, like his cousin, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, in June. The memories of the blood-spattered "House of Special Purpose" in Ekaterinburg, and the pile of burned Imperial Russian bones in the nearby well, which has just been taken by White forces, are clear in the Generalstab's conscience. They may not be able to save their Emperor's throne, but they can preserve his skin.

All right then, how to save the Kaiser's life, since going home is "inopportune" and "impossible?"

The flag officers toss around various ideas, but the only reasonable choices are flight to Holland or Switzerland by train or car. Holland, with a friendly monarchy, is the nearest and best choice. Hindenburg, leading Hintze, Groener, and Grunau, stumps back to the royal villa to give S.M. the bad news.

"My God," the All-Highest bellows on seeing them, "Are you back already?" He turns on Groener. "You no longer have a War Lord."

Hindenburg tries again, saying, "I cannot accept the responsibility of seeing the Emperor hauled to Berlin by insurgent troops and delivered over as a prisoner to the Revolutionary Government. I must advise Your Majesty to abdicate and proceed to Holland."