The events which led up to the collapse of Germany and flight of William II. in Nov. 1918 were political as well as military. Even so stout a Catholic conservative as the Chancellor, Count Hertling, had described the Prussian franchise question, for example, as " a matter of life and death for the dynasty." Internal reforms were long overdue, and this one had been prom- ised in the Kaiser's edicts of April and July 1017, though only as a result of the apprehensions excited by the revolution in Russia. The obstinacy of the Prussian reactionary Chamber of Deputies and the Upper House delayed the reform until the monarchy fell. In the Reichstag the Imperial prerogatives especially the right in certain circumstances to make war and peace were being dealt with by a committee on the Constitu- tion. Prince Max of Baden's Coalition Government, which included several Social Democrats, was avowedly installed for the purpose of introducing Parliamentary Government as well as for making peace. Here again reform came too late.
On Aug. 14 1918, the alarm which Ludendorff had communi- cated to the Kaiser regarding events in the field and the moral of the German troops had induced William II. and his political advisers to contemplate applying to Queen Wilhelmina of Holland for mediation, but nothing was done for some weeks. In the middle of Sept. the Kaiser addressed to the workmen at Krupp's an appealing speech which showed that he recognized the military situation and the internal conditions of Germany to be almost desperate. He returned at the beginning of Oct. from headquarters at Spa to Berlin.
Meanwhile an urgent appeal by Hindenburg and Ludendorff to the German Government to open negotiations at once for an armistice had reveabd the desperate state of affairs at the front to the members of the Government, including the Social Dem- ocrats. Shortly after the Emperor's return, the constitutional changes limiting his prerogatives had been adopted by the Reichstag, and the bill was awaiting his signature. On Oct. 28 he accepted the constitutional law in a letter to Prince Max, in which he avowed sentiments with regard to the rights and duties of the representatives of the people which might have saved his dynasty if he had expressed them years or perhaps even some months earlier. The question of his abdication had now defi- nitely arisen and was being ventilated toward the end of Oct. in the Socialist and the Democratic press. President Wilson's frank declaration that he could not trust the word of the exist- ing rulers of Germany gave a great impetus to the discussion. William II. on the throne, whatever might be his revised sen- timents, was regarded in Germany as an obstacle to peace. The Independent Socialists had gone further than the other parties of the Left and, through the mouth of their leader, Haase, had declared in the Reichstag that it was no longer a question of the Kaiser alone, but of the Prussian and other German dynasties. The Majority Socialists, who at that stage would have been satisfied with the abdication of William II. and the renunciation of the Crown Prince's rights to the succes- sion, were forced by the attitude of the Socialist left wing to make at least the Kaiser question most urgent. Scheidemann, in his book Dcr Ztisammenbruch (1920), gives an account of the reception of the members of the Imperial Government by the Emperor on Oct. 20 1918 at Bellevue Castle in Berlin. It was the first time (with the exception of a parliamentary soiree at the residence of Dr. Helfferich in July 191 7, at the time of the so-called Peace Resolution) that William II. had met the new Social Democratic Secretaries of State, men whom he had for- merly described in public speeches as " fellows without a coun- try." Scheidemann gays that the Emperor, in uniform, advanced holding in his hand a piece of cardboard, on both sides of which on typewritten sheets the words he was to address to his new ministers were pasted. William II. wore a forced smile and moved the cardboard sheet to and fro as if he meant to say " You know how these things are made up." He read the ad- dress with a loud voice, and " it would have made an excellent impression," Scheidemann says, " if it had been delivered some years earlier." It expressed the intention that nowhere in the world should there be freer institutions than in Germany. It
concluded, however, with a reference to " the last breath and the last blow " a phrase which was singularly out of place in view of the desperate efforts to obtain an armistice. The Kaiser afterward affably conversed with the Socialists who were pre- sented to him. After he had departed, it was decided by the Ministry that the speech should not be published, as the situ- ation was so far advanced that it would have made a ridicu- lous impression.
William II. knew what was in the air, and on Oct. 30 he quietly left Berlin for the western front. The revolution now broke out in the navy at Kiel and on Nov. 7 at Munich. Every- thing had been prepared by the Independent Socialists for the Berlin outbreak which came on the gth, although another date had originally been contemplated. The Governmental Socialists, unable to control the movement, felt themselves constrained to address an ultimatum on the abdication question to the Chan- cellor, Prince Max. Emissaries from the Government had been at Spa from Nov. 3 urging the Emperor to abdicate, but he was stubborn and considered that it was his duty to remain and save Germany from Bolshevism. " Moreover," he said, " I should willingly work with the new order and the new Govern- ment; various gentlemen in it whom I have met are very sympa- thetic to me." On the morning of Nov. 9 Hindenburg was early at the Villa Fraineuse, the Emperor's quarters at Spa. The field-marshal had had a thorough discussion of the sit- uation with representatives of the different army commanders, and at one o'clock he sent a final report to the Villa Fraineuse stating that, in the fairly unanimous opinion of the generals, the troops could still be relied upon to fight against the enemy, but would never fight against tjieir own comrades, i.e. in defence of the Kaiser and the Prussian dynasty. Meanwhile, abdica- tion was constantly being urged by telephone from Berlin. About two o'clock a precise answer was sent to Berlin that the Kaiser abdicated as German Emperor but not as King of Prussia. The reply came by telephone: " Too late: we have already pub- lished his abdication." To the Crown Prince, who had arrived for luncheon, the Emperor said as he departed about three: " Tell the soldiers that it is not true that I have abdicated as King of Prussia." Later, Hindenburg arrived at the Villa with Gen. Greener and Adml. Scheer. It was then " put in the Kaiser's mouth " to abdicate as King of Prussia also. When he left the conference he said to Count Dohna-Schlodien, his aide-de-camp, "You have no longer any Supreme War Lord."
All the afternoon and evening his suite urged him, in view of the feeling among the troops, to escape to Holland. He at first refused, but consented to go and dine in the Imperial train. On the way he said: " I am so awfully ashamed. I cannot find it in my heart to do this. I cannot go away. If there be but one faithful battalion here, I shall remain at Spa." He thus was contemplating a fratricidal war in defence of his crown. In the train one alarming message after another arrived regarding disorder on the lines of communication and concerning the approach of retreating troops to Spa. To those around him the Kaiser said: " At other times I have always known what to do, now I am at a loss." At 10 P.M. Adml. von Hintze urged him to start, for " in an hour it might be too late." The Kaiser finally said: " To facilitate peace for the nation I shall go to Holland. If I went to Germany, it would be supposed that I wanted to rally a new party to help me to make a coup d'etat." He now con- sidered himself relieved from any duties toward the army, as it had left him in the lurch; nor did he recognize any duty to- ward the Government which, on its own responsibility, had an- nounced his abdication.
At 5 o'clock next morning, 1 Nov. 10, the Emperor left his train and, with a small suite, fled in motor-cars across the Dutch frontier to Eysden, where he arrived about 8 A.M. According to one account (Lady Norah Bentinck's The ex-Kaiser in Exile), he had walked up to a Dutch soldier at the frontier, saying, " I am the German Emperor," and had offered his sword; but no one knew what to do. At 10 A.M. his rail- way train arrived at Eysden, and he took refuge in it and there
'According to some accounts he departed during the night.
