of Baden issued for the whole empire. In the summer and
autumn of the year 1918 there were instances of insubordina-
tion in one or two Bavarian garrison towns among troops who
were being sent off to relieve regiments at the front. Such
breaches of discipline indicated opposition to the war in the
army and among the population. Eisner was set up by the
Independent Socialists in Oct. 1918 as their candidate at a by-
election for the Reichstag in the constituency of Munich. At
a series of election meetings he advocated the idea of a violent
rising of the masses with the object of rapidly ending the war
and overthrowing the ruling authorities.
After the War. On Nov. 7 the Social Democratic party and the Independent Socialists organized a mass-meeting on the Theresienwiese, a large park in Munich, in favour of peace; it was attended by about 150,000 workmen and passed off without incident. After the close of the meeting, however, Eisner with his adherents marched through the city, called out the soldiers from the barracks, occupied the guard-house of the royal residence, and formed on the same evening a provisional Workmen's and Soldiers' Council which held its first sitting in the building of the Diet. It sat all night, and a proclamation issued in the early hours of the morning an- nounced the deposition of the dynasty and the conversion of Bavaria into a republic. As the soldiers, with the exception of the officers, were almost unanimously in sympathy with the action of Eisner, and as the working classes and the rural peasantry led by the two Farmers' Leaguers, Joseph and Karl Gandorfer, made common cause with him, no serious resistance was offered. The King had left Munich on the evening of Nov. 7 and taken refuge in the castle of Anif in Salzburg. On Nov. 8 the Work- men's and Soldiers' Council in Munich elected a new revolution- ary Government with Eisner at its head as Minister-President. Other members of the new Ministry, in addition to Majority and Independent Socialists, were Prof. Jaffe as Minister of Finance and the former Minister von Frauendorfer as Minister of Communications. The new Government issued on Nov. 15 an elaborate programme, and Eisner himself endeavoured by the appointment of the pacifist Prof. Dr. Foerster as diplomatic envoy to Berne and by wireless messages to the Allies to pro- mote the conclusion of peace on tolerable conditions. He encountered vigorous opposition in the Bavarian press, in- cluding Socialist journals, on account of these proceedings and above all on account of his hostility to the Government of the Commissaries of the People which had just been formed in Berlin. There was a powerful movement in favour of instituting general elections for the Constituent Bavarian National As- sembly, but Eisner only yielded to it on Dec. 5. The elections were fixed for Jan. 12 1919. On Jan. 6 1919 the revolutionary Government issued an ordinance setting up a provisional constitution, which conferred upon the Ministry supreme executive powers and a veto upon decisions of the Diet. In the event of the veto's being employed, the vote of the people was to give the final decision. The revolutionary Government was, moreover, to exercise legislative powers until the enact- ment of a definitive constitution. The elections of Jan. 12 resulted in a powerful displacement of political power towards the Left. The Bavarian People's Party (Volkspartei), which had constituted itself on an independent basis as the successor of the Catholic Centre party in Bavaria, won 66 seats, the German People's Party (former National Liberals) and the German Nationalists (old Conservatives) nine seats, the Farm- ers' League 15 seats, the Democrats 25 seats, and the Social Democrats 62 seats.
The National Assembly was convoked for Feb. 21. Mean- while the masses had become more and more extremist in the Bavarian capital. There were repeated demonstrations which led to collisions and riots. Although Eisner made great efforts to prevent bloodshed, he could not make up his mind to dissociate himself unequivocally from the extremist elements which were coquetting with Bolshevist ideas. On Feb. 21, when on his way to the Diet in order to inform it of the resignation of the revolutionary Government and to invite it to elect a new
ministry, he was shot dead by Count Arco, a former officer. Before the Assembly could adopt any attitude towards this assassination, it was broken up by the infuriated adherents of Eisner. Men armed with pistols stormed the House and the Social Democratic Minister of the Interior, Auer, who had been wrongly accused of participation in the conspiracy against Eisner, was severely wounded by a shot in the chest, while one deputy and one official were mortally wounded. There followed a period of lawlessness when everyone did as he pleased, since there was no organ of any kind for exercising the sovereign powers of State. The Congress of Councils (Soviets), which met after the assassination of Eisner, arrogated to itself supreme power, and it was only after protracted negotiations between this Congress and the Social Democratic party, which had identified itself with the opposition in the provinces to the usurpation of the Munich Congress, that it was possible to form a new Government. The Social Democratic deputy, Hoff- mann, who had been Minister of Education under Eisner, undertook the presidency of the Ministry; the Government was composed of Independent (extreme) and Majority (moderate) Socialists. The National Assembly met for one brief sitting and transferred the power of legislation to the Ministry until law and order could be reestablished. Meanwhile things did not settle down; on the contrary, the situation in the capital became more and more confused. As the Government did not consider that it possessed in Munich the power to carry through its will, it left the city two days before the proclamation of the Councils (Soviet) Republic and betook itself to Northern Bavaria, where it hoped to find support among those sections of the population whose opinions were Democratic. In Munich a dictatorship of a number of extremists, under the influence of Bolshevists such as Levin and Levine-Nissen, held sway for four weeks under the name of Councils Republic. The fugitive Socialist Government took up its residence at Bamberg, where the National Assembly also met. With the military support of the Reich, action with Prussian, Wiirttemberg and Bavarian troops was initiated against Munich and culminated in the capture of the capital and the suppression of the extremist insurrection after s.evere fighting on May i, 2, and 3.
The final phase of the struggle was characterized by some acts of barbarity, such as the murder of a number of hostages, including a Countess Westarp, in a cellar by the Soviet extrem- ists. Unfortunately in the suppression of the " Red Terror " grave excesses were likewise perpetrated by the other side. There were numerous summary executions and arbitrary arrests, so that in some instances persons who were entirely inno- cent lost their lives or were put in prison. Northern Bavaria had taken no part whatever in the movement. The Diet re- mained for the time being at Bamberg. The Government, after the Independent Socialists had left it, was converted into a coalition by the inclusion of two members of the Democratic and two of the Bavarian (Catholic) People's party, with Hoff- mann as Minister-President. It submitted to the Diet the draft of a constitution which gave effect to the ideas of parliamentary democracy and which also provided for the exercise of the referendum under certain conditions. A number of other measures for completing the edifice of the democratic State were submitted, and the whole session of the Diet at Bamberg was occupied with the consideration of these. The constitution (see below), the Teachers and Schools law and a number of other important laws were passed. The new constitution bears the date of Aug. 14 1919.
It was only in the late autumn when order had been restored throughout the whole country that the Government and the Diet returned to Munich. In order to prevent the recurrence of a situation like that which had existed under the Councils (Soviet) Republic, the Government had caused so-called Einwohnerwehrcn (volunteer defense forces of the inhabitants) to be formed; in these armed bodies the citizens who took their stand upon the constitution united on a democratic basis for the protection of public order and fpr the defense of the constitu- tion against popular ententes. They elected their own leaders
