And the Kaiser abdicates: The German Revolution November 1918-August 1919Bouton, S. Miles (Stephen Miles)
History
And the Kaiser abdicates: The German Revolution November 1918-August 1919
Bouton, S. Miles (Stephen Miles)
Germany -- History -- Revolution, 1918; Germany -- Politics and government
Tuesday was a day of tense excitement at Kiel. There was some shooting,
due--as was also the case later in Berlin--to false reports that
officers had fired from houses on the mutineers. The streets were filled
with automobiles carrying red flags, and red flags began to appear over
various buildings. Noske, feverishly active, devoting all his iron
energy to restoring order and finding a peaceful solution of the revolt,
conferred continuously with representatives of the city government, with
military and naval authorities and with the strikers. The movement still
had outwardly only the aspect of a strike, serious indeed, but still a
strike. He succeeded in having countermanded an order bringing troops to
the city. Despite this, the suspicious mutineers compelled the Governor
to go with them to the railway station in order to send the troops back
if it should prove that the counterorder had not reached them in time.
At the request of the mutineers--who treated the Governor with all
courtesy--he remained at the station until the troop train arrived
empty.
The situation on Tuesday was adversely affected by the flight of Prince
Heinrich, brother of the Kaiser. He was not unpopular with the men of
the navy and he was never even remotely in danger. Yet he fled from Kiel
in an automobile and, fleeing, destroyed the remnant of authority which
his government still enjoyed. The flight itself rendered the strikers
nervous, and the fact that the death of a marine, who was shot while
standing on the step of the Prince's automobile, was at first ascribed
to him, enraged the mutineers and was a further big factor in rendering
nugatory the efforts of Noske and all others who were honestly striving
to find a way out of the situation. Autopsy showed that the marine had
been shot in the back by one of the bullets fired after the fleeing
automobile by the victim's own comrades. This disclosure, however, came
a day later, and then it was too late to undo the mischief caused by the
first report.
A "non-resistance" order, the first one of many that helped make the
revolution possible, was also issued on Tuesday by the military
authorities. Officers were commanded not to use force against the
strikers. "Only mutual understanding of the demands of the moment can
restore orderly conditions," said the decree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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