"And another thing must be said. Just as the people's government has undertaken to bring about a peace that does not destroy the vital interests of the German people, * * * it must just as energetically endeavor to protect us from internal collapse with all the strength and all the authority which its constitution as a people's government confers upon it. * * * When, as now, the overthrow of all existing institutions is being preached, when the people's government is disregarded and recourse is had to force, the government must realize that there is but one thing to do. The people, whose representatives the members of government are, want concrete evidence that an insignificant minority will not be permitted to trample upon the institutions of state and society under whose protection we have heretofore lived. * * * The German Empire is not yet ripe for the disciples of Lenine and Trotzky." General von Hellingrath, Bavarian Minister of War, issued a proclamation calling on the people to preserve order and not to lose their confidence in the government. A report that Bavarian troops had been sent to the North Tirol to protect Bavaria's borders against possible aggression by Czechish and Jugo-Slavic troops of the former ally further depressed all Germans, and particularly the South Germans. The new government made an appeal to the people's reason. In a proclamation issued on November 4th and signed by Prince Max and all other members of the cabinet, including Scheidemann, it called attention to the parliamentary reforms already accomplished and summoned the people to give their fullest support to the government. These reforms were: Equal franchise in Prussia; the formation of a government from the majority parties of the Reichstag; the Chancellor and his ministers could retain office only if they possessed the confidence of the Reichstag and hence of the people; declarations of war and conclusions of peace now required the assent of the Reichstag; the military had been subordinated to the civil authorities; a broad amnesty had been declared, and the freedom of assemblage and of the press assured. "The alteration of Germany into a people's state, which shall not stand in the rear of any state in the world in respect of political freedom and social reforms, will be carried further with decision," said the proclamation. It was a very respectable array of real reforms that was thus set forth. If they had come a few months earlier the subsequent course of Germany's and the whole world's history would doubtless have been changed. But, unknown to the great mass of Germans except through wild rumor, revolution had already come and the German Empire was tottering to its fall. CHAPTER IX. A Revolt Which Became a Revolution.