232 



DISCOVERY 



plates for astronomical. X-ray, and other scientific 

 work, is certain. Meantime, active research is being 

 continued by quite a considerable number of the world's 

 leading chemists and physicists. 



How the German 

 Revolution was Effected 



By R. B. Mowat, M.A. 



Felloio of Corpus Christ i College, Oxford 



Since the early years of the nineteenth century, ever 

 since the national revival that followed upon the 

 disaster of Jena and the occupation of Berlin by the 

 French in 1807, there has been a large class of liberally 

 minded people in Germany. These were mainly 

 middle-class, educated people — patriotic, public- 

 spirited citizens, who read about the affairs of their 

 country and of the world, and discussed them with 

 broad-minded intelligence. Stein and Humboldt, Nie- 

 buhr and Fichte were such men, during the period 

 of the Napoleonic wars ; such, too, were the members 

 of the famous official family of von Gagern in the 

 following period ; such were the historians like von 

 Sybel and Mommsen. 



The Parliament of Frankfort, 1848 



In 1848 this school of thinkers and others, men of 

 action, made their fine attempt to establish a " Liberal 

 Empire," an attempt which resulted in the famous but 

 short-lived parliament of Frankfort. After the year 

 1S64 the Liberals — or National Liberals as they came 

 to be called — were pushed out of public affairs by the 

 firm-mindedness of Bismarck. They continued to 

 supply able officials to the civil service, and after 1871 

 (the end of the Franco-Prussian War) they were power- 

 ful in the new Reichstag, which, however, under the 

 Constitution, had little more than the functions of a 

 debating society. Although useful to the country 

 as bureaucrats and " publicists," the National Liberals 

 exercised no controlling influence on the policy of the 

 Empire. 



Rise of the Social Democrats 



In the last twenty years of the Empire's existence 

 the ineffectiveness of the National Liberals, who at one 

 time seemed to have a fine future before them, left the 

 field of official opposition open to the Social Democrats. 

 The Social Democratic Party was active and highly 

 organised. As the National Liberals were a democratic 

 party based on Individualism, the Social Democrats 

 were a democratic party based on Socialism. They 



were not all of the same colour ; there was a right, a 

 middle, and a left — ^that is to say, there were Social 

 Democrats who were comparatively conservative 

 (the Right) ; these were others who were moderately 

 socialistic ; and there were some (a fairly large section) 

 who were frankly communist (the Left). As long as 

 the Social Democrats were in opposition to the Im- 

 perial Government they all seemed to be tending 

 towards the Left. They were, it seemed, the only 

 alternative to the Cross Party — the Junkers, or official 

 Conservatives — who filled the high places in the 

 Imperial Government since Bismarck's time. 



The Political Events of November 1918 



The choice for Germany lay between the Junkers 

 and the Social Democrats ; the National Liberals 

 were " out of the running." Therefore, when the 

 Junker Government collapsed owing to its military 

 failures of July-October 1918, the direction of pubHc 

 affairs in Germany was left inevitably to the Social 

 Democrats. The fateful question for Germany was, 

 " Which section would take the control, the Right, 

 Middle, or Left ? " That is to say, the choice now 

 lay between the official Social Democratic Party 

 (which was comparatively moderate), the Independent 

 Social Democratic Party, and the Communists, or 

 Spartacists. Practically the choice lay between the 

 moderate Socialists and out-and-out Communists. 

 Russia, faced with a somewhat similar set of alterna- 

 tives in the previous year, had been taken over by 

 the extreme Communists. 



The accepted date for the German Revolution is 

 November 5, igi8, when a naval mutiny took place 

 at Kiel. But the army, as a whole, remained outside 

 the revolutionary movement. The Kiel mutiny, 

 however, acted as a signal for civilian outbreaks in 

 Bavaria, and, on November 9, in Brandenburg. The 

 revolution had been foreseen and prepared for during 

 the previous five or six weeks ; and when it occurred 

 the movement was at once taken in control by the 

 Majority (that is, the moderate), Socialists, the official 

 Social Democratic Party. 



In the early days of November, with the prospect 

 of an armistice on practically surrender terms, the 

 Kaiser's Government had been rocking to its founda- 

 tions. On Friday morning, November 8, the executive 

 officers of the Social Democratic Party (of whom the 

 chief were Ebert and Scheidemann, two moderate 

 Socialists, at this time ministers in the Imperial 

 Government) issued an ultimatum to the Chancellor, 

 Ma.x of Baden, demanding the abdication of the Kaiser 

 by midday. It was hoped by this means to avoid 

 actual revolution. The Kaiser did in effect abdicate by 

 fleeing to Holland on the morning of Saturday the gth 

 (although he did not sign his act of abdication until 



