A few days after August 8, 1918, I summoned a Crown Council, in order to get a clear conception of the situation and to draw therefrom the necessary conclusions upon which to base the policy to be followed by Count Hertling. The Chief Military Command approved the idea that the Imperial Chancellor should keep in sight the possibility of getting into closer touch with the enemy, but laid stress on the necessity of first occupying the Siegfried line and there thoroughly beating off the foe, and on the fact that negotiations must not begin before this occurred. Thereupon I directed that the Chancellor get into communication with a neutral power—the Netherlands—in order to ascertain whether it was ready to undertake such a step toward mediation.

What rendered the contemplated action through Dutch channels very difficult was that Austria could not be brought to a definite agreement, but continually postponed the declaration which had been requested of her. Even a verbal agreement given to me by the Emperor Charles was afterward broken by him under Burian's influence.

The Dutch government had already been informed by me and had signified its readiness to act. Meanwhile, Austria, without notifying us, made her first separate peace offer, which set the ball rolling. The Emperor Charles had indeed got into touch secretly with the Entente and had long since resolved to abandon us. He acted according to the plan which he had explained thus to his entourage: "When I go to the Germans, I agree to everything they say, and when I return home, I do whatever I please."

Thus it happened that my government and I were constantly deceived by actions in Vienna, without being able to do anything against it, since from there we constantly received the hint: "If you make things hard for us, we shall leave you in the lurch; in other words, our army will no longer fight by your side." In view of our situation, such action on Austria's part had to be avoided in any way possible, both on military and political grounds.

The defection of Hungary and Austria brought a crisis upon us. Had Emperor Charles kept control of his nerves for three weeks longer, many things would have turned out differently. But Andrassy—as he himself admitted—had been negotiating for a long time in Switzerland, behind our backs, with the Entente. Thus Emperor Charles believed that he would assure himself of good treatment at the hands of the Entente.

After our failure of August 8th, General Ludendorff had declared that he could no longer guarantee a military victory. Therefore, the preparation of peace negotiations was necessary. Since diplomacy had not succeeded in initiating any promising negotiations and the military situation had become even worse in the meantime, on account of revolutionary agitation, Ludendorff, on the 29th of September, demanded that preparations be made for an armistice instead of for peace negotiations.

MOVEMENT FOR ABDICATION

At this critical time a strong movement began at home in favor of setting up a new government for the now necessary termination of the war. I could not ignore this movement, since the old government, during the seven weeks from August 8th to the end of September, had not managed to initiate peace negotiations offering any hope of success.

Meanwhile, General von Gallwitz and General von Mudra, summoned from the front, appeared before me. They gave a picture of the inner situation of the army, laying due emphasis upon the great number of shirkers behind the front, the frequency of insubordination, the displaying of the red flag upon trains filled with soldiers returning from furloughs at home and other similar phenomena.

The two generals considered that the principal cause of the bad conditions was to be sought in the unfavorable influence exerted upon the soldiers by the spirit predominating behind the front and in the general desire for ending the fighting and getting peace, which was spreading from the homeland along the lines of communication behind the front and was already becoming noticeable even among some of the troops at the front itself. The generals advanced the opinion that, owing to these reasons, the army must immediately be withdrawn behind the Antwerp-Meuse line.

On that same day I commanded Field Marshal von Hindenburg by telephone to effect as soon as possible the retreat to the Antwerp-Meuse line. The falling back of the tired, but nowhere decisively beaten, army to this position merely signified occupying an essentially shorter line, possessing far greater natural advantages. It was not yet completed, to be sure, but the fact was to be borne in mind that we had engaged in battle on the Somme while occupying positions composed largely of shell craters. What we had to do was to regain operative freedom, which, to my way of thinking, was by no means impossible; in the course of the war, had we not often retreated in order to put ourselves in a situation that was more advantageous from the military point of view?

The army, to be sure, was no longer the old army. The new 1918 troops particularly were badly tainted with revolutionary propaganda and often took advantage of the darkness at night to sneak away from the firing and vanish to the rear.

But the majority of my divisions fought flawlessly to the very end and preserved their discipline and military spirit. To the very end they were always a match for the foe in morale; despite superiority in numbers, cannon, munitions, tanks, and airplanes, the foe invariably succumbed when he ran up against serious resistance. Therefore, the associations of our ex-fighters at the front are right in bearing upon their banners the motto: "Unbeaten on land and sea!"

SAYS ARMY WAS STILL STRONG

The achievements of the German fighters at the front and of the German Nation in arms, during four and a half years of war, are beyond all praise. One does not know what to admire most: the enthusiasm with which the magnificent youth of 1914, without waiting for our artillery fire to take effect, joyfully charged on the enemy, or the self-sacrificing fidelity to duty and tenacity with which our men in field gray, sparingly fed and seldom relieved, year in, year out, digging by night, living in dugouts and earthholes by day, or crouching in shell holes, defied the hail of steel from the enemy artillery, flyers, and tanks. And this army, which one might have expected was to be rated as utterly fought to a finish, was able, after nearly four years of war, to carry out successful offensive operations such as our foes could nowhere boast of, despite their colossal superiority.

In spite of all this, it was not right to believe the German army capable of accomplishing the superhuman; it was necessary for us to fall back, in order to get breath.

The Field Marshal balked at the order to retreat; the army, he thought, should stay where it was, for political reasons (peace negotiations and so on); he also pointed out, among other things, that it was necessary, first, to arrange for the withdrawal to the rear of war materials, etc.

I now resolved to go to the front, acquiescing in the desire expressed to me by the army that I might be with my hard-fighting troops and convince myself personally of their spirit and condition.

I could carry out this resolve all the sooner in view of the fact that, ever since the new Government had been set up, no further claims were made upon my time either by it or by the Imperial Chancellor, which made my staying at home seem useless.

The notes to Wilson were discussed and written by Solf, the War Cabinet, and the Reichstag, after sessions lasting hours, without my being informed thereof; until, finally, on the occasion of the last note to Wilson, I caused Solf to be given to understand very plainly, through my chief of Cabinet, that I demanded to know about the note before it was sent.

Solf appeared and showed the note; he was proud of his antithesis between laying down of arms ("Waffenstreckung"), which was demanded by Wilson, and armistice ("Waffenstillstand"), which was proposed. When I spoke about the rumors of abdication and demanded that the Foreign Office adopt an attitude, through the press, against what was unworthy in the newspaper polemics, Solf replied that already everybody on every street corner was talking about abdication and that, even in the best circles, people were discussing it quite unreservedly.

When I expressed my indignation at this, Solf sought to console me by observing that, should His Majesty go, he also would, since he could serve no longer under such conditions. I went, or—to put it much more correctly—I was overthrown by my own Government, and—Herr Solf remained.

When the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max, heard of my resolve to go to the front, he did all he could to prevent it. He asked why I wished to go and received the answer that I considered it my duty, as Supreme Commander, to return to the front, since I had been separated for almost a month from the hard-fighting army. When the Chancellor objected that I was indispensable at home, I retorted that we were at war, that the Emperor belonged to his soldiers. Finally, I declared, once for all, that I would go; that in case Wilson's armistice note arrived, it would have to be discussed, anyhow, at the General Headquarters of the army, for which purpose the Chancellor and other members of the Government would be obliged to go to Spa for the conferences.

"JOYFULLY RECEIVED" BY ARMY

I went to the army in Flanders, after having once more given the General Staff at Spa definite orders to fall back as quickly as possible to the Antwerp-Meuse line, in order that the troops might finally be taken out of the fighting and given a rest. Despite objections that this would demand time, that the position was not yet ready, that the war material must first be taken back, and so forth, I stood by the order. The retreat was begun.

In Flanders I saw delegations from the different divisions, spoke with the soldiers, distributed decorations, and was everywhere joyfully received by officers and men. Particularly ardent enthusiasm reigned among the soldiers of a royal Saxon recruit depot, who greeted me with wild cheers at the railway station when I was returning to my train. While I was giving out decorations to members of the Reserve Guard Division, an enemy bombing squadron, followed by heavy fire from anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, flew directly over us and dropped bombs near the special train.

The commanders of the army were unanimous in declaring that the spirit of the troops at the front was good and reliable; that, further to the rear, among the supply columns, it was not so good; that the worst of all were the soldiers back from leave, who, it was plain to be seen, had been worked upon and infected at home, whence they had brought back a poor spirit. The young recruits at the depots, it was stated, furthermore, were good.

At Spa, whither I now went, news came constantly from home about the ever more violent agitation and hostile attitude against the Emperor and the growing slackness and helplessness of the Government, which, without initiative or strength, was letting itself be pushed around at will. It was alluded to contemptuously in the newspapers as the "debating society" and Prince Max was called by leading newspapers the "Revolution Chancellor." As I learned afterward, he lay in bed for ten days, suffering from grippe and incapable of really directing affairs. His Excellency von Payer and Solf, with the so-called War Cabinet, which was in permanent session, governed the German Empire.

At such a critical time, to my way of thinking, the imperiled ship of state should not be steered by representatives of the Imperial Chancellor, since they certainly cannot have the authority possessed by the responsible head of the Government. What was particularly needed at this juncture was authority; yet, so far as I know, no wide powers to act had been conferred upon the Vice Chancellor.

The right solution—i. e., the one that those concerned were in duty bound to adopt—would have been to remove Prince Max actually from the post of Chancellor and summon in his place some man of strong personality. Since we had the parliamentary form of government it devolved upon the political parties to bring about the change in the Chancellorship and present me with a successor to Prince Max. This did not take place.

Now the efforts of the Government and the Imperial Chancellor to induce me to abdicate began. Drews, the Minister of the Interior, came to me at the behest of the Chancellor, in order to supply me with information concerning the spirit in the country. He described the well-known happenings in press, high finance, and public, and laid emphasis on the fact that the Imperial Chancellor himself adopted no attitude toward the question of my abdication, but, nevertheless, had sent him to me. Drews, in short, was to suggest to me that I myself should decide to abdicate, in order that it might not appear that the Government had exerted pressure upon me.

I spoke to the Minister about the fateful consequences of my abdication and asked how he, as a Prussian official, could reconcile such a supposition with his oath as an official to his King. The Minister grew embarrassed and excused himself by reference to the command of the Imperial Chancellor, who had been unable to find any other man for the task. I was informed later that Drews was one of the first officials who spoke of the abdication of his master and King.

I refused to abdicate and declared that I would gather troops together and return with them in order to help the Government to maintain order in the land.

After that, Drews was received, in my presence, by Field Marshal von Hindenburg and General GrÖner, whom he informed of the mission intrusted to him by the Imperial Chancellor and by both of whom he was very sharply rebuked in the name of the army. GrÖner's characterization of Prince Max, in particular, was expressed in such plain terms that I had to appease and comfort the Minister.

The Field Marshal also called Drews's attention to the fact that, in the event of my abdication, the army would not go on fighting, but would disperse, and that the majority of the officers, in particular, would probably resign and thus leave the army without leaders.

Soon after that I learned from one of my sons that the Imperial Chancellor had tried to ascertain whether he was prepared to undertake the mission which subsequently was undertaken by Drews. My son indignantly declined to suggest abdication to his father.

In the meantime I had sent the chief of Cabinet, von DelbrÜck, to Berlin, in order to lay before the Chancellor a general address, also intended for publication, which should take the place of my address to the Ministry (not published by the Chancellor), deal more broadly with the matters taken up therein, and make clear my attitude toward the Government and toward the new direction taken by public opinion. At first the Chancellor failed to publish this. Not until several days later did he find himself forced to permit publication, owing to a letter written to him, as I learned afterward, by the Empress.

Thereupon Herr von DelbrÜck informed me that the address had made a good impression in Berlin and in the press, relieved the situation, and tended to quiet the people, so that the idea of abdication had begun to disappear and even the Socialists of the Right had decided to postpone action concerning it.

During the next few days there were constant reports that the Socialists in Berlin were planning trouble and that the Chancellor was growing steadily more nervous. The report given by Drews to the Government, after his return from Spa, had not failed to cause an impression; the gentlemen wished to get rid of me, to be sure, but for the time being they were afraid of the consequences.

Their point of view was as obscure as their conduct. They acted as if they did not want a republic, yet failed completely to realize that their course was bound to lead straight to a republic. Many, in fact, explained the actions of the Government by maintaining that the creation of a republic was the very end that its members had in view; plenty of people drew the conclusion, from the puzzling conduct of the Chancellor toward me, that he was working to eliminate me in order to become himself President of the German Republic, after being, in the interim, the administrator of the Empire.

To believe this is undoubtedly to do the Prince an injustice; such a train of thought is impossible in a man belonging to an old German princely family.

General GrÖner, who had gone to Berlin to study the situation, reported on his return that he had received very bad impressions regarding the Government and the sentiment prevailing in the country; that things were approaching revolution; that the Government was merely tearing down without setting up anything positive; that the people wanted peace at last, at any cost, no matter what kind of peace; that the authority of the Government was equal to zero, the agitation against the Emperor in full swing, my abdication hardly to be avoided longer.

He added that the troops at home were unreliable and disagreeable surprises might come in case of a revolt; that the courier chests of the Russian Bolshevist ambassador, seized by the criminal police, had disclosed some very damaging evidence that the Russian Embassy, in conjunction with the Spartacus group, had long since thoroughly prepared, without being disturbed, a Bolshevist revolution on the Russian model. (This had gone on with the knowledge of the Foreign Office—which had received constant warning, but had either laughed at them all or dismissed them with the remark that the Bolsheviki must not be angered—likewise under the very eyes of the police, which was continually at loggerheads with the Foreign Office.) The men back from leave, he went on, infected by propaganda, had already carried the poison to the army, which was already partly affected and would, as soon as it had been made free by an armistice, refuse to fight against the rebels upon its return home.

Therefore, he declared, it was necessary to accept, immediately and unconditionally, any sort of armistice, no matter how hard its conditions might be; the army was no longer to be trusted and revolution was imminent behind the front.

PRINCE MAX INSISTENT

On the morning of the 9th of November,[9] the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, caused me to be informed again—as he had already done on the 7th—that the Social Democrats, and also the Social Democratic Secretaries of State, demanded my abdication; that the rest of the members of the Government, who had stood out so far against it, were now in favor of it, and that the same was true of the majority parties in the Reichstag. For these reasons, he continued, he requested me to abdicate immediately, since, otherwise, extensive street fighting attended by bloodshed would take place in Berlin; it had already started on a small scale.

I immediately summoned Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the Quartermaster General, General GrÖner. General GrÖner again announced that the army could fight no longer and wished rest above all else, and that, therefore, any sort of armistice must be unconditionally accepted; that the armistice must be concluded as soon as possible, since the army had supplies for only six to eight days more and was cut off from all further supplies by the rebels, who had occupied all the supply storehouses and Rhine bridges; that, for some unexplained reason, the armistice commission sent to France—consisting of Erzberger, Ambassador Count Oberndorff, and General von Winterfeldt—which had crossed the French lines two evenings before, had sent no report as to the nature of the conditions.

The Crown Prince also appeared, with his Chief of Staff, Count Schulenburg, and took part in the conference. During our conversation several telephone inquiries came from the Imperial Chancellor, which, pointing out that the Social Democrats had left the Government and that delay was dangerous, became most insistent. The Minister of War reported uncertainty among part of the troops in Berlin—4th JÄgers, Second Company of Alexander Regiment, Second Battery, JÜterbog, gone over to the rebels—no street fighting.

I wished to spare my people civil war. If my abdication was indeed the only way to prevent bloodshed, I was willing to renounce the Imperial throne, but not to abdicate as King of Prussia; I would remain, as such, with my troops, since the military leaders had declared that the officers would leave in crowds if I abdicated entirely, and the army would then pour back, without leaders, into the fatherland, damage it, and place it in peril.

A reply had been sent to the Imperial Chancellor to the effect that my decision must first be carefully weighed and formulated, after which it would be transmitted to the Chancellor. When, a little later, this was done, there came the surprising answer that my decision had arrived late! The Imperial Chancellor, on his own initiative, had summarily announced my abdication—which had not occurred yet at all!—as well as renunciation of the throne by the Crown Prince, who had not even been questioned. He had turned over the Government to the Social Democrats and summoned Herr Ebert as Imperial Chancellor. All this had been spread simultaneously by wireless, so the entire army could read it.

DENIES HE FORSOOK FOLLOWERS

Thus the decision as to my going or staying, as to my renunciation of the Imperial Crown and retention of the Royal Crown of Prussia, was summarily snatched from me. The army was shaken to the core by the erroneous belief that its King had abandoned it at the most critical moment of all.

If the conduct of the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, is considered as a whole, it appears as follows: first, solemn declaration that he will place himself, together with the new Government, before the Emperor's throne, to protect it; then, suppression of the address, which might have impressed public opinion favorably, elimination of the Emperor from all co-operation in the Government, sacrifice of the respect due the Emperor by suppression of the censorship, failure to come to the support of the monarchy in the matter of abdication; then, attempts to persuade the Emperor to abdicate voluntarily; and, finally, announcement of my abdication by wireless, in which the Chancellor went over my head.

This sequence of events shows the course—a perilous one to the nation—adopted by Scheidemann, who held the Chancellor in the hollow of his hand. Scheidemann left the Ministers, his colleagues, in the dark as to his real purposes, drove the Prince from one step to another, and finally summoned Ebert, declaring that the leaders no longer had the masses under control. Thus he caused the Prince to sacrifice the Emperor, the princes, and the Empire, and made him the destroyer of the Empire. After that, Scheidemann overthrew the weak princely "statesman."

Following the arrival of the wireless message, the situation was difficult. To be sure, troops were being transported to Spa for the purpose of going on undisturbed with the work at Great General Headquarters, but the Field Marshal now thought it no longer possible to reckon absolutely on their reliability in case rebellious forces should advance from Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne and confront our troops with the dilemma of whether or not to fight against their own comrades. In view of this, he advised me to leave the army and go to some neutral country, for the purpose of avoiding such a "civil war."

I went through a fearful internal struggle. On the one hand, I, as a soldier, was outraged at the idea of abandoning my still faithful, brave troops. On the other hand, there was the declaration of our foes that they were unwilling to conclude with me any peace endurable to Germany, as well as the statement of my own Government that only by my departure for foreign parts was civil war to be prevented.

In this struggle I set aside all that was personal. I consciously sacrificed myself and my throne in the belief that, by so doing, I was best serving the interests of my beloved fatherland. The sacrifice was in vain. My departure brought us neither better armistice conditions nor better peace terms; nor did it prevent civil war—on the contrary, it hastened and intensified, in the most pernicious manner, the disintegration in the army and the nation.

PROUD OF THE ARMY

For thirty years the army was my pride. For it I lived, upon it I labored. And now, after four and a half brilliant years of war with unprecedented victories, it was forced to collapse by the stab in the back from the dagger of the revolutionists, at the very moment when peace was within reach!

And the fact that it was in my proud navy, my creation, that there was first open rebellion, cut me most deeply to the heart.

There has been much talk about my having abandoned the army and gone to neutral foreign parts.

Some say the Emperor should have gone to some regiment at the front, hurled himself with it upon the enemy, and sought death in one last attack. That, however, would not only have rendered impossible the armistice, ardently desired by the nation, concerning which the commission sent from Berlin to General Foch was already negotiating, but would also have meant the useless sacrifice of the lives of many soldiers—of some of the very best and most faithful, in fact.

Others say the Emperor should have returned home at the head of the army. But a peaceful return was no longer possible; the rebels had already seized the Rhine bridges and other important points in the rear of the army. I could, to be sure, have forced my way back at the head of loyal troops taken from the fighting front; but, by so doing, I should have put the finishing touch to Germany's collapse, since, in addition to the struggle with the enemy, who would certainly have pressed forward in pursuit, civil war would also have ensued.

Still others say the Emperor should have killed himself. That was made impossible by my firm Christian beliefs. And would not people have exclaimed:

"How cowardly! Now he shirks all responsibility by committing suicide!" This alternative was also eliminated because I had to consider how to be of help and use to my people and my country in the evil time that was to be foreseen.

I knew also that I was particularly called upon to champion the cause of my people in the clearing up of the question of war guilt—which was disclosing itself more and more as the pivotal point in our future destiny—since I better than anyone else could bear witness to Germany's desire for peace and to our clean conscience.

After unspeakably arduous soul struggles, and following the most urgent advice of my counselors of the highest rank who were present at the moment, I decided to leave the country, since, in view of the reports made to me, I must needs believe that, by so doing, I should most faithfully serve Germany, make possible better armistice and peace terms for her, and spare her further loss of human lives, distress, and misery.