On 16 November 1917, France, beset by mutinies and close to collapse, turned to a ferocious critic of its leadership and former premier, Georges ‘
On the other side, the Ottomans were tottering. In early 1918, the Ottoman crown prince Mehmed arrived in Germany with his top general Kemal to inform Wilhelm and Hindenburg that the empire could not carry on, blaming Enver. In March, triumphant in Russia, frustrated in the west, wilting at home, Ludendorff launched Operation Michael to break the Allies, advancing forty miles. ‘The battle is won,’ crowed the kaiser, ‘the English totally beaten.’ German losses were punishing: Hitler’s unit lost half of its men just in April; Corporal Hitler won the Iron Cross, First Class. But the killing brutalized the soldiers. ‘You can only defeat death with death,’ concluded Hitler, a convinced social Darwinist. ‘Life is a constant terrible struggle which serves to preserve the species – someone has to die so others may survive.’ Yet he also loved the camaraderie with the soldiers (and with a terrier, Foxl) – the family he lacked – though when they planned to celebrate their survival in a French bordello, Hitler exclaimed, ‘I’d die of shame if I saw a French woman naked,’ convincing the others that this teetotal, non-smoking virgin was a ‘little bit eccentric’. When Hitler visited starving Berlin he heard the conspiracy theories that Jews were undermining the armies, even though Jews were serving like everyone else. In July, the French counter-attacked; the Germans started to crack, their reserves expended; and at Amiens in August, 456 new British tanks shattered German lines, then started to advance, reinforced by the Americans.
In October, Prince Faisal, supported by Lawrence, rode into newly liberated Damascus; in Arabia, his brother Abdullah besieged the Ottomans in Medina. But already there were tensions between the Hashemite aspirations and the reality of the Anglo-French carve-up. Damascus was in the French sphere, but Faisal defiantly claimed Syria first in the name of his father King Hussein. That month, Wilhelm visited Gustav Krupp (wartime slogan: ‘The greater the foe, the greater the honour!’) at his Essen works. Wearing his golden eagle helmet and field marshal’s uniform, the kaiser addressed the workers from a slagheap and ranted against ‘traitors’, exhorting, ‘Be as strong as steel!’, unwisely adding, ‘Each worker has his duty, you at your lathe, me on my throne.’ After a long silence the workers shouted, ‘Hunger!’ and ‘Peace!’ Willy was shaken.
At headquarters, Ludendorff had a nervous breakdown, and was led ranting out of a meeting by Hindenburg, who refused to sack him: ‘Often has the soldier’s calling exhausted strong characters.’ But now the duo told Wilhelm the truth. ‘The war,’ said a stunned Willy, ‘must be brought to an end.’
THE FALL OF THE KAISERS
The fighting ground on. In October 1918, Hitler was in hospital, having been temporarily blinded by mustard gas, as Wilhelm appointed a liberal prince, Max of Baden, ironically a cousin of Napoleon III, as chancellor, with the task of requesting an armistice. But the power now moved to the Social-Democrats (SPD), headed by a tailor’s son and long-serving Reichstag leader, Friedrich Ebert, who favoured the survival of the monarchy but feared Communist revolution. When the navy rebelled at Wilhelmshaven, Ebert accepted that the monarchy needed to go. As Communist Spartacists created workers’ councils in Berlin, Max visited Spa to ask for Wilhelm’s abdication. ‘I wouldn’t dream of quitting my throne for a few hundred Jews or 1,000 workers,’ sneered Willy.
‘If the Kaiser doesn’t abdicate,’ Ebert told Max, ‘social revolution’s inevitable. But I don’t want it, I hate it like sin.’ On 9 November, Ebert demanded the chancellorship, asking Prince Max to serve as regent for Willy’s second son. But that afternoon Ebert’s comrade Philipp Scheidemann appeared on the Reichstag balcony. ‘The old rotten monarchy’s gone,’ he declared. ‘Long live the German Republic!’
‘You’ve no right,’ shouted Ebert, ‘to proclaim the republic!’ But it was done. The next day Wilhelm left for Dutch exile* as the twenty-two German dynasties fell too. ‘Well then,’ said the Saxon king Friedrich August III as he abdicated, ‘take care of this crap yourselves!’ The ‘crap’ was imminent Marxist revolution.
