The division demanded that it be permitted to increase its numbers to five thousand and that it be made a part of the Republican Soldier Guard in charge of the city"s police service. This demand was refused by the City Commandant, Otto Wels, since the ranks of the Soldier Guard were already full. A compromise was eventually reached by which those of the division who had formerly been employed on police duty and who were fathers of families and residents of Berlin, would be added to the police force if the Marine Division would surrender the keys to the Palace which it was looting. The Marines agreed to this, but failed to surrender the keys. On December 21st a payment of eighty thousand marks was to be made to them for their supposed services. Wels refused to hand over the money until the keys to the Palace had been surrendered.
Wels had incurred the deep hatred of the more radical elements of the capital by his st.u.r.dy opposition to lawlessness. He was almost the only Majority Socialist functionary who had displayed unbending energy in his efforts to uphold the authority of the government, and public demonstrations against him had already been held, in which he was cla.s.sed with Ebert and Scheidemann as a "bloodhound." The leaders of the Marine Division decided reluctantly to give up the Palace keys, but they would not hand them over to the hated Wels. Early in the afternoon of December 23d they sought out Barth, the member of the cabinet who stood closest to them, and gave the keys to him. Barth telephoned to Wels that the keys had been surrendered. Wels pointed out that Ebert was the member of the cabinet in charge of military affairs, and declared that he would pay out the eighty thousand marks only upon receipt of advices that the keys were in Ebert"s possession.
The delivery to Barth of the keys had been entrusted two marines who const.i.tuted the military post at the Chancellor"s Palace. These men, informed of Wels"s att.i.tude, occupied the telephone central in the palace, and informed Ebert and Landsberg that Dorrenbach, their commander, had ordered that no one be permitted to leave or enter the building. An hour later, at five-thirty o"clock, the Marines left the building, but in the evening the whole division appeared before the palace and occupied it.
Government troops, summoned by telephone, also appeared, and an armed clash appeared imminent. Ebert, however, finally induced the Marines to leave on condition that the government troops also left.
While this was going on, a detachment of Marines had entered Wels"s office, compelled him at the point of their guns to pay out the eighty thousand marks due them, and had then marched him to the Royal Stables, where he was locked up in a cellar and threatened with death. Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, without consulting their colleagues, ordered the Minister of War to employ all force necessary for the release of Wels. At the last moment, however, negotiations were entered into and Wels was released shortly after midnight on the Marines" terms.
Spartacans and radical Independents took the part of the Marines.
Richard Muller, Ledebour, Daumig and other members of the defunct original _Vollzugsrat_ were galvanized into new opposition. Ledebour"s "Revolutionary Foremen of Greater Berlin Industries" demanded the retirement of the Independent Socialist members of the cabinet, and the demand was approvingly published by _Die Freiheit_, the party"s official organ. The head and forefront of the Majority cabinet members" offending was their order to the War Minister to use force in upholding the government"s authority, and radical revolutionists condemn force when it is employed against themselves.
The position of Haase and Dittmann as party leaders was seriously shaken. The left wing of their party, led by Eichhorn and Ledebour, was on the point of disavowing them as leaders and even as members of the party. At the party"s caucuses in Greater Berlin on December 26th, held to nominate candidates for delegates to the coming National a.s.sembly, Ledebour refused to permit his name to be printed on the same ticket with Haase"s, and Eichhorn secured 326 votes to 271 for the party"s head.
On the evening of the same day the Independents in the cabinet submitted eight formulated questions to the _Vollzugsrat_, in which this body was asked to define its att.i.tude as to various matters. The _Vollzugsrat_ answered a majority of the questions in a sense favorable to the Independents. Its answer to one important question, however, gave the Independents the pretext for which they were looking. The question ran:
"Does the _Vollzugsrat_ approve that the cabinet members Ebert, Scheidemann and Lansberg on the night of December 23d conferred upon the Minister of War the authority, in no manner limited, to employ military force against the People"s Marine Division in the Palace and Stables?"
The executive council"s answer was:
"The people"s commissioners merely gave the order to do what was necessary to liberate Comrade Wels. Nor was this done until after the three commissioners had been advised by telephone by the leader of the People"s Marine Division that he could not longer guarantee the life of Comrade Wels. The _Vollzugsrat_ approves."
The _Vollzugsrat_ itself presented a question. It asked:
"Are the People"s Commissioners prepared to protect public order and safety, and also and especially private and public property, against forcible attacks? Are they also prepared to use the powers at their disposal to prevent themselves and their organs from being interfered with in their conduct of public affairs by acts of violence, irrespective of whence these may come?"
The Independents, for whom Dittmann spoke, hereupon declared that they retired from the government. Thus they avoided the necessity of answering the _Vollzugsrat"s_ question. In a subsequent statement published in their press the trio declared that the Majority members were encouraging counter-revolution by refusing to check the power of the military. They themselves, they a.s.serted, were a short while earlier in a position to take over the government alone, but they could not do so since their principles did not permit them to work with a Majority Socialist _Vollzugsrat_. What they meant by saying that they could have a.s.sumed complete control of the cabinet was not explained, and it was probably an over-optimistic statement. There is no reason to believe that the Independents had up to this time been in a position enabling them to throw the Majority Socialists out of the cabinet.
Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, in a manifesto to the people, declared that the Independents had, by their resignations, refused to take a stand in favor of a.s.suring the safety of the state. The manifesto said:
"By rejecting the means of a.s.suring the state"s safety, the Independents have demonstrated their incapacity to govern. For us the revolution is not a party watchword, but the most valuable possession of the whole wealth-producing folk.
"We take over their tasks as people"s commissioners with the oath: All for the revolution, all through the revolution. But we take them over at the same time with the firm purpose to oppose immovably all who would convert the revolution of the people into terror by a minority."
The _Vollzugsrat_ elected to fill the three vacancies: Gustav Noske, still governor of Kiel: Herr Wissell, a member of the old Reichstag, and Herr Loebe, editor of the Socialist _Volkswacht_ of Breslau. Loebe, however, never a.s.sumed office, and the cabinet consisted of five members until it was abolished by act of the National a.s.sembly in February.
The Majority Socialists staged a big demonstration on Sunday, December 29th, in favor of the new government. Thousands of the _bourgeoisie_ joined in a great parade, which ended with a tremendous a.s.sembly in front of the government offices in the Wilhelmstra.s.se. The size and character of the demonstration showed that the great majority of Berlin"s law-abiding residents were on the side of Ebert and his colleagues.
The Majority Socialists did not take over the sole responsibility for the government with a light heart. They had begun to realize something of the character of the forces working against them and were saddened because they had been compelled to abandon party traditions by relying upon armed force. Yet there was clearly no way of avoiding it. The Spartacans were organizing their cohorts in Bremen, Hamburg, Kiel and other cities, and had already seized the government of Dusseldorf, where they had dissolved the city council and arrested Mayor Oehler. The Soviets of Solingen and Remscheid had accepted the Spartacan program by a heavy majority. The state government of Brunswick had adopted resolutions declaring that the National a.s.sembly could not be permitted to meet. At a meeting of the Munich Communists Emil Muhsam[59] had been greeted with applause when he declared that the summons for the a.s.sembly was "the common battle-cry of reaction." Resolutions were pa.s.sed favoring the nullification of all war-loans.[60]
[59] Muhsam was one of the characteristic types of Bolsheviki.
For years he had been an unwashed, unshorn and unshaven literary loafer in Berlin cafes, whose chief ability consisted in securing a following of nave persons willing to buy drinks for him.
[60] The left wing of the Independent Socialist Party already demanded nullification, and the whole party drifted so rapidly leftward that a platform adopted by it in the first week of the following March definitely demanded nullification.
The Spartacans (on December 30th) had reorganized as the "Communist Laborers" Party of Germany--Spartacus League." Radek-Sobelsohn, who had for some weeks been carrying on his Bolshevik propaganda from various hiding places, attended the meeting and made a speech in which he declared that the Spartacans must not let themselves be frightened by the fear of civil war. Rosa Luxemburg openly summoned her hearers to battle.
The authority of the national government was small in any event, and was openly flouted and opposed in some places. Sailors and marines had organized the Republic of Oldenburg-East Frisia and elected an unlettered sailor named Bernhard Kuhnt as president. The president of the Republic of Brunswick was a bushelman tailor named Leo Merges, and the minister of education was a woman who had been a charwoman and had been discharged by a woman"s club for which she had worked for petty peculations. Kurt Eisner, minister-president of Bavaria, was a dreamy, long-haired Communist writer who had earlier had to leave the editorial staff of _Vorwarts_ because of an utter lack of practical common-sense.
He was a fair poet and an excellent feuilletonist, but quite unfitted to partic.i.p.ate in governmental affairs. His opposition to the national government severely handicapped it, and the Bavarian state government was at the same time crippled by the natural antagonism of a predominantly Catholic people to a Jewish president.
To the south the Czechs had occupied Bodenbach and Tetschen in German Bohemia, and were threatening the border. To the east the Poles, unwilling to await the awards of the peace conference, had seized the city of Posen, were taxing the German residents there for the maintenance of an army to be used against their own government, and had given notice that a war loan was to be issued. Paderewski, head of the new Polish Government, had been permitted to land at Danzig on the promise that he would proceed directly to Warsaw. Instead, he went to Posen and made inflammatory speeches against the Germans until the English officer accompanying him was directed by the British Government to see that the terms of the promise to the German government were obeyed. The German Government, endeavoring to a.s.semble and transport sufficient forces to repel Polish aggressions against German territory, found opposition among the Spartacans and Independent Socialists at home, and from the Bolshevik Brunswick authorities, who announced that no government troops would be permitted to pa.s.s through the state, or to be recruited there. Government troops entering Brunswick were disarmed.
The state government gave the Berlin cabinet notice that decrees of the Minister of War had no validity in Brunswick. General Scheuch, the Minister of War, resigned in disgust.
What later became an epidemic of strikes began. Seventy thousand workers were idle in Berlin. Upper Silesia reported serious labor troubles throughout the mining districts, due to Russian and German Bolshevist agitators and Poles.
A less happy New Year for men responsible for the affairs of a great state was doubtless never recorded.
CHAPTER XV.
Liebknecht Tries to Overthrow the Government; Is Arrested and Killed.
In the six weeks that Emil Eichhorn had been Police-President of Berlin the situation in his department had become a public scandal. The arming of the criminal and hooligan cla.s.ses by this guardian of public safety, which had at first been carried on quietly, was now being done openly and shamelessly, and had reached great proportions. Liebknecht and Ledebour, Spartacan and Independent, were in constant and close fellowship with him. A considerable part of the Republican Soldier Guard had been turned from allegiance to the government that had appointed them and could be reckoned as adherents of Eichhorn. The Berlin police department had become an _imperium in imperio_.
The _Vollzugsrat_ conducted a formal investigation of Eichhorn"s official acts. The investigation, which was conducted honestly and with dignity, convicted the Police-President of gross inefficiency, insubordination, diversion and conversion of public funds, and conduct designed to weaken and eventually overthrow the government. _Vorwarts_ was able to disclose the further fact that Eichhorn had throughout his term of office been drawing a salary of 1,800 marks monthly from Lenine"s _Rosta_, the Bolshevik propaganda-central for Germany. The _Vollzugsrat_ removed Eichhorn from office.
Eichhorn, relying on the armed forces at his disposal and doubtless equally on the probability that a Socialist government would not dare use actual force against _Genossen_, refused to comply with the order for his removal. The more ignorant of his followers--and this embraced a great proportion--saw in the _Vollzugsrat"s_ action the first move in that counter-revolution whose specter had so artfully been kept before their eyes by their leaders.
It is a current saying in England that when an Englishman has a grievance, he writes to the _Times_ about it. When a German has a grievance, he organizes a parade and marches through the city carrying banners and transparencies, and shouting _hoch_! (hurrah!) for his friends and _nieder_! (down) with his enemies. On Sunday, January 5th, a great demonstration was staged as a protest against Eichhorn"s removal.
It is significant that, although Eichhorn was an Independent Socialist, the moving spirit and chief orator of the day was the Spartacan Liebknecht. This, too, despite the fact that at the convention where the Spartacus League had been reorganized a week earlier, the Independents had been roundly denounced as timorous individuals and enemies of Simon-Pure Socialism. Similar denunciations of the Spartacans had come from the Independents. The psychology of it all is puzzling, and the author contents himself with recording the facts without attempting to explain them.
Sunday"s parade was of imposing proportions, and it was marked by a grim earnestness that foreboded trouble. The organizers claimed that 150,000 persons were in the line of march. The real number was probably around twenty thousand. Transparencies bore defiant inscriptions. "Down with Ebert and Scheidemann, the Bloodhounds and Grave-diggers of the Revolution!" was a favorite device. "Down with the Bloodhound Wels!" was another. Cheers for "our Police-President" and groans for the cabinet were continuous along the line of march. The great ma.s.s of the paraders were ragged, underfed, miserable men and women, mute testimony to the sufferings of the war-years.
Liebknecht addressed the paraders. Counter-revolution, he declared, was already showing its head. The Ebert-Scheidemann government must be overthrown and the real friends of the revolution must not shrink from using violence if violence were necessary. Others spoke in a similar vein.
Conditions appeared propitious for the _coup_ that had been preparing for a month. Late Sunday evening armed Spartacans occupied the plants of the _Vorwarts_, _Tageblatt_, the Ullstein Company (publishers of _Die Morgenpost_ and _Berliner Zeitung-am-Mittag_), the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and the Wolff Bureau.
The Spartacans in the _Vorwarts_ plant published on Monday morning _Der rote Vorwarts_ (the Red _Vorwarts_). It contained a boastful leading Article announcing that the paper had been taken over by "real revolutionists," and that "no power on earth shall take it from us." The Liebknechtians also seized on Monday the Buxenstein plant, where the _Kreuz-Zeitung_ is printed. There was much promiscuous shooting in various parts of the city. Spartacans fired on unarmed government supporters in front of the war ministry, killing one man and wounding two. There were also b.l.o.o.d.y clashes at Wilhelm Platz, Potsdamer Platz and in Unter den Linden.
The _Vollzugsrat_ rose to the occasion like a _bourgeois_ governing body. It conferred extraordinary powers on the cabinet and authorized it to use all force at its disposal to put down the Bolshevist uprising.
That it was Bolshevist was now apparent to everybody. The cabinet, still hesitant about firing on _Genossen_, conferred with the Independents Haase, Dittmann, Cohn and Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid, the last named one of the so-called "intellectual leaders" of the Independent Socialists.
These men wanted the government to "compromise." The cabinet declared it could listen to no proposals until the occupied newspaper plants should have been restored to their rightful owners. The delegation withdrew to confer with the Spartacan leaders. These refused flatly to surrender their usurped strongholds.
Several lively street battles marked the course of Tuesday, January 7th.
The Spartacans succeeded in driving the government troops from the Brandenburger Tor, but after a short time were in turn driven out.
Spartacan and Independent Socialist parades filled the streets of the old city. The government did nothing to stop these demonstrations. Haase and the other members of Monday"s delegation spent most of the day trying to induce the government to compromise. Their ingenious idea of a "compromise" was for the entire cabinet to resign and be replaced by a "parity" government made up of two Majority Socialists, two Independents and two Spartacans. This, of course, would have meant in effect a government of four Bolsheviki and two Majority Socialists. Despite their traditions of and training in party "solidarity," the cabinet could not help seeing that the "compromise" proposed would mean handing the government over bodily to Liebknecht, for Haase and Dittmann had long lost all power to lead their former followers back into democratic paths. The bulk of the party was already irrevocably committed to practical Bolshevism. The scholarly Eduard Bernstein, who had followed Haase and the other seceders from the Majority Socialists in 1916, had announced his return to the parent party. In a long explanation of the reasons for his course he denounced the Independents as lacking any constructive program and with having departed from their real mission.
They had become, he declared, a party committed to tearing down existing inst.i.tutions. Other adherents of the party"s right wing refused to have anything to do with the new course.
The night of January 7th was marked by hard fighting. Spartacans repeatedly attacked government troops at the Anhalt Railway Station in the Koniggratzerstra.s.se, but were repulsed with heavy losses. They also attacked the government troops defending the Potsdam Railway Station, a quarter of a mile north from the Anhalt Station, but were also repulsed there. Government soldiers, however, had considerable losses in an unsuccessful attempt to retake the Wolff Bureau building at Charlottenstra.s.se and Zimmerstra.s.se. On Wednesday, the section of the city around the Brandenburger Tor was again filled with parading Bolsheviki, but the government had plucked up enough courage and decision to decree that no parades should be permitted to enter Wilhelmstra.s.se, where the seat of government is situated. Spartacans attempted to invade this street in the afternoon, but scattered when government soldiers fired a few shots, although the soldiers fired into the air. The Independent go-betweens again a.s.sailed the cabinet in an effort to secure the "compromise" government suggested the day before.
The delegation was hampered, however, both by the fact that the cabinet realized what such a compromise would mean and by the fact that the Independents could promise nothing. The Spartacans stubbornly refused to surrender the captured newspaper plants, and the Independents themselves were committed to the retention in office of Eichhorn.
Eichhorn, still at his desk in Police Headquarters, refused even to admit to the building Police-President Richter of Charlottenburg, who had been named as his successor, and he and his aides were still busily arming deluded workingmen and young hooligans of sixteen and seventeen, as well as some women. The People"s Marine Division announced that it sided with the government, but it played little part in its defense.
The rattle of machine-guns and the crack of rifles kept Berliners awake nearly all night. The hardest fighting was at the _Tageblatt_ plant, in front of the Foreign Office and the Chancellor"s Palace, and around the Brandenburger Tor. Thursday morning found the government decided to put an end to the unbearable conditions. It was announced that no parades would be tolerated and that government soldiers had been ordered to shoot to kill if any such aggregations disobeyed orders to disperse.
Spartacus, realizing that the government meant what it said, called no meetings, and the streets were free of howling demonstrants for the first time since Sunday.