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| Final Blunder— In the Midst of His Greatest Crisis the Kaiser Returns to Military Headquarters at Spa |
Part II of this article was presented yesterday HERE.
By Vanessa LeBlanc
Thus, in pursuit of the armistice and in light of President Wilson's ultimatum, Prince Maximilian no longer supported the Kaiser. As Lamar Cecil argues, “Although Max's cabinet had agreed. . . in early October, that any Allied demands for Wilhelm's abdication would be resisted `to the utmost,'. . . Scheidemann [leader of the Social Democratic Party, and member of Prince Maximilian's government] pointed out that if the question—peace or the Hohenzollern dynasty?—was put to the German people, they would opt for peace”.
This was precisely the question being put to Prince Maximilian. Kaiser Wilhelm II became further isolated and, feeling betrayed by his chancellor, identified him as the leader of the abdication party.
On 29 October, despite Prince Maximilian's protests, Kaiser Wilhelm II returned to the military headquarters at Spa. This decision is considered controversial, as many historians consider this to be the fatal mistake that Kaiser Wilhelm II committed against the Hohenzollern dynasty; it is surmised that had the Kaiser stayed in Berlin the throne might have been saved.
Nonetheless, Kaiser Wilhelm II returned to Spa in hopes that his presence on the front would resuscitate the soldiers' morale and encourage them to maintain the offensive. Kaiser Wilhelm II understood that Germany's impending loss of the war was due not only to attrition, but also to low morale. In turn, support for the Kaiser depended on morale. He hoped high morale at the front might spread inward, perhaps quieting his people's call for his abdication.
In retrospect, General Hindenburg concluded that there were three courses of action that the Kaiser could have undertaken to deal with the “abdication crisis”:
[1] to fight his way back to Germany with loyal regiments;
[2] to die at the head of his troops on the front;
[3] to go abroad.
Returning to Spa was indicative that Kaiser Wilhelm II may have been undertaking either [1] or [3], but there is no evidence that he would have deliberately arranged his murder/suicide (option 2). While the Kaiser was at Spa, there was a naval mutiny in Kiel on 30 October that caused the threat of revolution to boil and spread throughout Germany. During the time the Kaiser spent at Spa from 29 October 29 to 9 November, Prince Maximilian and other officials tried to convince him to abdicate, but he would hear nothing of it. By November 8, Berlin “appeared to be on the eve of a serious revolt.” On November 9, a general strike broke out, the scene becoming reminiscent of Russia's March 1917 revolution. In response, the Kaiser attempted to gather a small group of soldiers with which to march into Berlin (option 1 outlined by Hindenburg).
Similar to the Romanovs' crisis the year before, German General Wilhelm Groener told Kaiser Wilhelm II that the army was “not under the command of Your Majesty, whom it no longer supports.” Therefore, the Kaiser exercised the remaining option available to him (option 3 according to Hindenburg).
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| Announcement of the Abdication |
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon of 9 November, the Kaiser was prepared to abdicate and subsequently flee to Holland, when he was given word that Prince Maximilian had abdicated on his behalf an hour earlier. The situation in Berlin had become so grave that “the masses might have proclaimed the deposition of the Kaiser and established a provisional government.”
Given this crisis, Prince Maximilian was “determined to give the crisis a constitutional solution.” In this sense, domestic and international pressures combined to bring about the Kaiser's abdication. Though Kaiser Wilhelm II did not abdicate himself, his acceptance of the abdication showed that he had done what was perceived as being best for his country: rather than let a revolution overthrow the monarchy in a potentially violent uprising, he had seemingly provided Germany with a more favorable position in the eyes of the Associated Powers going into the peace negotiations. On 11 November 1918, the Armistice was signed; “after fifteen hundred and sixty-three days, for the first time, all was quiet on the Western Front.”
It was President Wilson's firm insistence that led the Germans to believe that Wilhelm II's abdication was the only way to achieve peace, thereby encouraging calls for his abdication and weakening support for the Kaiser. However, as Michael Balfour writes, “the number of people who wanted radical recasting of society was infinitesimal.” The Hohenzollern dynasty would have likely survived the Great War had it not been for the influence of the domestic and international pressures active prior to and during the Great War, the attrition factor, and Wilson's dominance of the pre-Armistice negotiations.
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| 6 a.m., 10 November 1918; Kaiser Wilhelm II Crossing the Border into the Netherlands |
In November 1918, Wilhelm II was at the military headquarters of his troops in Spa, Belgium. He found himself unable to return home because of rebellions and revolution in Germany but unable to stay in Spa either due to the advancing troops of the Entente. He was advised by those closest to him to flee to a neutral country. The nearest neutral country was the Netherlands. At 6 a.m on 10 November 1918, Wilhelm II arrived at the train station in Eysden on the Dutch border. There he was granted political asylum and was temporarily housed in Amerongen Castle where he would stay for nearly two years. A few weeks after his arrival he abdicated as German emperor.Gradually, it became clear that the Emperor would not be forced to leave the Netherlands, despite the provisions set out in the Treaty of Versailles. He began to search for a permanent residence and in 1919 bought House Doorn from Baroness Van Heemstra de Beaufort, the great-grandmother of Audrey Hepburn. He renovated the house and furnished it with goods, art, and objects from his former palaces in Germany.The Dutch government allowed Wilhelm II to remain in Netherlands under strict conditions. He had to stay in House Doorn and was only allowed to move freely within a radius of 15 kilometers around the house. He had to refrain from making political statements and his mail was regularly checked; he was also under permanent police surveillance. . . A return to Germany was impossible and Wilhelm stayed in Doorn 21 years until his death in 1941. In his last will, Wilhelm II stated that he wanted no Nazis present at his funeral. He was buried with full military honors.
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