Golden Mead

Maimed German War veterans exhibiting their stumps, shouting "We fought! You vote!" were motored by Communists and Socialists about German cities last week in an effort to rouse sluggish citizens for the great Referendum (TIME, June 21 et ante) held to deprive Wilhelm II and the erstwhile German nobility without compensation of property valued at five billion gold marks previously seized by the Reich.

"Referendum Sunday" dawned warm, blue-skied, inviting. Millions of Germans went a picnicking, neglected to ballot. A drenching afternoon rain fell alike upon the picnickers and the snug houses of several million more Germans who refused to venture out--even jeered the War veterans riding in open motors through the rain.

Sixty per cent of the electorate abstained from voting. Thirty-five per cent (14,889,703) voted for "confiscation without compensation." That was not enough. Twenty million votes were required by law to sustain the plebiscite. Five per cent of the voters (542,311) strode to the polls and gratuitously expressed their opposition to confiscation in any form, though their votes had no immediate bearing upon the referendum.

Once again Wilhelm II quaffed the mead of a triumph presented to his lips by Fate or Chance. It is scarcely realized today through what extraordinary vicissitudes he has passed. "The Supreme War Criminal" (1918)--Mr. Lloyd George haying actually won an election with the slogan "Hang the Kaiser!" : "Wilhelm of Doom" (1926)--Herr Hohenzollern having already received from the Reich a sum equivalent to $1,000 for every day since his abdication.*

How It Happened. It was Nov. 9, 1918. "The enemy, disorganized by our repeated attacks, yields on all fronts." Thus Marshal Foch telegraphed his commanders. Simultaneously, at Spa (Belgium), Fildmarschall von Hindenburg sought Wilhelm II, "By the Grace of God, King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, Supreme War Lord." The Feldmarschall declared: "Your Majesty, that must be said which I cannot, as a loyal Prussian, say to my King." General Groner (successor to Ludendorff) responded to a curt inquiring nod from the Kaiser: "Sire, the Army will march home in peace and order under its own generals, but not under the command of your Majesty."

"Excellency," rapped the Kaiser stiffening, "I demand from my generals in writing a statement that the army is no longer under the command of its Supreme War Lord. . . ."

Adjutant telegraphers and telephonists interrupted momentarily the Kaiser's audience with his generals. The Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden was telephoning from Berlin. Local revolutions, prepared throughout Germany by the Independent Socialists had broken out at Kiel (Nov. 6), Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Magdeburg, Dresden. ... At Berlin a tide of civilian workers and mutinous soldiers was milling through the streets. Prince Max demanded that the Kaiser abdicate. The populace, he declared, had been convinced by Allied propaganda that the Allies would never make peace with a Hohenzollern, would trample across Germany to Berlin.

As the messages poured in, Wilhelm remained pale but self possessed. He asked whether enough troops remained loyal for him to retreat with them to Berlin for a last stand. General Groner again spared Feldmarschall von Hindenburg the necessity of a reply. At last the Kaiser spoke: "Inform Prince Max that I abdicate as Emperor of Germany but not as King of Prussia."

The adjutant rushed to the telephone. Too late. Prince Max had already announced at Berlin on his own responsibility the abdication of Wilhelm II both as Emperor and King. Completely terrified by the mob, Prince Max officially turned over the Imperial Chancellorship to onetime saddlemaker Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party, subsequently elected 1st President of the Reich (Feb. 11, 1919).

At Spa the Kaiser's generals urged flight upon him as a matter of common sense. His people had deserted him, they said. Prince Max had fled to Baden.

Wilhelm, who had supposed his intrinsic greatness to be so transcendant that he had his portrait painted as a Roman Emperor upon a bounding stallion, tasted the ashes of being undeceived.

"I am so awfully ashamed!" he cried, to Admiral von Hintze. "I cannot go away. If there be but one faithful batallion here, I shall remain at Spa. At other times I have always known what to do, now I am at a loss. . . ."

A few hours later a Dutch soldier, guarding the frontier at Eysden, was struck dumb when a man in a long military cloak approached him, hesitated, said: "I am the Emperor of Germany. Here is my sword." (Nov. 10.)

Eighteen days later he abdicated as King and Emperor at Amerongen, the moat-defended chateau of Count Godard Bentinck, a Knight of the Prussian Order of St. John of which Wilhelm II was the head. Only because of his oath "to aid any Knight of St. John in distress," did Knight Bentinck shelter Knight Hohenzollern.

The onetime Kaiserin, Auguste Victoria, arrived on the same day, much broken down in health. As months passed, it was she, not Wilhelm, who passed sleepless nights and nerve-wracked days, lest the Allies enforce Part IV (Penalties) Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles. Therein are inscribed the most celebrated "dead sentences" of that document: "The Allied and Associated Powers publicly arraign William II, of Hohenzollern, formerly German Emperor, for a supreme offense against international morality and the sanctity of treaties. . . .

"A special tribunal will be constituted to try the accused. . . ." So far have the Allies abandoned this clause that there are now conducted in the monthly reviews of most Allied countries learned series of articles to determine whether Germany was "war guilty."

Recovery. Wilhelm, seeming to have sensed this trend at its inception, has consistently ignored such "Hang the Kaiser!" propaganda as has filtered to Doom, whence he removed from Amerogen (June 1920). He has said dozens of times to visitors, however: "Max von Baden ist hinter mir gegangen!" ("Max of Baden has tricked me behind my back!") Apparently he still dreams that Germany would not have turned from him, had not Prince Max announced* his abdication."

As everyone knows the onetime Kaiserin died at Doorn (April 11, 1921). Reputedly Wilhelm II refers to his present consort, Princess Hermine, as "Her Majesty the Empress."

The tortuous mind of Wilhelm of Doorn, still half obsessed by its illusion of Heavenly guidance, is nowhere better revealed than in his Memoirs (Harpers, 1922.) He wrote:

"God is my witness that I, in order to avoid war, went to the uttermost limit compatible with responsibility for the security and inviolability of my dear fatherland.

"Today there is no longer any doubt that not Germany, but the alliance of her foes, prepared the war according to a definite plan, and intentionally caused it. ...

"I bear my personal fate with resignation ... I do not care what my foes say about me. I do not recognize them as my judges. . . . He (God) knows why He subjects me to this test. I shall bear everything with patience and await whatsoever God still holds in store for me."

Among German arch-Monarchists the events of last week inspired a slogan: "Ballots for Bullets!" None but such ramrod-backed lantern-jawed die-hards believed that the 45,000,000 Germans who abstained from voting last week will ever ballot Wilhelm back upon the throne from which he was brought down by bullets.

* According to the Dutch correspondent of London Daily Chronicle (1926).

*That Prince Max announced the abdication on his own responsibility was at first contested, but is now accepted by standard British and U. S. histories of the War.