The German Revolution: Oct. 1918 – Jan. 1919

• The German Spring Offensive of 1918 resulted in tremendous losses
• Exhausted & demoralised German troops retreated as the Allies, now joined by fresh American troops, successfully counterattacked
• The new Chancellor, moderate conservative Prince Max von Baden, began negotiations with US President Wilson for an armistice & introduced a number of democratic reforms to try & avoid a revolution at home


  Oct.
• Prussia's unfair three tier franchise was abolished & the Chancellor & his ministers were finally made accountable to the Reichstag
• They proved too little too late to save the Kaiser
• Wilson informed Max that the removal of Wilhelm was a precondition for an armistice
• Wilhelm prevaricated, hoping to remain King of Prussia, but widespread public pressure for him to abdicate grew
• German sailors at Kiel mutinied, workers began to establish councils modelled on Soviet lines in most German cities & socialist Kurt Eisner (later assassinated by a right-wing nationalist) staged a revolution in Bavaria before declaring the state independent of Germany


  At the end of October
• The moderate Majority Socialists, led by Friedrich Ebert, refused to join the revolutionaries but they did call a general strike to force out the Kaiser
• Max announced the Kaiser's abdication without further discussion with Wilhelm he then resigned and Ebert became chancellor
• Ebert formed a new government, made up of various socialists, & got the armistice signed
• Ebert crucially secured the support of the army thanks to Ebert-Groener Pact (Ebert promised the head of the army he would resist Bolshevik Revolution in return for the army's support for a parliamentary democracy)
• This was seen as a betrayal by the left-wing Spartacist revolutionaries who tried to seize Berlin in Jan.1919
• Ebert asked the army for help & the right-wing voluntary Freikorps were used by Groener to violently crush the revolt
• Spartacist leaders Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg were murdered& hundreds more communists were killed in Apr. 1919 when the Freikorps restored government control in Bavaria