Wir Sind Spartakus!
- Thread starter Zimmerwald1915
- Start date
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
Eastern Adventures
[FONT="]The miners of Upper Silesia, who had yet to take part in the strike waves that had been sweeping the country since the beginning of the year, decide to come out on strike on the fifth. These strikes, in Gleiwitz, Beuthen, and Kattowitz, were not general, and the cities continued in operation. Nor were they overtly political. It is for this reason that they are usually treated separately from the Central German strike wave; they possessed none of the latter movement’s proto-revolutionary energy or practices. The major goal seems to have been to keep some level of pressure on the government and the National Assembly, whom the Silesians felt might drag their feet otherwise. They ended without incident on the fifteenth, the day the bills for socialization and for permanent dual power were introduced in the National Assembly.
[/FONT] As for the government’s other promises, it did indeed lift the state of siege in Berlin, and for two days took its promise to disband the Freikorps seriously. This was most significant in terms of morale: the domestic Freikorps’ loyalty to the Government had always been tenuous (the eastern Freikorps fighting the Russians in Lithuania and Latvia, as well as the Poles, were another matter entirely), and the Government’s decision to start demobilizing them produced two effects. The first, which manifested mostly in the Ruhr area, was a feeling of betrayal and attendant despondency. The Freikorps in this area had quelled, it seemed, a putsch attempt in one of Germany’s three major industrial areas. They had done so when heavily outnumbered, using the calculus of every worker in the cities and in the mines as a potential combatant. The other effect, which manifested mostly in Hannover and other western areas, was analogous to the feeling a defendant gets when his attorney informs him of his right to appeal. That is, cold and purposeful defiance culminating in a superhuman effort to prove oneself and one’s worth. This took the most violent form in the suppression of the Mannheim Soviet Republic.
The Mannheim Soviet Republic had been proclaimed February 22, just as the Ruhr strike campaign was ending. Its context had been the dispute between the strikers and von Watter over just who had broken the ceasefire agreement reached the day before. On the morning of the twenty-second, several armed workers in Mülheim had attacked a public Social Democratic meeting with machine guns, causing several deaths. Von Watter interpreted this not only as defiance of the agreement to lay down arms, but as a renewal of hostilities (this incident, by the way, illustrates nicely the relationship of the Freikorps to Social Democracy; rather than a cooperative relationship, both parties were taking advantage of each other). He therefore ordered his Freikorps to advance further. The Mannheim strike leadership, on the other hand, felt that the attack was being used as an excuse, and that von Watter had not felt himself bound by his promise all along. They proclaimed the Soviet Republic as a gesture of defiance, and as a way to inspire the workers of Mannheim to fight if they should be attacked.
When they finally were attacked, on March 6, fight the workers did. For hours they managed to hold the Freherstrasse, the Brückenstrasse, and the railway bridges that formed the four crossings across the Neckar River. However, once the Freikorps managed to get across the northern railway bridge and into the city, each position fell, flanked, one by one as they advanced down the Neckarvorlandstrasse. The Soviet Republic’s leadership was arrested and summarily executed in the evening. The suppression in Mannheim achieved its object; not only the removal of a key city from the hands of the revolutionaries, but also the Freikorps’ special object of winning back the faith of the government. From the sixth, the disbandments ceased, never having spread outside Berlin. The suppression of the Mannheim Soviet Republic also marked the moment when the Government began preparing in earnest for a civil war. In January, as we have seen, the Social Democrats had shied away from civil war, afraid they would lose support in the National Assembly in a backlash that might bring a strong Independent party group and a government around the People’s Party and the Center. Now, with the Assembly ensconced and revolution looking like more and more of a possibility every day, civil war seemed the only option.
The suppression of Mannheim also marked a lull in German revolutionary development, and a momentary shifting of the center stage of European revolution eastward. Three developments marked this transition: the Hungarian Revolution, the conduct of the Russian Civil War, and the foundation of the Communist International.
The Comintern founding Congress opened on March 2 and closed on March 6, when its Platform was adopted. As the Congress itself has been the subject of many a scholarly treatment which the format of this inquiry will not allow here, and as that Platform represented, if not the consensus of all the delegates, at least the consensus of the majority, our analysis of the Congress’ work will be confined to the Platform. The Platform’s text as such was the work of Nikolai Bukharin and Hugo Eberlein, delegates from Russia and Germany respectively. Two salient points were made by the Platform. The first was that capitalism had entered a new epoch. The entrance to this epoch was caused by the monopolization of capital within the western national states and the control by these states over most of the globe, creating for the first time a finite world market. These pressures then engendered competition between capitalist states, which culminated in the Great War, the signal for entrance into the new epoch. As for what this epoch was, the Communists made their position entirely clear: “Ours is the epoch of the breakdown of capital, its internal disintegration, the epoch of the Communist revolution of the proletariat.” The second salient point made by the Platform was that the revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat were being brought to life. Where prior to 1917 the forms of the seizure of power and the socialist society had been the subject of abstract debate informed only by memories of Paris in 1871, now the workers were creating the means not only of their emancipation but of their government of society, which would “break the rule of capital, make wars impossible, abolish the frontiers between states, transform the whole world into a community where all work for the common good and realize the freedom and brotherhood of peoples.” The Platform proclaimed that “he creation of new proletarian organs of administration” was already in progress, referring to the workers’ councils that had sprouted all over both Russia and Germany, and were beginning to be constituted in other central European countries. Communist theory and practice was, to some extent, codified by this Congress, reflected in Germany by the fact that the KPD, hitherto an independent organization, began to reference the Comintern’s decisions as the basis for its own, both in discussion and in its press.
The course of the Russian Civil War had been remarkably fluid, compared to the fighting on the eastern front in the Great War. This was due to the ad hoc nature of the units involved, to the smaller numbers of men in combat, and to the much greater length and number of the fronts. Sovdepia, the White shorthand for the Bolshevik-controlled areas of Russia, faced opposition armies on seven fronts. In the east, Admiral Kolchak had established himself as governor of Sibera, in possession of Omsk and the Trans-Siberian Railway. Generals Denekin and Kaledin constituted another two fronts in Ukraine and the Caucasus, with the French providing aid from their base in Odessa. The Poles, pushing eastward, the Germans and the Latvian and Lithuanian allies, the British-backed Estonians and the British themselves in Archangelsk and Murmansk, completed the encirclement of Sovdepia. By the end of March, the Estonians had completed the liberation of their own country and were pushing into Latvia, while the Poles had captured Pinsk and were preparing an offensive into southern Lithuania. The Red Army’s greatest success hitherto had been in fighting the Germans, Lithuanians, and Latvians to a standstill where the countries were divided about in half. This had been possible mainly because the German elements had been greatly demoralized by events at home; over time, German units would withdraw from the fighting entirely as Latvia and especially Lithuania formed their own armies. However, these were ancillary theaters, and both sides were preparing offensives in the Ukraine that would decide the course of the war.
The story of the Hungarian Revolution is largely the story of infiltration and bad judgment. The government of Count Karolyi had come under fire for signing a bad armistice with the Allies (when they could have reasonably claimed that the Allied armistice with Austria, which included much more favorable terms, applied to them as well), for disbanding most of Hungary’s armed forces and allowing the Romanians, Yugoslavs, and Czechoslovaks to seize territory thereby, and for printing large amounts of paper money, which encouraged high inflation and led to people being unable to heat their homes or buy food. All these steps virtually destroyed the Hungarian people’s confidence in their government, but Karolyi evidenced his truly poor judgment when he allowed the Hungarian Communists to merge with the Social Democrats on March 21, and then appointed an all-Socialist (for that was the name of the merged party) cabinet the same day. He justified this move based on the fact that the Socialists were the largest party in Hungary and the only one which carried the loyalty of the population. While this was true, it essentially saved them the trouble of making revolution by placing the Hungarian state in their hands. Hungary’s revolution was not the long process that the German and Russian revolutions were, it was essentially a voluntary coup d’etat by a particularly inept representative of the Russian bourgeoisie. However, the escape of a long process of revolution, which seemed to the Hungarian Socialists a boon, actually constrained the actions they could take. The rural population especially was not revolutionary, and the Socialists, if they were to achieve their programme, would have to make revolution from above rather than rely on the support of large numbers of people as could the Russian and German communists.
Thus the Soviet Republic born on the twenty-first incurred the ire of the largely rural population when it nationalized the large noble estates, even as it gained the support of urban workers when it socialized the factories and other enterprises. The Hungarian Socialists failed to appropriate the lessons the Russians had learned in co-opting the support of the peasants; they must be given land. The later policy of conquest followed by the Soviet Republic can only be understood in the context of trying to win again the support of the peasantry.
Perilous and fraught with uncertainty as the Hungarian and Russian situations were, it was the eruption in the east and the consequent development of the international situation that finally birthed the German Revolution.
[FONT="]The miners of Upper Silesia, who had yet to take part in the strike waves that had been sweeping the country since the beginning of the year, decide to come out on strike on the fifth. These strikes, in Gleiwitz, Beuthen, and Kattowitz, were not general, and the cities continued in operation. Nor were they overtly political. It is for this reason that they are usually treated separately from the Central German strike wave; they possessed none of the latter movement’s proto-revolutionary energy or practices. The major goal seems to have been to keep some level of pressure on the government and the National Assembly, whom the Silesians felt might drag their feet otherwise. They ended without incident on the fifteenth, the day the bills for socialization and for permanent dual power were introduced in the National Assembly.
[/FONT] As for the government’s other promises, it did indeed lift the state of siege in Berlin, and for two days took its promise to disband the Freikorps seriously. This was most significant in terms of morale: the domestic Freikorps’ loyalty to the Government had always been tenuous (the eastern Freikorps fighting the Russians in Lithuania and Latvia, as well as the Poles, were another matter entirely), and the Government’s decision to start demobilizing them produced two effects. The first, which manifested mostly in the Ruhr area, was a feeling of betrayal and attendant despondency. The Freikorps in this area had quelled, it seemed, a putsch attempt in one of Germany’s three major industrial areas. They had done so when heavily outnumbered, using the calculus of every worker in the cities and in the mines as a potential combatant. The other effect, which manifested mostly in Hannover and other western areas, was analogous to the feeling a defendant gets when his attorney informs him of his right to appeal. That is, cold and purposeful defiance culminating in a superhuman effort to prove oneself and one’s worth. This took the most violent form in the suppression of the Mannheim Soviet Republic.
The Mannheim Soviet Republic had been proclaimed February 22, just as the Ruhr strike campaign was ending. Its context had been the dispute between the strikers and von Watter over just who had broken the ceasefire agreement reached the day before. On the morning of the twenty-second, several armed workers in Mülheim had attacked a public Social Democratic meeting with machine guns, causing several deaths. Von Watter interpreted this not only as defiance of the agreement to lay down arms, but as a renewal of hostilities (this incident, by the way, illustrates nicely the relationship of the Freikorps to Social Democracy; rather than a cooperative relationship, both parties were taking advantage of each other). He therefore ordered his Freikorps to advance further. The Mannheim strike leadership, on the other hand, felt that the attack was being used as an excuse, and that von Watter had not felt himself bound by his promise all along. They proclaimed the Soviet Republic as a gesture of defiance, and as a way to inspire the workers of Mannheim to fight if they should be attacked.
When they finally were attacked, on March 6, fight the workers did. For hours they managed to hold the Freherstrasse, the Brückenstrasse, and the railway bridges that formed the four crossings across the Neckar River. However, once the Freikorps managed to get across the northern railway bridge and into the city, each position fell, flanked, one by one as they advanced down the Neckarvorlandstrasse. The Soviet Republic’s leadership was arrested and summarily executed in the evening. The suppression in Mannheim achieved its object; not only the removal of a key city from the hands of the revolutionaries, but also the Freikorps’ special object of winning back the faith of the government. From the sixth, the disbandments ceased, never having spread outside Berlin. The suppression of the Mannheim Soviet Republic also marked the moment when the Government began preparing in earnest for a civil war. In January, as we have seen, the Social Democrats had shied away from civil war, afraid they would lose support in the National Assembly in a backlash that might bring a strong Independent party group and a government around the People’s Party and the Center. Now, with the Assembly ensconced and revolution looking like more and more of a possibility every day, civil war seemed the only option.
The suppression of Mannheim also marked a lull in German revolutionary development, and a momentary shifting of the center stage of European revolution eastward. Three developments marked this transition: the Hungarian Revolution, the conduct of the Russian Civil War, and the foundation of the Communist International.
The Comintern founding Congress opened on March 2 and closed on March 6, when its Platform was adopted. As the Congress itself has been the subject of many a scholarly treatment which the format of this inquiry will not allow here, and as that Platform represented, if not the consensus of all the delegates, at least the consensus of the majority, our analysis of the Congress’ work will be confined to the Platform. The Platform’s text as such was the work of Nikolai Bukharin and Hugo Eberlein, delegates from Russia and Germany respectively. Two salient points were made by the Platform. The first was that capitalism had entered a new epoch. The entrance to this epoch was caused by the monopolization of capital within the western national states and the control by these states over most of the globe, creating for the first time a finite world market. These pressures then engendered competition between capitalist states, which culminated in the Great War, the signal for entrance into the new epoch. As for what this epoch was, the Communists made their position entirely clear: “Ours is the epoch of the breakdown of capital, its internal disintegration, the epoch of the Communist revolution of the proletariat.” The second salient point made by the Platform was that the revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat were being brought to life. Where prior to 1917 the forms of the seizure of power and the socialist society had been the subject of abstract debate informed only by memories of Paris in 1871, now the workers were creating the means not only of their emancipation but of their government of society, which would “break the rule of capital, make wars impossible, abolish the frontiers between states, transform the whole world into a community where all work for the common good and realize the freedom and brotherhood of peoples.” The Platform proclaimed that “he creation of new proletarian organs of administration” was already in progress, referring to the workers’ councils that had sprouted all over both Russia and Germany, and were beginning to be constituted in other central European countries. Communist theory and practice was, to some extent, codified by this Congress, reflected in Germany by the fact that the KPD, hitherto an independent organization, began to reference the Comintern’s decisions as the basis for its own, both in discussion and in its press.
The course of the Russian Civil War had been remarkably fluid, compared to the fighting on the eastern front in the Great War. This was due to the ad hoc nature of the units involved, to the smaller numbers of men in combat, and to the much greater length and number of the fronts. Sovdepia, the White shorthand for the Bolshevik-controlled areas of Russia, faced opposition armies on seven fronts. In the east, Admiral Kolchak had established himself as governor of Sibera, in possession of Omsk and the Trans-Siberian Railway. Generals Denekin and Kaledin constituted another two fronts in Ukraine and the Caucasus, with the French providing aid from their base in Odessa. The Poles, pushing eastward, the Germans and the Latvian and Lithuanian allies, the British-backed Estonians and the British themselves in Archangelsk and Murmansk, completed the encirclement of Sovdepia. By the end of March, the Estonians had completed the liberation of their own country and were pushing into Latvia, while the Poles had captured Pinsk and were preparing an offensive into southern Lithuania. The Red Army’s greatest success hitherto had been in fighting the Germans, Lithuanians, and Latvians to a standstill where the countries were divided about in half. This had been possible mainly because the German elements had been greatly demoralized by events at home; over time, German units would withdraw from the fighting entirely as Latvia and especially Lithuania formed their own armies. However, these were ancillary theaters, and both sides were preparing offensives in the Ukraine that would decide the course of the war.
The story of the Hungarian Revolution is largely the story of infiltration and bad judgment. The government of Count Karolyi had come under fire for signing a bad armistice with the Allies (when they could have reasonably claimed that the Allied armistice with Austria, which included much more favorable terms, applied to them as well), for disbanding most of Hungary’s armed forces and allowing the Romanians, Yugoslavs, and Czechoslovaks to seize territory thereby, and for printing large amounts of paper money, which encouraged high inflation and led to people being unable to heat their homes or buy food. All these steps virtually destroyed the Hungarian people’s confidence in their government, but Karolyi evidenced his truly poor judgment when he allowed the Hungarian Communists to merge with the Social Democrats on March 21, and then appointed an all-Socialist (for that was the name of the merged party) cabinet the same day. He justified this move based on the fact that the Socialists were the largest party in Hungary and the only one which carried the loyalty of the population. While this was true, it essentially saved them the trouble of making revolution by placing the Hungarian state in their hands. Hungary’s revolution was not the long process that the German and Russian revolutions were, it was essentially a voluntary coup d’etat by a particularly inept representative of the Russian bourgeoisie. However, the escape of a long process of revolution, which seemed to the Hungarian Socialists a boon, actually constrained the actions they could take. The rural population especially was not revolutionary, and the Socialists, if they were to achieve their programme, would have to make revolution from above rather than rely on the support of large numbers of people as could the Russian and German communists.
Thus the Soviet Republic born on the twenty-first incurred the ire of the largely rural population when it nationalized the large noble estates, even as it gained the support of urban workers when it socialized the factories and other enterprises. The Hungarian Socialists failed to appropriate the lessons the Russians had learned in co-opting the support of the peasants; they must be given land. The later policy of conquest followed by the Soviet Republic can only be understood in the context of trying to win again the support of the peasantry.
Perilous and fraught with uncertainty as the Hungarian and Russian situations were, it was the eruption in the east and the consequent development of the international situation that finally birthed the German Revolution.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
I believe I said as much, if milder, in the text. though I suppose "White shorthand" is not the same as "derogatory term". It's also much quicker for me to type, and brings a sense of balance to what is otherwise a dangerously partisan timeline.
Just for you, the White Russians will be sticking around. In what capacity? I haven't figured it out yet. Surprises are fun.
*wink*
What do you mean by southern Lithuania? Up to Wilno? Up to "ethnic border"? Who is this offensive against? The Lithuanians or the Soviets?
I'm guessing independent Wrangel Crimea, with Ukraine divided between a pro-Polish puppet and an SSR. ATL Polish-Bolshevik War are fun as hell.
I can't way to see how does that affect German international relations.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
At the moment, the area to be attacked and captured (Lida, Vilnius, and points northeast), is in the hands of the Soviets.
Have you been hacking my PC? Because I went to my draft TL and there was an independent Crimea and a balkanized Ukraine staring me in the face, and I know I put neither of them there.I'm guessing independent Wrangel Crimea, with Ukraine divided between a pro-Polish puppet and an SSR. ATL Polish-Bolshevik War are fun as hell.
What German international relations?
Are people more interested in what's going on in the east than in Germany? Because I can write about that if it generates more responses...
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Ah, so up to this point no significant difference from OTL, that's OK.
With the Entente. If the revolution in Germany starts and is in full swing by June, how does that affect the final text of the Versailles Treaty? Soviet-German dynamic will be also interesting. Will they attempt to link up? If so will Entente be persuaded to more actively support Poland? What happens to the plebiscites?
Can't wait to see how those questions are resolved.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
*shrug* I'm not a big believer in significant butterflies (proper butterflies, that is, not necessarily linked to the PoD by a cause-and-effect chain) this early in a timeline. The only major difference is that the Soviets captured Kaunas at one point, and will be forced to give it up in order to straighten their line in response to the Polish attack.
Well, my comment was more meant to convey the fact that Germany's gonna basically be an international pariah on a grand scale. Details on Versailles etc. will be covered in the timeline.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
The German Revolution
Germany had been convulsed by proto-revolutionary crises since 1919 began. Over and over again, revolutionaries and supporters of the government had tested their mettle against one another, neither able to muster the support or cultivate the effort necessary to best the other. The situation all over the country on March 15 attested to the inability of either combatant to bring about a decision. Freikorps soldiers tensely shared the streets of Berlin, Essen, and Dortmund with sometimes-armed demonstrators. Here and there, in Bremen and Mannheim, in Halle and Hagen, one or the other had got the upper hand, but such incidents were isolated; each side did its best to hold onto its zone of exclusive control, unable and thus unwilling to risk its position trying to expand it. Seen in this light, the lull between March 15 and March 31, when Stuttgart’s workers again came out on strike, appears as a deep breath before the plunge. Hidden underneath the calm surface, insurrectionists made sure of supporters and weapons caches, Generals assured themselves of their supply lines and communications, party leaders jostled for approval, and the ordinary folk were well aware that the precarious position on which Germany had chanced to balance simply could not last. By this time, as had been recognized by the informed on both sides, civil war was inevitable, and the question had become one of advantage.
Reasonable cases were made by contemporaries—usually to those who agreed with the speaker or writer—that both sides could claim that advantage. The Communists, left Independents, and their sympathizers could point to the way the Government, by its Machiavellian disregard for its promises, was making itself ever more objectionable to hitherto Social Democratic and Republican workers. They could also console themselves with the fact that most of the regular troops garrisoned in or around cities would sympathize with a revolution. Government supporters could count among their supporters almost all of the Eastern Army (though this was of limited utility as it was heavily engaged against the Russian Red Army in some places, against the Poles in others), as well as the Freikorps. There was also the fickle sympathies of the rural population to consider: on the whole, these generally conservative people didn’t much care for the Republic, but detested the radical socialism of the revolutionaries. Control of food supplies, of which Germany, thanks to the continued British blockade, was still dangerously short, was in the hands of these men. Hanging over every German’s head was the prospect of the Treaty of Peace then being formulated in Paris. Hitherto, both sides had played for time, hoping to rally ever more Germans to their side (this strategy had worked mainly for the revolutionists), but the reports and rumors that floated out of Paris through the diplomatic channels and the news media indicated that the treaty would be ready within the next two or three months. This put a deadline on the plans of both revolutionaries and republicans, for whichever faction could control Germany by that point would gain international recognition. If neither controlled Germany, if the country was in a stalemated civil war or if dual power persisted, the Allies would choose which faction suited their interests and make a treaty with them. This resolution favored the republicans, as they would probably become the treaty partners, but even they found the prospect of being beholden to the Allies (for such would be their position) distasteful. This explains, at least, the motivations of the faction leaders in seeking a resolution quickly.
What it does not explain is the will to combat among the actual combatants, the workers, the soldiers, the freebooters. The germ of this will to combat is in all cases a profound nervous tension that had been built up at least since November, in some cases longer. The workers, for example, had been raised on a gospel of “Socialism—but not yet” since 1890. They had been tutored to expect socialism from a republic, but the Republic in reality had not lived up to their hopes. The Communists’ and Independents’ propaganda of a republic based not on the National Assembly but on the Councils they had built, a republic which could be constructed rapidly, which would be tractable to the workers’ demands, thus gained wide appeal in the wake of the disillusionment in Weimar. Quite apart from these class-specific concerns, most Germans wanted an end to political instability and a return to a normal life—many of these were at the same time convinced that only a cataclysm (resolved in the favor of their own faction, of course) could lead to a resumption of stability.
Despite all the accumulated nervous tension, nothing happens spontaneously, and the German Revolution needed a spark. It got two. These were the proclamation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, and the defeat of the socialization and Council bills in the National Assembly on March 28. The Saturday issues of Die Rote Fahne and Freiheit both printed the same article by Luxemburg, which declaimed “The proletarians of Hungary, few in number though they are, plagued with contradictions and meanderings of theory as their party is, have still managed in a week what the German proletariat has not managed in five months. They have joined their brothers in Russia in seizing the factories and the land, abolishing the old government, and setting their country on a course away from war and barbarism. And yet from both these countries come cries for aid from the German proletariat, for they know they cannot survive without what Engels called the ‘decisive force of the proletarian army’. As Hasse stood up in the Reichstag in August 1914 and declared that Social Democracy would support German imperialism, so will the German proletariat stand up and proclaim its internationalism, its need for socialism. And if it stands, its needs will at last be sated.” Limited as her information was, her characterization of the Hungarian situation can be forgiven. More important is the fact that the message “Russia did it, Hungary did it, why not us?” resonated with the German workers.
Stuttgart’s council, when it voted a strike, chose to emphasize the lack of responsiveness from the National Assembly to the demands of German workers rather than the international situation, but the sentiment was nevertheless there. The following day, Essen, Remscheid, Dusseldorf, Barmen, and Hagen were paralyzed by general strikes, emphasizing not only the government’s foot-dragging but the continued occupation of the region by Freikorps units. 158,592 workers in total came out of the mines and into the streets that first day, a significant but unknowable portion of them armed. On April 6, Munich, which had been largely peaceful but for several assassinations (notably that of Independent Kurt Eisner in late February) witnessed the proclamation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, the first of what were to be many proclamations over the coming weeks. Berlin did not declare itself a Soviet Republic in early April, but it came out on strike on April 7 in support of Saxony. One city in central Germany that did was Magdeburg. Alwin Brandes, a Communist councilman, was arrested by Freikorps Severin, on April 6; a day later, Severin’s 581 men had been expelled from the city, and one of his lieutenants, Ewald von Kleist, arrested, along with prominent Social Democrat Otto Landsberg. By the ninth, Braunschweig and Upper Silesia had both come out on strike; the following day, the Saxon Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Magdeburg.
April 12, despite the proclamations of Soviet Republics in Munich and Magdeburg earlier in the month, marks the point of no return in terms of commitment of revolutionaries to the revolution. So many pre-revolutionary incidents had occurred that even the Communist leaders, who wanted revolution, and the Social Democrats and other government leaders, who wanted it retarded or arrested, had trouble recognizing the gravity of the April events. In Dresden, demonstrators—mostly war veterans upset that their pensions were being cut in order to pay off the Freikorps—entered the City Hall shouting their intention to lynch the Saxon government. The small number of soldiers guarding the building joined the demonstrators, and most of the government barely escaped. Gustav Neuring, the war minister, did not, and was thrown into the Elbe where he was shot. Dresden’s council, sensing the pressure of events, declared the city part of the Saxon Soviet Republic. Brunswick declared itself a Soviet Republic as well.
Liebknecht and Münzenberg, apparently on Liebknecht’s own initiative and not on instruction by the rest of the Communist central committee in Berlin, disrupted the business of the National Assembly to announce that they were withdrawing from that body. Despite the instructions of President Ebert, Liebknecht’s comments made it into the record (Münzenberg’s correspondence reveals that he bribed the clerks regularly and often). He disparaged the delegates, “who were elected to serve the people, and who have time and again proved that they serve only a small portion of it. This body,” he chided, “has conducted itself like the most obedient courtier of Capital, ignoring promises to the working men of Germany and plotting all the while to massacre them if ever the chance appeared.” He rounded off by declaring that “the Communist Party will no longer countenance this bad faith and betrayal of democracy by its participation in this Assembly; its deputies hereby withdraw in protest.” By the time Hugo Preuss was notified of this and told to order the arrest the pair, they had disappeared into the streets; by evening they were in Halle. The thirteenth saw Leipzig follow Dresden in declaring its allegiance to the Saxon Soviet Republic, the USPD-dominated government voting to dissolve itself, and the USPD-dominated workers’ council voting to assume power, with no putsch necessary. More people volunteered for the militia—which, at around sixty thousand strong, was one of the few non-regular and non-Freikorps units capable of maneuver—than appeared on the streets.
Up until this point, the government and its supporters had been shocked and awed by body blows from all directions. Its response had thus been delayed. However, the twelfth was notable not only for the new earnestness of the revolutionaries, but also for what became known as the Civil Peace Order in the Gazette and papers that supported the government, and the Civil War Order in Die Rote Fahne and Freiheit. Within three days, all the Freikorps and the regular units expected to remain loyal were ordered to occupy and pacify whichever restive city or region was deemed appropriate by the regional military command. The German Counter-Revolution had begun.
Germany had been convulsed by proto-revolutionary crises since 1919 began. Over and over again, revolutionaries and supporters of the government had tested their mettle against one another, neither able to muster the support or cultivate the effort necessary to best the other. The situation all over the country on March 15 attested to the inability of either combatant to bring about a decision. Freikorps soldiers tensely shared the streets of Berlin, Essen, and Dortmund with sometimes-armed demonstrators. Here and there, in Bremen and Mannheim, in Halle and Hagen, one or the other had got the upper hand, but such incidents were isolated; each side did its best to hold onto its zone of exclusive control, unable and thus unwilling to risk its position trying to expand it. Seen in this light, the lull between March 15 and March 31, when Stuttgart’s workers again came out on strike, appears as a deep breath before the plunge. Hidden underneath the calm surface, insurrectionists made sure of supporters and weapons caches, Generals assured themselves of their supply lines and communications, party leaders jostled for approval, and the ordinary folk were well aware that the precarious position on which Germany had chanced to balance simply could not last. By this time, as had been recognized by the informed on both sides, civil war was inevitable, and the question had become one of advantage.
Reasonable cases were made by contemporaries—usually to those who agreed with the speaker or writer—that both sides could claim that advantage. The Communists, left Independents, and their sympathizers could point to the way the Government, by its Machiavellian disregard for its promises, was making itself ever more objectionable to hitherto Social Democratic and Republican workers. They could also console themselves with the fact that most of the regular troops garrisoned in or around cities would sympathize with a revolution. Government supporters could count among their supporters almost all of the Eastern Army (though this was of limited utility as it was heavily engaged against the Russian Red Army in some places, against the Poles in others), as well as the Freikorps. There was also the fickle sympathies of the rural population to consider: on the whole, these generally conservative people didn’t much care for the Republic, but detested the radical socialism of the revolutionaries. Control of food supplies, of which Germany, thanks to the continued British blockade, was still dangerously short, was in the hands of these men. Hanging over every German’s head was the prospect of the Treaty of Peace then being formulated in Paris. Hitherto, both sides had played for time, hoping to rally ever more Germans to their side (this strategy had worked mainly for the revolutionists), but the reports and rumors that floated out of Paris through the diplomatic channels and the news media indicated that the treaty would be ready within the next two or three months. This put a deadline on the plans of both revolutionaries and republicans, for whichever faction could control Germany by that point would gain international recognition. If neither controlled Germany, if the country was in a stalemated civil war or if dual power persisted, the Allies would choose which faction suited their interests and make a treaty with them. This resolution favored the republicans, as they would probably become the treaty partners, but even they found the prospect of being beholden to the Allies (for such would be their position) distasteful. This explains, at least, the motivations of the faction leaders in seeking a resolution quickly.
What it does not explain is the will to combat among the actual combatants, the workers, the soldiers, the freebooters. The germ of this will to combat is in all cases a profound nervous tension that had been built up at least since November, in some cases longer. The workers, for example, had been raised on a gospel of “Socialism—but not yet” since 1890. They had been tutored to expect socialism from a republic, but the Republic in reality had not lived up to their hopes. The Communists’ and Independents’ propaganda of a republic based not on the National Assembly but on the Councils they had built, a republic which could be constructed rapidly, which would be tractable to the workers’ demands, thus gained wide appeal in the wake of the disillusionment in Weimar. Quite apart from these class-specific concerns, most Germans wanted an end to political instability and a return to a normal life—many of these were at the same time convinced that only a cataclysm (resolved in the favor of their own faction, of course) could lead to a resumption of stability.
Despite all the accumulated nervous tension, nothing happens spontaneously, and the German Revolution needed a spark. It got two. These were the proclamation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, and the defeat of the socialization and Council bills in the National Assembly on March 28. The Saturday issues of Die Rote Fahne and Freiheit both printed the same article by Luxemburg, which declaimed “The proletarians of Hungary, few in number though they are, plagued with contradictions and meanderings of theory as their party is, have still managed in a week what the German proletariat has not managed in five months. They have joined their brothers in Russia in seizing the factories and the land, abolishing the old government, and setting their country on a course away from war and barbarism. And yet from both these countries come cries for aid from the German proletariat, for they know they cannot survive without what Engels called the ‘decisive force of the proletarian army’. As Hasse stood up in the Reichstag in August 1914 and declared that Social Democracy would support German imperialism, so will the German proletariat stand up and proclaim its internationalism, its need for socialism. And if it stands, its needs will at last be sated.” Limited as her information was, her characterization of the Hungarian situation can be forgiven. More important is the fact that the message “Russia did it, Hungary did it, why not us?” resonated with the German workers.
Stuttgart’s council, when it voted a strike, chose to emphasize the lack of responsiveness from the National Assembly to the demands of German workers rather than the international situation, but the sentiment was nevertheless there. The following day, Essen, Remscheid, Dusseldorf, Barmen, and Hagen were paralyzed by general strikes, emphasizing not only the government’s foot-dragging but the continued occupation of the region by Freikorps units. 158,592 workers in total came out of the mines and into the streets that first day, a significant but unknowable portion of them armed. On April 6, Munich, which had been largely peaceful but for several assassinations (notably that of Independent Kurt Eisner in late February) witnessed the proclamation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, the first of what were to be many proclamations over the coming weeks. Berlin did not declare itself a Soviet Republic in early April, but it came out on strike on April 7 in support of Saxony. One city in central Germany that did was Magdeburg. Alwin Brandes, a Communist councilman, was arrested by Freikorps Severin, on April 6; a day later, Severin’s 581 men had been expelled from the city, and one of his lieutenants, Ewald von Kleist, arrested, along with prominent Social Democrat Otto Landsberg. By the ninth, Braunschweig and Upper Silesia had both come out on strike; the following day, the Saxon Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Magdeburg.
April 12, despite the proclamations of Soviet Republics in Munich and Magdeburg earlier in the month, marks the point of no return in terms of commitment of revolutionaries to the revolution. So many pre-revolutionary incidents had occurred that even the Communist leaders, who wanted revolution, and the Social Democrats and other government leaders, who wanted it retarded or arrested, had trouble recognizing the gravity of the April events. In Dresden, demonstrators—mostly war veterans upset that their pensions were being cut in order to pay off the Freikorps—entered the City Hall shouting their intention to lynch the Saxon government. The small number of soldiers guarding the building joined the demonstrators, and most of the government barely escaped. Gustav Neuring, the war minister, did not, and was thrown into the Elbe where he was shot. Dresden’s council, sensing the pressure of events, declared the city part of the Saxon Soviet Republic. Brunswick declared itself a Soviet Republic as well.
Liebknecht and Münzenberg, apparently on Liebknecht’s own initiative and not on instruction by the rest of the Communist central committee in Berlin, disrupted the business of the National Assembly to announce that they were withdrawing from that body. Despite the instructions of President Ebert, Liebknecht’s comments made it into the record (Münzenberg’s correspondence reveals that he bribed the clerks regularly and often). He disparaged the delegates, “who were elected to serve the people, and who have time and again proved that they serve only a small portion of it. This body,” he chided, “has conducted itself like the most obedient courtier of Capital, ignoring promises to the working men of Germany and plotting all the while to massacre them if ever the chance appeared.” He rounded off by declaring that “the Communist Party will no longer countenance this bad faith and betrayal of democracy by its participation in this Assembly; its deputies hereby withdraw in protest.” By the time Hugo Preuss was notified of this and told to order the arrest the pair, they had disappeared into the streets; by evening they were in Halle. The thirteenth saw Leipzig follow Dresden in declaring its allegiance to the Saxon Soviet Republic, the USPD-dominated government voting to dissolve itself, and the USPD-dominated workers’ council voting to assume power, with no putsch necessary. More people volunteered for the militia—which, at around sixty thousand strong, was one of the few non-regular and non-Freikorps units capable of maneuver—than appeared on the streets.
Up until this point, the government and its supporters had been shocked and awed by body blows from all directions. Its response had thus been delayed. However, the twelfth was notable not only for the new earnestness of the revolutionaries, but also for what became known as the Civil Peace Order in the Gazette and papers that supported the government, and the Civil War Order in Die Rote Fahne and Freiheit. Within three days, all the Freikorps and the regular units expected to remain loyal were ordered to occupy and pacify whichever restive city or region was deemed appropriate by the regional military command. The German Counter-Revolution had begun.
Ah, the revolution officially started.
I wonder whether Hungarian revolution will last long enough to benefit from an actual German sponsorship or support. Probably not, seeing that the conflict with Romania will heat up in April. Still, it would be cool to see Hungarian Soviet Republic faring at least slightly better, maybe even holding southern Slovakia.
BTW, have the butterflies reached Austria yet?
I wonder whether Hungarian revolution will last long enough to benefit from an actual German sponsorship or support. Probably not, seeing that the conflict with Romania will heat up in April. Still, it would be cool to see Hungarian Soviet Republic faring at least slightly better, maybe even holding southern Slovakia.
BTW, have the butterflies reached Austria yet?
I'll have to refresh my knowledge of the German Revolution but, seeing what I've read here so far, this timeline is brilliant!
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
Comments! Four comments! And what's more, out of the Shire by their talk...
There are some butterflies in Austria, but not many, not yet. Even now, there isn't too much divergence from OTL in people's thoughts and actions; Bavaria and Brunswick declared themselves Soviet Republics IOTL, and the decisive confrontation's in the future, so few people outside Germany, Russia, and Hungary actually think the country'll go Red. There will be major changes in Austria's conception of itself, and in its national identity, very shortly.
The Paris negotiations have proceeded pretty much as IOTL up till this point; as we get farther into April, Wilson's anticommunism will begin to determine more and more his attitude towards just what sort of peace the Germans should get, and Lloyd George won't be as much inclined toward a moderation of peace terms as IOTL. The Treaty'll be ready by the end of June, "on schedule" as it were, but it'll be a substantially different document.
There's fun times in store for Hungary, and events in Hungary in April and May will take on great importance for certain figures later in the timeline. I don't want to give too much away, but suffice to say that some of the first significant butterflies will be in Hungary, and that the outcome will be in some ways significantly better, in others significantly worse, than OTL's.
There are some butterflies in Austria, but not many, not yet. Even now, there isn't too much divergence from OTL in people's thoughts and actions; Bavaria and Brunswick declared themselves Soviet Republics IOTL, and the decisive confrontation's in the future, so few people outside Germany, Russia, and Hungary actually think the country'll go Red. There will be major changes in Austria's conception of itself, and in its national identity, very shortly.
Like I told Magnificate, outside Germany few people are really worried. There's been some incredulity expressed in the Allied press about the German government's reluctance to use force (L'Humanite spun that into praise of its even-handedness and reasonableness), but beyond that nobody's really fearing for the Republic's life or health. The troops on the left side of the Rhine are basically making sure the "disorders" don't spread west; the British occupiers were instrumental in making sure Cologne didn't erupt in February, and the French kept order in Mainz and gave permission for the Freikorps' suppression of Mannheim, which was technically in their occupation zone.
The Paris negotiations have proceeded pretty much as IOTL up till this point; as we get farther into April, Wilson's anticommunism will begin to determine more and more his attitude towards just what sort of peace the Germans should get, and Lloyd George won't be as much inclined toward a moderation of peace terms as IOTL. The Treaty'll be ready by the end of June, "on schedule" as it were, but it'll be a substantially different document.
It was the winter in the timeline. Now it is spring. Things get more lively in the spring.
Thanks for the support. Good sources are Broue and Muller, and there's a couple other books I dug through for research purposes, as well as MIA and LibCom (yeah, yeah, I know, bias, but there's some good primary sources there).
This is simply excellent. Detailed, dense, and yet exciting. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
The German Counter-Revolution
In case you're wondering, yes the Allies do react to this, and yes, said reactions will appear in the next update.
http://i42.tinypic.com/wtx5dw.png
Red denotes areas controlled by the military force of a proclaimed Soviet Republic (i.e., Saxony, Bavaria, or Brunswick)
Pink denotes areas claimed but not controlled by a Soviet Republic
Lavender denotes areas claimed by a Soviet Republic but controlled by Allied troops
Blue denotes areas controlled by Allied troops.
Peach denotes areas controlled by striking workers not organized under a Soviet Republic (i.e., Berlin, Ruhr, Stuttgart, Upper Silesia)
Green denotes areas controlled by the Poles.
In case you're wondering, yes the Allies do react to this, and yes, said reactions will appear in the next update.
For those who like maps, here's one of the situation on April 23, just before the proclamation of the Free German Socialist Republic:
http://i42.tinypic.com/wtx5dw.png
Red denotes areas controlled by the military force of a proclaimed Soviet Republic (i.e., Saxony, Bavaria, or Brunswick)
Pink denotes areas claimed but not controlled by a Soviet Republic
Lavender denotes areas claimed by a Soviet Republic but controlled by Allied troops
Blue denotes areas controlled by Allied troops.
Peach denotes areas controlled by striking workers not organized under a Soviet Republic (i.e., Berlin, Ruhr, Stuttgart, Upper Silesia)
Green denotes areas controlled by the Poles.
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IOTL, Weimar was protected by General Maercker's Freikorps, at that time perhaps the most powerful unit of all FKs (and one of the first to have been formed). - Where have they gone?
The FK answer to urban fighting was: Armoured cars. As Maercker tells us, one AC was worth a battalion in urban combat.
The FK answer to urban fighting was: Armoured cars. As Maercker tells us, one AC was worth a battalion in urban combat.
Zimmerwald1915
Banned
Maercker himself is stewing in jail in Halle (that's in the May 27 update "Saxon Ironies"). The Freiwilligen Landesjagerkorps he commanded retreated when he was captured and was put under someone else's command. By the time of this update, they were in Weimar and were ordered to Bamberg when the Assembly evacuated, but went west instead, as there's no point protecting the Assembly any more. At the moment they're coordinating with the Supreme Command in Kassel. I knew both sides used armored (or at least armed) cars, but I've read they were more plentiful in central Germany than in the Ruhr.