SOCIALIST ACTIVITY
During the next few days there were constant reports that the Socialists in Berlin were planning trouble and that the Chancellor was growing steadily more nervous. The report given by Drews to the Government, after his return from Spa, had not failed to cause an impression; the gentlemen wished to get rid of me, to be sure, but for the time being they were afraid of the consequences.
Their point of view was as obscure as their conduct. They acted as if they did not want a republic, yet failed completely to realize that their course was bound to lead straight to a republic. Many, in fact, explained the actions of the Government by maintaining that the creation of a republic was the very end that its members had in view; plenty of people drew the conclusion, from the puzzling conduct of the Chancellor toward me, that he was working to eliminate me in order to become himself President of the German Republic, after being, in the interim, the administrator of the Empire.
To believe this is undoubtedly to do the Prince an injustice; such a train of thought is impossible in a man belonging to an old German princely family.
General Gröner, who had gone to Berlin to study the situation, reported on his return that he had received very bad impressions regarding the Government and the sentiment prevailing in the country; that things were approaching revolution; that the Government was merely tearing down without setting up anything positive; that the people wanted peace at last, at any cost, no matter what kind of peace; that the authority of the Government was equal to zero, the agitation against the Emperor in full swing, my abdication hardly to be avoided longer.
He added that the troops at home were unreliable and disagreeable surprises might come in case of a revolt; that the courier chests of the Russian Bolshevist ambassador, seized by the criminal police, had disclosed some very damaging evidence that the Russian Embassy, in conjunction with the Spartacus group, had long since thoroughly prepared, without being disturbed, a Bolshevist revolution on the Russian model. (This had gone on with the knowledge of the Foreign Office—which had received constant warning, but had either laughed at them all or dismissed them with the remark that the Bolsheviki must not be angered—likewise under the very eyes of the police, which was continually at loggerheads with the Foreign Office.) The men back from leave, he went on, infected by propaganda, had already carried the poison to the army, which was already partly affected and would, as soon as it had been made free by an armistice, refuse to fight against the rebels upon its return home.
Therefore, he declared, it was necessary to accept, immediately and unconditionally, any sort of armistice, no matter how hard its conditions might be; the army was no longer to be trusted and revolution was imminent behind the front.