Neither Noske nor the bulk of the mutineers yet knew what had been going on elsewhere in northwestern Germany. The Independent Socialist and Spartacan plotters for revolution at Berlin saw in the Kiel events the opportunity for which they had been waiting for more than three years, and they struck promptly. Haase and some of his followers went immediately to Hamburg, and other revolutionary agents proceeded to the other coast cities to incite strikes and revolts. The ground had been so well prepared that their efforts were everywhere speedily successful. In the few cities where the people were not already ripe for revolution, the supineness of the authorities made the revolutionaries' task a light one. Leaders of the Kiel mutineers met the Berlin agitators in different cities and coöperated with them.
The procedure was everywhere the same. Workmen's and soldiers' councils were formed, policemen and loyal troops were disarmed and the city government was taken over by the soviets. By Thursday evening soviet governments had been established in Hamburg, Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Hanover, Rostock, Oldenburg and other places. The soviets in virtually all these places were controlled by Independent Socialists—even then only a slight remove from Bolsheviki—and their spirit was hostile not alone to the existing government, but equally to the Majority Socialists. At Hamburg, for instance, the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, which had forcibly taken over the Majority Socialist organ Hamburger Echo and rechristened it Die rote Fahne, published a proclamation forbidding the press to take any notice whatever of proclamations issued by the Majority Socialists or the leaders of trade-unions. The proclamation declared that "these elements will be permitted to coöperate in the government, but they will not be permitted to present any demands." Any attempt to interfere with the soviet was declared to be counter-revolutionary, and it was threatened that such attempts would "be met with the severest repressive measures."
The revolution at Hamburg was marked by much shooting and general looting. A semblance of order was restored on November 8th, but it was order only by comparison with the preceding day, and life and property were for many days unsafe in the presence of the vicious elements in control of the city. Prisoners were promiscuously released. Russian prisoners of war, proudly bearing red ribbons and flags, marched with their "brothers" in the demonstrations. A detachment of marines went to Harburg, near by, and liberated all the prisoners confined in the jail there.
The cowardice, supineness and lack of decision of the authorities generally have already been referred to. A striking and characteristic illustration is furnished by the story of the revolution at Swinemünde, on the Baltic Sea. Two warships, the Dresden and Augsburg, were in the harbor when news came of the Kiel mutiny. The admiral was Count Schwerin and one of his officers was Prince Adalbert, the sailor-son of the Kaiser. The crews of the ships were loyal, and the Prince was especially popular with them. The garrison at Swinemünde was composed of fifteen hundred coast artillerists and some three hundred marines. The artillerists were all men of the better class, technically educated and thoroughly loyal. At a word from their commanding-officer they would have blown any mutinous ship out of the water with their heavy coast guns. And yet Admiral Count Schwerin and Prince Adalbert donned civilian clothing and took refuge with civilian friends ashore.
Thirty-six submarines arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon, but left two hours later because there was no food to be had at Swinemünde. The coast artillerists begged to be allowed to wipe out the mutineers. The mayor of Swinemünde protested. Shells from the sea, he said, might fall into the city and damage it. And so, under the guns of loyal men, the sailors looted the ships completely during the evening and night.
A committee of three marines called on Major Grunewald, commander of the fortress, and insolently ordered him to direct the garrison to appoint a soldiers' council. The artillerists were dumfounded when the major complied. The council appointed consisted of three marines, one artillerist and one infantryman, of whom there were about a hundred in the garrison. One of the members was an officer, Major Grunewald having been ordered to direct the appointment of one. When the council had been formed the troops were drawn up to listen to a speech by a sergeant of marines. The major, his head bared, listened obediently.
"We are the masters here now," said the sergeant. "It is ours to command, yours to obey. The salute is abolished. When we meet a decent officer we may possibly say 'good day, major,' to him, but when we meet some little runt (Schnösel) of a lieutenant we shan't recognize him. The officers may now go to their quarters. We don't need them. If we should need them later we shall tell them." [27]
[ [27] The flight of Prince Heinrich and later of the Kaiser made a painful impression in Germany, especially among Germans of the better class, and did much to alienate sympathy from them. It had been thought that, whatever other faults the Hohenzollerns might possess, they were at least not cowards. The flight of Prince Adalbert is even today not generally known.
The government at Berlin and the Majority Socialists endeavored, even after the events already recorded, to stem the tide, or at least to lead the movement into more orderly channels. Stolten and Quarck, Socialist Reichstag deputies, and Blunck, Progressive deputy, and Stubbe and Schumann, Socialists, representing the executive committee of the central labor federation, went to Hamburg. But Haase, Ledebour and the other agitators had done their work too well. Thursday morning brought the reports of the successes of the uprisings to the mutineers at Kiel, who were on the point of returning to their ships. A Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was formed for the whole province of Schleswig-Holstein. The revolt had already become revolution. The revolutionaries seized the railway running from Hamburg to Berlin, and also took charge of telephonic and telegraphic communication. Their emissaries started for Berlin.
It has been set forth in a previous chapter that the promise of President Wilson to give the Germans a just peace on the basis of his fourteen points and the supplementary points, and his declaration that the war was against a system and not against the German people themselves had played a very considerable part in making the revolution possible. This appears clearly in the report of the events at Bremen. On November 7th a procession, estimated at thirty thousand persons, passed through the city and halted at the market place. A number of speeches were made. One of the chief speakers, a soldier, reminded his hearers that Wilson had said that a peace of justice was possible for the Germans only if they would take the government into their own hands. This had now been done, and nobody could reproach the revolutionaries with being unpatriotic, since their acts had made a just peace possible.