The Majority Socialists realized that their only hope was to try to lead the movement and direct it into comparatively orderly channels. They appointed Scheidemann, Ebert and David to confer with the Independent Socialist delegates Dittmann, Vogtherr and Ledebour, regarding the organization of a new government.
Further reports came of street demonstrations. Bloodshed appeared imminent. Colin Ross went to the palace of the Chancellor and found Prince Max. The Prince was nervous and all but entirely unstrung. Ross told him the Majority Socialists had decided that there must be no firing on the people, and asked him to issue an order to that effect. Max said he would do so. Ross thereupon went to Minister of War Scheuch and told him that the Chancellor had ordered that the troops should not fire on the citizens. The order was communicated to the various garrisons and also to police headquarters.
What would have occurred if this order had not been issued is a matter of conjecture. Assuredly there would have been bloodshed. Quite apart from the question of the reliability or unreliability of the troops there were the Berlin police to deal with. Their ranks had been thinned by calls to the front, but those still on duty were no inconsiderable factor. The force was made up entirely of veteran non-commissioned officers, who must have served twelve years in the army. They were, moreover, like all great city police forces, picked men, above the average physically, and far above the average in bravery, resoluteness and loyalty. Only a negligible number of them had been perverted by red doctrines, and they were well armed and fully prepared for the day's events. High police officials assured the author that they could have put down the revolution in its very beginnings if the order had not come forbidding them to offer resistance.
Viewed in the light of subsequent events, this statement must be rejected. The police could and would have put up a brave battle, but there were too few of them for one thing, and for another, the revolution had too great momentum to be stopped by any force available to the authorities. One military defection had already occurred when Saturday dawned. A corporal of the Naumburg Jäger, who were quartered in the Alexander barracks, had been arrested for making an incendiary speech to some comrades, and when the troops were alarmed at 3:00 A.M. and ordered to be ready to go into action they refused to obey. Major Ott, commander of the battalion directly affected, came and told the men that the Kaiser had already abdicated. They sent a delegation to the Vorwärts, where they learned that the major's statement was not true. The delegation thereupon announced that the battalion would place itself on the side of the workingmen. The Kaiser Alexander Guards followed the Jäger's example.
There were some good troops in Berlin—such as the Jäger already mentioned—but the great majority of the men were by no means of the highest standard. The best troops were naturally at the front, and those at home were in large part made up of men who had been away from the firing-line for some weeks or even longer, and who had been subjected to a violent campaign of what the Socialists call Aufklärung, literally, clearing up, or enlightenment. The word is generally used as part of a phrase, Aufklärung im sozial-demokratischen Sinne, that is, "enlightenment in the social-democratic sense." The great majority of any army is made up of men who work with their hands. A great part of the others consists of small shopkeepers, clerks and others whose associations in civilian life are mainly with the workingmen. An appeal not to shoot one's "proletarian brother" is, in the nature of things, an appeal which strikes home to these people. The Kaiser was still nominally occupying the throne, but it was certain that he would abdicate. This was a further element of weakness for the government, since such of the troops as were still kaisertreu (loyal to the Kaiser) saw themselves about to be deprived of their monarch, who, however they may have regarded him personally, nevertheless represented for them the majesty and unity of the German State. Hence, even before the order came not to fire on the people, the troops had begun to place themselves on the side of the revolutionaries and were everywhere permitting themselves to be disarmed. Otto Wels, a Majority Socialist member of the Reichstag, and others of his colleagues made the round of the barracks, appealing to the soldiers not to shed their brothers' blood. And then came the no-resistance order.
The streets filled with marching crowds, civilians and soldiers, arm in arm, cheering and singing. Hawkers appeared everywhere with small red flags, red rosettes, red ribbons, red flowers. The red flag of revolution began breaking out on various buildings. Soldiers tore off their regimental insignia and removed the cockades from their caps. Factories were deserted.
The revolution had come!