CHAPTER XIII.
"The New Freedom."
The conclusion of the armistice was the signal for a general collapse among Germany's armed forces. This did not at first affect the troops in the trenches, and many of them preserved an almost exemplary spirit and discipline until they reached home, but the men of the étappe—the positions back of the front and at the military bases—threw order and discipline to the winds. It was here that revolutionary propaganda and red doctrines had secured the most adherents in the army, and the effect was quickly seen. Abandoning provisions, munitions and military stores generally, looting and terrifying the people of their own villages and cities, the troops of the étappe straggled back to the homeland, where they were welcomed by the elements responsible for Germany's collapse.
The government sent a telegram to the Supreme Army Command, pointing out the necessity of an orderly demobilization and emphasizing the chaotic conditions that would result if army units arbitrarily left their posts. Commanding officers were directed to promulgate these orders:
"1. Relations between officers and men must rest upon mutual confidence. The soldier's voluntary submission to his officer and comradely treatment of the soldier by his superior are conditions precedent for this.
"2. Officers retain their power of command. Unconditional obedience when on duty is of decisive importance if the return march to the German homeland is to be successfully carried out. Military discipline and order in the armies must be maintained in all circumstances.
"3. For the maintenance of confidence between officers and men the soldiers' councils have advisory powers in matters relating to provisioning, furloughs and the infliction of military punishments. It is their highest duty to endeavor to prevent disorder and mutiny.
"4. Officers and men shall have the same rations.
"5. Officers and men shall receive the same extra allowances of pay and perquisites."
"Voluntary submission" by soldiers to officers might be feasible in a victorious and patriotic army, but it is impracticable among troops infected with Socialist doctrines and retreating before their conquerors. Authority, once destroyed, can never be regained. This was proved not only at the front, but at home as well. Die neue Freiheit (the new freedom), a phrase glibly mouthed by all supporters of the revolution, assumed the same grotesque forms in Germany as in Russia. Automobiles, commandeered by soldiers from army depots or from the royal garages, flying red flags, darted through the streets at speeds defying all regulations, filled with unwashed and unshaven occupants lolling on the cushioned seats. Cabmen drove serenely up the left side of Unter den Linden, twiddling their fingers at the few personally escorted and disarmed policemen whom they saw. Gambling games ran openly at street-corners. Soldiers mounted improvised booths in the streets and sold cigarettes and soap looted from army stores.
Earnest revolutionaries traveled through the city looking for signs containing the word kaiserlich (imperial) or königlich (royal), and mutilated or destroyed them. Court purveyors took down their signs or draped them. The Kaiser Keller in Friedrichstrasse became simply a Keller and the bust of the Kaiser over the door was covered with a piece of canvas. The Royal Opera-House became the "Opera-House Unter den Linden."
One of the most outstanding characteristics of the German people in peace times had been their love of order. Even the superficial observer could not help noticing it, and one of its manifestations earned general commendation. This was that the unsightly billboards and placarded walls that disfigure American cities were never seen in Germany. Neat and sightly columns were erected in various places for official, theatrical or business announcements, and no posters might be affixed anywhere else. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the character of the collapse in Germany than the fact that it destroyed even this deeply ingrained love of order. Genossen with brushes and paste-pots calmly defaced house-walls and even show windows on main streets with placards whose quality showed that German art, too, had suffered in the general collapse of the Empire.
There was something so essentially childish in the manner in which a great part of the people reacted to die neue Freiheit that one is not surprised to hear that it also turned juvenile heads. Several hundred schoolboys and schoolgirls, from twelve to seventeen years old, paraded through the main streets of Berlin, carrying red flags and placards with incendiary inscriptions. The procession stopped before the Prussian Diet building, where the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was in session, and presented a list of demands. These included the vote for all persons eighteen years old or over, the abolition of corporal punishment and participation by the school-children in the administration of the schools. The chairman of the Vollzugsrat of the council addressed the juvenile paraders, and declared that he was in complete sympathy with their demands.
A seventeen-year-old lad replied with a speech in which he warned the council that there would be terrible consequences if the demands were not granted. The procession then went on to the Reichstag building, where speeches were made by several juvenile orators, demanding the resignation or removal of Ebert and Scheidemann and threatening a general juvenile strike if this demand was not accepted immediately.