GERMANY'S LAST DAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 5, 7 January 1929, Page 3

GERMANY'S LAST DAYS.

THE KAISER'S ABDICATION.

OBSTINATE TO THE EMD.

IMPORTANT BOOK OF REVELATIONS.

(From Our London Correspondent.)

LONDON, November 1

We are getting more translations of the important German books and none of higher importance than the two volumes of Memoirs of Prince Max of Baden (Constable). This is the record of a patently honest man. who in spite of his aristocratic birth and his being heir to the throne of a German Stat?. yet was informed with Liberal principles which he struggled and ft niggled hard to impose on those in authority in Germany during the war. And though born a German Prince, he, was »o militarist. Indeed his time until, owing to these very qualities of his. he w« called almost by acclaim to the German Chancellorship in 1918, was devoted to tinRed Cross, and throughout that tin** , his moderating influence in his country was scorned because of his pacifism. No Undertaking About Belgium. The broad outlines of these memoir* are already known through the original German publication, but at no time more than the present do they desei-ve mor» careful reading, for they are so detailed that they produce an ineffable picture of his struggle against the jingo supreme command and the political inertia of the Government. Throughout these volumes we see his heart-rending attempt? to move the Supreme Command to make a statement that Belgian sovereignty and integrity would be restored. The} remained deaf even after that fatal day on which LudeudorlFs nerve gave way and he beseeched the Government to ask for an armistice. Within four days of that first throwing up of the sponge Ludendorff admitted that, from a purely military point of view, his demand was unnecessary t Prince Max, therefore, had every justification for his dictum:—"l saw'clearly that in 1917—for we as well as the Allies had lost the prospect of a rapid victory ■ —the war had become a test of nerves. The statesman who would lead trie people safely through the crisis was—the best psychologist.** Hie memoirs prove that if nothing else. The second volume is entirely taken Up with the events of October and November, 1918, when Ludendorff did little save reiterate "my army must rest" and beg the Government somehow to obtain an armistice— not to bring an end to the war. but es a time for recuperation only. Evidence is added of the •vanity and pusillanimity of the Kaiser. When Prince Max, having dutifully obtained his father's and the Kaiser's consent to taking on himself the Chancellorship, desired to have the Kaiser at hand in Berlin to sign documents required before he (Max) could take action, at a moment when prompt action was essential, the War Lord fled to the midst of his military junta and would consent to none of the steps which Prince Max regarded as essential if aegotiatione with President Wilson were to be undertaken with any hope of success. Entrenched at Spa, the Kaiser objected to his kinsman's best effort* to save tte army, the Monarchy, and the Imperial thronee itself. Seeing clearly that Wilson would break off negotiatione unless the submarine warfare was abandoned, Prince Max threatened to resign office unless the Navy capitulated "K I go,» he said, "the Cabinet will fall to pieces, and then comes the revolution." The Kaiser nevertheless gave hie consent most unwillingly.

The Impossible Emperor. The Raiser contrived to baulk Prince Max to the Tery last Even when th«» Supreme Command saw that abdication was necessary and that the allies would consent to an armistice on no other terms, and the Kaiser had br telephone accepted abdication, the War' Lord nullified his consent by the qualification that he abdicated his Kaisership but not hie throne of Prussia.

One asks oneself whether, H Prince Max had taken more upon himself and not waited so much on the Kaisers consent, he would not have saved hie country from some of the evils of revolution which were even then to be seen. For instance, he refused to announce the Kaiser's abdication before obtaining WiAelm's consent because it would look fnA- i ( «P™^ 5 M**> were ambitiou. for himself On November 8, when the revolutionaries were marching on Berlin itself, under the threat of V s3d democrats ultimatum, Prince Max <?V™ h » Personal appeal to the Kaiser: abdicat.on has become neeeeearv to save Germany from civil war The great majority of the people believe you to be responsible for the present situation. This belief ig falee, bJtb ' ' '$L P™ tectin « hand can no longer rineld the occupant of th* Throne Once blood has flowed thi heard Will eve be ™aa a rOOps Bre not to *« oV hands of the Workers and Soldiers Council. At Brunswick the Red Fiae R^nnl^^P" 1^6 - At Muni <* SJ Kepublic has been proclaimed We are eteering straight for civil war " fcven this proved unavailing. "P * JS"" 01 *° S ,v « ™7- At the head to order; the necessary instructions had already been given. In a furv of inI begged the Kaiser to dismiss „£ appoint a new Chancellor immediatelv, now that I no longer po.«e=sed hi> confidence. The Kaiser refused with th« words: You sent out the armistice r.fl>r iou will have to put vour name to ih<> conditions.'"

It was only because of The accident, that the telephone conversetion> on abdication had hidden the Kaiser's "reservation" as to the Prussian crown tha» Prince Max did at once announce the Kaiser's abdication and cleared the war for conversation? between the Allies and a Germany which had a Prince Max as its Chancellor. But it was his \erv character which prevented Prince Max from imposing on others the clearer and better course which he himself would have followed. Prince Max had alreaav trili F»i a r d °; er . tne Chancellorship to Herr Ebert, refusing even to remain ifilii

-??"*? more one would Kke t« say of the*e Memoirs, and Messrs Con Sffi?i tran ? , * t ? on - hav « done a great national service in showing us th* *trngle behind the scenes in a,"d the difficultr with which 1 ibfia) or democratic opinion made itself effective during that time of mtpualieied e.