History

• 1:30pm on the 9th november 1918 Kaiser Weilham II of Germany was brought the news of his abdication had been anounnced in Berlin. 
• His companions advised him that his only hope of saftey was to travel northwards into Holland(which was neutral during the war).
• By the end of September 1918 it had been clear to General Ludendorff and The German high command that Germany was on the brink of defeat.
• Lundendorff concluded that Germany's only hope of avoiding an humiliating surrender was to as the Allies for an armistice.
• President Wilson offered fourteen points that offered a possible basis for a negotiated peace settlement  but Lundendorff understood that Germany's autocratic political system was an obstacle to this.
• He advocated a partial democratisiation of the political system in Germany as a way of getting better peace terms from the allies.

Following the recommendations of Ludendorff, the kaiser began a series of reforms that effectively ended his autocratic role:

• He appointed Prince Max of Baden as his new chancellor
• The chancellor was to be responsible for the Reichstag and he established a new government based on the majority parties in the reichstag, including the German social democratic party (SPD).
• The armed forces were put under the control of the civil government.

These reforms were a major constitutional transformation in Germany but they did not come about as a result of popular pressure. They amounted to a 'revolution from above' which was not only designed to save Germany from humiliation, but also to save the Kaiser's rule.

• 3rd october - Prince Max wrote to President Wilson asking for an armistice. Wilson was suspicious that the German High command was using the request for an armistice as a means of buying more time to regroup and prepare for a new offensive. Winston said Germany must evacuate all occupied territory, call an end to submarine warfare and fully democratise its political system. These terms were too much for Ludendorff to accept. He tried but failed to get support for a last ditch military effort to resist, whereupon he resigned and fled to sweeden. 

News that Prince Max's government was asking for an armisitice was a shattering blow to the morale of German people and to their armed forces. The peace note was the first time the German people knew about their country's hopeless military situation. It underminded their respect for the Kaiser and his military and political leaders. Many soliders and sailors lost respect for their officers. The Kaiser was seen as an obstacle to peace but refused to abdicate. During a strike in Friedrichshafen on 22nd October, workers shouted their hate for the kaiser and 'up for the German republic'. On 28th october, the Germnay's navy's high command ordered ships from Wilhelmshaven  to attack British ships in the English channel and the crews of two cruisers refused to obey orders.

• 3rd November 1918 - Sailors at the main German naval base at Keil mutinied against their officers and took control of the base.
• 4th Novemeber - the revolt spread to the city and workers' and soldiers' councils were formed.
• Most members of the councils were patriotic Germans who wanted the Kaiser to abdicate and a democratic republic to be established.
• 8 November - A republic was proclaimed in Bavaria and the Bavarian monarchy was deposed.
• 9 November - The SPD called on Workers in Berlin to join a general strike to force the Kaiser to abdicate They threatnened to withdraw support from Prince Max's new government if the Kaiser didn't abdicate within 24 hours. Max knew he couldn't continue to govern without the SPD. He released a press statement saying the Kaiser had abdicated, He also resigned as chancellor and handed the role to Fredrich Ebert(leader of SPD).
• Philip Scheidemann stood on the Reichstag building and declared that the German republic was now in exsitence. This all happened before the Kaiser had officaly abdicated.
• General Groener told the Kaiser that the army would no longer fight for him.
• At this point the Kaiser had lost control and had no other option but to abdicate.

• Ebert was not a revolutionary. He beleived in evolutionairy change through winning a majority in parliamentary elections and then introducing reforms
• He was concious of the fact his government lacked legitmacy. He was deternined to establish a new constitution as quickly as possible.
• His priority, after agreeing the armistice with the Allies on 11th November, was to organise elections for a costituent assembly (an elected body with the specific task of drawing up a new constitution, usually in the aftermath of a revolution.
• Ebert urged Germans to keep essential services running, to avoid street demostrations and to maintain law and order. 
• His problem was that that his authority did not extend much beyond Berlin where disorder and violence were becoming the norm.
• After the armistice and demobilisation of much of the army, bands of angry, disillusioned and workless ex-soldiers roamed the streets. 
• Street demonstrations, stirkes and armed clashes became regular occurrences.

• Ebert could not ignore the fact that the Workers' and soldiers' working councils, in which the USPD and sparticists had established a foothold, had made the running in the early stages of the revolution.
• They were not going to let Ebert's government make the key decicsions without refering to them.
• 22nd November - an agreement was reached between the new government and the Berlin workers' and soldiers' councils whereby the government accepted that it only exercised power in the name of these councils. This was merely a temporary compromise. 
• Many in the USPD saw the councils as the true expression of the revolutionairy will of the people and the means bu which the revolution could be extended. They believed that the autocratic system of government would not finally be abolished unless the aristocratic estates were broken up, the army, civil service and judiciary were democrartised, and they key industries were nationalised under workers' control.

• The survival of Ebert's government depended on the support of the army. Most army officers were from aristocratic backgrounds, had been loyal to the Kaiser and were against democracy. They did not want to see Germany become a republic.
• Late 1918 - the political situation in Germany was highly unstable and many officers believed that Germany faced the danger of a Bolshevik revolution which would lead to civil war and possible occupation by allies.
• 10th November - General Groener telephoned Ebert to assure him that the army leadership would support the government. In return, Groener demanded that Ebert should resist the demands of soldiers' councils to democratise the army and defend Germany against a communist revolution. This agreement was known as the Ebert-Groener pact.
• For Ebert the pact was a necessary and unavoidable device to ensure an orderly transition to the new republic. For his critics on the left this was a abject betrayl of the revolution. 
• 6th December - A sparticist demonstration in Berlin was fired on by soldiers, killing sixteen.
• 23rd - 24th December - A sailors' revolt against the government in Berlin was put down by the army. In protest, the three USPD ministers in the government resigned.
• 6th January - The spartacists launched an armed revolt against the government in what became known as the January revolution, or the spartacist uprising. After a week of heavy fighting in Berlin, the revolt was crushed,

• Held on 19th January 1919.
• Women were allowed to vote for the first time.
• SPD secured largest share of the vote and the largest number of seats in the Assembly but they did not have an overall majority and would thereforehave to compromise with the other parties in order to establish a new constitution and govern the country. The political order was called the weimar republic.
• Ebert was elected by the assembly as the first president of the new government, led by Philipp scheidemann, was formed by the SPD in coallition with the centre and German democratic parties.
• Workers' and soldiers' councils handed over their powers to the constituent assembly, which could then concrete on the business of drawing up a new constitution.
• Although the representatives did not agree on all issues concerning the new constitution, there was general agreement that it should represent a clear break with the autocratic constitution drawn up by Otto von Bismark for the German empire in 1871.
• Constitution was designed to enshrine and guarntee the rights and powers of the people,

• More democratic than the systems of government in force at the time in other democratic countries.
• Marked a clear break with Germany's autocratic past.
• The new German constitution provided a wider right to vote than in countries such as France and Great Britian. Women were allowed to vote
• The system of proportional representation enabled even the smaller parties to win seats in the Reichstag and influence government decisicions. The country was divided into 35 electoral districts, each with one million voters.
• There was full democracy in local government aswell as central government.
• The constitution also set out clearly the rights of the individual. Fundamental rights, duties of German citizens guaranteed in the second part of the constitution.
• Referendums could be called for by the president, the Reichstrat, or by people's request' if a tenth of the electorate applied for one.

Proportanion representation - designed to ensure that all shades of political opinion were represented in the Reichstag, since parties were allocated seats in the proportion the the percentage of votes they recieved in an election. This was a fair process but had two consequences.

Proliferation of small parties - smaller parties could gain representation in the Reichstag. This enabled smaller parties - many of which were anti-republican - to exploit the parliamentary explotation system to gain their publicity. proportional representation did not create the fragmented party system. This was due to the deep divisions in German society and the lack of a national consenus.

Coalition govenrments - because on proliferation of small parties, none of the larger parties could gain an overall majority in the Reichstag. Therefore, all governments in the weimar republic were coallitions.

Article 48 of the constitution gave the president the power to rule by decree in exceptional circumstances. Ebert used Article 48 powers on 136 occasions. Some of these occasions can be deemed genuine whilst others were non-emergency situations when he simply wanted to override opposition in the Reichstag. There were no effective safeguards as since a president