I've had a bit of time on two long train rides, and so I decided to jot down how the resumption of hostilities in Germany would play out. It's an authorial (and somewhat chaotic) narration, sorry for the lack of structure, but if I don't chuck it out as it is now, I'd have to wait until mid-January. I eagerly anticipate your comments and speculations!
But what if von Seeckt claims that Ebert was removed because he would not sign, does it himself and apologies for being late?
That would be somewhat out of character. Von Seeckt was IOTL and ITTL the man who built up the Provisional and the Black Reichswehr. He was a schemer indeed, and I wouldn't put it past him to simply do the opposite of what he was hired for by the Kaiser, but his understanding of what his duty was and what Germany needed at that point in time was certainly not signing the Treaty of Versailles and allowing Germany to be economically plundered, demilitarised, and politically cleansed. He was not deluded, he knew that Germany could not effectively defend herself against an Entente occupation, but he hoped to make Germany unoccupiable and that military aristocracy and popular opinion would be reconciled with each other and grow closer to each other again in the course of anti-Entente resistance.
Germany’s End
Two days after the ultimatum expired, the Reichstag convened. With a somewhat solid majority (because, beyond the "Peace resolution coalition", Stresemann got more than half of the National Liberals behind it, too), the Reichstag passed a resolution which the international press would have labelled “Neither Peace, Nor War”, only that ITTL Trotsky never coined this phrase. There was no majority for a resolution of leftist liberals, a few SPD renegates, and USPD to sign the Versailles Treaty. Instead, the majority opted to deny von Seeckt’s government any authority and call Ebert’s replacement a “coup”, and for a call to all institutions not to obey any orders sent from the chancellory, and specifically not to engage in renewed military activity, not to sacrifice lives and risk the destruction of German infrastructure, but also not to “play the game” of the invaders. (What territorial bodies, institutions, units etc. were supposed to DO exactly was left unspoken.)
Three days after the ultimatum expired, French and Belgian troops began moving across the Rhine and swarming out from their Cologne bridgehead. Simultaneously, Polish and UoE forces crossed the Oder at Frankfurt, while Czechoslovak detachments overcame weak defenses in the Elbe gorge. In Gotha, Rosa Luxemburg (who escaped the crackdown on Breslau’s Spartakists in November 1918 and had been active clandestinely ever since) issues a declaration from the town hall, which a leftist group had stormed to many people’s surprise, in the name of “Internationale Revolutionäre Sozialdemokraten” (a name which clearly alludes to the IRSDLP(u)), in which she declared the beginning of the self-liberation of the proletariat which has no fatherland, and announced passive defense against any force which the reaction would send against them. She announced similar actions in the Ruhr, Silesia, Kassel, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe, and called on all proletarian organizations to support the revolution with a general strike and the takeover of local control on May Day.
In the following days, the only superficially demobilized Seventh Army commanded by
Oskar von Watter began cutting railroad lines, destroying bridges, erecting defensive works in the wooded hills to the East of the Rhine Valley, re-drafting soldiers and integrating Heimatwehren, and restoring wartime command structures over the economy. Franco-Belgian advances into the Ruhr basin, and a smaller French advance into the Main basin, were not yet confronted. East of Berlin, though, the VIIth Prussian Army Corps and various other regular and irregular groups commanded by
Kurt von dem Borne defied the onslaught and pushed back the Polish and UoE advance across the Oder, in turn capturing the right bank of the Oder and establishing a bridgehead. Hastily, works on a line of defense along the Oder are intensified.
In various industrial centres, most notably in the Ruhr region, general strikes have begun, “Vollzugsräte” are formed again, contact to each other and to the advancing foreign troops are sought. Although no coordination is possible as of yet, massive takekovers, like called for by Luxemburg, are prepared for May Day.
In the second week after the expiration of the armistice, von dem Borne’s success as well as Luxemburg’s energise the radical Right and Left, while some advancing forces celebrate successes. Across Tyrol, Heimatwehren sabotage the supply lines of the Italians who have sent 20,000 more men into Bavaria, with the aim of securing control there and then advancing North-Westward against Württemberg, where they hope they would meet with French forces advancing South-Eastwards. Tyrol, North and South, is in flames, as Italian
arditi retaliate. South of Munich, the Heimatwehr-Corps Epp prepares several thousand defenders for their stand against the Italians or a march on Munich. In Munich, anarchists mobilise against them. In Elberfeld and Barmen, Hagen, Essen and other cities in the Ruhr region, socialist and syndicalist Vollzugsräte take control after hundreds of thousands protest on May Day. They pledge non-obstruction to the French, but don’t ally directly with them. Anti-socialist groups led by Heimatwehr corps Lichtschlag
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps_Lichtschlag begin to attack them, supported by parts of the administration loyal to von Seeckt (under the leadership of
Landeshauptmann von Renvers). The Czechoslovak Army captures Dresden, where the provisional administration (instituted by Berlin under imperial execution) gives in after Heimatwehren were defeated at Bad Schandau and socialists have erected barricades. South of Danzig,
von Quast has drawn together an army over 50,000 men strong, but only lightly equipped, in order to throw back the Poles and UoE detachments, and farther to the East, at Bartenstein,
von der Goltz has assembled another force only slightly smaller. Hindenburg visits them and exhorts them to remain steadfast. Loosely affiliated, Heimatwehren in the East unify under the command of the nationalistic Social Democrat (!)
August Winning, and begin an unprecedented campaign of terrorism, sabotage, assassination attempts and other acts of guerilla warfare against Polish and UoE units. Like all other “loyalist” German forces, their rationale is ultimately, since they can’t effectively defend the country, to make its occupation as ineffective and costly to the occupiers as possible.) In Berlin, most members of the Reichstag has fled due to fears of being apprehended or even shot by von Seeckt’s men, who have begun committing atrocities against anti-war socialists.
The British and US governments are reluctant to intervene, but feel compelled to ultimately participate, too, and have set their flotillas in motion. Von Seeckt attempts to prevent their re-entrance into the war by offering to accept the reparations and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine as well as Posen Province, but not the demilitarization and occupation of Germany, the persecution of its politicians and militaries, and any further losses in East Prussia, Pommerania, Silesia, or left of the Rhine.
In the third week, full-scale civil war rages in Bavaria (where Epp marches on Munich and fighting endures without a clear outcome, while in the countryside, more Heimatwehren form, while the Gandorfer brothers
Karl and
Ludwig organize a revolutionary peasant militia in Lower Bavaria who defeat a Heimatwehr corps from Regensburg in the Battle of Schierling and prevent the latter’s march on Munich from the North. Both Unterleitner’s acting government and the majority factions in the Landtag decide to adopt a passive approach, which leads to a degree of rapprochement between the hostile camps of Bavarian politics. Full-scale civil war also rages on along Rhein and Ruhr, in Silesia, Pommerania, Posen, East Prussia, Tyrol… Under the inofficial leadership of Luxemburg, red militia liaise with the Czechoslovaks in Thuringia and Saxony and prepare the liberation of Berlin from the South. Meanwhile, UoE
General Gutor decides not to attempt another assault across the Oder, and not to attack either von dem Borne’s, von der Goltz’ or von Quast's armies for the time being, and instead landing troops amphibiously (the Russian Baltic Fleet completely controls the Baltic Sea at this point) behind the new German defense line. They land West of Swinemünde and then defeat a small force which attempted to protect Anklam, from where they proceed Southward by train.
The British Navy went an even easier path. They negotiated with the Hamburg Senate that the city abjures von Seeckt’s command and welcomes and fully complies with British (and potentially US) military administration. After a small skirmish in Cuxhaven, marine units loyal to the Senate overcome their comrades who wanted to fight the British. They lower the defenses protecting the entrance to the Elbe River and help with the removal of floating mines. Hamburg is used to send more ships and troops upriver and via railways towards Berlin (and a few towards Hannover, where loyal Guard Regiments are preparing to crush the bourgeois-MSPD breakaway attempt of a Free State of Hannover. Left of the Rhine, the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer (Zentrum) has formed a coalition of towns and Kreise (counties) who have negotiated non-resistance and a possible future political settlement with the French and Belgians and sends armed police units against Heimatwehren in the Eifel.
The fourth week finally sees imperial German resistance crumbling. The French defeat von Wetter’s army, whose defenses have been utterly in vain because of the tacit support of the Red Ruhr, in the Battle of Geseke, and while Northern Hesse, where MSPD and USPD cooperate, has decided to break away from under von Seeckt’s control, the French advance North-Westwards, where they converge with a British detachment. Braunschweig declares itself a free state. UoE units stare down Prussian defenders in the Schorfheide. Luxemburg’s Red Hundreds and the Czechoslovaks reach Dessau. The German Baltic Fleet moored at Riga is scuttled at nobody knows whose command – a clear admission of impending defeat. The Red Ruhr triumphs over Lichtschlag et al. After thousands of deaths, the Left and Internationals, relieved by Italian arrivals, restore control over Munich. Among the killed are not only many prominent leftists and anarchists, but also Heimatwehrler Adolf Hitler. Niekisch escapes before Augsburg is captured, and switches to terrorism from positions in the Allgäu. The Italians begin deporting German Tyroleans suspected of terrorism and insurgency to detainment facilities in Libya.
In the fifth week, the Empire finally dissolves. To avoid capture, Wilhelm II. flees to the Netherlands (but he doesn’t abdicate yet), while von Seeckt and his junker cabinet resigns and flees from Berlin (since the armies deployed to Germany are comparably light in numbers – massive deployments are politically unfeasible in 1919 –, there is no such thing as a stable front anywhere, and that includes Berlin, too, which has never been effectively encircled). Czechoslovaks, UoE and British race each other to Berlin; the UoE, who had the shortest route, succeeds after a triumph over demoralized defenders at Chorin, and Gutor triumphantly enters the city where streetfights are killing hundreds. (Karl Liebknecht has been liberated from his prison in Luckau in the meantime.) A conservative rump Reichstag – mostly composed of those forces who had not turned against von Seeckt – was confronted with the demand to ratify Versailles, and chose to dissolve itself instead. The Bundesrat, then, confronted with the same demand, did, without even the required quorum of present delegates (given Prussia’s and Saxony’s lack of a government and Bavaria’s declared secession) what some would later label the “Second Reichsdeputationshauptschluss”: it declared that, with the flight (which they equate with an abdication) of Wilhelm II. as Empreror of the Germans and King of Prussia, the usurpation of von Seeckt and his resignation, too, both as chancellor of the empire and as minister-president of Prussia, the dissolution of the Reichstag and now also the absence of a quorum in their own forum, that their union no longer functions and that the Empire in its form of 1871 has ceased to exist.
Reichstag and Bundesrat were, of course, not the only institutions or actors who vied for the mantle of representing Germany. Soon, an All-German Congress of Workers’ Councils would convene in Elberfeld, and declare to lead the country’s transformation into being a part of the worldwide socialist commune which they were sure was presently emerging worldwide. When they convened, the Great Powers are already severely at odds with each other about the future of Germany and Versailles and nobody even asked the German soviets if maybe they wanted to sign on the dotted line. In Frankfurt, dispersed former Reichstag members and other politicians of the established and a few new political parties formed a “Vorparlament” which, too, claimed that it would lead the process of Germany’s political rebirth, in this case in a bourgeois-democratic framework, by attempting to organize – together with the sovereign German states from Oldenburg to Austria and from Baden to Prussia, and with the occupying powers – a process of electing a constituent assembly. They, too, came too late to be asked to sign Versailles.
Who did sign something – albeit not the peace treaty designed in Paris – was Paul von Hindenburg. On May 30th, he signed an order to all German military units to desist any form of hostilities and let the occupying powers disarm and disband them. Three days later, on June 2nd, 1919, he committed suicide.
This is, quite unambiguously, a less than satisfying outcome for London and Washington, both of which wanted some centralised German government with a minimum of legitimacy and some degree of internal stability (ideally under their control) to sign the initial Versailles draft, which would have kept Germany together as a political and economic entity, able to acknowledge and also pay the hefty reparations heaped upon it, instead of a power vacuum in the process of transforming into a checkerboard of political non-entities mostly puppetised by the EFP powers and imbued with all flavours of socialism. But that’s what you get when you’re coming late to the party and then act half-heartedly. (France, Belgium, the UoE, the Poles and the Czechoslovaks all had the removal of the German threat as a top priority. Well, in Poland this policy was not uncontroversial, but in France, Czechoslovakia, and in the UoE, there was not much opposition against the intervention against a recalcitrant and restorationist Germany. In the UoE, no federative republic is opposed to it, and most major political forces – from the Marxist Social Democrats over the Narodniks to bourgeois nationalists – support it, too, if it doesn’t mean too many deployed soldiers and too many losses. In France, Clemenceau has the support both of the conservatives and the liberals, and the smoother French cooperation with the Red Ruhr went during the war, the more the Socialists saw the merit of the whole enterprise, too. But in the British government, while Wilhelm’s stubbornness and the restoration of a junker regime which defies the rules of the armistice is quite clearly unacceptable to everyone, forces sympathetic to the French and to a continental supranational solution for peace and democracy (one might be tempted to call them “pro-European”) were not quite strong, especially after the Conservative and Unionist landslide victory in the 1918 general elections, and France’s cosying up to the Red Ruhr was so repulsive to some that engaging its own forces in the region in the same theatre, following in the footsteps of the French, was out of the question. The same goes for Wilson, by the way, even though he would have worded his doubts differently than the British. Dismembering Germany was certainly not his aim, nor was leaving her in the hands of socialists… Both the UK and the US ultimately decided that NOT joining in would be even worse for their interests, but that was a bit late, given how fast German imperial government collapsed. As mentioned, geography also played against them. The UoE already had forces stationed along the Oder since winter, and its fleet controlled the Baltic Sea. From there, it’s a much shorter ride to Berlin.)
But the current state of affairs is not easy for the EFP powers, either. There is not only the fallout between the EFP powers and the Anglo-Americans over the future of Germany (and the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, and, basically, everything). There are also more than 150,000 men under arms East of the Oder who have not been defeated yet, and not all of them are going to follow Hindenburg’s last order and lay down their arms. Elsewhere, too, armed guerilla resistance isn’t going to disappear overnight. The nationalist Right has a sort of covenant moment of its own, too – but it’s a clandestine one. Heimatwehr leaders, aristocratic officers of the defunct Prussian armies, nationalist politicians of various sorts and such like met at an aristocratic manor in Tannenberg (a place of almost mythical importance in the “Germanic fight against the Slavs”) in East Prussia to plan on their future strategies, too. This so-called “Vinetabund” was the largest, but not the last of a series of such clandestine conventions, in which frightened members of the old elites who felt their backs against the wall came together with young men who had been brutalized by the war, impressed by the esprit de corps, imbued with the nationalist spirit of an age, and who knew they could count on the support of people who would feel treaded upon and shoved to the side in this new age. Germany was no longer a vital threat – but controlling it would prove a mighty challenge to those who undertook it indeed.
Welp, this is the end of the Kaiserreich.
Indeed.
The only question is, how much clay will the Poles and French take before the socialists seize the country?
They're acting synchronously. The Poles haven't really heaped glory upon themselves here - I felt I couldn't really change that, given the extremely one-sided record of German-Polish military confrontations of OTL -, but they are in a good position to reap even more rewards now than ever before. The key open question here is Silesia.
I suspect Germany will be broken up once the Entente completely overruns it.
Indeed. It has broken itself up - and not everyone in the Entente is enthusiastic about this (see above).
Hmm....
It was mentioned that at the signing of the armistice the Czechoslovak legion was approaching the then-undefended Saxon border. I imagine they've been spending time consolidating the Sudetenland in the meantime, but now that the fighting looks set to flare up again is it possible they will actually advance into Saxony proper? That would risk half the German army in Poland getting outflanked, let's just hope not too many Czechs get ideas about reconquering Lusatia and the rest of Silesia.
A map with an approximation of the de facto successor entities to the German Empire and occupation zones will be posted in January. The Czechoslovaks have advanced a lot Northwards. What this means for Lusatia is an interesting question - I see several possibilities there which would not mean its incorporation into Czechoslovakia, but which would give the Czechoslovak Republic an important and influential function in the region. As for those parts of Silesia which haven't yet been awarded to Poland and were already more or less Polish-controlled before the return of hostilities - they have not been invaded throughout May. But after Hindenburg's surrender, it all becomes a negotiation mass. Everyone is going to be very interested in the region, which is not only ethnolinguistically very heterogeneous and unclearly affiliated, but also full of coal and ore. Also, it's confessionally divided, and full of politicised workers. This is a tough nut. I haven't decided on its ultimate outcome yet, but I'll keep you updated next year.
