Donald James Goodspeed, *The Conspirators: A Study of Coup d'Etat* (New
York: Viking Press, 1961) regrets that the coup was such a fiasco:
"One consideration, quite beyond their control, would almost certainly have
resulted in their ultimate ruin, even if they had been a hundred times more
efficient and intelligent than they were. In 1920 the Allies would never
have permitted a military dictatorship to be established in Germany. Von
Seeckt and the responsible officers of the Reichswehr realized this
clearly. It was this, indeed, that determined their whole attitude towards
the coup.
"In one way therefore it was tragic that the Kapp *putsch* should have been
such a fiasco. It might have been better for Germany and the world if the
rebellion had succeeded for a time. For if Kapp and von Luttwitz had been
more efficient, the Allies would have intervened. France in particular,
with her far-sighted Marshal Foch and her implacable Clemenceau, and with
memories of invasion still fresh in the national mind, would not have
tolerated a militarist revival in Germany. The revolutionary nationalists
would have been forced either to fight under conditions in which they could
not possibly have won or to surrender so abjectly they would have been
discredited forever. Men like Luttwitz and Ehrhardt would certainly have
chosen to fight--and they would have been obliterated.
"As it turned out, the ideas of the rebels were by no means discredited.
Their coup had failed, but nothing less than decisive and bloody
retribution would have persuaded these gentlemen to change their minds.
When nothing of the sort was forthcoming, the *Freikorpskampfer* regained
their spirits. What was one failure more or less? Was it not true that the
seed is not quickened except it die? And so for the next thirteen years
their revolutionary nationalism germinated darkly in the German soil.
"By 1933 the situation had greatly changed. Intervention was no longer to
be feared; Clemenceau and Foch were both dead; and the Reichswehr had been
seriously infiltrated by Right Radical elements. Worst of all, Hitler and
his supporters had learned something from Kapp's failure. The Nazis did not
take over the state by a coup d'etat, but once they had formed a
Government, they knew how to consolidate their power. There was nothing
aimless about them. They had pondered the set-back of 1920 and had drawn
the obvious *Freikorps* conclusion - everything would be all right if only
they shot more people."
I don't agree with Goodspeed's evident belief that ruthless Allied
suppression of a Kappist regime would have killed off the revolutionary
Right in Germany once and for all. But I do agree with him that the
Allies, and especially France, would not have tolerated the putschists
coming to power in 1920.