Castles of Steel

by Robert K. Massie

  Meanwhile, continuing war at sea threatened to upset the momentum toward peace. On October 4, the passenger vessel Hirano Maru was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 292 lives. On October 10, a twenty-two-year-old German U-boat captain torpedoed the Irish mail steamer Leinster and then torpedoed her again while she was sinking. Of the 720 people on board, 176 drowned, including women and children. On October 14, Wilson, through Lansing, demanded the end of the U-boat campaign and announced that neither the United States nor its allies “will consent to consider an armistice so long as the armed forces of Germany continue their illegal and inhuman practices. . . . At the very time the German government approaches the United States with proposals of peace, its submarines are engaged in sinking passenger ships at sea—and not the ships alone, but the very boats in which the passengers and crews seek to make their way to safety.” Balfour was more succinct: “Brutes they were and brutes they remain.”

  Command of the German navy was now in new hands. On August 11, Admiral von Holtzendorff, suffering from severe heart disease, had been replaced as Chief of the Naval Staff by Scheer, who, in turn, handed over the High Seas Fleet to Hipper. Scheer promptly moved Naval Staff headquarters from Berlin to Spa; there, he could coordinate policy more closely with Ludendorff, whom he admired. Defying the reality that the war was almost over, Scheer refused to give up on the unrestricted submarine campaign and immediately demanded a preposterous crash program to build 450 new submarines at a rate of thirty-six a month. When Wilson insisted on termination of the unrestricted submarine campaign, Scheer and Ludendorff joined in fierce opposition. “The navy does not need an armistice,” Scheer declared on October 16, while Ludendorff said the next day, “To allow ourselves to be deprived of our submarine weapon would amount to capitulation.” The two warriors lost this battle. Prince Max, by threatening to resign, obtained an order from the kaiser and, on October 20, Germany renounced the submarine campaign against merchant shipping. Ludendorff later complained that this “concession to Wilson was the heaviest blow to the army and especially to the navy. The cabinet had thrown in the sponge.” On October 21, Scheer, angry at being overridden, recalled all submarines at sea and placed them at the disposal of the High Seas Fleet commander for action against Allied warships. After twenty-one months, Germany’s unrestricted U-boat campaign was over.

  On October 17, at a conference in Berlin, Ludendorff suddenly denied that he had ever demanded an armistice within twenty-four hours and declared that Germany possessed sufficient strength to keep fighting. On October 23, Wilson added a new condition for peace: the kaiser’s removal. If the United States government “must deal with the military masters and monarchical autocrats of Germany,” the president said, “it must demand, not peace negotiations, but surrender.” Hearing this, William and his wife, Dona, approached hysteria. “The hypocritical Wilson has at last thrown off the mask,” William announced. “The object of this is to bring down my House, to set the monarchy aside.” The empress raged at “the audacity of the parvenu across the sea who thus dares to humiliate a princely house which can look back on centuries of service to people and country.” Ludendorff rebelled against Wilson’s military conditions, saying that they went far beyond the simple battlefield armistice he was seeking. On October 24, defying the authority of the chancellor, he issued a proclamation to the army, countersigned by Hindenburg. Wilson’s proposals, he declared, are “a demand for unconditional surrender [and are] thus unacceptable to us as soldiers.” Prince Max, enraged by this insubordination, again gave the kaiser a choice: Ludendorff or himself. On October 26, William summoned Hindenburg and Ludendorff to Bellevue Castle in Berlin. Speaking first to Ludendorff, William upbraided the general for countersigning a proclamation to the army that was in direct conflict with the policy of the chancellor and the government. Ludendorff immediately offered his resignation, which William accepted. Clicking his heels, the soldier who had dominated Germany for twenty-six months departed. Hindenburg subsequently offered his own resignation, but was curtly told, “You stay.” Afterward, William was happy. The “Siamese twins,” he declared, were now separated. Outside the castle, Ludendorff, furious that Hindenburg had not resigned with him, would not accompany the field marshal back to the General Staff building. “I refuse to drive with you,” he said. When Hindenburg asked why, Ludendorff replied, “I refuse to have any more dealings with you because you treat me so shabbily.”

  On October 27, Germany accepted all of Wilson’s conditions. On Octo-ber 29, Austria-Hungary agreed to an armistice with Italy and, on No-vember 2, with the rest of the Allied powers. On October 31, Turkey left the war. That afternoon, Prince Max, stricken with influenza, was given a massive dose of sleeping drops and slid into two days of unconsciousness.

  With the German empire in its death throes, two groups in the German navy, first the admirals, then the seamen, took matters into their own hands. The submarine weapon had been sheathed but the High Seas Fleet remained a powerful force. Enraged by the U-boat decision, Scheer and the Naval Staff decided to use the surface ships in one last offensive thrust, a bold variation on earlier unsuccessful attempts to lure the Grand Fleet over a U-boat ambush. The difference this time was that the Germans intended to fight a battle whether or not the U-boats had managed to reduce the Grand Fleet’s numerical superiority. Further, the German admirals did not care whether the High Seas Fleet won or lost; they cared only that it inflict heavy damage on the Grand Fleet. Hipper agreed with Scheer that “an honorable battle by the fleet—even if it should be a fight to the death—will sow the seed for a new German fleet of the future.” Besides preserving honor, a battle that inflicted severe damage on the Grand Fleet might also influence the peace negotiations in Germany’s favor.

  The operation was set in motion on October 22 when Captain Magnus von Levetzow of the Naval Staff Operations Department came to Wilhelmshaven and orally gave Scheer’s order to Hipper: “The High Seas Fleet is directed to attack the English fleet as soon as possible.” Nothing was put in writing, for two reasons: first, Scheer wished to keep the plan secret from the British; second, knowing the impact the operation would have on armistice negotiations, he wished to hide it also from the German government in Berlin. Neither the kaiser nor the chancellor was informed. Scheer explained later that he had already mentioned to the kaiser that giving up submarine warfare meant that the surface fleet would again have “complete freedom of action.” The kaiser had not reacted and Scheer seized upon William’s silence as tacit approval. Subsequently, Scheer defended himself more boldly: “I did not regard it [as] necessary to obtain a repetition of the kaiser’s approval. In addition, I feared that this could cause further delay and was thus prepared to act on my own responsibility.” Prince Max said later that if he had known of Scheer’s plan, he would have approved it, but at the time he was given no chance to approve or disapprove. “I specifically reiterate that I did not recognize the chancellor’s competence over operational measures and for that reason I did not seek his approval,” Scheer declared.

  Hipper issued his tactical orders on October 24. The entire High Seas Fleet would leave Heligoland Bight at night and advance into the southern part of the North Sea. The force would be more powerful than that commanded by Scheer at Jutland: Hipper would bring five battle cruisers, eighteen dreadnought battleships, twelve light cruisers, and seventy-two destroyers. The purpose of the operation was to lure the Grand Fleet over freshly laid minefields and six lines of waiting U-boats into the southern North Sea, where the High Seas Fleet would be waiting to engage whatever British warships survived the passage south. To create this lure, German light cruisers and destroyers would launch provocative raids along the Belgian coast and into the Thames estuary. Specifically, one destroyer flotilla supported by three light cruisers would bombard the coast of Flanders, which had been abandoned by the German army a week before, while five destroyers and seven light cruisers attacked shipping in the Thames estuary. The Flanders bombardment would be s
upported by Hipper’s battle fleet of eighteen dreadnought battleships escorted by forty-three destroyers, while the Thames attack was to be covered by five German battle cruisers including the new Hindenburg. After the raids, the retiring squadrons and flotillas would retreat to the Dutch coast, where the entire High Seas Fleet would concentrate. There, Hipper expected to meet the Grand Fleet coming down from the north and to bring it to action on the evening of the second day, October 31. If, by some mischance, the two battle fleets did not meet, all available German destroyers were to break away and sweep north toward the Firth of Forth. If the British fleet was found, the destroyers were instructed to launch their torpedoes in mass volleys, no less than three from each destroyer at a single time. The operation, for all its “death ride,” Götterdämmerung appearance, was well planned and stood a chance of success—at least, as success was defined by Scheer and Hipper. Both admirals hoped that, in addition to salvaging the honor of the German navy, “a tactical success might reverse the military position and avert surrender.”

  On October 27, Scheer approved Hipper’s plan and the operation was set for October 30. Twenty-two U-boats took positions along the Grand Fleet’s probable line of advance from Scotland; one of these was UB-116, which would be blown up by shore-controlled mines while trying to enter Scapa Flow. The surface ships of the High Seas Fleet began to assemble in Schillig roads on the afternoon of October 29, with the sortie scheduled for dawn the next day. The admirals had not reckoned, however, on the war-weariness and defeatism of the German crews. Rumors of the impending operation and the words “suicide mission” were spreading from mouth to mouth and ship to ship. On October 27, when light cruisers of the 4th Scouting Group were ordered to load mines at Cuxhaven, forty-five stokers from Strassburg hid themselves in the dockyard. When the battle cruisers passed through the locks from Wilhelmshaven’s inner harbor into the roadstead, 300 men from Derfflinger and Von der Tann climbed over the side and disappeared ashore.

  The arrival in the anchorage of three battleship squadrons from other naval bases gave substance to the rumor that the fleet was about to go out to seek a glorious end off the coast of England. Unlike the admirals and officers, the seamen had no intention of being sacrificed for honor’s sake. Not only could they see no point in defeat and meaningless death, but they regarded the operation as a deliberate attempt to sabotage negotiations to end a war already lost. When one Markgraf seaman jumped on a turret and called for three cheers for President Wilson, a deck crowded with men roared approval. Insubordination welled up on König, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Kaiserin, Thüringen, and Helgoland. On all these ships, seamen had no interest in “an honorable death for the glory of the fleet”; they wanted surrender, discharge, and permission to go home.

  A red sunset on the evening of October 29 turned the calm waters of the anchorage crimson. About 7:00 p.m., the wind came up, bringing a series of rain squalls. Hipper summoned his admirals and captains on board his flagship, Baden, for a final briefing. The conference was delayed because on Thüringen the crew made trouble about the captain’s boat leaving the ship. At first, Hipper tried to disregard news of these disturbances, but at 10:00 p.m., he changed his mind and decided that the fleet was not ready to sail. Next morning, when the destroyer crews learned of the disturbances on the battleships, they asked to continue alone with the planned operation. Hipper considered this possibility, but when he heard that the trouble had spread to Friedrich der Grosse and König Albert and that the disturbances on Thüringen and Helgoland had developed into full-scale mutinies, he decided that he had no choice but to cancel the entire operation. To prevent the spread of mutiny, he ordered the dreadnought squadrons dispersed to Kiel, Cuxhaven, and Wilhelmshaven.

  Thüringen and Helgoland remained behind. When their crews still refused orders, Hipper ordered marines to arrest them. Two steamers carrying 250 heavily armed marines approached the battleships, while a submarine and five destroyers, their torpedo tubes loaded, cleared for action at pointblank range. The mutineers surrendered and were taken to prison in Wilhelmshaven. Meanwhile, however, Hipper’s dispersal of the fleet, instead of quarantining the disloyal groups, served only to spread the infection. The 3rd Battle Squadron—König, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Kaiserin, and Markgraf—reached Kiel on November 1 with many seamen in irons. On arrival, 4,000 sailors paraded in the streets and demanded release of the prisoners. Workers’ and Sailors’ Councils were formed and on November 4 took control of the port. The battleship König had gone into dry dock with the flag of the Imperial Navy still flying. On November 5, when a sailor attempted to replace the flag with a red banner, the ship’s captain shot him dead near the mast. The response was rifle fire from buildings overlooking the ship, which wounded the captain and killed two officers. Later that day a band of sailors invaded the residence in Kiel Castle of Grand Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia, the kaiser’s brother and Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Fleet. Henry fled, escaping from Kiel driving a truck that flew a red flag. By the end of the first week of November, mutiny had become revolution. Thirty-five thousand armed sailors crowded the streets of Wilhelmshaven, Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils had been established in the port city, and briefly there existed a Republic of Oldenburg with Leading Stoker Bernhard Kuhnt as president. On November 9, when the red flag was hoisted on Hipper’s flagship Baden, the Commander-in-Chief of the High Seas Fleet silently packed his bags and went ashore. Groups of sailors streamed out of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven by truck, train, and ship and raised red flags in naval harbors along the North Sea and Baltic coasts. Then came the great commercial ports of Hamburg and Bremen and, as revolution spread across Germany, interior cities such as Cologne, Hanover, Frankfurt, Dresden, Munich, and, eventually, Berlin.

  On Friday morning, November 8, Marshal Foch, representing all Allied armies, and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Wemyss, representing the Allied navies, waited on a train parked on a siding in the forest of Compiègne for the arrival of Germany’s armistice delegation. While a cold rain fell on the oak trees outside, Foch assured Wemyss that if the Germans refused to agree to Allied armistice terms, he could force the capitulation of the entire German army within three weeks. At 7:00 a.m. a train carrying the German delegates, led by the Reichstag leader, Matthias Erzberger, rolled into another siding 200 yards away. Other than the French sentries in blue-gray uniforms pacing under the trees, there was nothing in sight but rain and falling leaves.

  The meeting began at 9:00 a.m. and Foch presented the Allies’ terms. The naval demands included demilitarization of Heligoland, all nations to be given access to the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, surrender of all submarines and internment of Germany’s ten latest battleships, six battle cruisers, eight light cruisers, and fifty most modern destroyers. Failure to execute any of these terms would allow the Allies to resume the war within forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, until the treaty of peace was actually signed, the blockade of Germany would remain in force. The German naval representative, Captain Vanselow, protested that internment of the German fleet could not be accepted because the fleet had never been beaten. Grimly, Wemyss replied that if that was what was needed, the German fleet had only to come out. When Wemyss asked for 160 submarines, Vaneslow replied that there were not nearly 160 to be had. This gave Wemyss the chance to demand what he really wanted: all German submarines. The meeting was adjourned so that the German delegation could communicate these terms to Berlin.

  On November 9, even as Foch was dictating terms to Erzberger, Admiral Scheer informed the kaiser that he could no longer rely on the navy. “My dear admiral,” William replied, “I no longer have a navy.” In fact, he was losing far more than that. Before the end of that day, William had abdicated, both as German emperor and as King of Prussia, and the establishment of a German republic had been proclaimed from a balcony of the Reichstag building. Early the following morning, William was persuaded to leave Spa for the Netherlands, thirty miles away, where he had been offered refuge in Kasteel Amerongen, the home of the Dutch-English Count G
odard Bentinck. On the journey through a driving rain, William was silent. But when the car pulled up in the rain before the main entrance of the moated seventeenth-century château, he gave a deep sigh of relief. “Now,” he said to Count Bentinck, rubbing his hands together, “you must let me have a cup of real, good, hot, strong English tea.” Instead of English tea, he got a real Scots high tea: Amerongen had a Scots housekeeper, and soon a teapot and a tray of biscuits, scones, and shortbread were set before Queen Victoria’s eldest grandson.