It's 1919, and though the fighting between the Great Powers has been over since November,
the aftershocks unleashed by the Great War have struck across Central and Eastern Europe.
In Germany, the fragile new republic is about to hold its first elections when another round
of revolution breaks out: the Spartacist Uprising.
I'm Jesse Alexander, welcome to the Great War.
We left off in November with the signing of the armistice and the end of the First World
War.
But it might be more accurate to say we left off with the end of the war that began in
1914.
As that war ended four years later, it plunged much of Europe and the Middle East into a
new period of uncertainty, revolution, and conflict.
Germany was rocked by revolution in November 19+18.
Along with pressure from the victorious Allies, this led to the establishment of a German
Republic under an interim government.
The governing council was a coalition of members of the Majority Social Democrats and Independent
Social Democrats.
These were the two wings of the Social Democratic Party, which had split during the war – the
Majority Social Democrats had supported the war effort.
The Independent Social Democrats had opposed it.
The Majority, under the leadership of Philipp Scheidemann and Friedrich Ebert, favoured
change by reform, rather than revolution.
Though they were socialists, they feared a Russian-style revolution and wanted to avoid
it at all costs.
For this reason, Ebert made a pact with the new commander of the army, General Groener
– who took over from Ludendorff in the last weeks of the war.
The army agreed to remain loyal to the government and the government agreed that the old officer
class wold stay in control of the army.
The Independents wanted to go further, convinced that only a more radical revolution giving
power to soldiers' and workers' councils could secure the future for the German working
class.
They were also suspicious of the army.
It was an unhappy marriage that did not last long.
The two groups soon fell into a bitter internal power struggle that escalated on December
25, 1918.
A rivalry for influence over the army led the Majority Social Democrat Military Commander
of Berlin to dock the pay of the People's Navy Division, a paramilitary policing unit
made up of revolutionary sailors in Berlin.
The sailors promptly took him prisoner.
Chancellor Ebert ordered in loyal troops.
But he did not consult his coalition partners before doing so, and government troops suffered
an embarrassing defeat at the "Battle of Christmas Day".
The Independent Social Democrats quit the government and joined with other groups to
form the German Communist Party.
During the Christmas incident, the Berlin Chief of Police, Eichhorn, who was an Independent
Social Democrat, was so incensed at the government's action that he sent out the city's security
force to help the Navy Division in its fight against army units.
(Gerwarth, Vanquished, 121).
Eichhorn thus became a persona non grata in the eyes of the government, now under control
of the Social Democrats.
They accused him of links to organized crime, connections with Russia, and Bolshevik sympathies.
(Jones, 153) On January 5, he was relieved of his duties.
This was too much for many on the left, including the Independent Social Democrats, Communist
party, Spartacus League and other groups.
The Spartacus League had been founded on the left of the Social Democratic party in 1916
to oppose the war, and was led by two key figures, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
Both had been in prison for anti-war activities, but were released at war's end.
They were to play a key role in the tragic events about to unfold.
The opposition, along with a revolutionary group known as the Revolutionäre Obleute
Berlin, feared a return to repressive police practices of Imperial Germany and called for
mass demonstrations against the government that same day.
Thousands of workers took to the streets, denouncing the government's dismissal of
the police chief.
In the evening, as most of the demonstrators went home, several armed groups occupied a
number of newspapers offices, including the headquarters of the Social Democratic newspaper
Vorwärts (Forward), and a telegraph office.
The 80-man government garrison of the Vorwärts building even gave up without resistance.
And the fact that a newspaper office had a 80 man garrison gives you a good idea about
the turbulent situation in Germany.
Through the night, the revolutionaries discussed what they should do next.
Would the masses rise up with them?
Would the Berlin garrison and the People's Navy Division join them?
Had the hour finally come, as it had in Russia, for a true social revolution to take place?
They convinced themselves that they had a chance and it was worth the risk to "go
for it all" (Jones, 160).
A Revolutionary Committee was formed under the leadership of Liebknecht and two others,
and put out a call for the overthrow of the government.
Why would they do this?
Just the day before, the Communist Party of Germany had come out against a second revolution
(Jones, 158).
There had been no concrete plan for revolution that day.
One explanation is that rumours paired with hopeful ideology led them to take the fateful
decision for revolution.
The fact is, they did not have much concrete information and were forced to base their
decisions on rumours of all sorts.
They could not know the stories of army units ready to defect, or the Navy Division rushing
to support them were not true.
The size of the crowds at the demonstration fed their hopes and dreams of a mass uprising.
Clearly, occupying a few buildings was not a winning tactic, and made them sitting ducks
for government and paramilitary troops.
But they believed that even if circumstances did not favour them, it seemed the moment
for the inevitable revolution of the workers might have arrived.
(Jones, 161).
The demonstrations over the firing of a police chief had become an improvised attempt at
revolution.
The following day, a standoff set in.
Revolutionary and pro-government demonstrations took place in Berlin, and the crowds were
whipped up with heated rhetoric.
Government speakers brandished the spectre of a Russian-style catastrophe in Germany
and warned of imminent violence.
A call was put out to demobilizing soldiers in ghastly terms: "More blood must be spilled
…soldiers who have done your duty on the battlefield, consider it now your duty to
ensure order returns to Berlin, that we might have peace."
(Jones, 164) Women were told to stay home.
Liebknecht tried to fire up the crowd and announced that the moment for the revolution
had come and invited the soldiers to join the revolutionaries, stating "Our weapons
are at our side (…)"(Jones, 163).
At some point that day, January 6, the fi-rst shots were exchanged – it is not clear who
fired first.
By the end of the day, it became clear to the revolutionaries that the masses would
not rise up with them.
The streets emptied that evening, save for government troops.
Liebknecht's plea to the People's Navy Division fell on deaf ears, and most of the
Spartacists were ready to negotiate, realizing their cause was lost (Jones, 170).
But there was no de-escalation possible anymore, as had happened at Christmas.
The government figures had made up their minds to crush the uprising.
They issued a statement on January 8: "Violence can only be fought with violence.
The organized violence of the people will put an end to repression and anarchy.
Isolated successes of the enemies of freedom, which they have laughably exaggerated, are
only of temporary significance.
The hour of reckoning raws near."
(Jones, 176) Paramilitary groups of former soldiers, known
as Freikorps, answered the government call and began to march on the city.
But who exactly was the Freikorps?
Well, they were loosely organized groups of frontline veterans and young students and
cadets who had not fought in the war.
These men were not united by a cohesive ideology, but they hated the revolution that had turned
Germany into a republic and bitterly resented the humiliation of a defeat they could not
accept.
They burned for revenge.
They eagerly adopted the myth of the stab in the back – that Germany had not been
defeated on the battlefield but had been betrayed by Jews and leftists on the home front.
They opposed the new position of women in society and glorified violence, hierarchy
and order in a search for meaning in the chaotic post-war world.
(Gerwarth, 122-123).
The government's call to arms gave them a state-sanctioned license to kill, and release
their pent-up rage.
These were the men on whom the government would rely to crush the Spartacists.
Why did the government decide on this course?
The rebels clearly had no chance, but the increasing polarization had gone too far.
German newspapers egged on the government, calling for blood.
In a troubling echo of the war years, some in government circles felt that the violent
suppression of the doomed uprising would have a "healing effect" on the troubled nation.
They also wanted to show the world that Germany was not Russia, and in spite of its weakened
state there would be no Russian-style revolution there, which was their greatest fear.
They also wanted revenge against the far left, since their social democratic counterparts
in Russia had been defeated by Lenin's Bolsheviks.
In addition, they hoped to show the Entente powers they were in control.
They also felt the need to safeguard the upcoming elections, scheduled for January 19 (Jones,
178-180).
The Independent Social Democrats tried to negotiate, but the government refused.
While centre and right-wing press called for blood, the Independent Socialist Freiheit
wrote bitterly, "The spirit and the language of August 1914 are alive again.
But this time they're not directed against the British, French, and Russians, but against
the revolutionary workers."
(Jones, 184) Rosa Luxemburg, though she was not present for the creation of the revolutionary
committee, continued to call for revolution in the Rote Fahne, the Spartacus League newspaper.
This is puzzling for some, since just days before she had helped craft the German Communist
Party platform, which emphasized taking power with the support of the people rather than
by a coup.
(Jones, 173).
On the morning of January 11, the government made its move.
Freikorps soldiers under the command of former imperial army officer Franz von Stephani began
an attack on the main building occupied by the Spartacists, the offices of the Social
Democratic newspaper Vorwärts.
Their tactics were based on the Western Front of 1918.
First, artillery fire collapsed several walls of the building.
Then, a small-scale Stormtrooper style attack was launched, but was beaten back by the defenders.
One machine gun in particular held up the government advance, and the rumour spread
that Rosa Luxemburg herself was operating it – but this was not true, as she was not
there.
Further attacks were successful, and the Freikorps troops took the front part of the building.
The defenders, realizing their situation was hopeless, sent out a party of 5 under a white
flag to negotiate an end to the siege.
They were promptly made prisoner and taken to a nearby army barracks.
By the time they arrived they'd been severely beaten.
Once inside, they were murdered, along with two others.
The group of soldiers in the building's courtyard shot the men again and again, even
after they had died.
(Jones, 193) The siege soon came to an end and some 200-300
Spartacists, including around 20 women and Karl Liebknecht's own teenage son Willi,
surrendered.
Many residents cheered the soldiers as they marched the revolutionaries to the nearby
army barracks.
Once there, one of the female prisoners was mistaken for Rosa Luxemburg and was beaten.
Only the intervention of the Social Democratic editor of the newspaper, who witnessed the
entire morning's events close up, prevented her from being shot.
(Jones, 197, 199).
The holdouts in the other buildings were rapidly rounded up.
The Spartacist Uprising was over.
That afternoon, Gustav Noske led several thousand troops in a victory parade in the city.
The newspapers, other than those on the far left, celebrated the event.
The government put out a statement congratulating itself "The brave troops of the republic
[which had mostly been Freikorps men] put down a revolt that threatened to destroy all
the hard-won freedoms of the revolution."
The statement also accused the Spartacus League of siding with "dark elements" in Berlin,
and cooperating with a "foreign power" (Bolshevik Russia) to "seize power from
the nation."
(Jones, 207) The allegations of Russian connections were not true.
Of the 400 Spartacists captured, only 20 were not German and only a handful of these were
Russian.
(Jones, 210) Liebknecht and Luxemburg, the two most prominent
figures among the revolutionaries, went into hiding.
Incentivised through a hefty bounty, a neighbourhood militia soon found them and the Freikorps
unit Marine Eskadron Pflugk nearby was alerted.
This was not a typical Freikorps organization – it was actually a secretly attached to
an elite regular army unit, the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division.
The men were mostly ex-sailors, and were hankering for the action they hadn't been able to
see during the uneventful war years spent idle in harbour.
The Freikorpsmen stormed the building and took Luxemburg and Liebknecht prisoner.
They were brought to the nearby Hotel Eden near the Schützen-Division's barracks and
handed over to a notoriously anti-Bolshevik officer of the regular army, Waldemar Pabst.
He is likely the one who gave the order to have them killed.
Each was taken out in turn through the hotel lobby, which was filled with officers and
hotel guests.
As they passed by, several soldiers beat them, including with the butts of their rifles.
Liebknecht was taken to a nearby park and shot three times at close range.
Later on, Luxemburg, who may have already died in the lobby from a rifle butt to the
head, was loaded on a car.
As it drove away, an officer rushed up and shot her in the head.
Her body was dumped in a nearby canal and found weeks later.
It has not been proven who instructed Pabst to have the two killed.
Pabst himself would much later write that Social Democratic Minister Gustav Noske let
it be understood that it wouldn't be a bad thing if the executions were to take place
(Jones, 222).
In any case the idea of murdering them was not new, as since December various right-wing
groups had placed pamphlets around the city calling for the death of Liebknecht, leftists,
and Jews (Jones, 220).
The government refused to put a stop to the pamphleteering on the grounds of free speech.
The press and the government did not express much regret about the murders.
Scheidemann, who would become the country's first democratically elected leader in a few
days, blamed Liebknecht and Luxemburg, saying "They themselves were victims of their own
act of terror."
(Jones, 224).
The Reichsbote even made the claim that Liebknecht's death meant "many innocent people will remain
alive," and the Tägliche Rundschau concluded Luxemburg's death was "cruel but just."
(Jones 225).
No independent trial of the perpetrators ever took place.
The government allowed the very unit involved, the Garde Kavallerie, to conduct an internal
court martial.
Those in positions of command were never accused, and only two soldiers received light sentences.
One served two years in detention in Holland, and the other was given fake papers and allowed
to leave the country after just three days in prison.
Though the January Uprising never really represented an actual threat to topple the government,
it was a tipping point for the young Weimer Republic.
No one was ever punished for the murders at the barracks or for Luxemburg's and Liebknecht's
murders.
Instead, the government praised and protected those involved.
The Spartacists were given all the blame for the violence, and little consideration was
given to the consequences of military-style violence being used in such a way.
On the contrary, the Social Democrats, conservatives and nationalists had found common ground:
violence in the name of the government was justified and was not to be questioned.
(Jones, 211) The controversial pact between Chancellor Ebert and General Groener had,
in the words of Mark Jones, been "sealed in blood."
(Jones, 211).
For Germany, this was not the last spasm of post-war revolution to come in 1919 – even
deadlier days lay ahead.
And the events in Germany in January 1919 were by no means unique.
In the territories of every defeated state, and of course in Russia, the old order had
broken down.
The situation has been described as an "arc of violence post-war violence that stretched
from Finland and the Baltic States through Russia and Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Hungary,
Germany, all the way through the Balkans into Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East."
(cited in Bessel).
Along that arc social revolutions, national revolutions, paramilitary violence, and border
wars between the new nations were the order of the day, and would eventually cost about
4 million lives.
Here's a sampling of what was going on that January.
On the 7th, the Christmas Uprising (so called because Orthodox Christmas takes place in
early January) reached its peak in Montenegro.
The Greens, who resisted the idea of unconditional unification with the Yugoslavia, preferring
a confederation, were defeated by troops loyal to the new kingdom.
On the 9th, Polish rebels captured the German airport just outside the city of Posen, as
Poles sought to – in their eyes – re-claim areas of Eastern Germany/Western Poland for
the new Polish state.
On January 21, in Ireland, two policemen are killed in the Soloheadbeg ambush, marking
the start of the Anglo-Irish War.
The very same day, members of the party favouring Irish independence, Sinn Fein, formed a revolutionary
Parliament and declared an Irish Republic.
On the 23rd, fighting broke out between Czech and Polish forces over the coal-rich, ethnically
mixed region of Teschen.
Both sides had sent troops to the area, hoping to claim it before the peace conference in
Paris could interfere.
(Gerwarth, Vanquished, 195).
Czech forces advanced until pressure from the Entente Powers put a stop to the fighting.
Four days later, German-speaking residents of the town of Marburg – just to avoid confusion,
that's today's Maribor, in Slovenia – organized a protest in favour of the town joining the
new Austrian Republic.
The crowd was fired upon by soldiers of the new Yugoslav army, and around a dozen people
were killed in what became known as Marburg's Bloody Sunday.
The incident led to an offensive by Austrian troops to reclaim territory north of the town
which had been occupied by Yugoslav troops after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian
empire.
Throughout the entire month, fighting raged across the former Russian Empire.
Not only was there a civil war between the Bolsheviks and the Whites, but numerous wars
with parts of the empire which had declared their independence.
Starting on January 22, Red Army forces advanced on Kiev.
They pushed back troops loyal to the new independent Ukrainian People's Republic, capturing the
town on February 5.
On the Eastern Front (of the Russian Civil War) near the Siberian city of Perm, a Bolshevik
counteroffensive to recapture the city was stopped by a White Army under the command
of Admiral Kolchak.
In the north, the Red Army attacked Allied troops, which had been sent in 1918 to intervene
on the side of the Whites in the Civil War.
The Reds advanced against a combined force of American, British, Canadian, and White
Russian troops, pushing them out of the arctic town of Shenkursk and preventing any attempt
at linking up with larger White forces to the southeast.
To the south, the Bolsheviks defeated the White Russian Army of the Don near the city
of Voronezh.
Meanwhile in the Baltic, Finnish and Estonian troops defeated the Red Army in several small
battles throughout the month in what would become the Estonian War of Independence.
But aside from revolutions, revolts, and upheavals, another massive transition faced every former
belligerent state once the war – the Great Power war, at least – was over: demobilization.
At war's end in 1918, tens of millions of men were under arms, and though the vast majority
were relieved that the slaughter was over, their thoughts soon turned to returning home.
Getting them there proved to be a massive undertaking.
Undoing the mass armies of 1918 involved an unprecedented movement of people and material,
and was a much bigger job than simply letting soldiers go home.
Those same men who had been away from home and exposed to horrors of war had to be re-integrated
into the economy and society, which proved to be no easy task.
One of the first questions was to decide who got to go home first.
Some countries, like France and Italy, chose to demobilize soldiers based on age.
This had the benefit of being egalitarian, as it often corresponded to the length of
service, but was difficult to put into practice, since constantly shrinking units had to be
re-organized.
The British chose to prioritize economic interests and allowed men in high-demand jobs to return
first.
The Americans, for their part, reduced their forces unit by unit, which allowed the army
to retain more cohesiveness.
(Cabanes, 988).
Given the scale of the operation, this all took time – France's 5 million men army,
for example, was only demobilized by 1920.
(Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 223) Though the Western Powers' demobilization was relatively
orderly, it was not without tensions.
5000 British troops mutinied in January after hearing they were to be sent to France, and
Canadian troops, frustrated at the delays, rioted in March – five soldiers were killed
in the incident.
(Cook, 594) The defeated armies of the Central Powers
had a much more chaotic situation on their hands.
Many soldiers simply demobilized themselves if they could, hitching rides or simply walking
home.
As the German army marched back across the Rhine, for example, about half a million men
fell out of the line and made for home.
(Cabanes, 988) The new German republic feared the consequences of a rapid or uncontrolled
demobilization, as it would see millions of men flood the labour market and lead to unrest.
But Allied pressure for a quick dissolution of the Kaiser's army and self-demobilization
meant that the entire process took only two months and was formally complete by January
1919 though we just saw how these men were able to take up arms again.
One group that faced a particularly difficult challenge were prisoners of war.
Often, there were long delays before they were able to return home, especially for prisoners
of the former Central Powers.
In the East, some were released by the Bolsheviks soon after the Revolution, but hundreds of
thousands of Germans and former Austro-Hungarians were stranded behind the lines of the Russian
Civil War.
Many of them were swept up in the violence and they fought on both sides.
Not until 1922 did the last of them reach home.
In the West, the November 11 armistice terms called for the release of French and British
prisoners immediately, but forbade the release of German prisoners until the end of peace
negotiations.
They were only allowed to return home in late 1919 and early 1920, after the treaty of Versailles
was signed, despite protests from German civil society groups and pressure from the Papacy.
In the meantime, they were put to work rebuilding areas destroyed by the fighting.
Even more difficult than breaking up the armies would be putting the pieces back together
in civilian society.
It was one thing to give a man civilian clothes and some pocket money with the promise of
a pension, and another to help them live normal lives after years of trauma.
Governments did try to put some measures in place to make it easier for veterans to get
jobs.
Germany massively expanded the civil service, French law required employers to give returned
soldiers their old jobs back (though this didn't always happen in practice), and in
Britain and France there were public campaigns to encourage women to leave their wartime
jobs and return home or to "women's work" to free up space for men.
Many of the returned men were wounded, in body or mind, and faced challenges taking
up meaningful work.
Some were bitter at the society to which they returned, since their pensions were generally
inadequate, and relatives, wives and others simply couldn't relate to what they'd
been through.
Whether they found work or not, many veterans still struggled in their post-war lives.
One estimate puts the rate of psychological trauma at about 25%, and divorce rates in
France and Germany spiked ominously after the war.
(Cabanes, 1000) These difficulties could be more intense for
former prisoners, who were often treated differently by their governments and fellow citizens.
In some countries, like France and Italy, they were denied equal pension benefits and
military decorations until years later.
Italy even classified former POWs as non- combatants, and the poet and right-wing nationalist
Gabriele D'Annunzio derisively referred to them as "The shirkers across the Alps."
(Cabanes, 996) The guilt of having been taken captive haunted many for years after their
release.
A French prisoner of war wrote to a friend, "The immense joy I feel about current events
[the end of the war] is mixed with indescribably bitter regret at not having played a better
part in the war.
Not having been able to participate in this victory, weapon in hand, will be a source
of grief that will only expire with my life."
(Cabanes, 997) That soldier's name was Charles de Gaulle.
For he and many of those who lived through it, the Great War was not over.
Just weeks after the armistice, it had already become clear that "the war to end all wars"
did not even come close to achieving that goal.
Here is a fitting quote from Freikorps member Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz from 1930 that sums
up the situation quite well: "When they told us that the war was over, we laughed,
because we WERE the war.
Its flame continued to burn in us, it lived on in our deeds surrounded by a glowing and
frightful aura of destruction.
We followed our inner calling and marched on the battlefields of the post-war period…"
That was our first new episode of The Great War – 1919.
From now on we will deliver an in-depth look at history 100 years ago.
Usually we will pick a main topic, like the German Revolution in this episode, but we
will also talk about all the other relevant events and ideas.
As a rule of thumb, we will upload new content every other week.
If you are curious about me, the new guy, you will be able to get to know me a bit better
soon here on the channel.
Two of my main sources for this episode were Robert Gewarth's The Vanquished and Mark
Jones' Founding Weimar.
You can find all our sources for this episode in the video description including links to
amazon.
If you buy through these links we get a small cut, whether you use the US or other international
amazon sites.
The Great War – 1919 is a production of Real Time History, Flo and Toni's new production
company.
Flo and Toni produced The Great War from 2014 – 2018 already.
If you want to support our revamped channel, please consider supporting us on Patreon.
Among other things Patreon supporters will get access to our relaunched Great War podcast.
On the podcast, Flo and I will talk more about the topics of the month and give you some
sneak peeks behind the scenes of the show.
I am Jesse Alexander and this is The Great War, the only YouTube history channel that
knows where to get the most revolutionary Currywurst in Berlin.
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