The end of the world war didn’t mean peace was coming.
Right around the time the German army and the Entente signed the armistice and called it quits on World War I, chaos was brewing back home — both the left and the right were making their moves.
November 10, just one day after Wilhelm II abdicated.
Philipp Scheidemann, the head of the Social Democrats, wasted zero time jumping out and declaring the founding of the "German Republic."
Meanwhile, over on the left, Karl Liebknecht — leader of the Spartacus League — declared the "Free Socialist Republic of Germany" at the same time.
So now you had two rival governments both claiming to be Germany. There was no way they were gonna get along. Civil war clouds started hanging over the whole country.
A nation that had just been through a long, brutal war was about to get thrown straight into another one — this time, at home.
Before the Crown Prince’s star rose, the relatively less extreme right-wing faction had the support of most of the country.
But they had no army behind them. They couldn’t use force to crush the left, and honestly, they were a target themselves — the left’s worker militias could easily topple them.
So after the Social Democrats declared their republic, the first thing they did was send people straight to the front lines to make contact with the military bigwigs — mainly Hindenburg and his crew — to try to buy their support.
Hindenburg was actually kind of tempted when the Social Democrats came courting.
He was smart enough to know that in peacetime, he’d never have the kind of power he had during the war.
If he couldn’t climb further up the political ladder, he — a man in his 70s — would just get forced into retirement to live out his days in obscurity.
But here’s the thing he never saw coming: that massive army he’d been treating as his personal bargaining chip? The Crown Prince had already won over most of it in just two weeks.
With his leverage gone, Hindenburg couldn’t make a deal with the Social Democrats anymore. His only real move was to stay loyal to the monarchy and back the Crown Prince.
"Your Highness, using the army to suppress our own people isn’t exactly a good look. Could backfire and stain your reputation."
Hindenburg was a hardened old soldier who’d crawled through mountains of corpses. Killing people was basically routine for him — not a shred of guilt afterward.
But this was domestic suppression, not a foreign war. Different ballgame.
Do it right and nobody thanks you. Mess it up and you’re remembered as a monster forever.
"Who said I’m doing it myself?"
The Crown Prince looked at Hindenburg with a sly grin:
"Didn’t you just say the Social Democrats were courting you? Accept their offer. Use the army to help them put down the rebellion."
...
"Your Highness, Hindenburg is a man with loose loyalties and huge ambition. Is it really wise to hand him something this important? What if he turns on you and everything blows up in our faces?"
One of the Crown Prince’s close confidants was sweating bullets, worried Hindenburg would double-cross him.
Power is a poison. The people who tasted it don’t give it up easily.
Between 1917 and 1918, Hindenburg had held all the strings — he was basically the de facto ruler of the German Empire.
Back when Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg started talking pessimistic about the war, Hindenburg didn’t like him one bit. So he forced Wilhelm II to fire him and put up a more agreeable puppet as Chancellor instead.
When you reach that level of power, you’re not just emperor — you’re more emperor than the emperor.
Can’t trust a guy like that with your back turned.
"Relax. As long as I don’t hand him a big enough army, he can’t do anything against me."
Hindenburg’s ambition ran on the strength of the forces under his command. Strip him of the army, and he couldn’t cause trouble even if he wanted to.
Sure, the Crown Prince didn’t exactly love Hindenburg. But the guy had done a ton for the Second Reich — huge legacy. His victories on the Eastern Front had given Germany real hope of winning the war.
A decorated legendary commander like that? Wilhelm preferred to keep things civil. A little mutual dignity.
Of course, that depended on Hindenburg being smart enough to play along.
And honestly, there was another angle here. By sending Hindenburg off to deal with the Social Democrats, the Crown Prince could swoop in and win over Hindenburg’s troops while he was away.
"Send a wire to General Rupprecht of Army Group A. Tell him I’d like to meet."
"Also contact General Mackensen of the Danube Army Group. I’ve heard they’re running low on supplies. Order them to move toward my position — I’ll resupply them."
Once those two army groups were in his pocket, the Crown Prince’s command would grow to over two million men.
At that point, Hindenburg could scheme all he wanted. Facing two million rifles, he’d have no choice but to fall in line.
...
Meanwhile, General Rupprecht of Army Group A was stressing over supply issues for his hundreds of thousands of troops. There was no stable government in Germany right now — left and right were fighting each other and couldn’t care less about the army.
Not that they’d have been able to help anyway. Supplying hundreds of thousands of frontline troops isn’t just about stockpiling tens of thousands of tons of supplies on short notice — you also had to transport it all to the front.
To do that, you need total, fingertip-level control over every part of the country’s logistics machine. And right now? Neither of those two "Germanys" could get their own decrees out of the capital. The states were all hedging, waiting to see which way the wind blew. The Empire’s entire distribution network had flat out collapsed — nothing was moving.
So when Rupprecht heard the Crown Prince — the guy sitting on massive stockpiles of supplies — wanted to meet, he didn’t even hesitate. Straight into the car and over there.
He wasn’t worried the Crown Prince meant him harm. They shared mutual interests. As a prince from the House of Wittelsbach — the Bavarian royal family — Rupprecht was a monarchist by blood.
If Germany couldn’t hold onto its Emperor, how the hell were all the smaller kingdoms and duchies supposed to survive?
So it wasn’t even a question of recruiting Rupprecht. One signal from the Crown Prince, and he’d bring his whole army running.
The hard ones were Hindenburg’s loyal troops from the Eastern Front, and the Danube Army Group — stuck in Hungary after the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart.
Maybe he should just let Mackensen’s army march into Austria and annex the place while they were at it?
The people there were all ethnic Germans anyway. Once you cut out the Hungarians and the Czechoslovaks, it’d be way easier for Germany to absorb directly.
But hold on — Germany was a defeated nation. Would the Entente really allow them to swallow up Austria?
Yeah... probably not.