Chapter 13 Mutiny (9)
The congressional elections promoted by Rudendolf were simply a terrible disaster.
In the summer of 1917, Rudendolf still insisted on his military dictatorship theory. Director of the Imperial Palace felt that Germany should not continue to weaken in the mutual attack, slander, abuse, and endless political exchanges and compromises of political forces such as the army split into two parts, the Junker Royalist Party, the scattered government, the navy with broken relations with the army, the semi-paralyzed Congress, and the broken-out Workers' Party. This country with militarist tradition and iron-blooded spirit should have only one leader, one voice and the same way of behavior. In a difficult war environment, any inefficient democracy is a crime against Germany!
Before this summer, Rudendolf, who was not accepted by Junker, carefully hid under the wings of Hindenburg, and came up with a general strategy to help the empire drag down Russia, crippled France, and suppressed the rebellious navy. However, this was far from enough. In order to achieve the high efficiency in his mind, Rudendolf, who felt that he had an unshirkable responsibility for the army, the empire, and the victory of this war, chose to leave Hindenburg alone.
Ludendolf drove away the emperor and moved away the almost unsolvable "bloodline" shackles on his way to obtain the highest power of the empire. He then promoted the parliamentary elections, hoping to block the imperial people's leisurely mouths for imperial system and dictatorship through party politics, and to detour to obtain the complete administrative power he had always dreamed of, and realize substantial military dictatorship.
However, there was a deviation in the implementation of the Rudendolf plan. The Workers' Party led by Albert unexpectedly won the parliamentary election, which not only disrupted Rudendolf's plan to seize executive power, but also made Rudendolf, who thought he was confident of winning, unable to wait to launch the purge movement against Hindenburg, and became difficult.
Rudendolf, whose abacus failed, was unwilling to fail. He tore off the cloak of democracy and stubbornly chose to act recklessly. So the Berlin army, composed of all the confidants of the military chief, began to point the gun at the Workers' Party that won the election and the Hindenburg, which was planning a counterattack, thus forming a Berlin mutiny in the true sense.
Hindenburg and their strength in Berlin was not too strong. Instead, the Workers' Party, which was never afraid of the power, had a certain counterattack power in front of the army's bayonets. The gunfight broke out and Berlin was completely in chaos, and the accidental assassination of Tirpitz's accidental assassination exacerbated this chaos.
Before Tirpitz was assassinated, Rudendolf was not so crazy that he destroyed Germany. However, when Tirpitz's assassination passed through the Hindenburg forces, the wrong guidance of foreign political workers spread to Rudendolf, causing the ill-fated Rudendolf and the panicked army to make mistakes, and everything became uncontrollable.
On the night of the Great Purgatory, Ludendolf's confidants firmly controlled Berlin and massacred any opponents that might threaten them. Perhaps someone had already come out of the initial violent eccentricity and simplicity of blindness, but after waking up with dreams, Ludendolf's followers feared the future far more than their conscious anger, so they had to use more cruel killing to cover up their panic after breaking the empire's traditions, challenge the bottom line of the empire, and numb themselves with the pleasure of blood.
The enraged other political forces of the empire were also advancing towards Berlin. In this dark night, the Eastern Front Army that drove from East Prussia, the sailors organized by Wilhelmshaven, the Social Democratic rebels and the workers' guerrillas, and the Western Front Army that continued northward according to Rudendolf's previous orders were all moving closer to the heart of the empire.
Before arriving in Berlin, no one knew how the farce would end.
The angry naval leader Wang Heidi felt a big deal when he thought of suppressing the rebellion. First of all, the naval sailors with poor combat effectiveness could not enter Berlin, which had the Imperial Army leader, and completed the task of rescuing General Hippel. Although the navy has always been unhappy with the fighting army, it is undeniable that an imperial army in a defensive state is invincible!
Secondly, the water in Berlin is too deep, so you will know if you count the other forces that are moving towards Berlin at the same time.
First of all, the Eastern Front Army with a low morale. Hoffman has a memorandum sent by Chief of the Army General Staff Hindenburg when Rudendolf just proposed to restart the parliamentary elections. This is also the ability of Hoffman to pull this elite force that was supposed to be used to log in to the Shetlands to Berlin without the transfer order of the Supreme Command. However, after the mobilization, as the trains get closer and closer to Berlin, the morale of the Eastern Front Army is getting lower and lower.
Hoffman's men understood General Hoffman's position. But they still said, "The Army does not fight the Army."
The Workers' Party's efforts to march into Berlin were the strongest. Not only was the successful election of the Workers' Party slandered as fraud, but the comrades in Berlin were wantonly massacred by reactionaries, but also because Albert, the Workers' Party's indisputable only leader, the elites they had worked hard to be captured by the shameless army. However, the Workers' Party's pace of march into Berlin was also the most difficult. Although the Workers' Party was rampant in the northwest of the empire, they were faced with resolute resistance from the navy and army, including the always gap-free naval and local garrison troops, and could only rely on the thin workers' armed forces near Berlin.
The last part is the Western Front Army.
After the Russian turmoil, the Supreme Command focused on the land war on the Western Front. The Western Front Command, which obtained the support of the army's troops and weapons on the Eastern Front, quickly became the most powerful army heavy army group in the Empire. Before and after the parliamentary elections, in view of the chaos in France, Ludendorf gradually pulled his trusted troops on the Western Front to Berlin, and ordered the Western Front Army to secretly advance northward and cross Berlin to eliminate the Schleswig rebels entrenched in the northwest of the Empire.
The Army was willing to accept this order. Although most of the grassroots soldiers of the Empire came from poor families, this did not prevent them from being born with hatred against the Shileswig rebels in the rear of the battlefield. The soldiers who fought bloody battles on the front line did not want the chaos in the rear were the main reason. The contribution of the senior army's successful public opinion guidance was indelible.
Now, this unit with the most considerable force and combat effectiveness in the march towards Berlin has approached Berlin. No one knows whether they followed Ludendolf's previous orders to continue to advance north to suppress the rebellion, or took the opportunity to enter Berlin to do something, and no one knows whether Ludendolf issued new orders and whether this unit will continue to obey Ludendolf's orders.
When the Navy, the Eastern Army, the Workers' Party and the Western Army entered Berlin together, Wang Heidi could not guess whether it was the forces in all directions that had been constantly grudged and entangled with each other, pinching their noses and strangling the crazy Ludendolf, or fighting each other before the army arrived at the headquarters.
Fortunately, the terrifying thing did not happen. At dusk the next day, the Workers' Party, which had weak attacks, could no longer advance when it reached southern Hanover. The Western Front Army came in a huge momentum, but they stopped moving 20 kilometers south of Berlin, and sent officers to contact the Navy and the Eastern Front Army, carefully expressing their wait-and-see attitude of "the army does not fight the army". In fact, only the Navy Sailors and the Eastern Front Army truly approached the outskirts of Berlin.
Wang Heidi suggested that the Navy and Army attack Berlin at night, but except for a few senior army generals who remained in agreement, most of the low-level officers and soldiers on the Eastern Front insisted that "the army cannot fight the army" and that the Berlin mutiny should be resolved in a peaceful negotiation manner, giving Rudendolf a decent ending.
Faced with resistance from the lower class, even Hoffman, the commander of the Eastern Front Army, had no good idea.
"If we can resolve the Berlin mutiny in negotiations, how could we be here? Since we have already sacrificed our butcher knives to Junker landlords, the Social Democrats, the anti-Rudendorf pan-political alliance and the Navy, how dare the Army hope to obtain our understanding?!"
Wang Heidi, who hurriedly left the Eastern Front's counter-rebellion Army Command, stood in a temporary command post in the western suburbs of Berlin, pointed to Berlin where the flames soared into the sky, and angrily accused the Eastern Front's army of stupid conservatism.
"Ludendorf's military and political career is over. Before self-destruction, even God cannot prevent these distorted soldiers from indulging in the pleasure of killing and destruction. If we continue to let Luudendorf go, I worry that this killing will completely destroy the running-in that the empire has been established since 1871, and the power of hatred will split and tear the entire empire from within!"
"Silem, what should we do?" One-armed General Wolfgang Wegener asked, asking the two ugly twenty-shot mufflers on Wang Heidi's waist, tightened his canvas armed strap.
"Since the army is unwilling to be brought in, the navy will do it alone!" Wang Heidi took care of his military uniform and accidentally exposed the outline of the iron wine bottle hidden in his pocket, attracting a lot of strange eyes. "We entered Berlin from the southwest and met the Navy headquarters... If we navy men who are used to driving ships rather than touching guns still have the strength to continue moving forward, then we will continue to sweep Berlin. If the children are lucky enough to see the Brandenburg Gate, let them all walk around me!"
At dusk on August 5, more than 6,000 sailors, led by Navy leader Wang Heidi, launched a fearless attack on Berlin.
Wang Heidi's move was ridiculed by the Eastern Front Army and the Western Front Army at that time. Even the Navy Sailors themselves felt that the future was uncertain. No one expected that the Navy was creating miracles that millions of British, French and Russian troops could not do.
Chapter completed!