The German Question, Part Seventy-Five

Very minor editing, 9/22/15

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part Two/E "The Germans At War"

"The Discontent Of Stalemate"

Kaiser Wilhelm had been born with a withered left hand.* Perhaps this weakness made him showcase a more strutting militaristic persona, but during the war, his overall lack of military prowess made him recede ever further into the more symbolic role of Kaiser as supreme commander, leaving the actual military affairs and even many governmental affairs to the professionals.** Wilhelm made many public appearances and visited military units to help bolster morale, but Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his aide, General Erich Ludendorff, gained more and more power as Wilhelm deferred to them, and some historians even go so far as to say that these two men, and not Wilhelm, were actually running Germany during the last two years of war.

Perhaps Tsar Nicholas II should have taken a note from his distant cousin, the Kaiser, but unlike Wilhelm, Nicholas had actively served in a regiment in his early adulthood. He loved military life and he loved being around the troops. With the Russian armies finally dug in against the German and Austro-Hungarian armies after terrible losses,*** the Tsar made a fateful decision; he relieved his cousin, also named Nicholas (known to the family as "Nikolasha"), as commander-in-chief of the army, and he took charge of the army personally, although actual conduct of military matters were left to a professional staff. The decision had dire consequences. Before this time, fairly or unfairly, the public could blame "the generals" for the defeats, but with the Tsar now "in charge," full responsibility was his. Further, with the Tsar at the military headquarters hundreds of miles from the capital of St. Petersburg, he left his German-born wife in charge of day-to-day governmental matters. With Russia at war with Germany, the Russian public, stunned by the catastrophic defeat of the Russian armies in East Prussia, looked for reasons why Russia had not already defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary. Over the centuries, many Germans had settled in Russia, now, people with German sounding names became the object of hatred, accused of being spies for their ancestral homeland. This state of mind went right up to the Tsarina Alexandra.**** Rumors circulated that Alexandra was passing important information on to her first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm (a grandson of Queen Victoria). In addition, her association with Grigori Rasputin brought more disrepute to the monarchy.^ Many in the public believed Rasputin, through the Tsarina, had access to secret information about Russian military plans. It was believed he then passed along this information to German agents, who then paid him handsomely for the secrets. Rasputin's exploits, some real, some imagined, were big stories to the Russian public, and the country's newspapers were more than willing to print Rasputin stories for a public eager for any tidbit about him.

Meanwhile, in far off Zurich (Zürich, in German), Switzerland, a Marxist revolutionary writer, theorist, and leader, Vladimir Lenin, was monitoring the reports of events from his native Russia. Lenin was not his real name, as he was born Vladimir Ulyanov. In Russia prior to Tsar Nicholas II's granting of a "limited" constitution (and even somewhat thereafter), writings critical of the government were cause for arrest. Ulyanov wrote under the pseudonym "Lenin," and he kept that as his "cover name" to avoid the secret police, just as many revolutionary leaders did (for example, Stalin's real family name was "Dzughashvili" or "Jughashvili," depending upon transliteration method.) The revolutionaries took advantage of the Russian military defeats, and of Alexandra's association with Rasputin, to spread as much discontent as possible. With Russia's armies terribly short of ammunition and provisions, and with an inadequate railway net, the whole Russian supply system, especially to the cities, began to go into cardiac arrest, making the job of the revolutionaries that much easier. Strikes and protests mounted. Military units became highly unreliable, some even in open rebellion. Eventually the situation became so serious in St. Petersburg, police and military units joined the protesters, and Nicholas decided to return to the capital to restore order. On his way back, his train was stopped and he was forced to abdicate. Revolution had come! A "provisional government" under Alexander Kerensky came to power. With starvation a distinct possibility for many Russians, especially in the cities, the Kerensky government promised not bread, but war, as the new government reassured their nervous French and British allies that Russia would remain in the war. Lenin was still watching. (You may wonder why I've included so much information about Russia, when this series is about Germany, but the major events in Russia had an impact on the course of the war and Germany, and the next part will clarify why this is so important. The main thing to remember is, the Allies needed Russia to remain in the war to keep the two front war going against Germany and Austria-Hungary.)

* The many photos taken of Wilhelm during his life almost always had his left hand concealed in some way, frequently by a glove.

** Wilhelm's last minute wavering about support of Austria-Hungary against Serbia and his attempts to avoid war made some German military and governmental leaders skeptical (some might say "contemptuous") of him.

***Remember, even though German rail could adeptly transfer troops back and forth between the Western and Eastern Fronts, once the Germans failed to knock France out of the war, Germany could not send enough troops against Russia to defeat her, bloodied though Russia had been early on in the war. Austria-Hungary also had its hands full, not only against Russia, but against Serbia, and then Italy. With forces divided against so many nations, the outlook for a Central Powers' victory was relatively dim, although the Allies also seemed in much the same spot; thus there was military stalemate, with only the number of casualties and victims of the war escalating.

****Born as a princess in the German state of Hessen, her given name was "Alix," the German rendering of her mother's name, Alice. Alice was the daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain and Alice died while Alix was still a young child. "Grandmother" Queen Victoria took charge of Alix's education and much of her upbringing, and the girl shared her time between Hessen (in the city of Darmstadt) and England. So, while Alix was "German-born," she was actually something of an Englishwoman, and indeed, she and Nicholas conversed in English, not Russian. The English part of her heritage was a matter not really known to the average Russian. Upon her conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, which was required for her to marry Nicholas, she was given the name "Alexandra."

^ For more on Rasputin, I did a nine part series on him (Parts 1-8 + Conclusion). You can access "Part One" here:
http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2008/04/rasputins-importance-to-history.html
 

 WORD HISTORY:
Gather-This word goes back to Indo European "ghedh," which had the notion of "unify, unite, join, keep together." This spawned the Old Germanic offshoot "gaduronan," which continued the meaning "bring together, unite; thus also, 'gather.' " This gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "gadrian/gaedrian," with much the same basic meaning. Later it was spelled "gaderen," but gradually the "d" sound came to be pronounced as "th," and this brought about the modern spelling. The other West Germanic languages have (or had) words related to "gather;" German has "Gatte" ("husband"), "Gattin" ("wife"), both terms being a bit "socially high," and the idea of "uniting" lies behind them. German also has "begatten," which means "to mate," for animals, and ahh...ahh... "to mate" for humans. In "old times," it meant "to get married, or paired;" thus the related terms "Gatte" and "Gattin," above. While strikingly similar to English "beget/begat," and with similar meaning, if you get my drift, they are not related. Interestingly too, just as with English, most sources show the root word itself was once spelled with a "d" in German, but also just like in English, the sound changed, in the case of German to "t," as they do not have the "th" sound of English. Dutch has "vergaderen," with the meaning "to gather, to assemble in one place." Frisian once had "gadia," meaning "to unite," but apparently it has died out, with no descendants, so I assume the Frisians did not read up on German "begatten" or English "beget." English once had "gaed," another derivative of the Old Germanic form, and it meant "companion, fellowship," but it too has died out, which brings us back to "begatten" and...oh never mind!