Europe in Turmoil

Urban citizens and returning soldiers ignited the protests that swept Europe in 1918 and 1919. In January 1919, the red flag of socialist revolution flew from the city hall in Glasgow, Scotland, while in cities of the collapsing Austro-Hungarian monarchy, workers set up councils to take over factory production and direct politics. Many soldiers did not disband at the armistice but formed volunteer armies, preventing the return to peacetime politics. Germany was especially unstable, partly because of the shock of defeat; German workers and veterans filled the streets, demanding food and back pay. Whereas in 1848, revolutionaries had marched to city hall or the king’s residence, the protesters in 1919 took over newspapers and telegraph offices to control the flow of information. One of the most radical socialist factions was the Spartacists, led by cofounders Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919) and Rosa Luxemburg (1870–1919). Unlike Lenin, the two leading Spartacists wanted workers to gain political experience from any uprisings instead of simply following an all-knowing party leadership on a set course.

German conservatives had believed that the war would put an end to Social Democratic influence; instead, it brought German socialists to power. Social Democratic leader Friedrich Ebert, who headed the new German government, rejected revolution and supported the creation of a parliamentary republic to replace the monarchy. He called on the German army and the Freikorps—a roving paramilitary band of students, demobilized soldiers, and others—to suppress the workers’ councils and demonstrators. “The enthusiasm is marvelous,” wrote one young soldier. “No mercy’s shown. We shoot even the wounded.” Members of the Freikorps hunted down Luxemburg and Liebknecht, among others, and murdered them.

Violence continued in Europe even as an assembly meeting in the city of Weimar in February 1919 approved a constitution and founded a parliamentary republic called the Weimar Republic. This time the right rebelled, for the military leadership dreamed of a restored monarchy: “As I love Germany, so I hate the Republic,” wrote one officer. To defeat a military coup by Freikorps officers, Ebert called for a general strike. This action showed the lack of popular support for a military regime. Late in the winter of 1919, leftists proclaimed “soviet republics”—governments led by workers’ councils—in Bavaria and Hungary. Volunteer armies and troops soon put the soviets down. The Bolsheviks tried to establish a Marxist regime in Poland, but the Poles resisted and drove the Red Army back in 1920, while the Allied powers rushed supplies and advisers to Warsaw. Though they failed, the various revolts provided further proof that total war had let loose the forces of political chaos. War, it seemed, continued.