The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

While merciful oblivion came to the aged Commander-in-Chief, his Quartermaster General settled down to a night’s work. The dynastic question had been solved with relative ease. Groener may not have agreed with the German socialist who said, “Wilhelm’s greatest service to his country in thirty-one years of reign was to leave it,” but it was a relief to be able to turn one’s attention to serious problems. The most urgent one was to bring the German army home in good order, and to save Germany from a Bolshevist revolution. The Allied armistice terms had been transmitted to Spa from Rhetondes on that day. They called for the evacuation by the German army of Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine within fifteen days, for the occupation by the Allies of the left bank of the Rhine, and for the delivery into the victor’s hands of practically all the nation’s armaments.