Prince Max, a cousin of the Kaiser’s, a grandson of Czar Nicholas I and next in succession to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden, was an urbane man with well-tempered liberal ideas. On October 4 his government, which was for the first time in German history composed of responsible ministers and included such Socialist leaders as Philip Scheidemann and Gustav Bauer, appealed to President Wilson for an armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points — via the Swiss government — thus informing the German people and the world at large that Germany had lost the war.
