Chapter 29: Coronation — Wilhelm III

"Idiot. Moron. A goddamn museum piece of a fool!"

When Crown Prince Wilhelm published the evidence of the Berlin government colluding with the enemy and called on the whole nation to hunt down the traitors, Hindenburg — who’d been sitting in Hamburg with his troops, not making a single move for almost a month — let out a string of curses.

He knew Gustav Bauer didn’t trust him. But even he couldn’t be stupid enough to go contacting the enemy, could he?

"General, the Crown Prince has already marched his troops toward Berlin. What do we do now?"

"What else can we do? Send a nationwide telegram backing the Crown Prince’s ascension and march with him to crush the traitors! Or do you want me to get branded a traitor too?"

If Hindenburg had any room to negotiate before, that room was gone now.

With the Berlin government’s collusion with the enemy confirmed, anyone who even got close to them would be dragged down with them.

Hindenburg had plenty of prestige in the military, sure. But even he couldn’t survive that kind of reputation hit.

So he didn’t really have a choice. He had to throw in completely with the Crown Prince.

Maybe worried that his earlier hesitation and fence-sitting would hurt his standing in the Crown Prince’s eyes, this time Hindenburg moved with total decisiveness.

The moment he got the Crown Prince’s telegram, he didn’t waste a second. He sent out a nationwide announcement declaring the Berlin government illegitimate, announced he was marching to crush them, and voiced his full support for Crown Prince Wilhelm’s ascension to take command of the nation.

Hindenburg’s statement hit like a stone dropped into still water. After him, the big names with real power — Ludendorff, Rupprecht, Mackensen — along with party leaders like Konstantin Fehrenbach and Joseph Wirth, all stepped up one after another to voice their support for Crown Prince Wilhelm’s coronation.

As the saying goes — a house can’t go a day without its master, a nation can’t go a day without its sovereign.

After months without an emperor, and after getting a taste of how those subhuman creatures in the Berlin government ran things, even some people who’d originally had hopes for a republic started losing faith in it. Maybe restoring the monarchy wasn’t so bad after all.

On top of that, judging by the news coming back from the front lines over the past few months, their Crown Prince — whether it was his character, his ability, or his temperament — was a hell of a lot better than his father.

That went a long way toward easing the public’s resistance to Wilhelm taking the throne.

As for why they didn’t just go drag Wilhelm II back from the Netherlands to keep running the Empire?

Probably because the German people had lost all faith in a monarch who’d dragged them into the quagmire of war and then lacked the ability to do anything about it.

Germany might not worship strongman politics the way the Russians did, but their tolerance for incompetent rulers was pretty damn low too.

Wilhelm was still on the road back to Berlin when the news hit. The troops escorting him immediately started chanting "Long live the Emperor!" — no more "Your Highness." It was "Your Majesty" now.

To which Wilhelm could only respond with a pained expression:

"You people are really doing a number on me!"

...

No surprises. He and his army rolled through without a single obstacle.

Local garrisons and militias didn’t just refuse to fight — they lined the streets with the civilians to welcome him, and spontaneously joined the Crown Prince’s ranks, swelling his army as it thundered toward Berlin.

By this point, Hindenburg had just taken Berlin and was sweeping through the Reichstag building hunting down the rebels.

When he heard the news, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He immediately asked his subordinates:

"How many men did the Crown Prince bring?"

"When he left Mainz, the Crown Prince only had one corps with him. But by the time he reached Leipzig, Duke Albrecht of Württemberg had dispatched the 2nd Army to escort him. The Ligurian Army Group, just pulled back from Hungary, also swore loyalty to him. Plus all the militias and civilians joining along the way — the Crown Prince currently has over a million people under him, at least 400,000 of them elite field troops."

The moment he heard 400,000 men, the last shred of hope in Hindenburg’s heart died.

With that kind of disparity in numbers, and with the people standing behind the Crown Prince, there was no way — even with all his talent — he could beat the Crown Prince and his forces in this situation.

"Come on. Let’s go outside the city and welcome His Majesty."

In the face of absolute power, Hindenburg finally set aside all his ambition and chose to submit.

Gotta say, it was the right call. By the time Crown Prince Wilhelm’s army reached Berlin, his forces had ballooned to a million men.

Massive numbers of troops pulling back from the front lines, plus veterans who’d been demobilized, all grabbed their weapons and joined the ranks escorting the Crown Prince.

As for the militias joining up along the way — there were so many they couldn’t even count.

When he entered the city, Crown Prince Wilhelm didn’t ride in a car. He mounted his white warhorse and, greeted by millions of citizens lining the streets, rode through Berlin, passed under the Brandenburg Gate, and arrived at the Reichstag.

He didn’t choose to hold his coronation at the City Palace.

Instead, outside the Reichstag, under the gaze of tens of thousands of citizens and soldiers, he placed the Hohenzollern crown — the symbol of imperial power — on his head and swore his oath as the third Emperor of the German Empire!

...

"What? Those damn Germans restored the monarchy?"

"Is it that old bastard Wilhelm II?"

"No, not him. His son."

"Goddammit. Whoever’s sitting on that throne in Berlin, we’re gonna make him pay!"

News of Wilhelm III’s coronation in Berlin spread across Europe by telegram in no time.

When it reached France, the whole nation was in shock.

French Prime Minister Clemenceau was hopping mad, threatening to send troops to wipe Germany off the map.

But intelligence from the front lines showed the Germans were already fully prepared for battle.

And France alone? Probably couldn’t take out the German army by itself.

So they immediately fired off telegrams to Britain and America, inviting both countries to send troops and attack Germany together.

Even though the Treaty of Versailles was already brutal as hell, the French still weren’t satisfied with it.

They’d finally beaten Germany once, and they really wanted to use this chance to finish the job for good — no chance for the enemy to ever recover.

Too bad their allies didn’t back them up, and they couldn’t find a decent excuse. So the whole thing had to be dropped.

But now — opportunity. The Kaiser’s restoration gave them their excuse.

London, Buckingham Palace.

10 Downing Street got the ally’s telegram and immediately sent word to King George V.

Compared to the French flying off the handle, George V and British Prime Minister Lloyd George reacted pretty mildly to the news.

The Treaty of Versailles mainly targeted Germany’s military and economy — politically, there weren’t many restrictions.

Whether Germany went republic or restored the monarchy, as long as they didn’t go red like the Russians to the east, the British didn’t really care.

Hell, George V was even kind of happy to see another emperor across the Channel.

World War I had wiped out way too many emperors — and not small ones either. The German, Austrian, and Russian emperors were all gone. That had seriously shaken the foundations of monarchy across Europe.

And it made him feel a bit of that "when the rabbits die, the fox grieves" sympathy — worried that if things kept going this way, his own rule might get threatened.

So as long as the Germans didn’t get in their way, whoever was running Berlin, they weren’t going to fight it hard.

As for America — President Wilson had come back from Paris completely disillusioned with his so-called allies.

He understood now that they’d been treating him like a sucker the whole time. When they needed something, they’d promise anything, say anything.

The moment things got done? Instant backstabbing.

War means people die. The Germans still had millions of troops that hadn’t been disbanded. And now that the Treaty of Versailles terms had leaked, it was bound to stir up even more resistance from the German people.

Back then, the only reason the war had ended was because of the anti-war revolution and uprisings inside Germany — the people couldn’t see any hope of winning, so they didn’t want to keep fighting.

Now that the Treaty of Versailles was out in the open, the Germans knew the Entente wanted them dead. Their will to resist was on a completely different level from before.

In that situation, he had zero doubt the Germans could mobilize another few million soldiers.

To attack German soil under those conditions — the Entente would have to lose two to three million men minimum to take Germany down.

The war was already over. Was it worth spending that kind of blood and treasure just to swap out Germany’s ruler?

He sure as hell wasn’t going to keep playing the fool. Whoever wanted to fight that war could go right ahead.