Chapter 12 A Centennial
I redid this chapter to be a little more historically accurate and I want to thank JLBB for the details.
Gilbert skipped rocks into Lake Müritz as Maria threw sticks for Willi to fetch. The November air felt colder than usual, cold enough to settle in his bones and freeze a frown upon his face. The ninth of November was never a fun date for him, but this was 2018, the centennial of the day he stopped being a kingdom and he became a free state in the Weimar Republic. The beginning of the end, he would bitterly joke.
Normally, he liked to spend the day with Ludwig, having beers and swapping stories, consoling each other for the past, and toasting over the present. But Ludwig was busy with appearances and interviews; he was actually in Paris, making nice with France, Great Britain, the United States and other combatants of the Great War. Austria and Hungary were there also, and even Sadiq from Turkey had been invited to discuss how the end of the Ottoman Empire had been a blessing in disguise. Russia was busy with his own anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the establishment and legacy of the Soviet Union. Everyone had forgotten about the Kingdom of Prussia.
Gilbert remembered the day he had heard the news. The war on the eastern front with Russia had ended in March, and he was recuperating from injuries in Berlin. Morphine had become his best friend, Danzig his inscrutable nurse, and the Kaiser a faraway dream in Belgium. Danzig read Ludwig's letters from the Western Front and reports of the Navy's mutinies to him, as well as the newspapers' accounts of changes in government; Gilbert had listened in moments of clarity, but the pain in his legs and head overpowered him. He would ask for his morphine shot and slip away into a world where Imperial balls broke into artillery fire and broken shells, and corseted women became screaming, shattered horses. He cursed Hannover, Holstein and Schleswig for their roles in the sailors' revolts and then asked for more morphine, where he could see Old Fritz shaking his head wistfully as he wept and begged for forgiveness. He would curse or weep more as Ludwig's letters painted images of filthy, starving troops turned to ragged ghosts tangled in barbed wire.
And then Danzig one day shaved him (he was convinced she was going to slash his throat with the razor and puzzled that she hadn't), put his war tunic with all his medals on him, and managed to get him into a chair. "What's all this?" he growled, shifting uncomfortably. His previous morphine shot was wearing off, and he wanted another to help him return to his dream of Sanssouci.
"You have visitors," she replied and led in two mortals. "Prinz Max von Baden and Herr Friedrich Ebert."1 She then retreated from the room, taking his little silver morphine case with her. He remembered how longingly he had gazed at the glistening box, ready to cry out for it.
Gilbert studied the two mortals, displeased with their lack of deference. "Wat?" He finally snapped at them.
Von Baden stepped forward and stated, "Preußen, the Kaiser has abdicated as of this morning."
Gilbert tilted his head. "So who's going to rule me now?"
The Prince looked uncomfortable. "That's what we are working on right now. There is talk of one of the Kaiser's grandsons…"
"But they're young! There'd have to be a regency!" Gilbert interrupted. He focused on the Prince. "Would that be you?"
Von Baden shook his head. "I am stepping down. Herr Ebert, head of the Social Democratic Party, will be the new Chancellor." He gestured for the burly mortal with the brush cut and mustache to come forward and bow.
"Preußen, I promise the German Empire, you and the other entities, that we will get through this difficult time as smoothly and wisely as possible. I have assured Prinz von Baden that we will work within the old constitution—"
Gilbert stared at him. "Who are you?" He sneered. "A saddle-maker?"2 The powerfully built mortal held his ground. Gilbert turned to the Prince. "So who's going to rule me?"
"That needs to be finalized," the Prince said. Gilbert fidgeted and sneezed. The damaged nerves in his leg and neck were tingling with pain; why was it taking him so long to heal? "What do you mean, finalized?" He demanded. "And does the Empire know about this?"
"A wire about the abdication has been sent," Ebert assured him. Gilbert's fidgeting and grimaces at pain seemed to unnerve the mortals. "I see that we are tiring you, Preußen, and I am about to leave for the Reichstag now for lunch. I will return later this evening, after you have rested, and inform of further developments." The mortals bowed and turned to leave the room.
"You, the Chancellor! You address me as mein Herr Preußen; only royalty calls me Preußen!"Gilbert yelled after them, before he collapsed back into a coughing fit.
He spent the rest of the day agitated and ill at ease. It wasn't just the physical pain that bothered him; he felt as if something very wrong was happening, something that disordered his mind more than the morphine. Nothing tasted good, nothing felt comfortable. He made Danzig fetch books, records for the new Victrola, cards, but nothing drove away the nagging thoughts and queasiness. He insisted that she lay down next to him and undo her hair so he could pet her, but then he shoved her off the bed, snarling at her for being such a lazy Schlampfe when she could be finding out what was happening in the streets of Berlin instead. He could hear the rumbling of traffic and crowds, mortals milling about like nervous cattle.
It was dark when Chancellor Ebert returned. Danzig let him in, and Gilbert scrutinized the mortal. He has the worst timing, he thought, always coming when his body started whimpering for more morphine.
"So where's the little prince?" Gilbert smiled at the thought of a young mortal to win over and train.
"With his family," Ebert replied. Gilbert's smile disappeared at the mortal's solemn face. "Some startling events happened today and the German Empire has been declared a Republic."
Gilbert stared at him as the words sunk in. No wonder he had been so uncomfortable all day. He narrowed his eyes. "You said everything would be done as smoothly and wisely as possible, keeping to the constitution." His voice was acid. He clenched his fist and brought it down on his good thigh. "What does this do to the Empire? Does he know what he is now?" He raised his voice. "Who's going to rule us? Who's going to rule me? Bring me my prince!"
"A republic was declared without my knowledge or permission, but it has been done and the army has agreed to cooperate with us to prevent a revolution."3 Ebert replied. Gilbert noted with satisfaction that the mortal's hands were shaking. "We have already wired him with the news, and directions as to negotiating an armistice have also been sent."
"Then wat zum Teufel am I then?" Gilbert dimly recalled Danzig reading about Bavaria becoming a socialist state—he would be damned if he did that.
"You will be a state of the republic." Ebert replied. Gilbert felt dizzy and suddenly very small. He wanted his morphine shot, Danzig to hold him, a telegram or telephone call from Ludwig, a hand shaking him out of this nightmare. "There will be elections, more open ones than the old Prussian three-level system," Ebert continued. "But right now, Preußen, we are trying to restore order, build a coalition, negotiate a peace—"
"I told you, you verdammt son of a tailor, that you will address me as mein Herr Preußen!" Gilbert snarled. Danzig ran to his side, morphine case at the ready. "Mein Gott, are you going to leave me to the rabble?" He trembled as he batted her away. "I am the Königreich Preußen, I did not agree to this, I—"
"I did not come here to be yelled at by a spoiled boy." Ebert growled. His deep voice reverberated from his broad chest. "You are a state of the German Republic, and I have more urgent matters at hand than witnessing your tantrum." He nodded curtly at Danzig and a fuming Gilbert and left.
"How dare you turn your back on me!"Gilbert called and then he started to cough. The pain raced up his leg and down his neck, as if agreeing to rendez-vous in his chest. "Come back! I am Prussia, and I demand to know what's going on!" He collapsed into a coughing fit that seemed to set every nerve of his chest and injured leg on fire. Danzig was at his side, silver needle in hand, whispering nurse's nonsense as she injected him and sent him off to rest in a place where his sister Maria winked at him as he chased her through the old baroque Lustgarten, laughing when he caught her long silver hair.
"Vati?" Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He startled, turned and saw another Maria staring fearfully at him, twisting a strand of amber-colored hair in her mouth. "Who are you talking to, Vati?"
Gilbert paused. "I was talking out loud?" Maria nodded slowly. "What was I saying?"
"You were telling someone to come back. I heard you and we came back, Willi and me. But you kept saying, 'Come back.'" Tears shimmered in her beautiful amethyst eyes. "Are you sick, Vati?" Her voice wavered.
"Nein, Liebling." Gilbert turned to her, crouched down, and held out his arms. The girl hugged him, her little hands patting his shoulders. "Not sick, just sad."
"Why, Vati? Why are you sad?" She sniffed. "Muti will be back in a few weeks."
"Not that, Maria." Gilbert pulled away to look at her. "I was just remembering something very sad that happened to me today, a long time ago."
"What was it?" Maria knuckled her eyes and he saw with relief that she had no more tears in them.
"It's complicated, Spatzchen." When he saw her huff, he changed his mind and decided to tell her something. "Once I wasn't just a state who works for Onkel Ludwig. I was a kingdom with my own lands, laws and family of kings. A hundred years ago today, I lost my king and couldn't call myself a kingdom anymore."
Maria studied him. Then a hopeful smile crept onto her face. "But you are still here, Vati. And you have me and Muti." Willi the Pomeranian nudged his wedge-shaped head into their little group and she giggled. "And Willi says you have him too!"
Gilbert thought a little and smiled. She was right; the last Kaiser had gone straight from army headquarters in Spa, Belgium to exile in the Netherlands without a word to him. So much for the royal family he had served for hundreds of years. He nodded. "You're right, Maria." He scooped her up, her laughter ringing like armistice bells. "Who needs a king when I have you and Muti!"
He would never forget the look on her face, more wise and tender than her five years as she gazed at him and sang, "I want you to be happy, Vati, always happy."
1 Erich von Baden was an aristocrat with liberal leanings. He had been appointed as the Chancellor of Germany by Wilhelm II in the final weeks of World War One. He was willing to work with the Social Democratic Party in order to prevent a social revolution and he urged Wilhelm II to abdicate. Ebert was the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and he would become the Chancellor after von Baden and then the first president of the Weimar Republic.
2 Ebert was the son of a tailor and he had apprenticed and worked as a saddle-maker before becoming involved more fully in the Social Democrat Party.
3 Karl Liebknecht, was about to declare Germany as a socialist republic, which members of the SPD party did not want. Philip Schneiderman, the deputy chairman of the SPD Party tried to beat him to the punch by declaring a republic without Ebert's official authorization. So you have two republics declared in one day; Ludwig must have had some crazy headaches on November 9.