Changes

As the Allies were advancing on the Western Front, morale on the German Homefront collapsed. Sailors refused orders at Kiel, to launch a suicidal attack and mutinied and this initiated a series of events that led to the German Revolution (1918). The Revolution forced the Kaiser to abdicate and to go into exile. The left-wing Social Democrats, under the leadership of Ebert came to power and they, with the support of other democratic parties established what came to be known as the Weimar Republic<ref> Richard M. Watt: The Kings Depart: The Tragedy of Germany – Versailles and the German Revolution (New York, Simon and Schuster 1968), p 56 </ref>. In the aftermath of the armistice that ended World War One, Germany was in a state of crisis. The economy had collapsed, and the allies were blockading the country even after the official end of hostilities and many civilians starvedas a result<ref>Watt, p, 34</ref>. The Weimar Republic was faced with an array of challenges, from the collapsing economy, food shortages, labor unrest and to add to their difficulties they had to manage the complex peace negotiations at Versailles. Perhaps the greatest challenge that the new Weimar government faced was the threat from the extreme left. Emboldened by the example of the Russian Revolution (1917), German Communists believed that they could seize power and give power to the workers and peasants and create a Socialist Republic. Into this volatile environment, large groups of battle-hardened veterans of the trenches returned from the Western Front<ref>Watt, p.18</ref>. Many of these men were frustrated by the nature of the German defeat and blamed it on the Social Democrats, they subscribed to the myth of the ‘stab in the back’<ref>Watts, p. 21</ref>. This myth erroneously claimed that the Weimar politicians were responsible for the defeat and that German could have continued the war. Many of these veterans had no prospects and were rootless and they began to band together in paramilitary groups and became known as the Freikorps. The groups were composed mainly of ex-soldiers along with unemployed men and even some criminals<ref> Jones, Mark Founding Weimar. Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-19, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2016), p. 78</ref>. The Freikorps were led by former officers and soon established links with hardline Conservative groups. They began to spread all over Germany in the hard and hungry winter of 1918 and by the spring of 1919, there were dozens of these bands who were well-armed and disciplined. There was no centralized command directing the Freikorps, but the various bands coordinated their activities. They had a shared ideology that was anti-communist, anti-democratic and they believed in political violence.