Hertling becomes Chancellor

On 1 November 1917 Kaiser Wilhelm II signed the orders dismissing the Chancellor, Georg Michaelis, and appointing as his successor the Minister-President of Bavaria, Count Georg von Hertling. On the same day Hertling also became Minister-President of Prussia. The British chronology of the war gives the change of chancellor under 30 October, but on that day the matter was still in the balance. The Vice-Chancellor, Karl Helfferich, who countersigned the imperial orders, recalled that on 30 October Hertling considered his mission a failure and intended to return to Munich that evening, and the Berlin evening papers wrote that his candidacy had collapsed. The decision came only the following day, and the appointment was announced on 1 November. Michaelis had governed for less than four months, since 14 July.

The fall of Michaelis

Michaelis was brought down by the dispute over the mutiny in the fleet. On 9 October in the Reichstag he and the State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office, Admiral Eduard von Capelle, accused deputies of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany of complicity in the sailors’ conspiracy, and the Chancellor declared that for him this party stood “beyond the line” of permissible activity. No proof of the gravest charge was produced, and Michaelis had not warned the party leaders, with whom he had agreed in September that the matter would not be brought before the House. The storm turned against the government. The Social Democratic leader Friedrich Ebert accused the Chancellor of outlawing an entire party and declared: “Every day that frees the German people from this government sooner we shall welcome with joy.” The two socialist parties’ motion of no confidence failed, because the bourgeois parties did not want to bring down the Chancellor in open session. They agreed, however, that after the adjournment they would tell Michaelis that he could no longer remain in office.

On 22 October the Inter-Party Committee met, the one that had prepared the peace resolution in July: the Social Democrats, the Catholic Centre and the liberals of the Progressive People’s Party, this time with the National Liberals taking part. The next day their representatives called on the head of the Kaiser’s Civil Cabinet, Rudolf von Valentini, and left him a letter asking that the Kaiser, before taking a decision, instruct the future chancellor to consult the Reichstag. In July the deputies had learned of Michaelis’s appointment as an accomplished fact, and they did not want this to happen again. Michaelis at first hoped to turn the mood round with the help of the trade unions, but his talks with them failed. On 26 October he asked Helfferich to put a new solution to the Kaiser: Hertling would become Chancellor, while he himself would remain Minister-President of Prussia, at least until the reform of the Prussian franchise had been carried through. The Kaiser agreed.

Five days of negotiations

Hertling arrived in Berlin on Sunday 28 October and was received by the Kaiser the same day. He was inclined to accept the office, but obtained permission to come to an understanding with the party leaders before giving his final answer. This was a precedent: for the first time a candidate for chancellor negotiated with the Reichstag the terms on which he would take power. The talks went badly. Some of the leaders were not in Berlin, and the Centre was represented by Matthias Erzberger, who had until then supported the candidacy of the former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. The majority parties also did not want the offices of Chancellor and Prussian Minister-President to be separated, because that would mean that Michaelis kept the real power. On 30 October Hertling told Valentini and Helfferich that he considered his mission over.

He let himself be persuaded, however, to wait one more day. In the meantime the State Secretary, Richard von Kühlmann, was to convince the party leaders that a speedy end to the crisis was in the interest of foreign policy. On 31 October the leader of the Centre group, Karl Trimborn, promised Hertling the party’s full support, on condition that he took both offices. The Kaiser, who wanted to leave the Prussian premiership in the hands of a Prussian, agreed to this very reluctantly. Hertling promised the majority parties the speedy introduction of a franchise reform bill in Prussia, a milder application of the state of siege with regard to censorship and meetings, a law on chambers of labour, the repeal of a provision of the Industrial Code particularly hated by the trade unions, and, in foreign policy, adherence to the principles of the German reply to Benedict XV’s peace note.

The professor from Munich

Georg von Hertling was born on 31 August 1843 in Darmstadt, into a Catholic family of officials. He was a philosopher. He obtained his habilitation in Bonn in 1867, but because of the Kulturkampf, as a professed Catholic, he had to wait until 1880 for a professorship. He co-founded the Görres Society, which promoted scholarship in Catholic Germany, and was its president until the end of his life. From 1882 he lectured at the University of Munich. He was a Centre deputy in the Reichstag in 1875–1890 and 1896–1912, and in 1909–1912 he led its parliamentary group. In February 1912 he became Minister-President and Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Bavaria, and in 1914 he received the title of count. In July 1917, after the fall of Bethmann Hollweg, he declined the chancellorship.

His experience spoke in his favour. As chairman of the Federal Council’s foreign affairs committee he knew foreign policy, he was a respected parliamentarian and he could count on the Centre, the strongest party in the Reichstag. His age spoke against him. He was 74, his eyesight was failing, and the American historian Klaus Epstein wrote that he sometimes fell asleep at evening sessions. He also belonged to the right wing of the Centre and was an opponent of parliamentarisation, in which he saw a threat to the federal constitution of the Reich.

A step towards parliamentary government

Hertling’s appointment did not end the crisis. The majority parties, including the National Liberals, at once demanded that their own men enter the government, citing promises Kühlmann was said to have made them. Helfferich, disliked by the left, soon stepped down, and the liberal Friedrich von Payer became Vice-Chancellor, and the National Liberal Robert Friedberg vice-president of the Prussian State Ministry. Hertling was the first Chancellor of the Reich to come from a political party and the first whose appointment was preceded by talks with the Reichstag. Historians regard this as an important step towards parliamentary government, although the Chancellor himself did not seek it. He held office until the end of September 1918, when, in the face of defeat, he was replaced by Prince Max von Baden.