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Show KAISER WILLIAM ABDICATES WHEN HUjfiMEET DEFEAT German Emperor Vacates Throne and Seeks Sanctuary in Holland When Peace Terms Are Submitted. Paris. The expected has happened. William Hohenzollern, German emperor emper-or and king of Trussia, has abdicated. He is now in Holland, where he hopes thi he may be safe from his enemies and escape the punishment that he justly deserves. The crown prince has renounced the throne and a regency will be set up. This declaration is made in a decree de-cree issued at Berlin by the German imperial im-perial chancellor, Prince Maximilian, of Baden. Prince Maximilian will hold office until matters connected with the abdication abdi-cation of the emperor are settled, and Friedrich Ebert, vice-president of the Social Democratic party, will replace him as chancellor during the regency. Thirty years and almost live months after he ascended the imperial throne, William Hohenzollern, his armies defeated de-feated in the field, forced to sue for armistice terms, and the German people rising in revolt, gives up his power. He came into authority with his country at the threshold of an era of peace and material progress; he leaves it torn by revolution Nand suffering from the hardships and sacrifices of more than four years of war virtually ruined. Ernest August, Duke of Brunswick, son-in-law of the emperor, also has abdicated ab-dicated and renounced the rights of his heir. With the passing from power of William Wil-liam Hohenzollern, all the heads of the governments of the central powers when they entered the war have died or lost their thrones. Emperor Francis Joseph and the Sultan of Turkey died before their countries agreed to allied armistice terms, and Ferdinand of Bulgaria Bul-garia abdicated to be succeeded by his son, who gave up the throne when his people rose against him. The other European emperor at the beginning of the war Nicholas Romanoff, was deposed de-posed in March, 1917, and murdered in July, 1918. The German imperial chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, issued the following follow-ing decree on November 9. "The kaiser and king has decided to renounce the throne. "The imperial chancellor will remain In office until the situation connected with the abdication of the kaiser, the renouncing by the . German crown prince of the throne of the German empire em-pire and of Prussia and the setting up of a regency have been settled. "For the regency; he intends to-appoint Deputy Ebert as imperial chancellor chan-cellor and he proposes that a bill shall be brought in for the establishment of a law providing for the immediate promulgation pro-mulgation of general suffrage and for a constitutional German national assembly, assem-bly, which will settle finally the future form of government of the German nation na-tion and of those people, which might he desirous of coining within the empire." em-pire." Deputy Ebert, who, according to the German wireless message, is to be appointed ap-pointed imperial chancellor, is Friedrich Fried-rich Ebert, vice president of the main committee of the rechstag. Ebert's election to the latter otfice in June of this year was taken to mean at the time that the Socialist minority In the reichstag had either been reclaimed by the inilitary government or that the Socialists had gained the ascendency. Later events have proved that the Socialists So-cialists were in the saddle. Ebert quite recently declared in the reichstag that the German people would no longer permit themselves to be without with-out the right to decide their fate. It was he who informed the reichstag of the release of Dr. Liebknecht. A telegram received from Copenhagen Copen-hagen from Brunswick by way of Berlin Ber-lin asserts that Emperor William's son-in-law, the Duke of Brunswick, and his successor have abdicated. Unlike his grandfather, who shielded shield-ed himself beliir.-" his chancellor, the former emperor of Germany, whose ab- dication was announced November 9, has always insisted upon making himself him-self the center of the debates in the reichstag and among his people. Born with a lust for military life, imbued with an obsession of arms, he was a vain theatrical youth, consumed with a desire to leap into the center of things and win for Germany and himself a martial glory with full stage effect. His one great desire has been to emulate the example of Frederick the Great, his ancestor, and carry glory before him with a drawn sword. The kaiser is a man of rapid impulses, im-pulses, and these often came near involving in-volving Germany in serious difficulties. difficul-ties. His dream of world domination plunged the world into war in 1914. Upon him and the tremendous military mili-tary engine of destruction, of which he was the embodiment, the exponent and the leader, rests the responsibility of deliberately planning and bringing about the greatest conflict the world has ever seen. . It did not matter to the world that the emperor's share in the swift events immediately preceding the war had been obscured. The world convicted him of organizing, directing and maintaining main-taining at the top notch of efficiency the great German military machine. It will be remembered that he signed the order for the German mobilization, and he stood sponsor for the terrorism anil brigandage which, tinder the guise of warfare, ravished Belgium, laid waste the cities of France, depopulated and davastated Servia and sank the Lusi-tania Lusi-tania with the freight of women and children to a grave :n the Atlantic. Civilization will never forget thai it was the minions of the former emperor who shot to death Ihe English nurse who befriended the Belgians in Brussels. |