German Empire
The high command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled the country, but in October after the failed offensive in spring 1918, the German armies were in retreat, allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and Bulgaria had surrendered. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution with the abdications of its monarchs. This left a postwar federal republic and a devastated and unsatisfied populace, which later led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
Names of Germany
The French emperor, Napoleon, forced the Emperor of Austria to step down as Holy Roman Emperor in 1806. Some of the German countries were then collected into the Confederation of the Rhine, which remained a military alliance under the "protection" of Napoleon, rather than consolidating into an actual confederation. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, these states created a German Confederation with the Emperor of Austria as president. Some member states, such as Prussia and Austria, included only a part of their territories within the confederation, while other member states brought territories to the alliance that included people, like the Poles and the Czechs, who did not speak German as their native tongue. In addition, there were also substantial German speaking populations that remained outside the confederation.