U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had implicitly demanded the Kaiser's abdication in his replies to the German request for an armistice. While the SPD leadership, like the bourgeois parties, was prepared in principle to accept a parliamentary monarchy under a new emperor, its supporters, the workers' and soldiers' councils, the Independent Social Democrats and the Spartacus League advocated the abolition of the monarchy. To forestall such demands, Max von Baden spent several days trying in vain to persuade Wilhelm II to abdicate. Fearing that he would lose control of the situation in Berlin, and in order to prevent a civil war, the Chancellor on his own authority announced the Emperor's abdication on 9 November and handed the reins of government to the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert. Such an action was not covered by the Reich constitution even after the October reforms. To anticipate the proclamation of a socialist soviet republic planned by the Spartacist Karl Liebknecht, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a republic on the same day. On 11 November Germany signed the Armistice of Compiègne.
