Potsdam

Potsdam is named in a brief, sharply comic image of imperial retreat: as the war’s public spectacle ends and its leaders face the consequences, the Kaiser runs along a platform toward a train, wearing a silk hat and, according to the narrator’s qualification, possibly false whiskers.

The Platform at the War’s Close

The passage places the Kaiser’s flight at Potsdam amid a swift sequence of reversals. Prince Max of Baden is pleading for the Fourteen Points, while Foch occupies the bridgeheads on the Rhine River; against these large political and military developments, the Kaiser’s hurried dash for a train reduces imperial collapse to a single exposed gesture.

Narrative Significance

Potsdam’s significance here is concentrated in that scene rather than developed through a broader description of the city. The silk hat and uncertain false whiskers give the departing ruler a theatrical, almost farcical appearance. The passage sets this image against the elevated language of peace and self-determination that follows, making Potsdam the point in the narrative where imperial authority is shown not as a grand abstraction but as a figure rushing down a platform.