The German Seamen Mutinied after Infiltrating Communist ‘Cells’ Created Fear that British Scientists had developed a Secret Chemical Weapon

Rosa Luxemberg’s revolutionaries infiltrated into the German High Seas fleet, becoming very active in 1918. They spread rumors that the ships, and their crews, were to be sacrificed in an all out battle with the combined British and American navies. The rumor-mongers stated that the purpose of the battle was to cripple the combined allied fleets to such an extent they would be unable to defend the British coasts against a military invasion planned to bring the German Warlords Victory. The Communist ‘Cells’ exhorted the German seamen to mutiny because they claimed that the planned invasion of Britain was doomed to failure due to the fact that British Scientists had developed a secret weapon. According to the rumor-mongers invading craft could, by the use of chemicals fired from guns ashore or dropped from planes, be surrounded by a sea of flames. Fire, heat, and lack of oxygen would create conditions in which nothing human could survive. The subversives argued that the only way to avoid such a fate was to bring about a revolution to end the war. The German seamen mutinied the 3rd of November, 1918. Other mutinies occurred days later under similar fear created by the communist infiltrators resulting in a revolution for an armistice to end the war.