The January strike assumed large proportions, and so confident were the Berlin strikers of the strength of their position that they addressed an "ultimatum" to the government. This ultimatum demanded a speedy peace without annexations or indemnities; the participation of workingmen's delegates of all countries in the peace negotiations; reorganization of the food-rationing system; abolishing of the state of siege, and freedom of assembly and of the press; the release of all political prisoners; the democratization of state institutions, and equal suffrage for women. The strikers appointed a workmen's council to direct their campaign, and this council chose an "action commission," of which Haase was a member.
The authorities, in part unable and in part unwilling to make the concessions demanded, took determined steps to put down the strike. Their chief weapon was one that had been used repeatedly, and, as events proved, too often and too freely. This weapon was the so-called _Strafversetzungen_, or punitive transfers into the front-army. The great part of the strikers were men subject to military duty who had been especially reclaimed and kept at work in indispensable industries at home. They were, however, subject to military law and discipline, and the imminent threat of being sent to the front in case of insubordination had prevented many strikes that would otherwise have come, and the carrying into effect of this threat had broken many revolts in factories. Thousands of these men, who had been drawing high wages and receiving extra allowances of food, were promptly sent into the trenches.
Every such _Strafversetzung_ was worse than a lost battle in its effect. The victims became missionaries of revolution, filled with a burning hatred for the government that had pulled them from their comfortable beds and safe occupations and thrown them into the hail of death and the hardships of the front. They carried the gospel of discontent, rebellion and internationalism among men who had theretofore been as sedulously guarded against such propaganda as possible. The morale of the soldiery was for a time restored by the successes following the offensive of March, 1918, and it never broke entirely, even during the terrible days of the long retreat before the victorious Allied armies, but it was badly shaken, and the wild looting that followed the armistice was chiefly due to the fellows of baser sort who were at the front because they had been sent thither for punishment.