Ludwig's short reign was conservative and influenced by the Catholic encyclical
Rerum novarum. Prime Minister
Georg von Hertling, appointed by Luitpold in 1912, remained in office. Also as King Ludwig lived in the
Wittelsbacher Palais rather than in the
Munich Residenz. At the outbreak of
World War I in 1914 Ludwig sent an official dispatch to Berlin to express Bavaria's solidarity. Later Ludwig even claimed annexations for Bavaria (
Alsace and the city of
Antwerp in Belgium, to receive an access to the sea). His hidden agenda was to maintain the balance of power between
Prussia and Bavaria within the
German Empire after a victory. A spurious story holds that, a day or two after Germany's declaration of war, Ludwig received a petition from a 25-year-old Austrian, asking for permission to join the
Bavarian Army. The petition was promptly granted, and
Adolf Hitler thereupon joined the Bavarian Army, eventually settling into the 16th Reserve Bavarian Infantry Regiment, where he served the remainder of the war. However, this account is based on Hitler's recollections in
Mein Kampf. Historian
Ian Kershaw holds that Hitler's story is simply not credible on its face, due to the remarkable bureaucratic effort it would have required to attend to this minor matter during days of extreme crisis. Kershaw suggests that bureaucratic error, rather than bureaucratic efficiency, was responsible for Hitler's enlistment; indeed, as a national of an allied country, he should have been sent to Austria for service in that army. Based on Bavarian government investigations in 1924, the more likely scenario in Kershaw's view is that Hitler applied for enlistment, along with thousands of other youths, on or about 5 August 1914, was initially turned away because the authorities were overwhelmed with applicants and had no place to assign him, and eventually was recalled to serve in the 2nd Infantry Regiment (2nd Battalion), before being assigned to Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (the List Regiment), which was principally made up of raw recruits. In 1917, when Germany's situation had gradually worsened due to World War I, Hertling became German Chancellor and Prime Minister of Prussia and
Otto Ritter von Dandl was made
Minister of State of the Royal Household and of the Exterior and
President of the Council of Ministers on 11 November 1917, a title equivalent to Prime Minister of Bavaria. Accused of showing blind loyalty to Prussia, Ludwig became increasingly unpopular during the war. As the war drew to a close, the
German Revolution broke out in Bavaria. Already discussed since September 1917, on 2 November 1918, an extensive constitutional reform was established by an agreement between the royal government and all parliamentary groups, which, among other things, envisaged the introduction of
proportional representation. On the same day, Ludwig III approved the transformation of the
constitutional monarchy into a parliamentary monarchy. For the first time on 3 November 1918, initiated by the
USPD, a thousand people gathered to protest on the
Theresienwiese for peace and demanded the release of detained leaders. On 7 November 1918, Ludwig fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich with his family and took up residence in
Schloss Anif, near
Salzburg, for what he hoped would be a temporary stay. He was the first of the monarchs in the German Empire to be deposed. The next day, the
People's State of Bavaria was proclaimed. On 12 November 1918, a day after the
Armistice,
Prime Minister Dandl went to Schloss Anif to see the king in hopes of persuading him to
abdicate. Ludwig refused, instead giving Dandl the
Anif declaration (Anifer Erklärung) in which he released all government officials, soldiers and civil officers from their oath of loyalty to him. He also stated that as a result of recent events, he was "no longer in a position to lead the government." The declaration was published by the newly formed
republican government of
Kurt Eisner when Dandl returned to Munich the next day. Although the word "abdication" never appeared in the document, Eisner's government interpreted it as such and added a statement that Ludwig and his family were welcome to return to Bavaria as private citizens as long as they did not act against the "people's state." This statement effectively
dethroned the
Wittelsbachs and ended the family's 738-year rule over Bavaria. ==Final years==