to the Reichstag building for lunch, they sat at separate tables. A huge crowd had gathered outside, and there were calls for a speech. Ebert refused to go out to them, but Scheidemann stood up and hurried to a window facing the crowd. According to Scheidemann's own recollection, someone told him along the way that the Spartacist leader Karl Liebknecht intended to declare Germany a soviet republic. Scheidemann then made a spontaneous speech that closed with the words: "The old and rotten, the monarchy, has collapsed. Long live the new! Long live the German Republic!"When Scheidemann returned to the Reichstag dining room, a furious Ebert confronted him. Ebert pounded the table with his fist and shouted, "You have no right to proclaim the republic! What becomes of Germany, a republic or any other form, that is for a constituent assembly to decide!" For Scheidemann, however it was clear that the legitimization of the new leadership by Max von Baden's declaration alone would not be sufficient. The demonstrating workers and soldiers expected a complete break with the imperial system. At that point Wilhelm II had not abdicated, although he soon fled to the Netherlands and signed an abdication on 28 November. As of 9 November 1918 Germany was legally still a monarchy, which meant that Scheidemann's speech had been without legal authority. Later that day, in spite of Scheidemann's announcement, Ebert asked Prince Maximilian to stay on as imperial regent, but he refused. Both Ebert and Scheidemann still hoped to preserve the existing structure of government under a Chancellor Ebert, to restore calm and to deal with the pressing issue of the armistice with the Allied powers. Yet the revolution seemed likely to force the MSPD to share power with the far left Spartacists and USPD. In the afternoon of 9 November, Ebert grudgingly asked the USPD to nominate three ministers for a future government. That evening a group of several hundred followers of the Revolutionary Stewards – workers' representatives who were independent of the formal unions – occupied the Reichstag and held an impromptu debate. They called for the election of soldiers' and workers' councils the next day with an eye to naming a provisional government to be called the Council of the People's Deputies. The MSPD leadership managed to ensure that most of the members elected to the workers' councils came from their ranks and so were able to