the army could not resume the war under any circumstances. Rather than tell Ebert himself, he directed Groener to deliver the army's recommendation to the president. With just 19 minutes to spare, Ebert informed French Premier Georges Clemenceau that Germany would ratify the Treaty, which was signed on 28 June 1919. Second retirement Back in Hanover, as a field marshal he was provided with a staff who helped with his still extensive correspondence. He made few formal public appearances, but the streets around his house often were crowded with admirers when he took his afternoon walk. During the war he had left the newspaper reporters to Ludendorff, now he was available. He hunted locally and elsewhere, including an annual chamois hunt in Bavaria. The yearly Tannenberg memorial celebration kept him in the public eye. A Berlin publisher urged him to produce his memoirs which could educate and inspire by emphasizing his ethical and spiritual values; his story and ideas could be put on paper by a team of anonymous collaborators and the book would be translated immediately for the worldwide market. Mein Leben ('My Life') was a huge bestseller, presenting to the world his carefully crafted image as a staunch, steadfast, uncomplicated soldier. Major themes were the need for Germany to maintain a strong military as the school teaching young German men moral values and the need to restore the monarchy, because only under the leadership of the House of Hohenzollern could Germany become great again, with "The conviction that the subordination of the individual to the good of the community was not only a necessity, but a positive blessing ...". Throughout the Kaiser is treated with great respect. He concealed his cultural interests and assured his readers: "It was against my inclination to take any interest in current politics." (Despite what his intimates knew of his "deep knowledge of Prussian political life".) Mein Leben was dismissed by many military historians and critics as a boring apologia that skipped over the controversial issues, but it painted for the German public precisely the image he sought. The Treaty required the German army to have no more than 100,000 men and abolished the General Staff. Therefore, in March 1919 The Reichswehr was organized. The 430,000 armed men in Germany competed for the limited places. Both Major Oskar Hindenburg and his army officer brother-in-law were selected. The chief of staff was Seeckt, camouflaged