surefooted adaptations to changing times. Most of their conferences were in private, but on 26 July 1918 the chief of staff of the Seventh Army, Fritz von Lossberg traveled to OHL to request permission to withdraw to a better position Hindenburg's record as a commander starting in the field at Tannenberg, then leading four national armies, culminating with breaking the trench deadlock in the west, and then holding his defeated army together, is unmatched by any other soldier in World War I. However, military skill should not mask the other component of their record: "... in general, the maladroit politics of Hindenburg and Ludendorff led directly to the collapse of 1918...." In the Republic The new republic held its first election on 19 January 1919. Parties representing a broad range of different constituencies ran candidates and voting was with proportional representation, so inevitably governments were formed by coalitions of parties: this time Social Democrats, Democrats, and Centrists. Ebert was elected as provisional chancellor; then the elected representatives assembled in Weimar to write a constitution. It was based on the Constitution of the German Empire written in 1871, with many of the Kaiser's powers now given to a president elected for a term of seven years. The president selected the chancellor and the members of the cabinet, but with the crucial stipulation that his nominees had to be ratified by the Reichstag, which because of proportional representation required support from several parties. The constitution was adopted on 11 August 1919. Ebert was elected as provisional president. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were written in secret. It was unveiled on 7 May 1919 and was followed by an ultimatum: either ratify the treaty, or the Allies would take whatever measures they deemed necessary to enforce its terms. While Germans of all political shades cursed the treaty as an insult to the nation's honor, President Ebert was sober enough to consider the possibility that Germany would not be in a position to turn it down. To save face, he asked Hindenburg whether the army was prepared to defend against an Allied invasion from the west, which Ebert believed would be all but certain if the treaty were voted down. If there was even the slightest chance that the army could hold out, he promised to urge rejection of the treaty. Under some prodding from his chief of staff, Groener, Hindenburg concluded