The troops had specific instructions to maintain order and control. Taxi-drivers muttered that the trade unions would have something to say about it all. Workers in Berlin took no pains to conceal their dislike of what was going on, and waiters and hotel porters went about their tasks with ominous faces, sometimes even stalling or finding excuses not to do their jobs. However, it would later become apparent that they were not willing to accept the Putsch. The population was also doing its best to keep the situation non-violent through manifestations of goodwill. Black, white and red flags appeared in many windows, and some Berliners even threw flowers at soldiers who marched through the streets. As the troops loyal to the Putsch leaders were marching into the capital, hired airplanes performed stunts to maintain a festive and calm atmosphere. At six o’clock on Saturday morning, March 13th, the insurgents entered Berlin. The president and his Cabinet (the Friedrich Ebert Republican Government) decided to flee Berlin, in order to avoid arrest and to organize opposition to the reactionaries. The Putsch had been prepared for some months, but it was on Friday, March 12th, that the Kappists started their march on Berlin. The conspirators had two main aims in mind: to avoid the implementation of certain articles in the Treaty of Versailles (such as the reduction of the German army) and to replace the government of the Republic with a Rightist regime. In March 1920, Walther von Lüttwitz, a commanding general in the German army, and Wolfgang Kapp, a German provincial official (with the help of a few other German officials, such as Chief of Staff, General Hans von Seeckt and his collaborators in the Ministry of Defense), attempted a coup d'état (called the Kapp Putsch).
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