On November 11, 1918, the armistice between the warring fractions of World War I was signed, and two days earlier Kaiser Wilhelm had abdicated and Germany was declared a Republic. Germany's defeat in the war, and the stated fact that none of the allies would ever accept a German-born prince as the king of Finland, led Frederick to finally renounce the throne on December 14, 1918, and subsequently for Finland to also adopt a republican constitution.