This is long, and it will cover the military situation leading up to the November Revolution. It may seem bullet point or short, but it should cover the bases.
August 8th, 1918. The Black Day of the German Army. They are on a constant retreat. In 100 days, the Entente has made rapid progress. The German Army is short on manpower, it put it all into the Spring Offense. France and Britain are also low on manpower, but the entrance of the U.S gives them hope that the war will be done by 1919.
August 14th, Ludendorff and Hindenburg meet with the Kaiser, Chancellor von Hertling, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and Emperor Karl. Ludendorff has been swinging from rage to optimism. He says that the war is lost, but he could prolong it to destroy the Entente will to fight. Emperor Karl says that he will commit Austrian units to the Western Front. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, says in a private letter to Prince Max of Baden that he doesn't think that the German army could hold out.
At the time, the Entente wanted to put Kaiser Wilhelm on trial for crimes against humanity.
September 10th, Karl in back in Vienna and he announces that Austria is willing to sue for peace. U.S Sectary of State Lansing rejects it.
September 20th, the German Social Democrats ask Chancellor von Hertling for an immediate armistice. Nothing.
September 27th, Bulgaria asks for an armistice.
September 28th. Ludendorff breaks down and demands that the Kaiser, the German goverment, and the Reichstag ask for an armistice.
October 1st, von Hertling resigns, and the Kaiser appoints Prince Max to the Chancellorship.
October 4th, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria abdicates and goes to Vienna.
October 5th, Prince Max sends a diplomatic note asking for a peace and says that Germany will accept the 14 points as the basis of it. Three days later, Lansing responds, demanding that Germany leaves all occupied territory.
While this is going on, the U-boats are still attacking ships. Wilson is very skeptical of the German offer.
October 17th, Ludendorff denies ever asking for an armistice and says that the German Army could keep on fighting.
October 20th, Prince Max threatens to resign in order to get Rieinhard Scheer and Ludendorff to back down on the demands that the U-Boats still be allowed to fight. Scheer relents and order the U-Boats back to port.
October 23rd, Wilson demands that the Kaiser abdicates if Germany wants a armistice.
October 24th, Kaiser Wilhelm orders that Army to keep on fighting.
Prince Max then orders the Kaiser to take back the order and threatens to resign if Ludendorff is not fired.
Ludendorff is fired, and Hindenburg begins to drift away from the Kaiser.
October 22nd, Scheer orders Admiral Hipper of the High Sea Fleet to sortie. The plan was to bombard Flanders and the Thames estuary. If the British Navy did not sortie, then the German fleet was to go to the Firth of Forth and force the British to sortie. It was a death ride attack.
October 30th, the planned departure date for the operation.
Seamen on the German dreadnoughts mutiny and refuse to go out. Hipper cancels the operation.
November 9th. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates in the face of the revolt and the mutiny of the German fleet. The Kaiser was fond of the German fleet. The revolting sailors go ashore and rally the people, sparking fears of a civil war.
1919, the Treaty of Versailles calls for the prosecution of Wilhelm in Article 227.
My main source for this is Castles of Steel by Robert Massie
Although my research interests have since widely diverged, this was the topic of my undergraduate thesis. Any updates or challenges are welcome!
As the Allies began to roll the German lines back in August 1918, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff, General Erich Ludendorff, reported the worsening situation to the Kaiser. Kaiser Wilhelm II then initiated the peace process. On October 3, he appointed a new Chancellor, Prince Maximilian von Baden, and he directed Prince Max to seek an armistice mediated by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Prince Max dispatched a formal request that evening.
President Wilson's response indicated that the terms for peace would require the effective dismantling of the German military. Ludendorff balked at the prospect. He issued an appeal to the Army denouncing the peace process, and he signed it with the name of General Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the German Army.
Ludendorff then tendered his resignation to the Kaiser, offering him a choice: withdraw support from Prince Max and the peace process, or lose the support of the German Officer Corps. Similar gambles had earlier worked for securing the dismissal of another Chancellor (Theobald von Berthmann-Holweg, 1917) as well as a Secretary of State (Richard von Kühlmann, 1918). This time, however, Kaiser Wilhelm accepted Ludendorff's resignation and allowed Prince Max to continue.
Prince Max, however, recognized that the Allies saw the Kaiser as the head of a military state. Peace required democratic reform. The Kaiser approved these changes, but Prince Max suppressed news of the Kaiser's support, fearing it would spark rumors of abdication. But Prince Max also went beyond the his authority. He secured a strong hold over the parliament, which now had increased powers, and he began to circumvent the Kaiser in negotiations with President Wilson.
The Officer Corps, particularly in the navy which had seen so little action in the war, was dismayed by these rapid changes to the government and what they foresaw as the dissolution of their military caste (I use the term loosely). In mid-October, the Admiralty decided to attack the Allied fleet -- without the knowledge of the Kaiser or the government. They hoped this apparently suicidal attack would disrupt the peace process and recover the German Navy's honor, which was still tarnished from the 1916 Battle of Jutland.
The order went out on October 29, but the sailors refused to weigh anchor. They failed to sympathize with their commanders, whom they resented as a decadent military elite, and they were reluctant to risk their lives haphazardly on the eve of peace. The Admiralty threatened to use force against the mutinous crews, which only provoked violent backlash.
Several officers were killed, and the crews elected councils to provide further leadership. By November 6, the Admiralty could no longer suppress news of the revolt, and they reported it to the government. At the same time, the news spread across the country, which had been closely following the peace process and Prince Max's parliamentary reforms. By the morning of November 7, it would seem as if every radical or anti-war group had taken up arms to depose the government.
But it was the night of November 6 that decided the future of the German monarchy. The German High Command, acknowledging that their armies were in full retreat and recognizing that order was likewise collapsing at home, now pressed for an immediate peace before the Allies crossed into Germany. On the evening of November 6, Ludendorff's replacement as Deputy Chief of Staff, General Wilhelm Groener, contacted Prince Max and notified him that the military would not be able to hold out past November 9.
Many influential members of the German government had spoken out against abdication, including Matthias Erzberger, who would head the peace delegation, and the majority chairman, Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert. They thought that it would signify a weakness of the German people without bringing any advantage to the peace talks.
Prince Max, however, was committed to the Kaiser's abdication. In his conversations with General Groener on November 6, he hinted that abdication was necessary to secure peace. Groener tacitly agreed. What exactly passed between Prince Max and General Groener that night might always be an object of speculation, but it set the stage for forcing an abdication in the coming days.
Groener had given Prince Max a November 9 deadline for peace and had implied that the Officer Corps would accept the Kaiser's abdication as the cost of that peace. But between November 6 and November 9, Prince Max could secure neither Kaiser Wilhelm’s consent nor a more formal commitment from the German High Command. At the last possible moment, Prince Max himself declared the abdication, assumed the role of acting regent to appoint majority chairman Ebert to succeed him as head of the state, and then resigned his authority.
Groener now gathered thirty-nine army commanders to ensure consensus among the leaders of the Officer Corps: twenty-three affirmed that the Kaiser could not win a civil war at the head of the army, fifteen expressed their doubts, and only the Crown Prince's Chief of Staff remained loyal; a scant twelve of the thirty-nine would commit to combating the ongoing revolution in Germany. The German High Command contacted the Kaiser to inform him they could no longer guarantee the faithful service of his troops. Betrayed by this last reserve of political power, Kaiser Wilhelm bitterly fled the country, and the scepter of state fell into Ebert’s reluctant hand.
Now Ebert contacted the German High Command. In the evening hours of November 9, Groener promised Ebert that the German Army could and would help suppress the Bolshevik revolutionaries who had sprung up throughout Germany during the past three days (although Groener didn't yet have the support of his generals for such a fight).
This placed the new government at the mercy of the German military, and it became a guiding factor in their peace negotiations. An armistice was quickly arranged, and the Great War came to an end on November 11. The German Officer Corps had maneuvered for its survival in a moment of crisis, a new parliamentary government had been formed, and the Kaiser had been deposed.
TLDR. Wikipedia summarizes these few days of November 1918 in the somewhat obscure phrase: "Wilhelm consented to the abdication." Wilhelm had appointed Prince Max as Chancellor and invested him with reform authority that he eventually overstepped when he declared the Kaiser's abdication on November 9. Prince Max had courted the German military's support for abdication, claiming that it was necessary for peace. After Prince Max declared the abdication, the German High Command contacted the Kaiser to withdraw their support. They preferred to sacrifice the monarchy rather than to admit that they had been defeated and helped spark the reactionary revolution. Wilhelm had no choice but to accept this imposed abdication.