He supported the Burgfrieden politics of his party, i.e. support for the German war effort and giving up the anti-militarist stance at the beginning of World War I, because he viewed this as his patriotic duty.
The consequence of this policy on labor relations within the combatant countries was something called Burgfriedenspolitik in Germany, a term deriving from the medieval concept of "peace (especially between feuding families) within a besieged city".