It was a momentous occasion.
43 months after the war began, the first one of the major players was leaving it for good.
This week, Russia signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the Ottomans advanced toward the Caucasus and the Germans advanced along the
whole Eastern Front.
The Russians were desperate to finally sign a peace treaty, and German Quartermaster General
Erich Ludendorff was making plans to break the Allies in the west.
A lot of that stuff was really linked together.
For example, the German advance would not stop until a peace treaty with Russia was
actually signed.
On the 2nd, the Germans entered Kiev, which the Bolsheviks had taken a month ago.
They also occupied Narva, the most easterly Estonian city, some 130 km from Petrograd.
In under two weeks, the Germans had taken 63,000 prisoners, 2,600 artillery pieces,
and 5,000 machine guns.
Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky had no choice but to tell their delegates to sign
whatever was offered, and on March 3rd, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, officially
ending the war for Russia.
The economic terms were actually quite moderate.
The 1904 commercial treaty was reaffirmed and Russia agreed to stay out of any postwar
economic boycott of Germany.
Nor did Russia have to pay any reparations, and both sides would reimburse each other
for taking care of prisoners of war.
Okay, Germany won pretty big on that particular point, and the Bolsheviks also agreed to return
630,000 Austrian prisoners of war.
The big damage to Russia was in terms of land.
Russia had to give up a third of its population, some 55 million people.
Most of these were ethnically non-Russian, but they sure weren’t German either.
Russia also had to give up a lot of its heavy industry, 90% of its coal production, and
a lot of its best agricultural land.
They had to recognize the Ukrainian Rada as the legitimate Ukrainian government and evacuate
their armed forces from Ukraine.
They had to give up the Caucasus districts of Kars, Batum, and Ardahan.
They had to evacuate Finland, though they’d already agreed to that.
In fact, they had to give up any sovereignty west of the Riga- Brest-Litovsk line and let
Germany and Austria-Hungary decide the fate of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland.
Even east of this, though, the Germans would occupy Estonia and Livonia until they could
set up sympathetic national institutions.
The Russian Black Sea fleet was to be disarmed and all Russian bases in the Baltic except
Kronstadt were taken away.
Still, though, the treaty did not contain any official annexations, and kind of did
embody the Kuhlmann-Czernin plan of expanding Central Powers influence under the guise of
“self determination” that we talked about a few weeks ago.
Because of this lack of annexations, the German Reichstag pretty easily ratified it.
Russia’s post-revolutionary politics had really failed here.
Well, had failed for a few months.
(1914-1918) “The Bolshevik regime sought an immediate general peace, but by signing
the armistice it broke up its army, thus depriving itself of all bargaining leverage and being
forced to conclude a separate settlement.
Naturally, Lenin had no intention of abiding by it any longer than he had to, but nor had
OHL (German High Command), and Brest-Litovsk failed to halt military operations in the
east.
On the contrary, German expansion into former Tsarist territory was only just beginning,
while the treaty accelerated the drift of Russian internal conflict towards mass terror
and civil war.”
Germany had sent 70,000 troops to Finland, which was a good source of nickel, and Kaiser
Wilhelm had designs for putting one of his sons on the Finnish throne.
A “friendship” treaty with Finland would ensure that Finland could make no alliances
without German consent, could not raise tariffs on German imports, and had to provide military
and naval bases for German use.
Ludendorff had said to Austrian Foreign Minister Count Czernin during the peace process, “If
Germany makes peace without profit then Germany has lost the war.”
Hindenburg had told the Kaiser that any peace must give Germany such formidable borders
that no enemy would dare start another conflict with them.
Belgium, for example, was indispensible to this idea of security.
It would serve as a permanent deployment base that could close off Calais to British deployment
and could easily threaten Paris.
That’s how you’d deter the Allies in future.
Hindenburg had even written to Chancellor Georg von Hertling back in December that Germany
should renew its claim to a 99-year lease on the Belgian coastline and keep the Liege
area in any peace (1914-1918), keeping Belgium under military control.
But Germany holding any of Belgium was a total deal breaker for the Allies, so negotiations
were not possible.
And so was the option of remaining on the defensive.
Unrestricted submarine warfare had brought the US into the war without knocking Britain
out of it, and U-Boat construction was experiencing some difficulties.
Ludendorff doubted the subs could prevent US troops from arriving en masse, and once
they were there it would lead to a gradual state of exhaustion for the German armies
if they just held their ground.
Both he and Hindenburg, thought - probably correctly - that the men dreaded long defensive
battles like Passchendaele more than offensive action.
Reserves were running low, production was shrinking, and Germany’s allies did not
have the staying power of the Entente forces.
If there was no hope of victory, then why continue?
On the other hand, even a failed offensive would encourage the army to try again in the
next war.
Yep.
Ludendorff told the Reichstag he was willing to lose a million men in the effort.
So an offensive it was to be - a huge huge offensive before the US troops could arrive
in force.
Thing is, eastward expansion now after Brest-Litovsk might starve the western armies of men needed
for the offensive.
Still, according to the German official history, between November 1, 1917, and March 21, 1918,
Eastern Front divisions dropped from 85 to 47 and Western front ones rose from 147 to
191.
Eight German divisions were also moved from Italy to the western front, smaller numbers
from Macedonia, and even a small Austro-Hungarian force was moved to France for the first time
in the war.
And let’s be clear, the forces transported from east to west were the best ones from
there, and those left behind lost most of their men under 35 and fell below strength.
They also had to give up a lot of horses.
And the conscript class of 1899 came into the lines the first few months of this year.
In fact, by the middle of March, the Western armies had over 3.4 million men and over 700,000
horses.
The eastern armies had fewer than a third the number of men and well under half the
horses.
But most of the movement westward happened before Brest-Litovsk, and it now began to
slow down since Germany was going to have to pacify and control the new territory.
Romania also signed a treaty with the Central Powers this week, which gave southern Dobrogea
to Bulgaria.
It did allow for Romania to take Bessarabia, but only if the Romanians could extract it
from Bolshevik rule.
And to the southeast there were even more hops of a peace being signed.
The Transcaucasian Diet was still awaiting the opening of peace negotiations with the
Ottoman government at Trabzon when the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed.
As I said, that treaty made the Russians give up the Batum, Ardahan, and Kars districts.
What would happen there would be a plebiscite where the locals could determine their own
future.
The Transcaucasian delegates, in
a state of pretty high anxiety, arrived in Trabzon the 8th as the week ended.
The Ottoman delegation had yet to arrive.
And as we’ve seen, there was already fighting in the area.
The Ottoman vanguard was approaching Erzurum already last week, and by now, elements of
the Turkish 36th Division and the 5th and 11th Caucasian Divisions had appeared along
the road from Bayburt.
But the Ottomans were going to be stymied in Palestine.
British commander Edmund Allenby’s Hejaz railway sabotage plans would prevent Ottoman
troops from Medina from reaching the front lines north of Amman, and also prevent troops
from Damascus from a surprise attack behind Allenby’s lines.
There was still, though, a decent threat on British supply lines from the Turkish garrison
at Maan, so it was decided last week that the Arab Revolt forces- Allenby’s allies-
should attack Maan at the same time the British occupy Salt, some 60km northeast of Jerusalem,
in the hills east of the River Jordan.
Salt would be the springboard for the British attack on the railway at Amman, 25km to the
east.
And we come to the end of another week of the war.
The renewed German advance stops as the Russians sign what can only be described as a humiliating
peace.
The Romanians sign peace as well, the Transcaucasian Federation wants it, even as the Ottomans
are on the march, and we get closer and closer to the new German offensive on the Western
Front.
Does it seem greedy to you?
German demands from Russia?
I mean, a third of the population and 90% of the coal?
Okay, Russia was beaten; Germany could’ve marched straight to Petrograd and Moscow.
They could take as much land as they wanted, but I wonder if it’s a good idea.
Because you then have to leave soldiers there to control the local populations that don’t
want you there.
And maybe those soldiers would come in handy for your offensive in the west.
Well, either way, in the east or in the west, for many of those troops it’s going to be
the same 1918- there will be blood.