The rest of the days, the rest of the blizzards, Destined towers in the eighteenth.
The fact that the victors of October were ready in advance for separate negotiations with Germany and Austria is by no means a fact that has been proven once and for all. For the Bolsheviks themselves, all the famous slogans like "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" were relevant solely for the sake of seizing and retaining power. After all, the "Decree on Peace" was subject to unconditional execution only as a result of the world revolution.
Having come to power, the Bolsheviks immediately showed their readiness for diplomatic contacts with the allies. As soon as the Red Guard liquidated the Gatchina adventure of Kerensky's troops, Leon Trotsky, after a short discussion in the party's Central Committee, suggested that the British and French restore normal relations. But, unlike the pragmatic Americans, Russia's old allies lacked an understanding of the fact that the Russians would no longer be able to continue fighting under any power. Even just for the sake of holding the front - although it was too far from it to the primordial Great Russia.
At the end of 1917, the overwhelming majority of political groupings in Russia, whether they were in alliance with the Bolsheviks or against them, in one way or another took it for granted that to continue the war meant to doom the country to death. And none of the serious politicians at that moment was not at all worried about the prospect of "distinguishing themselves" in the eyes of the West by speaking out for the continuation of the war.
But almost immediately after the overthrow of the monarchy, and even before Lenin returned to Petrograd, the French ambassador Maurice Paleologue made the conclusion about the inability of the Russians to fight further for himself. On April 1 (March 19, old style), 1917, he was present at the parade of reliable troops specially selected by the commissars of the Provisional Government. Palaeologus noted in his diary that even these least revolutionary-minded units did not want to go into battle at all.
It is no coincidence that already in March 1917, Paleologue categorically reported to French Foreign Minister Ribot, who had just replaced Briand: "At the present stage of the revolution, Russia can neither conclude peace, nor fight" (1). Again the irony of history - the French ambassador voiced his famous formula "no peace, no war" almost a year earlier than Trotsky.
Petrograd reacted harshly to this, right down to the famous "Milyukov's note", while in Paris and London the point of view of Palaeologus and other skeptics was virtually ignored. But in Berlin and Vienna, the state of Russia and its army in the late autumn of 1917 was assessed surprisingly accurately, obviously because the enemy needs it much more than the ally.
The diplomatic probe to the Council of People's Commissars was extremely prompt, especially given the fact that the idea of a truce with the Russians found full support from the military. General Hoffmann wrote in his memoirs:
Hoffman turned out to be the most aggressive-minded participant in the negotiations in Brest, apart from, of course, the Bulgarian and Turkish representatives with their absolutely immoderate territorial claims. But he also considered the most prudent for Germany
The very first hints that the Germans are ready for dialogue, the SNK sends on November 20 to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Dukhonin, a radio telegram with the order to offer the German command a truce. A day later, late in the evening of November 21, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Lev Trotsky sent a note to the allied embassies in Petrograd with a proposal to conclude an armistice with Germany and begin peace negotiations.
Steadfast Buchanan advised to leave it unanswered, offering to declare in the House of Commons that the government would discuss peace terms only with the legally constituted Russian government. Already on November 25, 1917, General Dukhonin, who reluctantly fulfilled the order of the Council of People's Commissars, had to accept an official protest from the Allied military representatives at Headquarters. They warned that violation of allied obligations could have the most serious consequences.
Sir George William Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia
Buchanan later admitted that "the latent threat contained in these words" was a mistake - in Petrograd it was interpreted as the intention of the allies "to invite Japan to attack Russia" (4). Trotsky immediately responded with a passionate appeal to the soldiers, peasants and workers, directed against the interference of the Allies in Russian affairs. The powerful radio station of the Baltic Fleet spread from Kronstadt all over the world that the imperialist governments "are trying to drive them (workers and peasants) back into the trenches with a whip and turn them into cannon fodder."
Trotsky did not know for certain, but did not miss an opportunity to publicly express his confidence that the allies were cunning, claiming that they were not resorting to secret diplomatic contacts. Almost simultaneously with the talks in Brest, British representatives probed the ground for a separate peace in Austria and Turkey.
So, on December 18, 1917, at a meeting on the outskirts of Geneva with the former Austrian ambassador in London, Earl Mensdorff, General Smets, with the approval of Lloyd George, offered, in exchange for a separate peace, nothing less than the preservation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lloyd George's secretary Philip Kerr met in Bern with Turkish diplomat Dr. Humbert Parodi, probing the possibilities of Turkish separatism.
However, both Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire did not dare to do anything, fearing powerful German political pressure. The Turks were also strongly influenced by the successful course of the conference in Brest, where they dared to take a decisive step. British diplomat Sir Horace Rumbold, who spoke with Smets and Kerr in Switzerland, noted this fear and simultaneous hopes of dividing Europe, and along with it the whole world:
Diplomatic setbacks pushed the Allies into more decisive military propaganda. On December 14, 1917, British Prime Minister Lloyd George declared that "there is no intermediate distance between victory and defeat," and France announced that it was rejecting diplomacy as a tool for achieving peace. The answer was not long in coming - on December 15, Trotsky announced to the allied governments (formerly, according to the most red people's commissar) that if they did not agree to negotiate for peace, the Bolsheviks would begin negotiations with the socialist parties of all countries.
But before that, the Bolsheviks who had taken power had to somehow sort out the Germans. The Russians offered a truce and presented Berlin with an alternative: to break through the weak Eastern Front by occupying resource-rich Ukraine, or to free hundreds of thousands of soldiers for the Western Front through peace negotiations. Too large forces were needed for the offensive, simply because the occupied Russian territories are huge and in any case will need tight control.
Meanwhile, Hindenburg and Ludendorff had no doubts that solutions in the war should be sought in the West - there, dozens of divisions, tightly hovering in the East, could well have brought about a turning point. The German High Command not only agreed to negotiate, but to a certain extent guaranteed a carte blanche to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Kühlmann, who headed the German delegation. The Kaiser, not without reason, expected him to establish long-term relations with the new government in Russia.
The situation in the Austrian camp at that time was much more complicated - any sudden movement threatened an internal explosion. Count Chernin wrote:
Not at all out of a desire to "save face" (the people's commissars proudly despised such bourgeois remnants), but out of a purely pragmatic desire to stay in power, the Bolsheviks, a few days before the start of negotiations in Brest, once again tried to "drag" England and France into the peace process. Unsuccessfully, although it was after this that the famous "14 points" of President Wilson sounded. As a result, on December 15, Trotsky announced his readiness to negotiate with the Socialist Parties of all countries. In fact, concrete negotiations on peace in Brest-Litovsk began with an appeal to the allies.
The German delegation was headed by Kühlmann, and General Hoffmann was also included in it, but he did not directly obey Kühlmann. The Austrians sent Count Chernin, the Bulgarians - the Minister of Justice, the Turks - the Chief Vizier and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Ukrainians also took part in the negotiations, but there were no representatives of Poland or other countries who could claim independence after the revolution in Russia.
Trotsky later wrote:
Trotsky himself was not yet at the head of the Soviet delegation, and it seems that Adolf Ioffe, who was leading it, should have prepared the ground for his arrival. However, Trotsky's hand was clearly felt in the energetic declarations of the Russian representatives. It is noteworthy how easily Kühlmann and Chernin, who led the German and Austrian delegations, accepted the Russian proposal to talk about a world without annexations and indemnities, based on the principle of self-determination of peoples.
From this position, the two diplomats clearly hoped to achieve at least a preliminary peace on the basis of conditions "with their own", or, as Chernin sadly admitted, "only with a black eye" (8). Not only did they manage to moderate the appetites of the Bulgarian and Turkish representatives, Kuhlman and Chernin managed to break the iron will of the front-general Hoffmann, who seriously hoped to march along the Palace Square of St. Petersburg.
At the initial stage of the negotiations, no one even hinted at the participation of the Polish delegation in them, although from the side of the Quadruple Alliance such a proposal would have looked quite consistent. The Russian delegates in private conversations also admitted that the Ukrainian delegation rather hinders than helps them, although with the defeat of the Rada, the situation immediately turned 180 degrees.
With regard to the participation of the Poles in the conclusion of a multilateral peace, the changes in the position of the Russians were no less striking. But this - later, for now, the matter was limited to the adoption, with minor reservations, of the Soviet proposal on the self-determination of national groups. The countries of the Quadruple Alliance only proposed to solve this issue not on the international level, but by each state separately, together with the corresponding national groups and in the way established by its constitution. Such an approach towards Poland is rather difficult to assess otherwise than as a rejection of its own decision to grant it independence.
At the end of the first stage of negotiations, on December 12, 1917, a preliminary peace agreement was signed. Immediately after the signing, the head of the Russian delegation, Ioffe, proposed a ten-day break … in order to give the Entente countries an opportunity to join the peace talks. However, before leaving, the Russian delegation received an unexpected blow from the opponents.
The Bolsheviks, without any reason, took the pliability of the Germans and Austrians for their readiness not only to recognize independence, but to return Lithuania, Poland and Courland to Russia, but their interpretation of the principle "without annexations" was completely different. It was formulated by "soft" Kühlmann and Chernin, and voiced by "hard" Hoffmann. Referring to the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia of November 2, 1917, the general noted that Poland, Lithuania and Courland had already exercised their right to self-determination, and therefore the Central Powers considered themselves entitled to reach an understanding with these countries directly, without the participation of Russia.
A short skirmish, literally before the departure of the Russians, led to a strong quarrel between the Germans and the Austrians, on behalf of the latter O. Chernin even threatened a separate peace. Hoffmann and Kühlmann reacted to this extremely cynically, noting that such a peace would free up 25 German divisions at once, which had to be kept on the southern face of the Eastern Front to support and strengthen the combat capability of the Austrian army.
On December 15, the first stage of negotiations ended, on December 27, negotiations resumed. The Entente countries were invited to join them until December 22, but the experts who remained in Brest did not receive a concrete reaction from them. However, "Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points" - a global declaration on the principles of the future world, was published precisely at the end of December 1917, but this is still by no means joining the peace negotiations.
The participants took advantage of the break in the negotiations in different ways. The Bulgarians and Turks remained with their own people, but Kühlmann received full approval of his own actions from the Kaiser himself. Wilhelm II decided to moderate the unwarranted warlike ardor of his generals. Czernin had two lengthy audiences with the young emperor, where he actually knocked out for himself the right to lead a consistent line on the speedy conclusion of peace. Regardless of the position of the German ally.
But on the way back to Brest, he learned that the Russian delegation was ready to break off the negotiations or to transfer them to neutral Stockholm, considering the demands of the German and Austro-Hungarian delegations to be contrary to the principle of self-determination. On January 3, the Austrian minister noted in his diary:
"… I consider the Russian maneuvers a bluff; if they do not come, then we will deal with the Ukrainians, who, as they say, have already arrived in Brest."
"2. At the conclusion of peace, the plebiscite of Poland, Courland and Lithuania should decide the fate of these peoples; the voting system is subject to further discussion; it should provide Russians with the confidence that voting takes place without external pressure. Such a proposal does not seem to smile on either side. The situation is very deteriorating "(9).
Despite the fact that the central powers did not agree to the transfer of negotiations to Stockholm, it quickly became clear that the Bolsheviks would not refuse to continue negotiations. They needed peace not less, but more than the Austrians and Germans, primarily in order to stay in power. It is no coincidence that the Austro-German proposals for Poland, Lithuania and Courland were clearly reflected in the edited paragraph II (second) of the preliminary draft of the peace treaty.
Notes (edit)
1. M. Paleologue. Tsarist Russia on the Eve of the Revolution, Moscow: Novosti, 1991, p. 497.
2. General Max Hoffmann. Notes and diaries. 1914-1918. Leningrad, 1929, p. 139-140.
3. Hoffmann M. War Diaries and other Papers. London, 1929, v. 2, p. 302.
4. J. Buchanan, Memoirs of a Diplomat, M., International Relations 1991, p. 316.
5. Gilbert M. The First World War. N. Y. 1994, pp. 388-389.
6. O. Chernin. During the World War, St. Petersburg., Ed. House of St. Petersburg State University, 2005, p. 245.
7. L. Trotsky, My Life, M., 2001, p. 259.
8. O. Chernin. During the days of the world war. SPb., Ed. House of St. Petersburg State University, 2005, p. 241.
9. Ibid, pp. 248-249.
