Harsher than Versailles: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 1918
But each side had very different goals. Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party wanted to end the war to consolidate the revolution. The Russian economy and society had collapsed, people were going hungry, and the army mostly refused to fight. Most Bolsheviks thought that revolution would soon spread to the rest of Europe, so any concessions would be temporary.
Numerous strikes in Germany and Austria-Hungary strengthened this view, and some even wanted revolutionary war against all capitalist powers. Commissar for Foreign Affairs Leon Trostsky wanted to play for time until a German revolution: “We began peace negotiations in the hope of arousing the workmen’s parties of Germany and Austria-Hungary as well as those in the Entente countries.
For this reason we were obliged to delay the negotiations as long as possible to give the European workmen time to understand the main fact of the Soviet revolution itself and particularly its peace policy.” (Wheeler-Bennett 115) Lenin, though, wanted peace at any price to deal with internal enemies: “We must make sure of throttling the bourgeoisie, and for that we need both hands free the peasant army, exhausted to the limit by war, will after the very first defeats revolutionary war]…overthrow the socialist
workers’ government.” (Mawdsley 33) The Central Powers also faced pressure. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were unstable and starving, and Germany had to stop the two front war so it could try to win in the West before the Americans arrived in force. But they were also divided.
The Austrians were ready to compromise, while the Ottomans hoped to gain territory in the Caucasus. Most German politicians, like Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann, wanted an advantageous but compromise peace in the spirit of the Reichstag’s peace resolution passed earlier in July. But the German military delegation under General Max Hoffmann wanted to extend German control past existing conquests.
General Erich Ludendorff even talked of overthrowing the Bolsheviks – despite the fact Germany supported them earlier in the year to help overthrow the Tsar. German newspapers took sides: “If a prize had been offered for showing how a brilliant military position may be utterly ruined, Baron von Kühlmann would have won it The German people have now to choose between Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the one hand, and Kühlmann and Hertling on the other. They will rally in unanimous love round their two heroes.”
Ideological differences complicated things too: the Central Powers saw the Bolsheviks as an unnatural and criminal regime, while the revolutionaries saw German diplomats and aristocrats as representatives of an outdated, doomed system. Negotiations began on December 22, and the Russians were determined on a new kind of diplomacy.
Their delegation, under Menshevik party member Adolph Ioffe, included a worker, a sailor, a soldier, and a peasant randomly picked up off the streets for ideological reasons. It also included the only female delegate, Anastasia Bitzenko of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, recently released from prison for murdering a general. The Russians announced they would make the talks public, in keeping with their rejection of the old-style secret treaties they had revealed weeks before.
The main topic was on the former western regions of the Russian Empire: Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, and Finland – much of which were occupied by Germany, and all of which had independence movements. Both sides spoke of self-determination and “no annexations”, but meant different things: for the Germans, it meant these lands should not be in a Russian state and should be under their influence.
For the Russians, it meant their fellow Bolsheviks in these regions should be free to lead friendly revolutions against what they saw as counter-revolutionary nationalism. Much to the annoyance of the Russians though, the Central Powers allowed representatives of the Ukrainian National Republic to join the discussions.
For the Russians, a Russian-led state without Ukraine’s population, resources, industry, and farmland would no longer be a Great Power. Within a week, the talks broke down. Still, the Germans were confident, as Kühlmann said to Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Ottokar Czernin: “The only choice the have is as to what sort of sauce they shall be eaten with.
” (Kennan 228) After failing in December, talks restarted in January 1918, with Trotsky now leading the Russian side. The impasse continued: Trotsky made fiery revolutionary speeches meant to reach European publics, and continued to delay, while the Germans insisted Poland and part of the Baltics couldn’t even be discussed as they already controlled them.
Many German and Austrian delegates worried Trotsky might spark revolution in their home countries, including Kaiser Karl I, who wrote to Czernin: “I must once more earnestly impress upon you that the whole fate of the Monarchy and of the dynasty depends on peace being concluded at Brest-Litovsk as soon as possible. If peace be not made at Brest, there will be revolution here, be there ever so much to eat.
This is a serious instruction at a serious time.” (Wheeler-Bennett 170) On January 22, though, more complications emerged. Ukraine declared complete independence from Russia – even though the Bolsheviks quickly completed their conquest of the east of the country, reaching Kyiv by the 29th. The Finnish Civil War broke out on the 27th, with the Germans and Bolsheviks supporting opposite sides.
Then, on February 9, the Central Powers and the Ukrainian National Republic signed the so-called “Bread Peace.” The Central Powers would recognize (and occupy) a friendly Ukraine, and the Ukrainians would send them 1 million tons of grain. The Bolsheviks were outraged, and the next day Trotsky declared there would be no war and no peace: “ while declining to sign an annexationist treaty Russia on her part declares the state of War with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria at an end. Simultaneously, the Russian
forces on all the lines of the front are given the order for complete demobilization.” (Williams 472) The Bolsheviks expected German and Austro-Hungarian workers would stop their governments from continuing the war, but leaving the Eastern Front in limbo was unthinkable for Berlin. On February 13, German leaders met.
Ludendorff wanted to overthrow the Bolsheviks and considered going as far east as the Caspian Sea. The Kaiser supported ousting the Bolsheviks, and suggested breaking Russia into four states. Poland, Finland, and the Baltics could be ruled by German nobility. German politicians objected, so the Kaiser decided on a compromise: the army would launch an offensive, but with more limited goals. In any case, the best German units were already in the West.
Ludendorff later explained: “At any moment, somehow or somewhere, the Russian front might become strong again. This would make any attack in the West hopeless. We should thus miss the opportunity of victoriously finishing the World War, a war we were still waging, supported only by weak allies, against enemies superior in numbers.
We also wanted the Ukraine as an auxiliary against the Bolsheviks, so it must not on any account be surrendered to them.” (Ludendorff 242) Operation Faustschlag began February 18, known by the Bolsheviks as the 11-Day War. 50 Central Powers divisions moved east mostly via rail, facing little serious resistance from the remnants of the Russian Army, though in a few places Red Guards fought back.
Within two weeks, they’d advanced up to 200km and reached Narva, Smolensk, and Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Ottomans pushed into the Caucasus. The offensive spurred political action too. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia declared independence, though under German occupation. The Allies offered the Bolsheviks military aid if they resisted the Germans, but they refused.
The Russians could not stop the German advance, so Lenin intervened. Lenin threatened to resign if Russia did not make peace immediately. The German terms were unpopular among all political groups in Russia, but he was confident in the long term: “We have been checked; a predator has crushed and humiliated us.
But we shall endure all these hardships. The future, whatever the obstacles, belongs to us.” (Полторак) On March 3, the Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the First World War on the Eastern Front. The terms were harsher than those the Germans offered in December, and much harsher than the later Treaty of Versailles: Russia recognized the independence of Finland and Ukraine, and gave up its claims to Poland and the Baltics, which would be under German and Austro-Hungarian control. Russia gave up its
claims on the southern Caucasus, and the Ottomans received three regions in northeast Anatolia. These lands represented 90% of the former Russian Empire’s coal mines, 50% of its heavy industry, and 30% of its population. . The Bolsheviks also accepted the February 9 Bread Peace with Ukraine.
German and Austrian troops moved another 800km and completed their occupation of Ukraine, which extended east to Rostov-on-Don. Russia agreed to fully demobilize the old army and the new Red Army, stop propaganda aimed at the Central Powers, and later agreed to pay 6 billion Marks in reparations. The Russian delegation included a note of protest when it signed: “This is a peace dictated by armed force.
This is a peace which revolutionary Russia, with clenched teeth, is driven to accept perforce. In the existing situation Russia has no choice: having demobilized her troops, Russia has thereby placed her destiny in the hands of the German people.” The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was only in force until November 1918, when the Central Powers’ defeat nullified it. But it had a major impact inside and outside Russia.
Brest-Litovsk broke the Bolsheviks’ tense revolutionary coalition with the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, which opposed the treaty. Lenin consolidated his power over the Bolshevik party by imposing his will, and some observers argued ending the war even saved the regime.
The weakness of the new Red Army in the 11-Day War also led to major reforms to improve its leadership, training, and organization. The Bolsheviks then made Moscow the capital since Petrograd was now too close to German forces. Overall, the treaty accelerated the Bolsheviks’ push for a totalitarian state: “[The] task of our party […] and of Soviet power, is the taking of the most energetic, ruthlessly decisive and Draconian measures to raise the self-discipline and discipline of the workers and peasants…for the creation everywhere of soundly co-ordinated mass organizations held together
by a single iron will…and lastly, to train systematically and comprehensively in military matters and military operations the entire adult population of both sexes.” (Mawdsley 37) The treaty also shaped the intensifying Russian Civil War given the massive intervention by the Central Powers.
National movements in German-occupied regions got some breathing room. More Russians joined the fledgling anti-revolutionary White armies, as they felt the Treaty betrayed Russia’s national interest and allies — and the Germans even gave them some support. The Czechoslovak Legion, made up of former Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Russia now feared the Bolsheviks might betray them.
The Germans were now free to directly intervene in the Finnish Civil War, and helped the anti-Bolsheviks there to victory. Belarus declared its independence in March, as did the Transcaucasian Federative Republic in April, which rejected the treaty’s territorial concessions to the Ottomans. The British and French felt betrayed by their former ally’s separate peace, and decided to send troops to Russia to secure weapons and supply stockpiles they’d sent to help fight the Germans.
They also concluded that Germany had unmasked its maximalist imperial ambitions, and US President Woodrow Wilson decided to take a harsher position for future peace talks with Berlin. In the words of one Socialist Revolutionary: “[Brest-Litovsk] did not bring peace, but only the start of a new, even more terrible war.
” (Engelstein 363) [Vladimir Stankevich] Some Allied observers thought that Brest-Litovsk effectively made Russia a vassal of Germany, but the peace deal did not bring Berlin or Vienna what they needed most – peace and bread. Nearly a million German troops stayed to occupy their new territories, and very little of the promised grain arrived from a devastated and unstable Ukraine.
The Central Powers had gained an Empire in the East thanks to Brest-Litovsk, but their fate would soon be decided in the West. While the Bolsheviks were seizing power in Petrograd in October 1917, the Germans struck at Riga on land and in a daring amphibious operation in the Gulf of Riga to force Russia out of the war.
Operation Albion is today largely overshadowed by the October Revolution but it was a unique combined arms operation by the German navy in the First World War. If you want to learn about Operation Albion, you can check out our new series History’s Most Daring Raids. And where can you watch History’s Most Daring Raids? On Nebula, a streaming service we’re building with other creators where you don’t need to sift through a deluge of AI slop: Nebula is made and curated by humans; it’s available in 4K resolution in your browser, on your smartphone, Smart TV or streaming box like Apple TV or Roku. And that’s not all,
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As usual you can find all the sources for this documentary in the video description below. If you are watching this on Patreon or Nebula, thank you so much for the support, we couldn’t do it without you. I am Jesse Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History, the only history channel that wants you to know in the 1960s, an East German composer wrote a musical score for parts of the Treaty text, but the East German government banned it.