Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty
The Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers during the First World War . It was signed on March 3, 1918 in Brest-Litovsk after lengthy, unsuccessful negotiations, the military occupation of the western territories of the former Russian Empire by the Central Powers and the restart of negotiations . Thus, Soviet Russia withdrew from the war.
In the peace agreement, the German Supreme Army Command (OHL) was able to enforce its ideas regarding a territorial reorganization of the formerly Russian areas. The Bolshevik government signed the treaty in protest in the face of the German military threat, fearing that it would otherwise endanger the success of the October Revolution . In the Soviet Union and later also in the GDR this treaty was known as the “Robbery of Brest-Litovsk”.
The Ukraine , previously supported by the Central Powers Ukrainian People's Republic had declared their independence from Russia, had a already on February 9, 1918 also at Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers separate peace signed, the so-called " bread peace ". Thus the First World War in Eastern Europe was over. The German spring offensive on the Western Front began on March 21 with the Michael company .
Front line at the conclusion of the armistice in December 1917 Front line when the peace treaty was signed in March 1918
background
The October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia. After three unsuccessful years of war, the Russian population was war-weary, and the Bolshevik slogan “Bread and Peace” was met with open ears. The Russian troops were in a revolutionary mood and in the process of disintegration. Economically, Russia was largely down. The Bolsheviks urgently needed a respite in order to stabilize their own rule and to counter the protest against their assumption of power that was forming across the country. On their initiative, a ceasefire was negotiated on the entire - from the German point of view - Eastern Front , which came into force on December 15, 1917. Since December 9, 1917, an armistice had existed between the Central Powers and Romania, which was allied with Russia but largely defeated militarily . Thereafter, peace negotiations between the Central Powers and Soviet Russia began. The place of negotiation was agreed to be the Russian fortress town of Brest-Litovsk, which was located near the front line in the German-occupied area.
Objectives of the contracting parties
The Central Powers under the leadership of Germany, which was exhausted from the long and fruitless war, especially on the Western Front , were very pleased with peace in the East. The two- front war was thus over, and Germany was able to use all available forces to decide the war on the western front. Supporting separatist efforts, Ukraine should also be separated from Russia. This would give the Central Powers better access to Ukraine's resources.
The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, urgently needed a respite in order to establish their regime in their own country. On the other hand, they wanted to use the peace negotiations to make propaganda for the desired world revolution . The Russian delegation therefore intended to drag out the negotiations. During the negotiations, which were conducted publicly at Trotsky's request, the Russian delegation tried at every opportunity to convince the world public of their peacefulness and thus to prepare the basis for a world socialist revolution. She hoped that the Central Powers would soon be defeated by the Allies and that peace negotiations with concessions from the Russian side would no longer be necessary. The German side saw through the Russian delaying tactics and forced a quick end of the negotiations by a rapid advance of troops.
First round of negotiations
To negotiate a peace treaty, the parties met for several rounds of negotiations in Brest-Litovsk . In simplified terms, two negotiation phases can be distinguished: in the first round Russia was formally an equal partner, in the second it had surrendered and had to accept the conditions. The first round of negotiations was determined on the German side by diplomats around Richard von Kühlmann , in the second, after the capitulation of Soviet Russia, the Supreme Army Command under Erich Ludendorff forced its will on the other side. General Max Hoffmann was the authorized representative of the Supreme Army Command . On the Soviet side, the negotiator was initially Adolf Abramowitsch Joffe , and later Leon Trotsky . The Russian delegation consisted almost entirely of Bolsheviks, only Anastasia Bizenko represented the coalition partner in Lenin's cabinet, the Left Social Revolutionaries .
The start of negotiations was preceded by Trotsky's proposal for an armistice on November 28, 1917. While the Entente refused, the Central Powers agreed. The delegations met for the first time on December 9th. The Bolshevik delegation submitted the following offer: renunciation of annexations , rapid evacuation of the occupied territories, the right of the peoples to self-determination , renunciation of war reparations .
When the delegations arrived , a joint dinner was held at the invitation of the nominal Commander-in-Chief of the German Eastern Army , Prince Leopold of Bavaria . A peculiar society came together: on the one hand, conservative representatives of the German Empire and the Danube Monarchy and their allies , mostly belonging to the nobility , and on the other hand radical revolutionaries such as the world had never seen before in a country's government who openly proclaimed the goal of world revolution.
Accordingly, the first impressions from the other side were ambivalent. Count Ottokar Czernin , the head of the Austro-Hungarian delegation, later recalled:
“The leader of the Russian delegation is a Jew named Joffe who was recently released from Siberia [...] after dinner I had my first long conversation with Mr. Joffe. His whole theory is based on introducing the right of self-determination of the peoples on the broadest basis in the whole world and to induce these liberated peoples to love one another [...] I made him aware that we would not undertake an imitation of Russian conditions and neither of us would Interfering with our internal circumstances categorically forbidden. If he continues to stick to this utopian position of transplanting his ideas onto us, then it would be better if he would leave again on the next train, because then peace could not be made. Herr Joffe looked at me in amazement with his gentle eyes, was silent for a while and then said in a friendly, I would almost like to say pleading tone that I will never forget: 'I do hope that we will succeed in unleashing the revolution in you too. '“
The participating German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Richard von Kühlmann noted:
“The Muscovites had made a woman their peace delegate who came directly from Siberia, of course only for propaganda purposes. She had shot a governor-general who was unpopular with the left and, according to the mild tsarist practice, was not executed but sentenced to life imprisonment. This lady, who looked somewhat like an elderly housekeeper, Madame Bizenko, evidently a rather mindless fanatic, told Prince Leopold of Bavaria at dinner how she had carried out the attack. Holding a menu card in her left hand, she showed how she had given the Governor General - 'he was a bad man,' she added by way of explanation - an extensive memorandum and at the same time shot him in the stomach with a right-hand revolver. Prince Leopold, in his usual friendly courtesy, listened with keen attention, as if he were most vividly interested in the murderess's report. "
After dinner, Count Czernin summed up his impressions:
“These Bolsheviks are strange. They speak of freedom and reconciliation between peoples, of peace and unity, and at the same time they are said to be the cruelest tyrants history has known - they simply exterminate the bourgeoisie, and their arguments are machine guns and the gallows. Today's conversation with Joffe has shown me that people are not honest and that they exceed everything in falsehood that traditional diplomacy is accused of - because to oppress the bourgeoisie and at the same time speak of freedom that makes the world happy are lies. "
The future Soviet negotiator Trotsky later wrote with barely concealed disdain of his negotiating partners:
“This was the first time I came face to face with this type of person. Needless to say, I had no illusions about her before either. But at least, I admit, I had imagined the level to be higher. I could formulate the impression of the first meeting with the words: These people consider the others very cheap, but not very dear to themselves either. "
Even during the negotiations, the Red Army took military action against the Ukrainian independence movement. Nevertheless , to the annoyance of the Bolsheviks, the bourgeois Ukrainian government of the Ukrainian People's Republic , which had meanwhile been formed in Kiev , also sent a delegation to Brest-Litovsk, where it was supposed to negotiate a separate peace treaty. Ukraine had been officially at war with the Soviets since late December 1917.
Propaganda speeches - "Neither war nor peace"
On January 7, 1918, Trotsky replaced Joffe as head of the delegation and traveled to Brest-Litovsk. Since the negotiations under Joffe had so far progressed too quickly for the Bolsheviks, Trotsky clearly had the task of slowing the progress of the talks. Trotsky himself wrote of the actions of the Bolshevik delegation:
“We entered the peace negotiations with the hope of shaking up the working masses of Germany and Austria-Hungary as well as the Entente countries. For this purpose it was necessary to drag the negotiations as long as possible so that the European workers would have time to properly grasp the fact of the Soviet revolution and, in particular, their peace policy [...] We naturally gave hope for a rapid revolutionary development in Europe not open. "
Accordingly, Trotsky never tired of making long propaganda speeches and straining the patience of the Germans in particular. General Hoffmann reprimanded Trotsky on January 18, 1918:
“The Russian delegation speaks to us as if it were victorious in our country and could dictate conditions to us. I would like to point out that the facts are the opposite [...] I would then like to state that the Russian delegation for the occupied territories is demanding the application of a right of self-determination for the peoples in a way and to an extent that their government does not apply in their own country. Your government is based only on power, on power that unreservedly oppresses anyone who thinks differently by force. Anyone who thinks differently is simply declared outlawed as a counter-revolutionary and bourgeois [...]. "
Hoffmann again emphatically made the German demands for a peace treaty: independence for Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania and Livonia (part of Latvia ). Trotsky asked for a break from the negotiations, and returned to Petrograd on January 18 .
During the negotiations an event occurred in Soviet Russia that shook and almost ended the power of the Bolsheviks. The elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly held on November 25, 1917 resulted in a severe defeat for the Bolsheviks. Had they recognized the election result, as Lenin had previously promised, the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks would have formed the government. The Bolsheviks, who received less than a quarter of the vote, would have lost their power. On January 19, 1918, the newly elected parliament was dissolved by the Bolsheviks and the only partially correctly democratically elected Third All-Russian Soviet Congress became the new parliament. In this turbulent situation, Trotsky managed to convince the Bolshevik leadership, including the reluctant Lenin, to leave the peace negotiations without having signed a peace treaty. He called this approach "neither war nor peace". On January 30th Trotsky returned to the negotiating table. In view of the mass strikes in Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Bolshevik leadership gave him further powers to delay the negotiations. In order to obtain further delay, he refused to take part in talks at which the Ukrainian delegation was present. Trotsky's tactics, however, did not work. The Central Powers concluded a separate peace with the government of the People's Republic of Ukraine on February 9th. They recognized a Ukrainian state that promised extensive grain deliveries to the Central Powers in exchange for favorable border drawing and autonomy , which is why it is also known as the " Bread Peace of Brest-Litovsk ".
Trotsky had maneuvered his delegation into a dead end. The Germans pushed for the talks to continue without propaganda banter. Trotsky then announced his new policy. He announced on February 10th:
“[…] Russia, by refraining from signing an annexionist treaty, declares the state of war with the central powers over. The order for complete demobilization on all fronts is given at the same time to the Russian troops. "
His strategy was to allow neither war nor peace until the foreseeable end of the war. However, the German delegation warned that a ceasefire without a peace treaty would inevitably lead to the resumption of fighting. Trotsky considered this threat to be irrelevant and felt himself to be the victor when he left Brest-Litovsk. When Lenin asked him whether the Germans really would not attack again, he replied: "It doesn't look like it." That turned out to be a mistake.
Renewed fighting and signing
On February 16, the German Army Command informed the Russian General Samoilo that Germany considered the armistice on February 17, 1918 to have expired. As announced, the German offensive ( Operation Faustschlag ) began on that day. The German troops advanced very quickly and faced almost no resistance. The Bolshevik leadership was quickly aware of the seriousness of the situation in view of the rapid German advance. With “We have to act, we have no time to lose!” Lenin made quick decisions. In view of the catastrophic situation in the country for the Bolsheviks, the government of Soviet Russia asked the Germans for peace on February 19. On February 20, Lenin declared to the Moscow Soviet: “There is no longer an army. The Germans are attacking the whole front from Riga . ”Four days passed before the German army command answered and stated the new conditions. Finland, Livonia, Estonia and the Ukraine should now be evacuated and the Russian army completely demobilized . The Russians were given 48 hours to reply. A maximum of three days were allowed for negotiations.
The deliberations within the Bolshevik leadership were chaotic. Trotsky was undecided and Bukharin voted to continue the war. Lenin was aware of the danger of intervention by the Central Powers for the continuation of the Bolshevik revolution. He therefore pushed through an acceptance of the German demands under threat of his resignation from all offices in the Bolsheviks. He demanded the end of the "politics of revolutionary phrase", which he himself had been zealously pursuing before. Lenin speculated on an imminent collapse of the Central Powers or the victory of a socialist revolution in Germany, which would allow the reintegration of the lost territories by military or political means. On March 3, 1918, the peace treaty was signed in Brest-Litovsk, and ratified on March 15 by the 4th Extraordinary Congress of Soviets in Moscow.
Result
Soviet Russia renounced its sovereign rights in Poland, Lithuania and Courland . The future of these areas should be regulated with the German Reich in agreement with the peoples there according to the right of self-determination. Estonia and Livonia as well as almost the entire area of Belarus (west of the Dnepr ) remained occupied by German troops, Ukraine and Finland were recognized as independent states. The Russian territories of Armenia, Ardahan and Kars since 1878 and the Georgian Batumi had to be ceded to the Ottoman Empire. The Central Powers renounced annexations and reparations. Through this peace treaty, Russia lost 26% of the then European territory, 27% of the arable land, 26% of the railway network, 33% of the textile and 73% of the iron industry and 73% of the coal mines. The fringe peoples of the former Russian Empire exchanged Russian rule for the protectorate of the Central Powers . All the areas to be ceded covered a total of 1.42 million km², on which around 60 million people, more than 1/3 of the total population of the former Russian Empire , lived.
The Left Social Revolutionary Party resigned from Lenin's cabinet because it opposed the peace treaty, which led to an increase in the power of the Bolsheviks, but also to the resignation of Bolshevik leaders in response.
The conclusion of the supplementary agreement to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was signed in Berlin on August 27, 1918, represented a new high point in Germany's expansion of power in the east, but at the same time put an end to the much more far-reaching annexation plans of the OHL. In it, Soviet Russia renounced Estonia, Livonia and Georgia - which experienced a brief phase of independence - and undertook to pay compensation in the amount of six billion gold marks for the German assets previously expropriated by the Bolsheviks without compensation. The German side promised to evacuate Belarus and not to intervene in favor of the enemies of the Bolshevik government. The Russian side even considered using German troops against Allied intervention troops that had landed in northern Russia. The hope of the Central Powers to bring about a decision in the West with a peace in the East, however, was not fulfilled. On the one hand, larger units remained tied up in the occupied territories; on the other hand, the potential of the new war enemy, the USA, was becoming increasingly important in favor of the Entente. After all, in March 1918, during the decisive western offensive, one million German soldiers were tied up in the east by Ludendorff's plans. The agreement was also a failure for the Central Powers economically because far fewer raw materials and food were supplied than expected.
The further course of the First World War should prove the Bolshevik leadership right. The delaying tactic worked because of the dire situation of the Central Powers on the Western Front. Lenin compared the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the peace treaty of Tilsit in 1807. The signing of the armistice of Compiègne between the German Empire and the Entente states on November 11, 1918 included the annulment of the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The German troops in the east and south-east were to retreat to the 1914 border line. However, the troops that were on Russian territory, especially in the Baltic States, were to remain there and await orders from the Allied winners of the war. With this, the Entente states wanted to secure a handle in the Russian civil war . Ukraine was recaptured by the Red Army in 1919 . Finland maintained its independence, but repeatedly subjected to Soviet interference.
Evaluation of the contract
The Brest Treaty was not a carefully prepared strategic plan for German expansion in the east, but the product of the Russian collapse and the real beginning of German expansion in the east. The Bolsheviks later found that the acceptance of the Central Powers' first terms would have been more advantageous. However, the new rulers of Russia always saw the peace of Brest-Litovsk as a positive moment for their development. Only peace with the Central Powers gave them the respite they needed to consolidate their power in Russia and the Russian-ruled areas of the former tsarist empire. Soviet historiography valued the Russian approach in Brest-Litovsk and in the period thereafter as an excellent example of Lenin's tactic of using the deep contradictions in the “imperialist camp” to consolidate and expand Bolshevik power. The victorious states of the Entente had no concept for a post-war order in the East. They knew neither how and in what form to behave towards the new Russian government, nor how to deal with the strengthened national consciousness of the Eastern European peoples. In the end, however, the division of the formerly Russian-ruled area by the dictates of the Central Powers had anticipated the drawing of borders by the Allies: Poland, Finland and the Baltic states became independent, while Bolshevik influence was suppressed.
During the negotiations, the German military even worried that the Entente might agree to general peace and deprive them of their profit in this war. Even the Reich leadership was afraid of their war aims in the event of a mutual agreement. Chancellor Hertling said in November 1917:
“There might be a certain risk that the Entente might, contrary to our assumption, accept the Russian proposals. In this case we would also be on the slogan 'without annexations etc.' to the other Entente countries. stipulated what was possible with the Russians, but generally speaking it would not correspond to our intentions. "
A comparison of the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the peace treaty of Versailles concluded in 1919 shows that the terms “treaty” or “dictation” are used by the winning and losing side for both agreements. Brest-Litovsk was by no means a peace of agreement, as proclaimed in the peace resolution , but a hard violent peace, enforced by military advance. The German side, especially when it came to the ratification of the Paris suburb treaties in 1919 , argued that the areas to be ceded by Russia were not inhabited by ethnic Russians, but by non-Russian peoples striving for independence. Thus, the treaty ultimately complied with the peoples' right to self-determination as proclaimed by American President Woodrow Wilson . The Treaty of Versailles, however, contained time restrictions on the occupation by foreign troops, which the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk did not provide. Since it took 34 percent of Russia's population, 54 percent of its industry, 89 percent of its coal reserves, and all of its oil and cotton production, it is judged to be significantly tougher than the Versailles Treaty.
Behavior of the Entente
The behavior of the Entente states was characterized by uncertainty. There were unclear ideas about how strong Germany would be after peace in the East and whether and in what form Soviet Russia would cooperate with the German Reich. Britain believed that the Germans would now want to occupy the oil fields on the Caspian Sea, and in turn sent troops there to occupy Baku . The British side was already alarmed by a clause according to which both the Ottoman Empire and Soviet Russia its troops from Persia retreated and the Bolsheviks the Anglo-Russian agreement on Iran had declared 1907 to be void. A German march to India was also feared. If the war continued, according to the English General Staff in May 1918, Germany would be able to recruit two million people fit for military service and work from the formerly occupied Russian territories as early as 1919, which would make Germany's victory on the Western Front very likely.
The Allies therefore did everything in their power to persuade Soviet Russia to continue fighting on the side of the Entente. During the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, US President Wilson announced his 14-point program on January 8, 1918 , which, however, was not echoed by the Bolsheviks. The Supreme Soviet refused, appealing to "the American people, and primarily the working and exploited classes of the United States [...] to throw off the yoke of capitalism and establish a socialist order in society."
During the peace negotiations, Allied envoys in Moscow tried to convince the Bolsheviks to call in Allied troops against the Germans. Trotsky initially showed sympathy for these plans, but dropped them when it became apparent that the Germans were not interested in overthrowing the Bolsheviks. To the same extent, the ability of the Western envoys to exert influence decreased. Their plan to open a new second front in the east and thus relieve the western front had failed. So they tried to open a front in the east themselves. Just three days after the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty was signed, 130 British marines landed in the Russian White Sea port of Arkhangelsk . On the one hand, the Allies wanted to tie up the German troops, some of which had just landed in southern Finland, on the other hand, large amounts of military equipment were stored in Murmansk and the ports of Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok , which Russia had received from the Entente when it was still in the war against Germany found. Due to the turmoil of the revolution and the lack of transport, the material was still there. Now the Allies feared that it might fall into the hands of the Germans. Later, other British and American troops landed in Arkhangelsk, so that in September 1918 15,000 Allied soldiers were in Murmansk and about 7,000 in Arkhangelsk.
Despite the intervention, the Allies were unable to come up with a clear position vis-à-vis the Bolsheviks. During the war all their actions were directed against the German troops, even if in 1917 they had given financial support to the anti-Bolshevik government in Ukraine and southern Russia. The Allies had no precise idea of the extent to which the German Reich had made Soviet Russia compliant. For lack of information, they assumed the worst and tried first of all to stop the suspected German advance into Asia, that is, to keep them away from the oil wealth of the Middle East. In doing so, they got caught up in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Involving Japan in the invasion plans turned out to be very tedious and ultimately unsuccessful. Japan, along with American troops, only occupied Vladivostok (see Far Eastern Republic and Siberian Intervention ). But like the other invasion attempts on the periphery of the gigantic Russian empire, this undertaking too had no contact with German troops and neither hindered the Bolsheviks nor the Germans in their plans. It was only when the German Reich was defeated on the Western Front that the Entente states took a clear anti-Bolshevik position. Their further military action against the Bolsheviks was nevertheless uncoordinated and therefore unsuccessful.
See also
literature
- Winfried Baumgart : German Ostpolitik 1918 - From Brest-Litowsk to the end of the First World War. Oldenbourg, Munich 1966.
- Sebastian Haffner : The Devil's Pact. 50 years of German-Russian relations. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1968.
- Werner Hahlweg : The dictated peace of Brest-Litowsk 1918 and the Bolshevik world revolution (= writings of the society for the promotion of the Westphalian Wilhelms-Universität zu Münster, volume 44). Aschendorff, Münster 1960.
- Werner Hahlweg: The Peace of Brest-Litowsk. An unpublished volume from the work of the investigative committee of the German National Constituent Assembly and the German Reichstag (= sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties, volume 8). Droste, Düsseldorf 1971.
- Andreas Hillgruber ; Jost Dülffer (Hrsg.): Ploetz - history of the world wars. Powers, Events, Developments, 1900-1945. Ploetz, Freiburg 1981. Reprints. Herder, Freiburg 2002, 2004. ISBN 3-89836-236-1 .
- Hans-Werner Rautenberg: The collapse and new beginning of German Ostpolitik after the First World War. in: Germany and Bolshevik Russia from Brest-Litowsk to 1941. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1991. ISBN 3-428-07248-0 .
- Ladislaus Singer : Soviet Imperialism. Seewald, Stuttgart 1970.
- John W. Wheeler-Bennett: Brest-Litovsk, the forgotten peace, March 1918. Macmillan, London 1938, 1956, New York 1971.
Web links
- The Brest-Litovsk peace treaty at the LeMO
- Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty (text) at LeMO
- The Brest-Litovsk peace treaty as a digitized version and as a full text in the collection of "1000 documents on German and Russian history"
- Historical film documents from the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations on the European Film Gateway
- Volker Ullrich (historian) : Shame peace. The Versailles Treaty was milder compared to the provisions of Brest-Litovsk: 100 years ago the German Reich dictated a violent peace to Russia without compromise and continued its march of conquest in the east undiminished. In Die Zeit , edition 7/2018, Feb. 8, 2018, p. 19. (Reception in the present. Online version )
Individual evidence
- ^ Wolfgang Herbst: The November Revolution in Germany - documents and materials. Verlag Volk und Wissen, 1958, p. 15.
- ^ Journal of History, Volume 12, Verlag Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1964, p. 831.
- ↑ The First World War and its consequences. The Peace of Brest-Litovsk. In: Knowledge Media Verlag. P. 152 , accessed on November 18, 2014 .
- ↑ a b Sebastian Haffner : The Devil's Pact . Mannesse Verlag, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-7175-8121-X , p. 35.
- ^ Richard von Kühlmann: Memories. Heidelberg 1948, p. 531.
- ↑ Ottokar Czernin: In the world wars . Berlin / Vienna 1919, p. 305.
- ↑ Leon Trotsky: My Life , Chapter Negotiations in Brest
- ↑ Leon Trotsky: On Lenin. Material for a biographer , chapter Brest-Litovsk
- ↑ Ladislaus Singer : Soviet Imperialism. Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart 1970. pp. 42f.
- ^ Peace Treaty Between Ukraine and Central Powers, February 9, 1918 (English version of the treaty text)
- ↑ Ladislaus Singer: Soviet Imperialism. Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart 1970. p. 44.
- ↑ Roland Banken: The Treaties of Sèvres 1920 and Lausanne 1923. An international legal study on the end of the First World War and on the resolution of the so-called "Oriental Question" through the peace treaties between the Allied powers and Turkey (= history of international relations in the 20th century , Volume 5). Lit, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12541-5 , p. 88.
- ^ Wolfdieter Bihl : Austria-Hungary and the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1970, ISBN 3-205-08577-9 , p. 118.
- ↑ Daniela Bender u. a .: History and events - modern times, secondary level II . Klett Schulbuchverlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-12-430021-8 , p. 225.
- ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen : The Age of Imperialism . Fischer world history. Volume 28. Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 360.
- ↑ Klaus Hildebrand : The past realm. German Foreign Policy from Bismarck to Hitler 1871-1945. Study edition, Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58605-3 ; P. 370; and Gregor Schöllgen : The Age of Imperialism. Volume 15 of Oldenbourg's Outline of History . Verlag Oldenbourg Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-49784-7 , p. 90.
- ↑ Winfried Baumgart : Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918. From Brest-Litowsk to the end of the First World War . Vienna / Munich 1966, p. 370.
- ↑ Oleh S. Fedyshyn: Germany's Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution 1917-1918 . New Brunswick / New Jersey 1971, ISBN 0-8135-0677-8 , p. 257.
- ↑ Ottokar Czernin : In the world wars . Berlin / Vienna 1919, p. 336.
- ^ Ingeborg Meckling: The foreign policy of Count Czernin . Vienna 1969, p. 252.
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Deutsche Gesellschaftgeschichte , Vol. 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914-1949 CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 152.