11. The Disappearance of the Eastern Front in Chaos, 191&-19.—On 1 Sept. 1917 a further change in the railitary situation came through the easy German capture of Riga. A German fleet shortly afterward occupied the Gulf of Riga and enabled the Germans to es tablish a foothold in Esthonia and Livonia. From their new position in the Baltic provinces the Germans were able to threaten the Russian capital, Petrograd. But Germany did not want to use the Russian military collapse as an oc casion to malce a military conquest of Russia. She wanted peace on her Eastern Front so that she could transfer her armies to the West ern Front where the ultimate issue of the war would have to be decided. Moreover, it was not necessary to conquer Russia by armies in order to dominate Russia politically and eco nomically. This kind of a domination could be better secured by the indirect rneans of creating little puppet states, ruled or controlled by Ger man princes, politicians, merchants and capital ists, and dependent on German armies for their existence. In fact, in the autumn of 1917, there loomed before Pan-German eyes a far greater dream of Eastern empire than was con ceived of in the Bagdad Railroad project, which meanwhile was receding into the bacicground of German hopes owing to Allenby's victories in Mesopotamia and Palestine. Instead of the Bagdad Railway there swam before German eyes the grander prospect of controlling all of western Russia, through the small states of Fin land, Esthonia, Letvia and Poland; all of the rich grain lands and the coal, iron and other minerals of southern Russia through the puppet states of Ukrainia, Georgia, Transcaucasia and others. Thus would Germany come into touch with China and Persia and threaten once more the English control in India. This great dream raised high German hopes and led to the negotiations with Lenin and the Bolshevilci which resulted in the infamous Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March 1918. This treaty diens at home and the Eastern Front ceased to exist Germany was able, as she had calculated, to transfer the best part of her troops to the Western Front to take part in Ludendorff's last great effort to reach a decision by breaking through dale Anglo-Freech line to the channel ports or to Pans.
But fortunately for Russia the Peace of Brest-Litovsk was not to be allowed to stand. Three factors overthrew it: (1) The 55,000,000 Finns, Esthonians, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians and others saw through. the veil of was based on the deceptive formula of 6no an nexations, no indemnities, and self-determina tion.) But by the terms of the treaty, as interpreted by Germany, the Bolshevilci under (no annexations') allowed Russia to be virtually deprived of 26 per cent of her total population, 27 per cent of her arable land, 37 per cent of her average crops, 26 per cent of her railway system, 33 per cent of her manufacturing in dustries, 73 per cent of her total iron produc tion and 75 per cent of her coal fields. Under 6no indemnities6 they saddled Russia with a gigantic but as yet uncollected payment by way of war tnbute, with a promise of free export of oil, and an unfair comartercial treaty. Un der the guise of 6self-determination6 55,000,000 former subiects of the tsar were handed over against their will to the practical control of German agents. The Russian sold!ers were
withdrawn to fight a civil war within Russia against the forces of law and order which were opposed to the Bolshevika So Russia fell into German deception. They refused to be bound by a treaty which they had no share in making and which was contrary to their interests. The Liberals or 6Whites,6 m Finland and Esthonia waged a determined war against German domi nation. The 'Ukrainians murdered the Ger man Ambassador and overthrew the German puppet, Skoropadski. The Germans soon found that it would be no easy task to maintain the domination whkh they had planned to visit upon these new nationalities. (2) The patriotic elements in Russia itself refused to accept the rule of the Bolshevilci and to recognize the treaty by which they had sold out Russia to the enenry. These patriotic elements gradually collected around Admiral Kolchak in Siberia; ihey established the so-called Omsk govern ment with a view to restoring law and order by the holding of a constituent assembly which would give Russia a true democracy instead of a proletarian despotism. Several of the former loyal generals like Kaledine, Denilcin and Yudenich placed themselves in touch with Admiral Kolchak to work for the overthrow of Lenin, Trotsky and the whole Bolshevik group. The Allies also gave material aid. An Allied army landed at Archangel to protect the Allied stores of munitions, and to advance, if possible, to join up with Kolchak's army which was to move west into Russia from Siberia. The Archangel enterprise, however, was too small, was not vigorously pressed and did not find the support which it had hoped from the anti-Bolshevik element in northern backed by the loyal elements in Esthonia and Letvia, and supoorted by English battleships, was advancing on the Bolsheviki in Petrograd. But these anti-Bolshevik forces were not suc cessful. Foreign intervention seemed to have consolidated the power of the Bolsheviki and strengthened it instead of weakening it. The exercise of power and responsibility appears also to have made the Soviet government some what less violent and uncompromising. Recog nizing this the Baltic States faltered into nego tiations with it in December 1919.
Russia. It had to be abandoned in the sum mer of 1919. Japan and the United States also sent munitions and troops to Vladivostok to protect the munition supplies there from falling into the hands of the Bolshekivi. They were also to aid Kolchak by giving support to the Czecho-Slovak soldiers in Siberia, by keeping open the Trans-Siberian Railway, and by pro tecting supplies which were to be forwarded Kolchak and the Omsk government. (3) But the great and deciding factor was the entrance of American soldiers upon the West ern Front, the failure of Ludendorff's last effort, and the defeat of Germany which re sulted in the artnistice of 11 Nov. 1918. With Germany beaten, the Allies expressly provided in the Peace Treaty of 28 June 1919 with Ger many (Art. 116) that the Brest-Litovsk Treaty should be abrogated.