Page - 851 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

New Discussions in Switzerland 851 mander of the Russian troops in Romania, General Dimitry G. Shcherbachev, reported to the chief of the French military mission, Berthelot, that four Russian army corps had already concluded a local armistice, and that he could no longer even count on 100 loyal soldiers. The Romanian government then again attempted to obtain agreement from the western Allies for opening armistice negotiations ; in vain. Now, King Ferdi- nand I and Prime Minister Brătianu had no other choice than to request a ceasefire from Archduke Joseph and Field Marshal Mackensen. In this way, Romania was able to retain at least a part of its army, which would have been either annihilated or taken prisoner if the fighting had continued. The negotiations between the Central Powers and Romania had already been completed after just a few days, and a ceasefire agreed. The Truce of Focşani, which was signed on 9 December 1917, also ended the fighting in this section of the eastern front. What had been set in motion on 1 and 6 August 1914 and on 27 and 28 August 1916, namely the war against Russia and then against Romania, appeared to have come to a victorious conclusion for the Central Powers. But was it not already too late ? New Discussions in Switzerland In Austria-Hungary, the mood was electrified. Josef Redlich noted on 29 November that on this morning, Russia had made an offer of an armistice. ‘The armistice is to ap- ply from 1 December : we shall withdraw 80 divisions and leave 40 at the front. What an immense turn of events this is ! Brought about by Communists to save foundering Europe. How will England and America survive this situation ? The truly great time, that of peace, will perhaps already dawn over the coming weeks !’2021 However, all this was still overshadowed by the question of whether the Bolsheviks would have the legitimisation and, above all, the power to conclude a peace treaty. Yet once an armistice had been agreed, it only made sense to continue, and to exploit the situation. The Central Powers were quite simply not in a position to wait and see whether or not the civil war that was catching fire would sweep away the Bolshevik regime. Here, the revolutionaries had named one of their goals as peace without annex- ations, in other words, ‘without the illegal appropriation of foreign territories, without the violent assimilation of foreign peoples, and without restitution’.2022 According to the interpretation of the Lenin government, an annexation also occurred when against their will as stated in the press, at public meetings, party resolutions and insurrections, peoples were denied the right to free expression of their opinion, and were forcibly held back on the fringes of a state. As much as Vienna had been waiting for an armistice and peace negotiations with Russia, so was it also alarmed by this interpretation of ‘annexation’. In light of this for-