Page - 877 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Continuation in Brest 877 within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which was to comprise the Ruthenian parts of Galicia and Bukovina and would thus likewise be at the expense of a possible future Polish state. In return, Ukraine was to deliver considerable amounts of cereal crops to the Habsburg Monarchy on the basis of an existing, separate economic agreement. The calculation was clear : exchange land for food. On 22 January 1918, Czernin reported in the Joint Council of Ministers on the Brest negotiations. He met with only partial agreement for his approach. Some ministers feared the end of the Austro-Polish solution. The Chief of the General Staff doubted that so much grain could actually be obtained from Ukraine as had been promised to Czernin. Above all, the question remained open as to how the grain was to be dis- patched. The Emperor cast his lot in with Czernin. He confirmed that, if necessary, the Dual Monarchy would sign a separate peace with Russia and that, in view of the loom- ing food catastrophe, further concessions were to be made to Ukraine, whilst Galicia was to be partitioned. The Austro-Polish solution would have to be abandoned, if need be, since Romania had more to offer. Evidently, Karl had also arrived at the same con- clusions as Kaiser Wilhelm. Now, neither the German Empire nor Austria-Hungary wanted to take a Polish kingdom in tow ; instead, they both wanted Romania. However, developments brushed these thoughts aside. After a renewed interruption of the Brest talks, Trotsky returned to the negotiating table with the formula ‘neither war nor peace’. The Bolsheviks were furthermore determined to put a stop to the process of decay in Russia, and reclaimed Ukraine. Accordingly, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was to be part of the Russian Federation. There was a breach between the Ukrainian Central Rada (Central Council) and the Bolsheviks. The Central Powers, however, immediately declared their recognition of the sovereign Ukrainian People’s Republic.2089 It bothered Czernin, and likewise the diplomats and officers in Brest, that it was not clear just how much real power the Russian negotiators possessed.2090 Trotsky fur- thermore met with so much mistrust and rejection that the German Permanent Sec- retary of Foreign Affairs Kühlmann wanted to prohibit Czernin and the economic expert attached to the Austro-Hungarian delegation, Richard Schüller, from engaging in personal communication with the Russians. On 7 February, 1918, preliminaries for a peace treaty with Ukraine were signed, in which the prospect was held out of a re- moval of a million tons of cereal crops from Ukraine. On 9 February, the peace treaty with Ukraine was signed in Brest.2091 The next day, the Russians broke off negotiations with the Quadruple Alliance. The recognition of Ukraine, the German intention to advance further into the Baltic region and the obvious failure of the delaying tactics had contributed in equal measure to the rupture. The Bolsheviks called on the German soldiers to murder their Kaiser and the German generals, and Trotsky issued the long since prepared declaration that no annexationist peace would be signed. Regardless of this, the Russian Army was demobilised. He declared the state of war with the German