   Austro-Hungarian Empire Bulgarian Tsardom | parties             = | depositor           = | languages           = Bulgarian, German, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish | website             = | wikisource          = }}  The '''Treaty of Brest-Litovsk''' was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus) between Russia (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.  While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year, it did provide some relief to the Bolsheviks, who were tied up in fighting the Russian Civil War, and it affirmed the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania. In Poland, which was not mentioned in the treaty, its signing caused riots, protests and an end to any support for the Central Powers.''Historia Polski 1795-1918'' Andrzej Chwalba  == Armistice negotiations ==   being greeted by German officers in Brest-Litovsk]] Peace negotiations began on December 22, 1917, a week after the conclusion of an armistice between Russia and the Central Powers, at Brest-Litovsk (modern Brest, Belarus, near the Polish border). The Germans were represented officially by Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann, but the most important figure in shaping the peace on the German side was General Max Hoffmann, Chief of Staff of the German armies on the Eastern Front (''Oberkommando-Ostfront''). Austria-Hungary was represented by Foreign Minister Ottokar Czernin, and from the Ottoman Empire came Talat Pasha. The Germans demanded the &quot;independence&quot; of Poland and Lithuania, which they already occupied, while the Bolsheviks demanded &quot;peace without annexations or indemnities&quot; — in other words, a settlement under which the revolutionary government that succeeded the Russian Empire would give neither territory nor money.  The peace delegations that met at Brest-Litovsk were a very mixed assembly. On the one hand there were highly conservative representatives and noblemen from the monarchic German Empire, Austria-Hungary and a failing Ottoman Empire, and on the other side were representatives of a radical revolutionary government which was unlike anything ever seen in the world and which openly proclaimed the aim of World Revolution. The first impressions after a common dinner were ambivalent. Count Ottokar Czernin, leader of the Austro-Hungarian delegation, later wrote:Czernin von und zu Chudenitz, Ottokar Theobald Otto Maria (1920). ''In the World War''. New York and London: Harper &amp; Brothers. [ ''Internet Archive''], retrieved 28 February 2009.  The German state secretary Richard von Kühlmann noted:   The later leader of the Soviet delegation, Leon Trotsky later reported:   It is important to note that these negotiations were taking place about nine months after the United States had declared war on Germany, but before the Americans were making a significant contribution on the Western Front.  The Bolsheviks likely believed that the Germans would seize the opportunity to make a separate peace with Russia (even on moderate terms) so that they would have an opportunity to defeat France and Great Britain before the Americans arrived, even if this meant they would have to settle for less generous terms.  Frustrated with continued German demands for cessions of territory, Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (more or less Foreign Minister), and head of the Russian delegation, on February 10, 1918, announced Russia's withdrawal from the negotiations and unilateral declaration of the ending of hostilities, a position summed up as ''&quot;no war — no peace&quot;.''  Denounced by other Bolshevik leaders for exceeding his instructions and exposing Bolshevist Russia to the threat of invasion, Trotsky subsequently defended his action on the grounds that the Bolshevik leaders had originally entered the peace talks in the hope of exposing their enemies' territorial ambitions and rousing the workers of central Europe to revolution in defense of Russia's new workers' state.  ==Resumed hostilities== The consequences for the Bolsheviks were worse than what they had feared the previous December.  The Central Powers repudiated the armistice on February 18, 1918, and in the next fortnight seized most of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries. Through the ice of the Baltic Sea, a German fleet approached the Gulf of Finland and Russia's capital Petrograd. Despite strikes and demonstrations the month before in protest against economic hardship, the workers of Germany failed to rise up against the government.  On March 3 the Bolsheviks agreed to terms worse than those they had previously rejected.  ==Terms==   The treaty, signed between Bolshevik Russia on the one side and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire (collectively the Central Powers) on the other, marked Russia's final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co-signatories, fulfilling, on unexpectedly humiliating terms, a major goal of the Bolshevik revolution of November 7, 1917.  In all, the treaty took away territory that included a quarter of the Russian Empire's population, a quarter of its industry John Keegan, ''The First World War'' (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), p. 342. and nine-tenths of its coal mines.Shirer, ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', 1960, p. 57  Germany's defeat in World War I, marked by the armistice with the Allies on November 11 at Compiègne, made it possible for Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland to become independent sovereign states.  ===Transfer of territory to Germany=== Russia's new Bolshevik (Communist) government renounced all claims on Finland (which it had already acknowledged), the future Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Belarus, and Ukraine, and the territory of Congress Poland (which was not mentioned in the treaty).  Most of these territories were in effect ceded to the German Empire, which intended to have them become economically dependent on and politically closely tied to the empire under various German kings and dukes.  Regarding the ceded territories, the treaty stated that &quot;Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their populations&quot;. In fact Germany appointed aristocrats to the new thrones, Latvia, and Lithuania.  Occupation of the ceded territories by Germany required large amounts of manpower and trucks, and yielded little in the way of foodstuffs or other war material. The Germans transferred hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to the Western Front as rapidly as they could, where they began a series of spring offensives that badly shocked the Allies.  Some Germans later blamed the occupation for significantly weakening the Spring Offensive.  ===Transfer of territory to the Ottoman Empire=== At the insistence of the Ottoman leader Talat Pasha, all lands Russia had captured from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), specifically Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi, were to be returned.  This territory was under the effective control of the newly established Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Democratic Republic of Armenia until 1921. After the Soviets conquered these republics, the territory under Armenian control, by and large, went to Turkey; whereas the territory under Georgian control mostly reverted to the Soviet Union after Georgia's fall in March 1921.  Paragraph 3 of Article IV of the treaty states that:  &quot;The districts of Erdehan, Kars, and Batum will likewise and without delay be cleared of the Russian troops. Russia will not interfere in the reorganization of the national and international relations of these districts, but leave it to the population of these districts, to carry out this reorganization in agreement with the neighboring States, especially with Turkey.&quot;   ===Protection of Armenians' right to self-determination===  Russia supported the right of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Russia to determine their destiny, by ensuring the conditions necessary for a referendum:  #The retreat (within 6–8 weeks) of Russian armed forces to the borders of the Democratic Republic of Armenia, and the formation in the ADR of a military power responsible for security (including disarming and dispersing the Armenian militia). The Russians were to be responsible for order (protecting life and property) in Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi until the arrival of the Ottomans. #The return by the Ottoman Empire of Armenian emigrants who had taken refuge in nearby areas (Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi). #The return of Ottoman Armenians who had been exiled by the Ottoman Government since the beginning of the war. #The establishment of a temporary National Armenian Government formed by deputies elected in accordance with democratic principles (the Armenian National Council became the Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians, which established the Democratic Republic of Armenia). The conditions of this government would be put forward during peace talks with the Ottoman Empire. #The Commissar for Caucasian Affairs would assist the Armenians in the realization of these goals. #A joint commission would be formed so Armenian lands could be evacuated of foreign troops.  ===Russian-German financial agreement of August 1918=== In the wake of Russian repudiation of Tsarist bonds, nationalization of foreign-owned property and confiscation of foreign assets, the Russians and Germans signed an additional agreement on August 27, 1918. Russia agreed to pay six billion marks in compensation to German interests for their losses.  ==Lasting effects==  in 1920, showing still-undefined borders in the situation after the treaties of Brest and Versailles and before the Peace of Riga]] The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk lasted only eight and a half months. Germany renounced the treaty and broke diplomatic relations with RSFSR on November 5, 1918, because of Soviet revolutionary propaganda. The Ottoman Empire broke the treaty after just two months by invading the newly created Democratic Republic of Armenia in May 1918. Following the German capitulation, the Bolshevik legislature (VTsIK) annulled the treaty on November 13, 1918, (the text of the VTsIK Decision was printed in ''Pravda'' the next day). In the year after the armistice, the German Army withdrew its occupying units from the lands gained in the treaty, leaving behind a power vacuum that various forces subsequently attempted to fill.  In the Treaty of Rapallo, concluded in April 1922, Germany accepted the Treaty's nullification, and the two powers agreed to abandon all war-related territorial and financial claims against each other.  The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk marked a significant contraction of the territory which the Bolsheviks controlled or could lay claim to as effective successors of the Russian Empire.  While the independence of Finland and Poland was already accepted by them in principle, the loss of Ukraine and the Baltics created, from the Bolshevik perspective, dangerous bases of anti-Bolshevik military activity in the subsequent Russian Civil War (1918–20). Indeed, many Russian nationalists and some revolutionaries were furious at the Bolsheviks' acceptance of the treaty and joined forces to fight them.  Non-Russians who inhabited the lands lost by Bolshevik Russia in the treaty saw the changes as an opportunity to set up independent states not under Bolshevik rule. Immediately after the signing of the treaty, Lenin moved the Soviet Russian government from Petrograd to Moscow.[ &quot;LENINE’S MIGRATION A QUEER SCENE&quot;], ''The New York Times'', March 16, 1918  The fate of the region, and the location of the eventual western border of the Soviet Union, was settled in violent and chaotic struggles over the course of the next three and a half years.  The Polish–Soviet War was particularly bitter and ended by the Treaty of Riga in 1921.  Although most of Ukraine fell under Bolshevik control and eventually became one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic states emerged as independent countries.  This state of affairs lasted until 1939.  As a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet Union advanced its borders westward by invading Poland and Finland in 1939, and annexing the Baltic States and Bessarabia in 1940. It thus overturned almost all the territorial losses incurred at Brest-Litovsk, with the exception of the undefeated Finland.  For the Western Allies, the terms which the Germans imposed on the Russians were interpreted as a reminder and a warning of what to expect if the Germans and the other Central Powers won the war. Secret German archives found after 1945 proved that the German government and military intended to settle the conflict on harsh terms (especially against France and Belgium, whom they held responsible for damages after World War I).   Between Brest-Litovsk and the point when the German military situation in the west became dire, some officials in the German government and high command began to favour offering more lenient terms to the Allies in exchange for their recognition of German gains in the east. In any event, Germany's treaty with the Bolsheviks spurred Allied efforts to win the war. One of the first conditions of the Armistice was the complete abrogation of the treaty.  Russia's post-1991 western border bears a marked similarity to that imposed by the Brest-Litovsk treaty.  ==Other information== Emil Orlik, the Viennese Secessionist artist, attended the conference, at the invitation of Richard von Kühlmann. He drew portraits of all the participants, along with a series of smaller caricatures. These were gathered together into a book, ''Brest-Litovsk,'' a copy of which was given to each of the participants.[ Emil Orlik(1870–1932) - Portraits of Friends and Contemporaries], accessed 24 August 2009  