with the Ukraine.
ance that they should take part in further deliberations on the basis of the resolutions adopted on Dec. 25. But the Entente Towers refused. Thereupon negotiations were begun (Jan. 9 1918) for a separate peace between Russia and the Quadruple Alliance. But they did not run so smoothly as the majority of Austro-Hungarian politicians had hoped. Trotsky, the chief of the Russian delegation, demanded full freedom for the plebi- scites to be held in the Russian provinces occupied by the Cen- tral Powers, and with this object proposed that their troops should evacuate them. On the rejection of this proposal by the German and Austro-Hungarian delegates, Trotsky pro- tracted the negotiations in order meanwhile to introduce Bolshe- vik ideas into the territories of the Quadruple Alliance. The progress of the negotiations was hampered by quarrels among the Russians, and by the appearance at Brest-Litovsk Treaty o f an Ukrainian delegation which pressed for the establishment of a Russian federal republic. Since on this question no agreement could be reached, the repre- sentatives of the Ukraine, on Jan. 24 1918, announced the com- plete independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and on Feb. 9 concluded a separate peace with the Quadruple Alliance, which, so far as Austria-Hungary was concerned, left the fron- tier between the two States unchanged. Inspired by his eager- ness to bring to the starving population of Austria, and above all to the inhabitants of Vienna, the longed-for " bread peace," which stipulated for the delivery of foodstuffs from the Ukraine, Czernin, in compliance with the violent desire of the Ukrainian delegation, carried out their demand for the incorporation of the district of Cholm in the newly created republic, and for the erection of East Galicia into an autonomous Austrian crown territory.
The negotiations with Russia had meanwhile been continued. Czernin, zealously seconded in his efforts for peace by the Emperor Charles, pressed for a conclusion, but met Peace of with determined opposition from the German negotia- tors. On Feb. 10 1918 Trotsky declared that Russia, renouncing a formal treaty of peace, regarded the state of war against the Quadruple Alliance as at an end, and would reduce her troops to a peace footing on all fronts. But since this solution did not meet with the whole-hearted consent of the Central Powers, Germany resumed the struggle. The Austro-Hungarian troops did not enter into the war against Soviet Russia, but after a few days joined the march of the German troops into the Ukraine. The Russians, defeated 'by Germany in the field, now changed their tactics and declared themselves prepared to conclude a formal peace, which was signed on March 3 1918 at Brest-Litovsk. It brought the Habsburg Monarchy no accessions of territory, but, by the official retirement of the Russians from the ranks of their ene- mies, it involved a considerable strengthening of the Quadruple Alliance.
Poland had become independent of Russia by the provisions
of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk; but this did not settle the Polish
question. The negotiations conducted by the Cab-
The Polish i ne t s o f Vienna and Berlin as to the fate of Poland in
Question, . i e i i j.
/5>/7. the spring and summer of 1917 led to no issue, since
the conflicting interests of the two Powers concerned were shown to be irreconcilable. The plan advocated by Austria, that the Archduke Charles Stephen should be made regent, and afterwards king, was accepted neither by the Emperor William nor by the German Government. In the autumn of 1917 the decision made earlier in the year to abandon Poland to Germany and compensate Austria-Hungary in Rumania was given up, and the Austro-Polish solution advocated by the Emperor Charles and Czernin was approved in principle. In the negotiations which followed as to the carrying-out of this plan, however, the old opposition of interests again became apparent. Germany declared that she would make her acquies- cence in the Austro-Polish solution contingent upon the cession to her of large portions of Polish territory, as " rectifications of frontier," and, beyond this, upon her retaining a decisive influence upon the utilization of the economic and military
Brest- Litovsk.
forces of a Polish State which was not to be incorporated in Austria-Hungary but merely joined to her by a personal union. To this, however, the Vienna Government would not agree, and once more the attempt to reach a definitive solution of the Polish question had broken' down. The Poles, anxious about their future and keenly desirous to make it as favourable as possible to themselves, took advantage of these differences to continue negotiations with both sides, in order to secure for their State the widest possible territorial extension and the greatest possible measure of independence. They resolutely protested against the cession of the district of Cholm to the Ukraine, and on March 4 1918, with the aid of the Poles in the Habsburg Monarchy, they succeeded in obtaining the signa- ture, by the Powers concerned in the conclusion of the Peace Treaty of Feb. 9, of a protocol in which it was laid down that the frontiers between Poland and the Ukraine were to be set- tled by a new agreement, arrived at with the cooperation of the Poles, and perhaps to be altered in favour of the Poles. The negotiations between the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin as to the future destiny of Poland still went on. The former clung to the Austro-Polish solution, but it was evident from many indications that the German Government showed less and less inclination to consent to it. In July 1918, after the luckless Austrian offensive in Italy, the German Imperial Chancellor, Count Hertling, declared that he would no longer recognize the Austro-Polish solution. Poland was to have the free choice of her future form of government, but before its establishment must come to arrangements with the Central Powers, per- manently calculated to secure their economic and military inter- ests. Austria-Hungary agreed with these proposals in prin- ciple. But the negotiations which were now entered upon led, like all the preceding ones, to no definitive results, though they provided the Poles once more with the desired opportunity for fishing in troubled waters.
The ending of the war between Russia and the Quadruple Alliance also compelled Rumania to conclude peace with the victors, having already, on Dec. 17 1917, had to sub- Peace mit to an armistice. After rather long negotiations the Treaty peace preliminaries were signed at the chateau of Buftea near Bucharest on March 6 1918, and on May 7 the definitive peace; but the latter was not ratified by Rumania. Austria-Hungary received a favourable strategic frontier in the Carpathians, important economic concessions, and the promise of an immediate evacuation of the provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy still occupied by Rumania. King Ferdi- nand had to thank the personal intervention of the Emperor Charles for the fact that he retained his crown.
The successes in the East, gratifying though they were in themselves, did not deceive the governing circles at the Ball- platz as to the danger on the verge of which they hovered. They knew that the filling-up of the sen- ^**"*] ie ously depleted ranks of the troops, the production of Monarchy. arms and munitions, the provisioning of the soldiers and of the population, would get more difficult every month. Reports kept coming in as to the increasing war-weariness of the troops, and the more and more openly expressed anti-dynastic senti- ments of the non-German or non-Magyar portions of the popu- lation of the monarchy, as to the correctness of which there could be no doubt. All these reasons increased the desire of the Emperor Charles and of Czernin to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible. As early as the autumn of 1917 the Ger- man Government had been informed from Vienna that Austria- Hungary's strength was exhausted, and insistently urged to sacrifices which might content the enemy. The same point of view had been adhered to during the negotiations at Brest- Litovsk. Germany was to find in the East compensations for the cessions which she must make in the West in order to bring the enemy round the peace-table. For the negotiations secretly carried on by several Austro-Hungarian statesmen with the representatives of the Entente States had left no doubt as to the fact that there could be no thought of a serious entry upon peace negotiations on the part of the Western Powers before
Rumania.
