Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/850

636 General History oj Europe archives and published secret treaties drawn up by the European powers, showing up the selfish aims of the old-fashioned diplomacy. 1150. The Peace of Brest-Litovsk. Then, late in December, the Bolsheviki opened peace negotiations with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, on the eastern Polish boundary. Meanwhile Finland and the Ukraine, which comprises a great part of southern Russia, declared themselves independent and established govern- ments of their own, under German influence, it is supposed. So on March 3, 1918, the representatives of the Bolsheviki concluded a peace with the Central Powers in which they agreed to " evacu- ate " the Ukraine and Finland, and surrendered Poland, Lithuania, Courland, Livonia, and certain districts in the Caucasus (see maps, pp. 552, 62 1 ), all of which were to exercise the right of establishing such government as they pleased. Shortly after, the capital of Russia was transferred from Petrograd to Moscow. The result of this peace was that Russia was dismembered and all the western and southern regions were, for the time being, under the strong influence of the Germans. (For a further account of Russian con- ditions see 1189 ff.) III. ISSUES OF THE WAR 1151. Grave Problems antedating the War. The war nat- urally rendered acute every chronic disease which Europe had failed to remedy in the long period of general peace. France had never given up hopes of regaining Alsace-Lorraine, which had been wrested from her after the war of 1870-1871 ( 924). The Poles continued to aspire to recover their national independence. Both the northern Slavs of Bohemia and the southern Slavs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Slavonia were discontented with their rela- tions to Austria-Hungary, of which they formed a part. The Irredentists of Italy had long laid claim to important coast lands belonging to Austria. Serbia and Bulgaria were bitterly at odds over the arrangements made at the close of the Balkan Wars -( 1 104-1 107 ). Rumania longed for Transylvania and Bukowina. Then there were the old questions as to what was to be done with