The German troops came to Tiflis as protectors from the Turks, and were, therefore, cordially welcomed.
The country was important to the Germans, as a highway to the petroleum wealth of Baku, and to Persia. They came to Georgia not as plunderers but as organisers of its productive forces, as they needed the Georgian products, especially manganese, and also its railways. Thus they brought to Georgia precisely what was most lacking in the country, and what it could only obtain speedily by foreign assistance, namely economic organisation.
The Germans have been popular in Georgia, for a long time, thanks to the Wurtemberg colonists who settled there a hundred years ago, as peasants, and retained their nationality until to-day, earning for themselves a good reputation. The German occupation was further raised by the achievement of troops in occupation. Georgia is one of the few countries in this war where the German Armies have done propaganda work for Germany. Nevertheless, the Georgian Government decisively rejected the overtures of the Germans to enter into an alliance with them againt Soviet Russia or the Entente.
"The Germans did not succeed in persuading Georgia to form an alliance with the Central Powers. The attempts of German diplomacy to involve Georgia in the Russian civil war were equally unsuccessful.
"When in the autumn of 1918 a group of Russian reactionaries attempted to form an 'Astrakhan Army.' the German Command proposed to the Georgian Government to permit the enrolment of volunteers for this army in its territory.
"The Government of the Republic answered with a categorical refusal."[1]
The policy of Georgia underwent no change when, after the collapse of the German Army and its Allies, the Entente invaded Transcaucasia. Now it was the Entente, which sought to entangle Georgia in the Russian Civil War, and to draw it into an alliance with
- ↑ Woytinsky Una vera democrazia.
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