TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK: BACKGROUND, SIGNATURE AND CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY - 2025

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace agreement signed by Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire in the context of the First World War. The signing took place on March 3, 1918, in the city that gives it its name, located in Belarus, then belonging to the Russian Empire.

The First World War had started as a confrontation between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and Italy and the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire. Although, at first, everyone expected it to be a short war, the conflict dragged on in time.

Soviet delegation in Brest-Litovsk - Source: Bruckmann, F.

One of those involved who was most affected by the conflict, militarily and economically, was Russia. This caused a revolution to break out in February 1917, although the new government did not pull the country out of the war. That was one of the reasons for a new revolutionary outbreak in October that brought the Bolsheviks to power.

Lenin, leader of this party, announced very early his intention to remove Russia from the conflict. Thus, harsh peace negotiations took place with the enemy powers. Finally, the Russians had to accept damaging conditions given their warlike weakness.

Background

The European powers had been on the edge of a war for decades. The assassination of Archduke Francisco Fernando, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the trigger for the outbreak of the First World War.

A few weeks after the assassination, which occurred on June 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary gave an ultimatum to Serbia, the country in which the assassination took place, asking for a series of conditions to maintain peace.

The Serbs agreed to the requests for the ultimatum, except on one point. Austria-Hungary, apologizing for this failure, declared war on them on July 28.

The politics of alliances characteristic of previous decades did the rest. Russia, an ally of Serbia, mobilized its troops, to which Germany, an ally of Austria-Hungary, responded by declaring war, in a few days, on Russia and France.

Finally, on August 4, Germany invaded Belgium, prompting the United Kingdom to join the conflict by declaring war on the Germans.

In this way, the two initial parties were defined. On the one hand, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, on the other, Russia, France and the United Kingdom.

The Russian Revolution

When the war dragged on, Russia began to have serious problems. On the one hand, her army had very low morale, largely due to defeats. On the other, the country's economy was in a very delicate situation, with part of the population going hungry.

The February Revolution overthrew the Tsar's regime, although it did not solve the problem of war. The Bolsheviks, one of the revolutionary factions, advocated absolute withdrawal and part of the soldiers began to disobey the high command.

The military situation was also very bad. The attempted counterattack, the so-called Kerensky offensive, was a failure.

The Germans, for their part, carried out a political maneuver to weaken the Russian government. Thus, they allowed the Bolshevik leader, Lenin, to cross their territory from his exile in Switzerland, reaching Russia on April 3.

A new revolution in October brought the Bolsheviks to power. On the 26th of that month, Lenin issued two decrees. One of them was the so-called Peace Decree, which proposed to the governments of the countries involved in the war that they begin to negotiate to achieve a peace without conditions.

Signature of the treaty and who signed it

Once the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, they began to work to pull the country out of an increasingly unpopular war with the population. However, Lenin's proposal for peace talks to start was rejected by his allies, the United Kingdom and France.

Faced with this, the Russians began to negotiate unilaterally with the central powers. Trotsky, appointed Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, called for an armistice to be signed in advance of a future final peace treaty.

In addition to the bad economic situation that Russia was going through and the tiredness of the population, the new leaders wanted to use the peace agreement as propaganda for workers throughout Europe.

For their part, for Germany and Austria-Hungary, being able to reach an agreement with the Russians was very advantageous, since it allowed them to focus all their war efforts on the Western front. Thus, on December 2, 1917, the armistice requested by Trotsky was signed and, the next day, military maneuvers on the eastern front were paralyzed.

Start of negotiations

The armistice provided the appropriate framework to begin peace negotiations. These were carried out from December 9 in the town of Brest-Litovsk, where the Germans had installed their headquarters on the eastern front.

The Russians presented a proposal based on the theses advanced by Lenin in his Decree of Peace, that is, an agreement that would not penalize any of the parties, economically or territorially.

At first, the Central Empires accepted the Russian proposals, but demanded that Russia's allies also sign them. To do this, they gave a period of 10 days for the Russians to inform France and the United Kingdom of the negotiations.

Divisions within Russia

Although negotiations had begun, there were conflicting views within the Russian government. The only common ground was the fear that the Germans would attack Russia and end the revolution.

One of the positions on how to approach the negotiations was that of Lenin, who thought that in central Europe socialist revolutions were going to take place in the short term, something that would favor Russia. In addition, he knew that the German military capacity was far superior, so it was necessary to sign peace as soon as possible.

Faced with this opinion, a faction led by Nikolai Bujarin was positioned, who was committed to using the negotiations as a way to buy time to reinforce the Red Army.

Finally, Leon Trotsky tried to reconcile both positions. In his opinion, the Red Army was still too weak to resist the Germans; although he also thought that the signing of a Peace Treaty was negative for the Bolsheviks.

Trotsky was in favor of lengthening the negotiations and waiting for Germany to present them with an ultimatum. This, in his opinion, would make the German workers rise up against their government.

Breakdown of negotiations

After two months of talks, on February 10, 1918, Trotsky decided to withdraw from the negotiating table. The Germans, by that time, had toughened their conditions to reach an agreement, which seemed further away than ever.

Faced with this situation, Germany announced that the signed armistice would end on the 17th of that same month, threatening to restart hostilities on the 18th.

Lenin tried to convince Trotsky to sign the agreement as soon as possible, since he still thought that the workers' revolution in Germany was imminent. However, Trotsky's idea was the opposite: a new German attack would be what would provoke the uprising of the German workers.

Germany complied with what it had announced and on February 18 it resumed military operations. In just 24 hours, Trotsky was convinced that the German army would easily defeat the Red Army, as they had managed to advance tens of kilometers with little resistance.

The morale of the Russian troops, already very low, suffered with the new attacks. The Bolsheviks had promised a peace agreement and, when it was not achieved, many soldiers preferred to desert.

Russia accepts the German conditions

That same night, the Bolshevik Central Committee sent a telegram to the Germans accepting their conditions for signing the peace treaty.

The Germans, however, took three days to respond. During that time, his army continued to advance, gaining more territory in that short time than they had conquered in three years.

Furthermore, given its military superiority, the German government further toughened the conditions for signing the peace treaty. The Russians, with no possibility of answers, had to accept them on February 22.

Signature of the Treaty

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was finally signed on March 3, 1918. Through this agreement, the war between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany ended. The agreement was also signed by two other allies of the central powers: Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.

Most important points

The Brest-Litovsk Treaty included 14 articles. Most of them were quite harmful to the Russians, who were unable to regain the territories lost during the war. In addition, the central powers threw themselves into the right to keep their troops in those territories until Russia complied with everything agreed.

In this way, Ukraine, Livonia, Estonia and Finland became independent countries, albeit with German-controlled governments. Cities like Batumi, Kars, and Adahan, on the other hand, were ceded to the Ottoman Empire.

All the signatory countries agreed to waive any war compensation and to release the prisoners.

Consequences

The first consequence of the Peace Treaty was Russia's exit from the First World War. Despite this, the Germans continued their advance on the eastern front, occupying Ukraine and supporting the White Army in Finland.

The war continued on the western front, where Germans and Austro-Hungarians transferred part of the troops that had previously fought against the Russians. Despite this, they were defeated in the contest.

Territorial consequences

As noted, Russia lost many territories with the application of the Treaty. In total, they had to withdraw from the Baltic provinces, Poland, Belarus, Finland, Bessarabia, Ukraine and the Caucasus.

The consequences were also reflected in the economy, since the lost territories accounted for a third of its arable land and nine-tenths of its coal deposits. Furthermore, Russia lost the naval bases in the Baltic.

The defeat of Germany in the war prevented all those territories from being annexed. Instead, the majority, such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus, declared their independence.

Political consequences

The Russians did not quite trust that Germany would comply with what was signed, so they moved the capital from Saint Petersburg to Moscow.

Lenin, whose positions had been victorious in the debate on the Peace Treaty, saw his power strengthened. The opposite happened with the factions that did not want to sign the agreement, especially with the one led by Bukharin.

Annulment of the treaty

The end of the war, with the defeat of the central powers, meant the annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, although its territorial effects were maintained. In this way, Russia did not recover the lost territories indicated above.

However, the civil war that broke out in Russia did change the geography of the area. The Red Army recovered Ukraine and Belarus between 1919 and 1920, and they became Soviet socialist republics.

Somewhat later, already during World War II, the Soviet Union also took over the Baltic countries.

References

1. The Crisis of History. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Obtained from lacrisisdelahistoria.com
2. Ocaña, Juan Carlos. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918. Retrieved from historiansiglo20.org
3. García Marcos, Esteban. Brest-Litovsk, the peace of famine that destroyed an empire, Austria-Hungary. Obtained from archivoshistoria.com
4. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Treaties of Brest-Litovsk. Retrieved from britannica.com
5. Jennifer Llewellyn, John Rae and Steve Thompson. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Retrieved from alphahistory.com
6. Schattenberg, Susanne. Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of. Obtained from encyclopedia. 1914-1918-online.net
7. Hickman, Kennedy. World War I and The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Retrieved from thoughtco.com