The German Foreign Secretary, Herr von Kuhlmann, and the Austrian
Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, with Bulgarian and Turkish delegates, met the Russian Anarchist representatives at Brest-Litovsk last Saturday to begin peace negotiations. Herr von Kuhlmann said that the Conference could not elaborate an instrument of peace in its smallest details, but could fix the principles of peaceful intercourse. He made an ominous remark as to the necessity of not "losing our footing on the firm ground of facts." The Russian delegates, undeterred by his irony, then presented their demands for a peace without annexations or indemnities, for the right of national groups to determine their own destinies, for the compensation of private sufferers from a fund to which all the belligerents should contribute, and for the prevention of any economic boycott. On Wednesday Count Czernin, for the Central Powers, replied that they could not accept the Russian conditions unless all the belligerents agreed to them. The Central Powers did not intend "to appropriate forcibly" the occupied territories. Each State must deal with its own national groups. The Central Powers welcomed, as well they might, the suggestion that there should be no compensation for damage done.
