The Anarchist negotiations with the Germans for an armistice were
to be resumed on Wednesday. Trotsky informed the Allies that he had found the enemy delegates evasive, that he would not sign an armistice unless the Germans agreed to evacuate the Wands of the Gulf of Riga and not to move their troops from the Russian front, and that the Allies must state their war aims if they declined to join in the negotiations. Our Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, and his French colleagues published declarations on the folly of the Anarchists in thinking that a good peace could be secured now by a treaty with the German Emperor. As if to point the moral of these temperately worded expostulations, the German delegates are reported to have put forward amazing demands, such as the control of the Russian wheat market, free entry for German goods into Russia, the retention of all conquests, the evacuation of Petro- grad, and the cession of the Ukraine to Austria. It looks as if Germany, having secured a truce which has disintegrated the Russian armies, now wishes to discredit the Anarchists, whose help she needs no longer. Trotsky seems to suspect this. He is reported to have uttered a threat that if the Germans do not free Lithuania and Courland be will" strew the trenches of the enemy" —not with shells, but with " millions of proclamations in German." The Anarchists' blind faith in words as weapons against Germany would be amusing if the consequences for Russia and all the Allies were not so tragic.
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