EAST OF GERMANY
Brest-Litovsk : The Forgotten Peace. March 1918. By John W. Wheeler-Bennett. (Macmillan. 21s.).
THE book covers the whole course of events around the treaty— the complete breakdown of the Russian armies ; the appalling losses suffered by the pitiably equipped troops and their subsequent loss of morale, leading to the universal clamour for peace which rose throughout the Empire ; the speedy fall of the well-meaning but ineffective Kerensky ; the negotiations and the final victory of the German High Command, impatient of Trotsky's dilatory manoeuvres, over the far-sighted Kuhlmann ; the after-effects of the harsh peace terms ; some of which are still felt in our day. The treatment is cool and objective.
The whole course of the negotiations and acceptance by Russia of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk were dominated by
Lenin's determination to make peace at any price in order to consolidate the Russian Revolution. He needed peace since it was chiefly on this issue that the Bolsheviks had over- turned Kerensky's provisional government, which had sought to continue the war against Germany in accordance with Russia's pledge to the Allies. Lenin realised sooner than any of his followers that he had been hopelessly mistaken in believing that a mere declaration of the general principles of peace would be enough for all the peoples to revolt and compel their Governments to negotiate. He determined on a policy of defeat, difficult to defend, bound to meet with spirited opposition within the Bolshevik party itself, a policy, moreover, which implied setting aside for the time being the ultimate ideal of world revolution to save the Revolution in Russia. It was this imperative need for peace that led him to impose upon his followers the acceptance of the final terms dictated by the Germans. These terms were far worse than those offered at first and rejected, to allow Trotsky's plan of "no war—no peace" to be tried out, a plan which, as Lenin had foreseen, led only to a further resumption of the German advance into Russia along the whole front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Lenin's last hope of an intervention on behalf of Russia failed when the allied Governments declined to follow the appeals of their agents in Moscow and Petrograd to seize this last chance of keeping Russia on their side against Germany— a policy, the risks and disappointments of which the author seems inclined to minimise, possibly, perhaps, more than is reasonable. No other alternative remained but to accept the German terms. The peace treaty of March 3rd, 1918, tore from Russia 34 per cent. of her population, 85 per cent, of her beet-sugar land, 54 per cent. of her industrial undertakings and 89 per cent, of her coal mines. It would hardly be described as a "peace of understanding and conciliation," which was just how it was described in one German paper, yet it gave Lenin what he most needed—time to develop and achieve a firm Bolshevik grip over Russia. Nor could he be accused of inconsistency, since he had laid it down as a principle, that "he is no Socialist who will not sacrifice his fatherland for the triumph of the Social Revolution."
. The peace of Brest-Litovsk did not, however, fulfil the hopes that the Central Powers had built upon it. They had,' indeed, broken through the ring of the allied blockade, and the very fact of being freed from a military threat in the East was in itself important. They were, moreover, relieved of the fear of being defeated by starvation, since the wheat of the Ukraine was henceforth at their disposal. (The remembrance of this fear no doubt inspires Herr Hitler's book and policy in that part of the world.) But to enforce this victor's peace nearly a million men were immobilised in the East at a time when half that number would have turned the scale in the earlier stages of the last great German offensive in the West, in March. Moreover, the brutality of the peace terms imposed by force, condoned and ratified by the Reichstag, made President Wilson realise that it was futile to appeal to the German masses over the head of the Government, since the very liberal elements of the country endorsed the Machtpolitik of the' High Command.
' The last degree of purpose and co-operation necessary for an absolute victory had been given to the Allied Powers, who henceforth refused unconditionally "to treat with any repre- sentatives of the Imperialist regime in Germany." And when Germany was obliged to sue for peace on the basis of the _fourteen points, the Allies were in a position to insist on her acceptance of their interpretation of them—whether this inter- pretation was wise or not is another matter. Much of their original idealism was lost in the process. Brest-Litovsk and the evidence which it gave the world of the methods of the Central Powers, explain, at least in part, why. the Allies at Versailles should have exacted the last ounce from defeated Germany; and in this way, lead up to many of the post-War events and ;to the tragic state of Europe today. In the introduc- tion to this clear and well-informed book, which is rich in a mass of interesting facts about the principal actors of this strange episode, and suggestive in its careful observation and interpretation of the trend of the negotiations, Mr. Wheeler- Bennett has pointed out some of the consequences of this "forgotten Treaty," rightly described as "one of the important milestones in modern history" since "its influence is still discernible in the political life and ideological trends of both Russia and Germany today." It explains both the Nazi dreams of expansion in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and pos- sibly that the old Bolshevik party, recently destroyed by Stalin, should have reaerted "to the Leninist policy of defeatism and
national immoStion to placate for the moment the aggressive policies of the two Imperialist-Fascist Powers (Germany and Japan. What would be the position of the Western Powers of Europe should Nazi Germany succeed in re-establishing the situation which existed for a few months after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk ? If Germany were able to organise within her closed system of economy the vast potential wealth of Western
and South-Western Russia, and colonise lands enough to accommodate 200,000,000 Germans—an expansion in full accord with the policies laid down in Mein- Kampf—their position would indeed be precarious.
It is a curious comment on the mental anarchy of our present Western world that the words quoted, in the introduction : "Germany will be a world Power or nothing at all" as coming from the mouth of Hitler are identical mutatis mutandis with words recently uttered by Mr. Eden in the House of Commons, "Great Britain will be a world Power or nothing at all."
S. DE M.
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