THE BOLSHEVIK NEGOTIATIONS WITH GERMANY.
IT is impossible to discover in the whole course of history anything resembling the negotiations between the Bol- sheviks and the German representatives at Brest-Litovsk. The duel of wits between the Germans and the Russians con- jures up the image of an arrogant and rather pompous knight in armour punching heavily at a feather-bed and wondering why he cannot produce more effect upon it. We think that the fact is fairly emerging from the negotiations that the Bolsheviks are not, as some people supposed, the pliable tools or even the agents of Germany, but are idealists genuinely inspired by their mania. Of course if great deal of harm may be done by a mania, however intellectually sincere it may be, and we can set no precise limits to the mischief that may be done by the Bolshevik leaders before they have finished. The habit of preferring the shadow to the substance, and rating the sound of words as more important than the realities implied by words, commonly ends in a terrible disillusionment. But so far as the negotiations have gone, it is only just to say that what might be called the passive resistance of the Bol- sheviks to the high-handed German arguments has succeeded in puzzling not only the German representatives but the German people as a whole. We must make allowances for a certain amount of camouflage and deliberate dust-throwing by Germany in the published comments on the negotiations in order to mislead the Allies as to what is happening in Germany herself. But when all allowances have been made, we think it is proved that the reactions of the Brest negotiations upon German political thought are so severe that embarrassment and anxiety are disturbing the whole structure of German political life, from the Bundesrath and the Wilhelmstrasse down to the smallest Socialist organization.
The contradictions as to the progress of the negotiations are so numerous and so complete that it is impossible to say from day to day how matters stand. The long reports that reach us from Berlin by way of Petrograd are said by the Petrograd Telegraph Agency to have been edited by the enemy so that the German people should not take a sympathetic view of the Bolshevik arguments. The delegates themselves at Brest had some sharp disputes over this question of reporting, and the Germans virtually admitted that their own accounts of the Conference were strictly censored to check the revo- lutionary propaganda. The only point that need really concern us is that for some reason or other the negotia- tions do as a matter of fact continue, although Germany obviously has Russia at her mercy. There must be sows reason for this, and various reasons have been suggested. It is not that the Germans do not know that Russia lies open to them if they care to send troops further into the country. General Hoffmann complained at Brest that M. Trotsky talked to him as though the Russians stood victorious within German territory and could. dictate conditions. "Whereas," continued General Hoffmann, " I must point out that the contrary is the case—the victorious German Army stands in Russian terri- tory." The German motive, then, for continuing to punch the feather-bed with such baffling results is that for some special reason the Germans do not care to penetrate further into Russia. The reason may be that they really mean to attempt a great offensive on the West, and that they cannot spare a single man for the Russian front. They may want to make peace quickly with Russia, and be free to turn their whole attention to the West and try to win a decisive victory. Another reason may be that, while trying to annex all the territory they possibly can, they do not feel yet that they have sufficiently soothed the feelings of the German people, a large part of whom are obviously alarmed at the extreme dangers of this cynical policy. Yet again the German military advisers may be really frightened at the idea of a further campaign in Russia even though they may not be contemplating a Western offensive at all, for the German military mind, is governed enormously by precedents, and the precedents of disaster to invaders of Russia are indeed extraordinarily strong. In the vast spaces of that loosely knit country, an invading army may be swallowed up and be overwhelmed by the rigours of winter before it has had time to establish itself firmly and without any blow being struck at it by the defenders. On the whole, however, we incline to the belief that the economic situation in Germany is rather more serious than most people here have believed, and that Germany is in genuine need of an early general peace. This is why we think that the German Govern- ment are not content with the possibility of a separate peace with Russia, but still intend to use the negotiations at Brest as a means of entangling France, Italy, the United States, and ourselves. This is not, of course, to say that Germany has any thought of declaring herself defeated. She still hopes to get the kind of peace she wants. What she has in mind now, we imagine, is something very different from what she had in prospect when she began the war. Nevertheless it would be a very satisfactory peace from her point of view.
We come back to the warning which we published on . January 5th. We see no reason to change the opinions we then expressed about the character of these Brest negotiations. We pointed out that Germany might very likely offer to the Allies in the West what we called very attractive, and even humble, terms." It is most important to consider in advance the situation that would, be created by such an offer. People would be tempted, as we pointed out, to interpret these attractive and humble terms in the West as a sufficient ground for making a general peace. They might say that Russia had committed suicide of her own free will, and that it was no fault of the Allies that she could not be saved. Mr. Lloyd George's words to the effect that Russia might relieve the Allies of responsibility for her future would be magnified into a much more uncompromising repudiation of concern in Russia's fate than Mr. Lloyd George even hinted. If the situation which we are describing were to arise, the Allies would indeed be in great peril of sacrificing all the principles for the sake of which they entered this war. " Wt cannot," as we wrote on January 5th, "remain indifferent to what happens to Russia, because the great territorial aggrandise- ment which Germany contemplates there would mean that she would have a greater sinister power than before to vex and harass the world and hold it up to ransom." We hope that not a single person in this country will be so war-weary as to persuade himself that principles which were worth fighting for in 1914 are less worth fighting for now. We went into the war to end the militarism of Germany. To come out of the war without ending German militarism would mean our defeat.
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