Leseprobe

The legacy of the territorial changes in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 95 q The acute cost of the Allied blockade resulted in a growing deficit of raw materials necessary for fighting a war by Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as food shortages, which caused the phys- ical impairment of some soldiers and the threat of hunger for the majority of people. The prospect of grain supplies from the part of Ukraine ruled by the Central Council of Ukraine convinced the Central Powers to consent to the participation of this institution’s delegation in the Brest-Litovsk peace talks. This was also supported by Trotsky, although the Bolsheviks endeavoured to abolish the Central Council, which had announced Ukraine’s independence on 22 January 1918. Germany and Austria welcomed this development, as it gave them an opportunity to take advantage of the differ- ences between the Bolsheviks and the Central Council of Ukraine during the negotiations. 11 Consequently, the Central Powers gambled on the Ukrainian card, endeavouring (especially Germany) to make the states emerging from the ashes of the Russian Empire their vassals. Ukraine seemed to be a more interesting partner than the pro-German Polish politicians, who had little to offer. The Ukrainian delegation stated terms as if it was leading a state which had won the war. The Ukrainians demanded, among others, the Kholm Governorate, detached from the Kingdom of Poland by Emperor Nikolai in 1912, and Eastern Galicia and Bukovina, which were part of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Ukrainian demands regarding the Kholm Governorate would probably have been rejected by the Central Powers if the Bolsheviks had accepted their territorial dictatorship straight- away. The tactics of Trotsky, who rejected the German peace terms but at the same time did not want war, delayed the signing of the treaty and redeploying the German army to the Western Front. In this situation, the Central Powers agreed to give back the Kholm Governorate to Ukraine, while objecting to the Ukrainian demand to be granted the territories belonging to Austria. 12 On the night of 8 to 9 February 1918, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey signed a peace treaty with the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR), recognising its independence and estab- lishing the western border of this state along the line Tarnogród-Biłgoraj-Szczebrzeszyn-Krasnyst- aw-Radzyń Podlaski-Międzyrzec Podlaski-Sarnaki. The UPR’s border with Austria remained on the Zbruch River, where it had been before the war. On the day of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolsheviks captured Kyiv, revealing the weakness of the Ukrainian government, which co-signed the document with the Central Powers. 13 For Poles, the prospect of losing the Kholm Governorate was painful mainly due to their memory of the Emperor’s decision of 1912. The execution of the territorial provisions of the treaty would also mean that Poland would lose the possibility of recovering its Eastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie). 88–90; Pajewski, Janusz: Odbudowa państwa polskiego 1914–1918. [Rebuilding the Polish State, 1914–1918]. Warszawa 1985, 220–224. 11 Horak, Stephan M.: The First Treaty of World War I. Ukraine’s Treaty with the Central Powers of February 9, 1918. New York 1988, 19, 27–34; Pajewski, Odbudowa (see n. 10), 229–233. 12 Chernev, Twilight (see n. 8), 157–170; on falsifying the role of Trotsky in the USSR see Garthoff, Raymond L.: The Stalinist Revision of History: The Case of Brest-Litovsk, World Politics. Cambridge 1952, 66–85. 13 Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk (see n. 8), 392–402; Horak, The First Treaty (see n. 11), 44–52; the border line between Poland and Ukraine was drawn by Albrecht Penck, professor of geography at the University of Berlin, see Pajewski, Odbudowa (see . n. 10), 231; on Penck and Polish and Ukrainian geographers who were his students see Górny, Maciej: Kreślarze ojczyzn. Geografowie i granice międzywojennej Europy. [Draughtsmen of Homelands. Geo- graphers and Borders of Interwar Europe]. Warszawa 2017.

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