The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, also known as the Bread Peace () or Peace of Brest (, "Berestian Peace"), was signed on 9 February 1918 between the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria). It ended Ukraine's involvement in World War I and saw the Central Powers recognise the UPR's sovereignty. The treaty, which followed the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917, was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus). The Bread Peace fixed the Austro-Hungarian–Ukrainian border on the line of 1914 and made provision for a joint commission to determine the border with Poland. The Central Powers secured grain and other goods from the UPR in return for providing military assistance against the Bolsheviks.
While various negotiators at Brest-Litovsk were seeking to establish a general peace, the Austro-Hungarian delegation was in desperate need of getting access to Ukrainian foodstuffs to address a disastrous famine unfolding amongst its military and civilian population, choosing to sign a separate peace first with the Ukrainian People's Republic delegation, sent from the Central Rada in Kiev (modern Kyiv). The peace delegation from Soviet Russia, led by Leon Trotsky, did not recognise the UPR delegation, instead recognising a delegation from the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets based in Kharkov (modern Kharkiv). Polish representatives from Congress Poland and Austrian Galicia also objected to several terms in the treaty (particularly the concession of Kholm Governorate to Ukraine), and the fact that the Central Powers chose to conclude a separate peace with Ukraine rather than working out a general peace treaty. As a result, negotiations between the other parties broke down on 10 February, and it would take until 3 March 1918 until the Central Powers and Soviet Russia concluded their own separate Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The fact that Austria-Hungary justified recognising Ukrainian independence on the basis of national self-determination also had the unintended consequence of stimulating nationalist separatism amongst the ethnic minorities within its own borders, speeding up the dissolution of Austria-Hungary within the following nine months.
After the treaty was signed, Austro-German troops intervened in Ukraine and helped drive out the Red Army by April 1918. The presence of Central Powers forces undermined the independence of the Rada and lead to establishment of the Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi. After the end of World War I and the Ukrainian–Soviet War, the UPR's former territory was split between the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (absorbed into the Soviet Union) and independent Poland in the Treaty of Riga (1921). The Treaty of Rapallo (1922) between Germany and Russia canceled Germany's recognition of the UPR.
Background Because of the civil unrest in the Russian Republic culminating in the October Revolution, the Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada (20 November 1917) declared the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic under the government of the General Secretariat of Ukraine. The latter announced elections for the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly to be held on 9 January 1918 and the first convocation on 22 January that year.
On 17 December 1917, Vladimir Lenin, as the head of the Sovnarkom, released an ultimatum in which he accused the Central Rada of disorganising the front lines, stopping "any troops going into the region of the Don, the Urals, or elsewhere"; sheltering political enemies such as the members of the Cadet Party and those who had sided with Kaledin and requiring to "put an end to the attempts to crush the armies of the Soviet and of the Red Guard in Ukraine". Lenin gave twenty-four hours' notice to the government of what he called "the independent and bourgeois Republic of the Ukraine" to respond. Since Soviet armies were already in Ukraine, the government of Ukraine had to act quickly to preserve the sovereignty of the state.
The Ukrainian Central Rada expressed a desire for a peace treaty with foreign countries and its recognition worldwide. Since the representatives of the British and the French Empires did not wish to recognise Ukrainian sovereignty, considering it as a part of their major ally, the Russian Empire, the treaty gave a chance for some recognition in the face of the Central Powers. Germany and Austria-Hungary gladly took the opportunity to bring in Ukraine as an ally. Austria-Hungary was edging towards a military victory on all fronts by late 1917, but the Austrian political leadership had been getting increasingly desperate for food since late 1917, in order to feed its starving civilian population in Cisleithania and prevent famine and large-scale civil unrest. In peacetime, Transleithania (the Hungarian part of the Habsburg monarchy) provided 65% of Cisleithania's cereal imports, equal to 32% of Austria's requirements; but since the war broke out in 1914, Hungary had prioritised feeding its own population, and Hungarian grain and flour exports to Austria dropped to 2.4% of their pre-war average in 1917.
By early 1918, getting food supplies and preventing popular revolt (as in Russia) dominated Austria-Hungary's foreign policy. This undermined the Habsburgs' military leverage during the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, not just in the face of their enemies, but also towards their German allies, as both Central Powers sought to acquire Congress Poland. Vienna desperately sought access to Ukraine's food supplies as soon as possible, as domestic demand for bread and peace soared during the winter of 1917–1918. Hence, Czernin dubbed the proposed treaty with the Ukrainians as a "bread peace" (Brotfrieden).
Peace negotiations
The peace negotiation was initiated on 3 December 1917 by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic government, represented by a delegation headed by the Ukrainian-born Leon Trotsky. The Centrals and Bolsheviks concluded the Armistice of 15 December 1917 (2 December 1917 according to the Julian calendar), which took effect on 17 December. Several resolutions were made from 22 to 26 December, and on 28 December 1917, an armistice was signed suspending hostilities at the front lines. A Soviet government of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic had been formed in Kharkiv on 17 December 1917. The final signing was being delayed by the Bolsheviks in the hope of reaching some agreement with the Entente treaty members.
On 1 January 1918, a Ukrainian delegation, headed by Vsevolod Holubovych, arrived at Brest-Litovsk. The initial delegation beside Mykola Liubynsky, Oleksandr Sevriuk, and Mykola Levytsky included Mykhailo Poloz. Initially, the Trotsky-led delegation on behalf of Soviet Russia recognised the delegation of the independent Ukraine People's Republic (UPR) on 10 January 1918.Volodymyr Kubijovyč (ed.): Ukraine – A Concise Encyclopaedia I, p.744. On 12 January 1918, the Austrian Count Ottokar Czernin, representing the Central Powers, also recognised the independent delegation from the Ukrainian People's Republic. But Czernin and Hungarian diplomat Csáky refused to discuss questions of Galicia, Bucovina, and Subcarpathian Rus, which they considered internal Habsburg affairs. They did acknowledge the claims of the Ukrainian People's Republic to the Kholm Governorate (including Brest-Litovsk itself, where the peace talks were held), and the region of Podlachia, causing protests from Polish stakeholders.
On 20 January 1918, the Ukrainian delegation returned to Kiev, where the Central Rada proclaimed a fully-sovereign Ukrainian state on 25 January (dated 22 January). Soon, a new Ukrainian delegation was sent to Brest headed by Oleksandr Sevriuk. Meanwhile, Bolshevik revolts occurred in several cities in Ukraine, which more or less forced the Ukrainian People's Republic, which was lacking organised military forces, to seek foreign aid. However, the situation for the Central Powers was also critical, especially for Austria-Hungary, which suffered severe food shortages.
On 21 January 1918, the Bolshevik Russian delegation announced that the Kharkiv-based Bolshevik Ukrainian Republic of Soviets would be attending the peace talks, and began demanding that they should be recognised as the sole representatives of Ukraine rather than the Kyiv-based Central Rada's delegation. On 1 February 1918, a plenary session of the Congress was indeed attended by the Kharkiv Bolshevik delegates Yukhym Medvediev and Vasyl' Shakhrai. But the Central Powers continued to negotiate with the delegation from the Ukrainian People's Republic as the sole representatives of Ukraine, regarding the Kharkiv delegation as a Bolshevik ploy to prevent the Centrals from concluding their agreement with the UNR. Previously, Czernin had tried not to make national self-determination a guiding principle during the talks, given the risk of precluding an Austro-Polish union and stimulating nationalist separatism within the Habsburg empire. However, by early February, he had exhausted all other means of obtaining emergency food supplies, and he could only proceed by granting Ukrainian self-determination, acknowledging their territorial claims on Chełm and pledging a new autonomous Ruthenian crownland in eastern Galicia and Bukovina; in exchange for much-needed grain exports to Cisleithania. The danger that the famine-borne popular riots in Austria could escalate into a full-blown revolution that threatened the very survival of the Habsburg state was greater than that posed by antagonising the Polish nationalists, the Russian and Ukrainian Bolsheviks, the German allies, and Austria's own quest to acquire Congress Poland as its prize for the war.
Although the Central Rada had to evacuate from Kyiv on 8 February when the capital was overcome by Bolshevik troops, a peace treaty was signed between the Central Powers and the People's Republic on the night of 8–9 February, despite protests by Bolshevik delegates from Kharkiv and Moscow.
A special edition (Extrablatt) of the German newspaper Lübeckische Anzeigen printed an announcement on "Peace with Ukraine": "Today on 9 February 1918 at 2 o'clock in the morning the Peace between the Quadruple Alliance and the Ukrainian People's Republic was signed".Original: "Heute am 9. Februar 1918, 2 Uhr morgens wurde der Friede zwischen dem Vierbund und der Ukrainischen Volksrepublik unterzeichnet."
Signatories + Signatories of the Treaty of Brest-LitovskUkraine German Empire Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Ottoman Empire Head of delegation Foreign state secretary von Kühlmann Foreign Minister Czernin Prime Minister Radoslavov Grand Vizier Mehmed Talat Foreign Minister Liubynsky Ober Ost Hoffmann Ambassador Toshev I. Hakki Pasha I. Stoianovich A. Nessimi Bey Economical Adviser Ostapenko T. AnastasovP. Ganchev Ahmed İzzet Pasha
Within days of the treaty's signing, an army of over 450,000 men from the Central Powers entered Ukraine, and after only a month, most of the Bolshevik troops had left the country without any significant resistance. Soon after the takeover of Kiev by Ukrainian and German troops, the Tsentralna Rada could return to Kiev on 2 March.Orest Subtelny: Ukraine – A history, p.352–353.
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