Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference: the peace ...

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34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BREST-LITOVSK CONPEB.ENCE.
The representatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and
Bulgaria attended the conference at Brest-Litovsk, which was of an
exclusively military character. General Hoffmann, Chief of the
General Staff of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, was Germany's chief
representative at the conference. The enemy delegates declined to
discuss the objects of peace, declaring that they had only been
authorized to treat with the military conditions of the armistice.
They also declined the Russian proposal that the members of the
conference should immediately invite all belligerents to participate
in the formation of conditions for an armistice. It was, however,
agreed to telegraph to the respective Governments for instructions
in this connection. The German delegates qualified the Russian
conditions as absolutely unacceptable. Such proposals could only
be made if Germany were beaten. General Hoffmann is described as
being ^ery indignant, and as having said to one of the Russian
delegates, " If you rej^eat these conditions we will fight."
13. Trotsky's Note to the Allies.
[l''rom the (British) Duily Review of the Foreign Press, 10 December, 1917,
p. 311.]
News transmitted through the wireless stations of the Russian
Government says
To-day (Dec. 6) the People's Commissary for Foreign Affairs has
sent to all the Allied Embassies and Legations the following note:
The negotiations opened by the delegates of Germtiny, Austria-Hungary,
Turltey, and Bulgaria, on the one side, and the delegates of Russia, on the other
side, have been interrrtpted, on the initiat ve of our delegation, for a week, with
thf? purpose of providing the opportunity during this period of informing the
peoples and Governments of the Allied countries on the existence of such
negotiations and on their tendency.
From Russia's side it has been arranged to declare that the proposed armistice
has for its object the preparation of a peace on a democratic basis as
i>xpressed in the manifesto by the AU-Russian Congress of the Councils of the
Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.
The armistice can be signed only under the conditions that the troops will
not be sent from one front to another and that the Islands of the Moon Sounds
must be cleared by Germans.
Concerning the aims of the war, the enemy delegates evaded a definite reply,
indicating that they had been authorized to negotiate exclusively on the military
side of the (proposed?) armistice and not concerning the question of a
general armistice, the delegates of the opposite side declined, on the ground
that they did not possess powers for dec'ding a general armistice with the
countries whose delegates are not taking part in the conference.
The dele;;ates of the opposite side proposed in their turn an armistice on the
rront from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sen, the duration of this armist'ce to
be twenty-eiglit days, At the same time the delegates of the opposite side
promised tn transmit to their respective Governments the projio-'-als made by
the Russian delegation to invite all belligerent countries (that is, all Allied
countries except Russia) to take part in the negotiations. Our delegation refusrd
to sign at this .stage of the negotiations a formal armistice, and it was
ii('(i'!('d again (o .sus])end all hostile activities for a weclc and to interrupt for
Ihi s.'ime peri'id the negotiaticms on an armistice.