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though divided in their attitude to Russia. Austria waswilling enough to use Ukrainian nationalism againstRussia and up to a point against the Poles, but she couldprovide no solution of her own Ukrainian problemwithout a complete alienation of the Poles and a contestwith Hungary, which was by then herself disturbed bythe russophil tendencies of the tiny groups of intelligentsiaamong her illiterate Ukrainians in sub-CarpathianRuthenia.Germany was interested even before 1914 in using theUkrainians if possible as a means of weakening Russiaand of furthering the eastward expansion of her ownpower. The War and the Revolution in 1917 gave hera good chance. They opened the floodgates of autonomyor separation to the peoples of the Russian empire. Anautonomous Ukrainian government was set up in Kiev,which after the Bolshevik coup d'etat in November 1917declared independence and turned to the Central Powersfor assistance against a rival, Bolshevik Ukrainian governmentoperating from the industrial centre of Kharkov.The Central Powers forced Soviet Russia to sign awaythe Ukraine by the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, drove theBolsheviks out of it, and proceeded with their army ofoccupation to extract from the guerrilla-infested countrythe utmost possible in the way of much-needed supplies.From March to November 1918 Germany was able tocarry out her Brest-Litovsk policy of creating a zone ofclient states, of which a nominally independent Ukrainewas one, under a monarchist-inclined puppet government.Defeat in the West ended the German-controlled Ukraine.For the next two years the Ukrainian lands were thescene of civil war and chaos exceeding even the time of'the ruin.' A revolutionary, but anti-Bolshevik independentgovernment under Petlyura was formed in Kiev.The Russian Whites remained hostile to Ukrainiannationalism. The Bolsheviks were equally hostile to it,but not to the new form the Ukrainian Bolsheviks weregiving to it. France and England eventually backed theRussian Whites under Denikin, not Petlyura. BothDenikin and Petlyura, however, were defeated in savagecivil war by the Bolsheviks, who received much assistance232