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The German Overthrow of the Central Rada, April, 1918: New Evidence from German Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Basil Dmytryshyn
Basil Dmytryshyn*
Affiliation:
Emeritus, Portland State University
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Extract

On 9 February 1918, at Brest-Litovsk, the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) concluded an unusually favorable treaty with the government of the Ukrainian Central Rada. By its terms, in exchange for diplomatic recognition and military support against a Russian Bolshevik invasion of the Ukraine, Rada negotiators placed at the disposal of the Central Powers, but primarily Germany, a surplus of foodstuffs and agricultural products estimated at 1,000,000 tonnes. The Brotfrieden, or bread peace, as this arrangement is generally known, had three significant repercussions. First, it greatly undermined Leon Trotsky's bargaining position and obstructionist tactics, forcing the Bolsheviks to accept German terms on 3 March 1918. Second, by acquiring a rich granary, and thus no longer fearing defeat through starvation, it enabled Germany to break the iron ring of the Allied blockade. And, third, it made it impossible for the Ukraine to receive a favorable hearing or reception from the Western (French, English and American) Allies at the peace conference.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 23 , Issue 4: Twentieth Anniversary Issue , December 1995 , pp. 751 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, Inc 

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References

Notes

2. Groener Papers, I, 528.Google Scholar

3. Supreme Command to Groener, 16 March 1918, ibid., XXVII, 255.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., XXVII, 255.Google Scholar

5. Major-General Max Hoffmann, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, East, made the following observation on this change: “This method of creating a sphere of authority for Groener was simple, but a trifle high-handed. I have never regarded Linsingen as a great commander—still, for the past three years he has been one of our most distinguished generals. I find it rather difficult simply to send him a telegram to the effect that ’His Majesty has no further use for your services‘.” War Diaries and Other Papers (London: 1929), I, 212.Google Scholar

6. British historian John W. Wheeler-Bennett erroneously maintains that it was von Eichhorn, not Groener, who was the master of the Ukraine. See his Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March, 1918. 2nd edn (New York: 1963), p. 315.Google Scholar

7. The Rada left Kiev for Zhytomyr on 9 February 1918, before the advancing Russian Bolshevik forces and returned to the capital early in March 1918, following the occupation of the city by German forces.Google Scholar

8. “Bericht uber die Lage in der the Ukraine, April, 1918,” Groener Papers, XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

9. Groener to Ludendorff, 23 March 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

10. Bussche to Mumm, 26 March 1918, Deutsche Okkupation, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

11. Groener to Ludendorff, April, 1918, Groener Papers, XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., XXVII, 254-IIGoogle Scholar

13. Ibid., XXVII, 254-IIGoogle Scholar

14. See especially “Auszug aus den Berichten … uber die Wirkung des Befehls des Generalfeld-marschalls von April 6 1918, betr. Landbestellung,” 16 May 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-IIGoogle Scholar

15. Ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

16. Groener to his wife, 21 April 1918, ibid., I, 546.Google Scholar

17. Mumm to Groener, 19 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

18. Eichhorn's Army Group to Divisional Commands, 14 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

19. Mumm to Foreign Office, 18 April 1918, Deutsche Okkupation, p. 53.Google Scholar

20. Eichhorn's Army Group, Ia, No. 254–18, Kiev, 21 April 1918, Groener Papers, XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., I, 546–7.Google Scholar

23. Groener to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 23 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

24. Eichhorn's Army Group, Ia, No. 274/18, Kiev, 24 April 1918, ibid, XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

25. Eichhorn's Army Group, Ia/Tech. No. 276/18, Kiev, 24 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

26. Eichhorn to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 25 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

27. Eichhorn to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 25 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

28. Eichhorn to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 30 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

29. Eichhorn to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 30 April 1918, ibid., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

30. For an account of these developments, see Sviatoslav Dolenha, Skoropadshchyna (Warsaw, 1934), pp. 10–11; and James Bunyan, Intervention, Civil War, and War Communism in Russia, April-December, 1918: Documents and Materials (Baltimore, 1936), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

31. Eichhorn's Army Group, Zentral Abteilung Tgb. No. 268, “Innere Lage, April 29, 1918,” Groener Papers, XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

32. , Bunyan, op. cit., pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

33. Eichhorn's Army Group to the Commander-in-Chief, East, 4 May 1918, Groener Papers, XXVII, 254-II; see also “Bericht uber die Lage in der the Ukraine, May 18, 1918,” ibid., XXVII, 254-I.Google Scholar

34. Khrystiuk, Pavlo, Zamitky i materialy do ukrainskoi revoliutsii (Vienna, 1921), III, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

35. Groener Papers., XXVII, 254-II.Google Scholar

36. Deutsche Okkupation, pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

37. For a discussion of the Reichstag's criticism of the military, see The New York Times, 6,7 and 8 May 1918; also Ralph H. Lutz, ed., The Fall of the German Empire (Stanford, 1932), I, pp. 846–860; and Germany, Reichstag. Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags, CCCXIII, pp. 5618–5712.Google Scholar

38. An exception to this rule was General Max Hoffmann who, on 6 May 1918, made the following observation in his diary: “I am afraid that this policy will lead to the collapse of the the Ukraine which cost us so much trouble to create. The efforts of the G.H.Q. [Groener] and Eichhorn are, though they do not know it, driving the the Ukraine back into the arms of Russia. At the moment this does not greatly matter, but for future purposes I should have thought it useful to have preserved the the Ukraine as an independent entity.” War Diaries, I, p. 217.Google Scholar

39. For figures on German exports from the Ukraine after April 1918, see August Skaleit, Die deutsche Kriegsernährungswirtschaft… (Stuttgart, 1927), pp. 235–239; Ottokar von Czernin, Im Weltkriege (Vienna, 1919), pp. 345–346; and Germany, Reichstag. Untersuchungsausschuss uber die Weltkriegsverantwortlichkeit… (Berlin: 1925–1929), III, pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar

40. For an account of the German evacuation from the Ukraine, see G. Frantz, “Die Ruckfuhrung des deutschen Bezatzungsheeres aus der the Ukraine 1918/1919,” Wissen und Wehr, XV (July 1934), pp. 445–464.Google Scholar

41. There is no study of Hrihoriv in English. The best work on Makhno is M. Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1917–1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution (Seattle, 1976).Google Scholar

42. Literature (monographic and periodical) for this period of Ukrainian history is quite extensive. The best studies are those by: John S. Reshetar, Jr., The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1921: A Study in Nationalism (Princeton, 1952); Jurij Borys, The Sovietization of the Ukraine, 1917–1923 (Toronto. 1982); Ivan Majstrenko, Borotbism: A Chapter in the History of Ukrainian Communism (New York. 1954); and Taras Hunchak, ed., The the Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1977).Google Scholar

43. Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, including the Ukraine, has produced rich literature. The most prominent studies are: John Bradley, Allied Intervention in Russia (New York, 1968); George A. Brinkley, The Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention in South Russia, 1917–1921 (South Bend, IN, 1966); and George F. Kennan, Decision to Intervene (Princeton, 1958).Google Scholar

44. The best study of this episode in Ukrainian history is Arthur E. Adams, Bolsheviks in the the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918–1919 (New Haven, 1963).Google Scholar

45. In addition to the works noted above, see Anton Denikin, The White Army (London, 1930); and Piotr N. Wrangel, The Memoirs of General Wrangel (London, 1929).Google Scholar

46. There is a sizeable periodical literature on the pogroms. The most comprehensive study in English that treats this problem, as well as other issues, is Peter Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920 (Berkeley, 1969).Google Scholar

47. For a first-hand account of events leading to the entry of Polish forces into the Ukraine, see Josef Pilsudski, Year 1920 and Its Climax Battle of Warsaw During the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–1920 (London, New York, 1972). The other study dealing with this problem is by Piotr S. Wandycz, Soviet-Polish Relations, 1917—1921 (Cambridge: 1969). For an account of the famine during this period, see Harold H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919–1923 (New York, 1927).Google Scholar

48. As cited in Thomas M. Primak, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture (Toronto, 1987), pp. 192–193. See also David Saunders, “Britain and the Ukrainian Question, 1912–1920,” English Historical Review, 103 (1988), pp. 40–68; and L. Sonevytsky, “The Ukrainian Question in R. H. Lord's Writings on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919,” Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the USA, 10 (1962–63), pp. 68–84.Google Scholar