omous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently
opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations
under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which
should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the
sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial
integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
states alike.

The Humiliation of Russia. In introducing these points
President Wilson referred to the Brest Litovsk negotiations
as having been broken off, and described " the whole incident '*
as " full of significance." There had, indeed, during the interval
allowed for the Entente to reply, been a violent disagreement
between Ludendorff arid Kiihlmann, who was supported by
Czernin and Hertling. On Dec. 28 the militarists secured a
German declaration to the effect that the representative bodies
existing in the occupied territories under German protection
expressed their " self-determination " and that plebiscites were
superfluous. On Jan. 2 Trotsky denounced these claims as
hypocritical, and proposed to change the seat of the conference
from Brest to Stockholm. He reappeared at Brest, however, on
Jan. 7, asseverating that the Bolsheviks would make no peace
that was not " just and democratic ": and there followed weeks
of discussion on the meaning of " self-determination " and its
methods of expression. Trotsky's flank was turned by the appear-
ance of delegates from the Ukraine asserting their independence
of Russia. They represented only the middle-class Rada, while
Ukraine revolutionaries sided with the Bolsheviks, seized Kiev,
and overran most of the Ukraine. The Rada thereupon signed
a peace with the Central Powers on Feb. 9, which gave
Polish Kholm to the Ukraine and sowed the seeds of discord
between the two nationalities, and invited the Germans and
Austrians to drive the Bolsheviks out of the Ukraine. They were
willing enough ; food was their real quest, and alarming strikes
had already broken out in Vienna, Berlin, and elsewhere.

These seemed to give Trotsky the leverage he had been seeking,
and on the day the Ukraine treaty was signed he issued a wireless
call to the German army to refuse obedience to the Kaiser.
Next day he declared war to be at an end, but refused to sign
a German peace. On Feb. 13 Germany denounced the armistice,
and on the iSth recommenced the march toward Petrograd and
the occupation of the Ukraine. There was no organized resist-
ance; the peace of Brest Litovsk was signed on March 3 and
ratified by a congress of Soviets at Moscow, after a three days'
debate, on the i6th. The Baltic nationalities were surrendered
by Russia for their fate to be determined between themselves
and Germany; the Ukraine treaty of Feb. 9 was accepted by
the Bolsheviks; Russia was also required to cede the districts



1086



WORLD WAR, THE



of Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to Turkey; commercially she was
made a preserve for the Central Powers; and the two million
German colonists in Russia were exempted from the legislation of,
and allegiance to, the Bolshevik Government. Trotsky had
given up foreign affairs on March 8 and devoted himself to the
more promising task of organizing a Red army; it was left for
Lenin to persuade the Soviets of the necessity of temporarily
bowing to the inevitable. Consequential and similar treaties
were signed between the Central Powers and Finland on March 7
and with Rumania, provisionally, on March 5 and finally on
May 7. German control over their commerce, industry, and
finance was established'in both, and Rumania further ceded the
Carpathian crests and the Dobruja.

Germany and the Fourteen Points. These deeds were a more
convincing reply to President Wilson's "Fourteen Points" than
the disingenuous speeches made in concert by Kuhlmann and
Czernin at Berlin and Vienna on Jan. 24. The Central Powers
had been given the opportunity of demonstrating the inter-
pretation which they put on victory; and there could not remain
the slightest doubt that they would impose similar, if not severer,
conditions upon the rest of the world if they got the chance.
Nothing could have been more sinister or more impressive than
the complete contradiction between their words to Powers which
they did not yet control and their deeds to those which they did;
and whatever criticisms might be made of the ultimate settle-
ment, they would have to be based not on the ground that
the Central Powers suffered more than they deserved, but that
the penalties were impolitic and fell on the wrong shoulders.
The treaties were approved of by all parties in the Reichstag
except the Minority Socialists and the Poles; and early in
March the Minority Socialists lost a seat at Nieder Barnim.

There was little more for diplomacy to say. It was obvious,
although the fact was not universally recognized, that the
speeches of Teutonic ministers afforded no basis for negotiation,
since from Brest Litovsk onward the German G.H.Q. super-
seded the Government; but it was a blunder on the part of the
supreme war council at Versailles to issue.on Feb. 4 a statement
that it would not accept Hertling's and Czernin's professions
and had decided on a vigorous prosecution of the war, thereby
creating the impression that the same supersession of the civil
by military power was also taking place in the Entente. Never-
theless, President Wilson did, indeed, on Feb. u give a useful
definition of Four Principles on which the settlement, must be
based; and he used what his Secretary of State, Lansing,
subsequently denounced as an explosive expression when he
declared that " ' Self-determination ' is not a mere phrase. It
is an imperative principle of action which statesmen will
henceforth ignore at their peril." But he was in closer touch
with the realities of the situation when on April 6, commenting
on the contrast between Hertling's professed acceptance of those
four principles and the militarist terms dictated at Brest Litovsk,
he declared: "Germany has once more said that force, and force
alone, shall decide whether justice and peace shall reign in the
affairs of men, whether Right as America conceives it or Domin-
ion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind.
There is, therefore, but one response possible from us: force,
force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous
and triumphant force which shall make Right the law of the
world, and cast every selfish Dominion down in the dust."

It needed, however, a crisis to elicit an adequate display of
American force on fields where the issue would be decided. In
the previous Nov. the Kaiser had declared that the only means
to secure peace was for Germans to hew their way through those
who would not make it; and the terms of the Treaty of Brest
Litovsk are intelligible only on the assumption that he relied
upon a German offensive on the western front to constrain the
Entente to recognize those terms if not to accept similar ones for
themselves. From the beginning of the German offensive on
March 21 until the first Austrian peace-note on Sept. 15 the pen
gave way to the sword. Czernin resigned on April 1 5 after his
controversy with Clemenceau over the Sixte of Parma pour-
parlers in the summer of 1917, but the fact that he was suc-



ceeded by Burian indicated a stiffening rather than a relaxation
of the Austrian attitude. Nor had the growing discontent and
the declining moral of the German people any effect upon the
diplomatic situation, although in Jan. strikers had demanded
peace on the basis of self-determination without annexations
or indemnities, and crowds in Berlin had vociferated against a
fresh offensive on the western front.

War Weariness. More potent than social ferment in Germany
was imperial disintegration in Austria. The disaster at Capo-
retto had a wholesome effect upon the Italian attitude toward the
Yugoslavs, and the revelation of the secret Treaty of London
by the Bolsheviks gave more progressive opinion in Italy an
opportunity of expressing itself. In Feb. 1918 a committee was
formed to promote an understanding with the Yugoslavs, and
on March 7 Signer Torre on a visit to London arranged with
Dr. Trumbitch the holding of a congress of oppressed national-
ities at Rome. It met early in April, Jtnd on the loth produced the
" Pact of Rome," by which the " unity and independence " of
the Yugoslav nation, " known also as the nation of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes," were recognized as a vital interest for Italy, and
the completion of Italian unity as a vital interest for the Yugo-
slavs. It was also mutually agreed to defend the freedom of
the Adriatic against every enemy present or future, and to
decide amicably the territorial questions between them on the
basis of nationality and self-determination. This entente was
of the utmost value in promoting the successful Italian resist-
ance on the Piave in June and victory in Oct. President Wilson
hastened to bless the practical application of his own principles;
on June 28 he asserted that all branches of the Slav race must
be completely freed from German and Austrian rule; on Sept. 3
he formally recognized the Czechoslovak National Council as a
belligerent Government; and on Oct. 18 in reply to the Austrian
peace- note declared that he was no longer at liberty to accept the
" autonomy " of these peoples as indicated in the tenth of
his Fourteen Points as a basis of peace, but " is obliged to
insist that they, and not he, shall be the judges of what action
on the part of the Austro-Hungarian Government will satisfy
their aspirations and their conceptions of their rights and
destiny as members of the family of nations."

For the time, the success of the German offensive made all I
talk about terms of peace irrelevant except on the German j
side, where it generally took the form of repudiating the peace
resolution of July 1917. But before the end of April confidence
began to wane, first at G.H.Q. and then in the public mind in
Germany itself. The difference was that the worse the situation
became, the more determined Ludendorff grew in his persistence,
and the more sceptical the public showed itself of his success;
the reason was that the militarism of the German Government
became more and more involved in the fortunes of the war.
On June 24 Kuhlmann in a long speech let fall the phrase, " an
absolute end can hardly be expected through purely military de-
cisions alone "; and a fortnight's disputation over his meaning
ended in his resignation at Ludcndorff's behest on July 9. It
had become heresy, in the waning prestige of militarist ortho-
doxy, to dispute what the German G.H.Q. could do; and Kiihl-
mann's successor was von Hintze, its nominee without any
pretence of that " parliamentarization " which both the Reichs-
tag and President Wilson had demanded as a preliminary to
peace. On July 4 President Wilson laid down four great ends of <
the war, which he said " can be put into a single' sentence. What
we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the
governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind."
Next day Mr. Lloyd George said the Kaiser could have peace
to-morrow if he would accept the President's terms. But Luden-
dorff's conception of the reign of law was the will of G.H.Q.
sustained by German arms, and he was desperately bent on
giving it effect.

He refused to admit in words that his increasing lack of success
and resources, or even Foch's counter-offensive on July 18, had
made his position hopeless. But he confessed that Aug. 8 was
Germany's " black day," and on the I4th at a crown council
at Spa the Kaiser decided that negotiations must begin on the



WORLD WAR, THE



1087



first suitable occasion. The Austrian Emperor and Burian
emphasized the need on the isth, and wanted to begin at once.
A fortnight was spent in arguing, and on the 3oth Austria
threatened an independent overture. But both parties assumed
that defensive war could still be successfully carried on in
France, while the offensive submarine inclined the enemy to
a peace which would leave the Central Empires their ill-gotten
gains in the east; and they were at the moment engaged on the
supplementary treaties of Brest Litovsk, which, as signed on
the 27th, compelled the Bolsheviks to oppose the Entente forces
in N. Russia, to renounce sovereignty over Esthonia, Livonia,
and Georgia and to pay heavy gold indemnities, and riveted
the German economic yoke more firmly than ever. The German
public and even the civil government looked helplessly on while
G.H.Q. wasted their opportunities for peace. There was no
foresight, and no discussion of any terms that might have
satisfied enemies whom Germany found it increasingly difficult
to resist. Civil intelligence had abandoned its functions for
so long to the soldier that it was simply atrophied for lack of
use; and it was not until late in Oct. that ministers screwed up
their courage to action independent of General Headquarters.

Concluding Stages. By that time the Hindenburg defences
on which the army and public relied had broken down. On
Sept. 2 the Wotan line was pierced, on the i2th the Americans
wiped out the St. Mihiel salient, and on the I5th, the day on
which the Bulgarian line in the Balkans was broken, Austria
addressed a peace-note to belligerents, neutrals, and the Pope
proposing a confidential and non-committal discussion in some
neutral country. President Wilson replied on the following
j day that the United States " can and 'will entertain no proposal
for conference upon a matter concerning which it has made its
position and purpose so plain "; and Austria retired from the
diplomatic struggle. German G.H.Q. were not reduced to a
, suppliant attitude until the zpth, the day on which Bulgaria
signed her armistice and went out of the war, abandoning the
: whole of the Balkans to the Entente. Meanwhile Allenby had
' destroyed the Turkish armies in Palestine, the Hindenburg
' lines in front of Cambrai had been broken, and a combined
I offensive in Belgium had undermined Germany's hold on the
' coast. On the 2yth President Wilson added " Five Particulars "
: to his " Fourteen Points," " Four Principles," and " Four
Ends." Some details, he said, were needed to make his general
terms " sound less like a thesis and more like a practical pro-
gramme." But even these particulars were less terms of peace
than principles which must govern those terms, and they were
I as follows:

First, The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimina-
tion between those to whom we wished to be just and those to whom
j we did not wish to be just.

Second, No special or separate interest of any single nation or
any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settle-
[ merit which is not consistent with the common interest of all.

Third, There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants
and understandings within the general and common family of the
League of Nations.

Fourth, And, more specifically, there can be no special selfish
economic combinations within the League, and no employment of
any form of economic boycott or exclusion, except as the power of
economic penalty, by exclusion from the markets of the world, may
be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and
control.

Fifth, All international agreements and treaties of every kind must
be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world.
Two days later Hertling and all his ministers resigned in order
that the Kaiser might be provided with an administration sup-
ported by the Reichstag to meet the President's objection to
negotiating with an autocratic government; but the Kaiser in
accepting this principle would only say that it was his " will
that men who are supported by the confidence of the people
should, to a large extent, participate in the rights and duties of
the Government." Prince Maximilian of Baden was appointed
German Chancellor, and he had to deal with a veritable panic
' at G.H.Q. Ludendorff was in despair. " To-day, " he declared,
".the soldiers hold their ground; it is impossible to foresee what
may happen tomorrow . . . the peace offer must be made



to-day." Hindenburg was hardly less emphatic: " Every day of
delay will cost thousands of brave soldiers their lives." So on
Oct. 4 a first peace-note was despatched by Germany. The
appeal was to President Wilson alone, asking him to take steps
for the restoration of peace. The German note accepted the
Fourteen Points as a programme; the Austro-Hungarian note,
which followed on Oct. 7, accepted also the Four Principles
of Feb. 1 1 and agreed that the Five Particulars should " also be
taken into account."

The President's replies to these and- to the succeeding notes
constituted a process of depriving the German Government one
by one of possible loopholes of escape, and of the means, such as
defensive warfare on French soil, delay for recuperation, and the
submarine campaign, by which Ludendorff still hoped that the
situation might be improved. On Oct. 8 he pressed for more
specific acceptance of his principles, declined to propose an
armistice unless the Central Powers consented " immediately
to withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory,"
and pointedly asked whether the German Chancellor was merely
speaking for the imperial authorities who had so far conducted
the war. Satisfactory assurances were given by Germany on
the 1 2th with regard to the first; but as to the second she proposed
a mixed commission, and as to the third was not conclusive.
Her acceptance of the first justified the President, as he said on
the I4th, in being frank with regard to the other two points;,
the process of evacuation and terms of the armistice must be
left to the advice of the military authorities, but no arrangement
could be accepted which did not guarantee the present military
supremacy of his Government and its Allies. Nor would he or
they consent to consider an armistice so long as German sub-
marines continued their sinking of passenger ships, and German
troops the pillage and destruction which marked their with-
drawal. With regard to the democratic character of the German
Government, he referred to his " Four Ends " speech of July 4,.
in which he had plainly intimated that if the Germans wanted
peace they must change their constitution. To the Austro-
Hungarian note he returned a separate reply on the i8th, ex-
plaining his change of attitude toward Czechoslovak and Yugo-
slav " autonomy."

Both Governments made in reply concessions, in view of which
the President said on the 2$rd he could not decline to take up
the question of an armistice with his Allies. He had therefore
transmitted the correspondence to them; but he pointed out
that extraordinary safeguards would have to be demanded in
view of the fact that " the power of the King of Prussia ta
control the policy of the Empire is unimpaired . . . that the
nations of the world do not and cannot trust the word of those
who have hitherto been the masters of German policy." If the
Government of the United States " must deal with the military
masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany ... it
must demand not peace negotiations but surrender. Nothing
can be gained by leaving this essential thing unsaid."

The German reply was dated the 27th. Incidentally that
was the date of the Austrian debacle on the Piave; but Germany's
action was dictated by events nearer home. Almost the last
vestige of the Hindenburg defences had disappeared. But
Ludendorff had recovered his obstinacy, if not his nerves, and
urged the rejection of Wilson's terms. At last the civilian
ministers acted on their own responsibility, and Ludendorff
had to resign on the 27th. Next day, when the High Seas Fleet,
the submarine having been barred, was ordered out, it mutinied;
and the German note merely intimated that the German Govern-
ment awaited the proposals for an armistice. But the Presi-
dent's Allies had still to be heard; and on Nov. 5 he informed
Germany that they reserved complete freedom of action at the
Peace Conference with regard to the freedom of the seas, and
understood by " restoration " " compensation for all damage
done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property
by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the
air." No reference was apparently made to the Secret Agree-
ments, which therefore would not be binding on the Conference. 1

1 See PEACE CONFERENCE for the actual proceedings.



io88



WRANGEL, P. N.



Germany raised no further objections, and on Nov. 7 the Armis-
tice Commission met. It continued its deliberations, to the accom-
paniment of popular insurrections and monarchical abdications,
until on the nth an Armistice was signed on the day that
Americans fought their way into Sedan and Canadians into
Mons. Verily a New World had been called in to redress the
balance of the Old. For subsequent events see especially arti-
cles on GREECE, RUSSIA, OTTOMAN EMPIRE, and other countries
of Eastern Europe. (A. F. P.)

WRANGEL, PETER NICHOLAIEVICH. BARON (1870- ),
Russian general, was born in Petrograd in 1879, the eldest
son of an impoverished Baltic nobleman of Swedish descent.
His father, Baron Nicholas Igorevich, held an important post
in the International Bank, at Petrograd. At the age of 20
Wrangel entered the Mining Institute at Petrograd and finished
its course brilliantly. He served as private in the Horse Guards
for one year. Leaving the regiment with the rank of N.C.O. he
went to Siberia and worked there as a mining engineer until the
Russo-Japanese War. At the beginning of that war he joined the
Trans-Baikal Cossack Regt., which he left at the end of hostilities
with the rank of captain. He retained his rank in the Horse
Guards, which he rejoined after the war, thus devoting his life
to the military profession. At the beginning of the World War
he was in command of a squadron, but was soon promoted colo-
nel, received the St. George Cross and was made A.D.C. to the
Tsar. In 1915 he was appointed commander of a Cossack regi-
ment at the Galician front. Later he rose to the command of a
Cossack division. Wrangel was among the first officers who
joined Gen. Kaledin in his fight against the Bolsheviks, and after
Kaledin's suicide he took part in the organization and struggle of
the volunteer army under Alexeyev and Denikin, and distin-
guished himself especially by the defence of Tsaritsyn. After the
disastrous retreat of Gen. Denikin, from Orel to the Black Sea,
Wrangel was appointed on April 4 1920 commander of the
volunteer army. Men and officers of the army were demoralized,
and the lack of munitions and food supplies made the situation
almost desperate. Fortunately for Wrangel, the Bolsheviks
considered the volunteer army to be out of action, and they had
to send a large part of their forces against the Poles who were
approaching Kiev. This made it possible for Wrangel to attempt
the reconstruction of the southern army; and for some time his
attempt was successful. His nomination to the post of com-
mander-in-chief corresponded with the attempt of Mr. Lloyd
George to induce the volunteer army to begin peace negotiations
with Soviet Russia. In a note to this effect the volunteers were
warned that, in case of refusal, they would be deprived of all
British support; this note was handed to Gen. Denikin on April 4,
and seems to have been one of the chief causes of his resignation.
Replying to this proposition Wrangel refused to enter into direct
negotiations with the Bolsheviks, and asked the Allies to
guarantee the life and safety of his troops and of the refugees
under his protection. These negotiations proved eventually a
failure. In the meantime Wrangel did his best for the reorganiza-
tion of the army and the administration. A Council was formed
which continued the work of Denikin's Government. Krivochin
was nominated president of the council; Peter Struve received
the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, Bernadsky that of Finance. The
Government was modelled on the basis of personal dictatorship.
In the " Statute " published on April 14 it was proclaimed that
the " Ruler and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of
South Russia holds full military and civil power without any