CHAPTER LV
FORWARD WITH FOCH
American forces mingled with French troops on all sides of the German salient when General Foch struck its western side. In proportion to the combined number of French, British and Italian troops, they were not many. For that reason their achievements stood out with greater distinction; inferiority of numbers made their exploits conspicuous. They were with the French south of Soissons, on the southwest corner of the salient, west of Château-Thierry, along the Marne east of that town, and east of Rheims, the latter outside the salient proper. They were thus in the full swing of the Foch counteroffensive which finally was to crumble the salient to extinction and bring them along its top at the Vesle River.
No clearly defined picture can be drawn of their share in this advance. Their operations blended too intimately with the French movements. Here and there the situation in certain areas disclosed Americans to be acting on their own initiative. But in the main it was a Franco-American operation. The movements of each were interdependent. The advance of both progressed with the uniformity of a curved chain dragged from each end along a highway. There were dents and wrigglings in the chain at times; but it moved on.
The advance lent a significance to the earlier operations of the Americans northwest of Château-Thierry, when they straightened their line by extending it to the outskirts of Torcy, capturing Belleau Wood, Bouresches and Vaux. From this line, along a front of forty kilometers to Soissons, the attack was made at 4.45 on the morning of July 18, 1918. The perspective is too long for its development to be described with clearness. Only glimpses can be obtained of the American participation at points where there were eyewitnesses.
What was clear was that in their initial effort the Americans carried all before them. By the late afternoon they had proceeded so fast that cavalry was thrown into action. By night American headquarters—a movable fixture that day—were well inside territory held by the Germans in the morning. The line, in short, before the day was over, had advanced at varying depths, the most being ten kilometers, or a little over six miles, and the day's captures by the Americans embraced a number of towns, over 4,000 prisoners, fifty cannon, thousands of machine guns, vast quantities of munitions and stores, and airplanes.
Foch's counterattack apparently did not at first contemplate an assault on the southern arc of the salient formed by the Marne. But his success in breaking into the western flank evidently encouraged him to extend his operations to the south. Here American energies came into full play. Early in the day on July 19, 1918, the Germans had premonitions of what was to happen, and hastily prepared to withdraw from the positions they had retained on the south bank. The previous day they had been clinging in small numbers to the crook of the river near Jaulgonne, but southeast of that place, on to Oeuilly, thousands held positions won in their advance across the river, as already described. Hereabout, along the Dormans line, they were eight kilometers south of the Marne. Between Château-Thierry and Jaulgonne they had failed to hold the southern bank and had to retreat. So from these points the ground was in the hands of the Americans and French for offensive purposes, and they set about attacking the German positions early on July 19, 1918, on the west, south, and also east of Dormans. They signalized the attack with short but intense artillery work, putting down a barrage along the river bank, to prevent the Germans from retreating without paying a heavy price for having ventured so far south.
"The advance proceeded well from the start," wrote one onlooker. "By 4 o'clock the Germans were as far east as six kilometers west of Dormans. South of Dormans the enemy, with his retreat cut off, made a determined but vain stand.
"By 6 o'clock detachments of Americans and French reached the river bank in one place, and soon after a message was flashed to all the armies that the Germans had been put back across the Marne.
"The German artillery gave the men very poor support, and the chief fighting on their part was done with machine guns. The reason of the lack of German artillery work is explained in a report of American aviators that the Germans were busy all yesterday afternoon drawing back their guns from the heights north of the river.
"While we were pushing north from Château-Thierry to Dormans the French, with the Americans on their left, attacked the region of Oeuilly, gaining that place and pushing the enemy back on Chatillon, north of the river."
A further clearance was made by the Americans northwest of Château-Thierry. One of their lines ran round Hill 204, which the Germans had just evacuated, after holding it for five weeks. In Franco-American hands the hill swung the line more to the east in the track of the general advance. The movement in this direction caused the withdrawal of German forces holding the northern part of Château-Thierry. On July 21, 1918, the whole city was occupied by the French and Americans. Strong positions were established on the north of the river, bridges were thrown across, guns were brought up, and heavy firing was directed over the river to prevent German bombers from interfering with Franco-American troops crossing over. Jaulgonne was presently occupied by American troops.
When the Americans crossed the Marne they discovered that the Germans sought to deceive the Allied air bombers, who were seeking out bridges and boats along the river and otherwise preventing the Germans from crossing the stream.
The Americans found submerged boats and floats, held down by rocks, but so arranged that they could be made accessible for use by the Germans in short order for crossing. In some instances these floats spanned the river and were held by cables, and it required only a short time to float them.
The Germans did not get a chance to use their impromptu bridges, but the French and Americans made use of the floats when they came in pursuit of the enemy.
There was now a general advance from the north of the Marne, hitherto securely held by the Germans. Some fifteen kilometers north of Château-Thierry, behind a series of hills forming an almost continuous ridge, the Germans had established artillery positions, and on the hill itself their infantry waited, prepared for a stand, with machine guns. The French and Americans advanced, their backs at last to the Marne, despite the artillery fire from the hill to cover the slow retreat of the Germans. The latter continued their backward movement with sullen and stubborn rear-guard actions, leaving numbers of machine-gun nests in the path of the Franco-American movement. At times the Americans encountered the stiffest resistance, which took the form of counterattacks rather than defensive retreats. A village in this sector being reduced by the American guns, as its occupation by the Germans was imminent, the enemy was thus forced into the open, where heavy punishment was inflicted. The fighting was so fierce as almost to rob it of the suggestion that it was a rear-guard action. Nevertheless, during the intense struggle the work of moving stores was under way. With a minimum artillery fire on both sides the Americans advanced their skirmish line over yellow wheat fields, dotted with poppies, and through clumps of wood. It was Indian fighting, modernized by machine-gun work. Fighting in open order in this way brought the American line by July 22, 1918, to more than ten kilometers north of Château-Thierry, and beyond Bezu-St. Germain.
CHAPTER LVI
FIGHTING THROUGH FORESTS
Now came a bitter struggle for the possession of Epieds and Trugny, to the east and southeast of Bezu-St. Germain. Below Trugny lay Barbillon Wood, also an objective of the attackers. The Germans viciously defended these points. A give-and-take battle raged round the two towns all day on July 23, 1918; but in the region of Barbillon Wood the Germans fell back, burning depots and ammunition and supply dumps, and evacuating many farms which had been strongly fortified for defense. The fighting extended still farther east in front of Jaulgonne and Charteves. The American progress here was made in the face of most obstinate resistance by the Germans, who fought every foot. Even when making steps backward, they endeavored to render the American progress costly by leaving behind German machine gunners cleverly concealed in nests. These gunners were not told that the main body was withdrawing, and were left at the mercy of the advance. Several of them when captured expressed unfeigned surprise when told that their comrades had withdrawn.
Châtelet Forest was another stumblingblock. Several sallies into these woods having proved abortive, the French swung round to the north, and the Americans to the south. Machine guns and American light artillery played on the woods, and the Germans were finally uprooted from their main ambushes there. It was one of the positions the Germans had chosen for the stand after their withdrawal from the Marne.
The terrain was mostly woody in the area above the Marne where the Franco-American line had reached. The fighting was therefore pursued in the midst of concealed antagonists. In the forest of Barbillon the Germans had a machine gun screened every ten yards of their front. Their hidden artillery impeded American reenforcements. The attackers had to beat their way into the woods, encountering rocky ledges that formed excellent nests for enemy machine guns. The German positions were excellent for defensive fighting; but with the slow but sure closing in of their western flank, and a like movement proceeding east of them, the woods would become traps if they retained them. They did not retain them. They merely fought spitefully to impede the Franco-American progress and safeguard the retreat of their main forces out of the dangerous Marne pocket.
They desperately clung to the region of Epieds and Trugny. At this point German infantry, which had been pushed back, were thrust forward again to check the Franco-American advance from the southwest toward Fère-en-Tardenois.
"The Germans," reported Reuter's correspondent with the American troops, "fought well and checked the advance for some thirty-six hours, and three times wrested the village of Epieds from their determined American opponents. In the meantime the village grew constantly smaller under the ceaseless bombardment from both sides and finally disappeared, not even a large pile of bricks being left behind.
"When the village disappeared the Germans were in possession. The Americans, tired of the ceaseless ebb and flow of the fighting there, had taken the slopes on either flank and forced the Germans to make their final massed attack into the ruins of the village.
"Meanwhile the Allied guns had been brought up beyond the crest of the hill, and as soon as the Germans took possession of the village they concentrated a terrific fire upon it until the place smoked with its own red dust as though on fire. When the guns ceased firing there were no Germans left to capture, or even to bury.
"At the edge of the wood beyond Trugny the German machine guns, stationed ten yards apart, held up the advance a little longer. Making a feint frontal attack, however, the Americans crept, Indian fashion, around the flanks and captured all the guns.
"Afterward the pace of the advance quickened. All the high ground north of Epieds was taken and the line carried beyond Courpoil."
A series of like local actions brought the Franco-American line by July 25, 1918, well beyond the foregoing points and into the region of the Fère and Riz forests, where the Germans had retreated from Epieds. They were dense woods of poplar and oak rising amid thick underbrush. Hidden among the clustered foliage, German machine gunners desperately contended for every inch of ground before surrendering it. They vainly tried to hold the French and Americans in the southern part of the Riz forest with the object of saving huge supplies gathered there. An examination of the woods afterward showed hundreds of tons of ammunition for big German guns, piled six feet high in rows a hundred yards long for some distances. This ammunition had been stored there to be used in the advance on Paris.
By a flanking movement above the forest of Fère the Americans carried the village of Beuvardes, making their line run from that point through the northern part of Fère forest to Le Charmel and through the Riz forest southeast to above Dormans. Le Charmel, which lies on the Jaulgonne road, with a wooded hill on each side, changed hands twice before taken by the Americans. The Germans had strong machine gun positions both in the village and on the hills. Their fire raked the Americans when they charged the village and compelled them to retire. Later, assisted by comrades from the two forests, the Americans overcame the Germans, who withdrew from Le Charmel slowly and stubbornly.
By July 27, 1918, the Franco-American forces had driven the Germans almost entirely out of the wooded area they had been so obstinately defending. The pressure was constantly maintained toward the road junction of Fère-en-Tardenois, the Franco-American objective, and thither the pursuers progressed through the remainder of the dense woods and over rain-soaked fields and hills on their outskirts.
In the course of this forest fighting the troops were warned to watch for Germans wearing American or French uniforms, a device they had successfully practiced. Rushing across an open place in the forest when German nests had been discovered, a German, speaking perfect English, called to American machine gunners:
"Don't shoot. There are Americans in that thicket."
The Americans were at the edge of the forest, firing into a wood opposite. They ceased when the detachment appeared. The detachment entered a forest to the right of the Americans, and in a few minutes a hail of machine-gun bullets came from that direction. The Americans realized that they had been duped, and turned their machine guns upon the impostors.
On July 28, 1918, the Americans were on the south bank of the Ourcq. This river, intended by the Germans to be a halting line, but which they could not hold, marked a notable point in the American progress from the banks of the Marne. Foch's forward movement from the west and southwest had been proceeding simultaneously and now became merged along this river into the movement up from the south.
American participation from the west had been less conspicuous; but American troops left their mark, whatever their zone of operations, and in this area they made their presence painfully felt south of Soissons. At the beginning of the western advance, east of Vierzy and northeast of Chaudon, they encountered the pick of the German shock troops after fighting for thirty hours. The result was that the youthful Americans, meeting the kaiser's best, who were fresh and in the pink of condition, themselves essayed the task of becoming shock troops. They had reached their objectives, a varying number of miles eastward, and were consolidating their positions when the shock came. Against one American unit two German shock divisions were hurled; against another came the famous Prussian Guards. The Germans had machine guns mounted on wheels and rolled them to the edge of the woods where the fighting occurred. These guns shot explosive bullets at the Americans. Shock troops came to close grips with shock troops—and the Franco-American advance was not only sustained but extended.
CHAPTER LVII
SERGY AND SERINGES
The next striking feature of American participation in the squeezing of the Germans out of the Soissons-Marne-Rheims salient was the crossing of the Ourcq and the taking of Sergy and Seringes just beyond that river. The Germans had meant to make a stand on the north bank of the Ourcq and hold the Americans on the south bank while their main withdrawal was effected to the Vesle; but the charge of the Americans over the river balked this plan. The fighting thus shifted to the north side, where the Germans, reenforced by two divisions of Bavarian Guards, settled down to resist the Americans to the utmost. Although heavily assailed, the Americans replied in kind, especially in and out of Sergy, three miles southeast of Fère-en-Tardenois. The Germans bent all their strength toward forcing a recrossing of the Ourcq. The Americans held their ground, and it was the Germans who finally had to yield, but only after vicious and bitter fighting.
The Americans began their attack on Sergy early on the morning of Saturday, July 27, 1918. By night they had been driven back some distance, but on Sunday morning, when they resumed their advance under cover of their artillery—a few pieces going forward with their advanced line—they proceeded almost unchecked to the river, crossed the river and entered the town. The Germans used gas; but the Americans had long ago had their baptism of gas fumes and knew how to utilize their masks and avoid the ravines through which the gas filtered. When the town was occupied there was some street fighting, which the Germans abandoned by retiring to higher ground beyond. On Monday morning, July 29, 1918, came a counterattack by the Fourth Prussian Guard Division, which had arrived only a few hours before from their training ground in Lorraine. A conflict then ensued which ebbed and flowed constantly, the town changing hands nine times before it was won.
The Americans immediately advanced two miles, again defeating the Prussian Guards and Bavarians, though the latter succeeded in winning Cierges, southeast of Sergy, and holding it for a spell. By the night of July 30, 1918, the Americans were well to the north of Sergy, on long slopes approaching heavy woods beyond Nesle, a town directly east of Seringes-et-Nesle, for which the Germans fought bitterly.
As a preliminary to the attack on Seringes, a strongly fortified position, Meury Farm, had to be taken, as from the farm the Seringes defenses could be outflanked and approached by a less steep ascent than by a direct attack. In this group of farm buildings the Germans had, on their withdrawal, left behind a strong force of machine gunners and infantry, which set up a strong defense.
"The Americans," ran one account, "moved forward through the yellow wheat fields, which were sprayed and torn by bullets. But they advanced as though on a drill ground.
"The American guns laid down a heavy artillery fire, but notwithstanding this many Germans remained when it came to hand-to-hand fighting. The Germans stuck to their guns, and the Americans rushed them and killed the gunners at their post.
"It was a little battle, without mercy, and typical of similar engagements along the whole line. The Prussian Guards and Bavarians everywhere fought in accordance with their training, discipline, and traditions, but were outwitted and outfought.
"To the north of the farm, up the long slopes leading to the woods, the Americans encountered the fiercest exhibition of Germany's war science. The Germans laid down a barrage which, it was said, was as heavy as had ever been employed. The American guns replied as heavily.
"On through the barrage the Americans went into the German positions, attacking fiercely the machine-gun and infantry detachments. The barrage died away, the Germans leaving the work of resistance to the men they had failed to protect with their heavy guns.
"The Germans were decimated and the Americans held their new line, just east of the forest. Not many prisoners were taken, but here and there a few were rounded up and brought in. One sergeant contributed fourteen. He attacked eighteen Germans who had become separated from their command, killing four of them and capturing the others. Heavy execution was done by the Americans. Eight captured Guards said that they were all that remained of a company of eighty-six."
The way was now open for the assault on Seringes, which the enemy held in great strength. The village was also protected by machine-gun nests on either side. "The attack," wrote Reuter's correspondent, "was an almost incredible affair for the coolness with which it was carried out and for the mere fact that it could be done under such conditions." The village changed hands five times. After its first capture by the Americans on Monday, July 29, 1918, the Germans forbore returning with the usual infantry counterattack, but kept up a constant artillery and machine-gun fire. This attempt to drive the Americans out continued all the next day. Toward evening the Germans, evidently thinking that the spirit of the defenders was weakening under such withering fire, emerged from the Nesle forest to retake the village.
"The Americans," said Reuter's correspondent, "after three days of to-and-fro fighting through villages, had learned subtlety and were determined to have a real fight to a finish. They consequently pretended to withdraw as though retiring from Seringes. Some of them did withdraw, but others remained in the houses and other points of vantage, and the Germans crept down from the high ground convinced they had their opponents beaten. Additional German troops came pouring in until the town was occupied as it never had been before.
"But as the new occupants began to organize their defenses they found that bullets appeared to be coming in from three sides of the village, and it was not long before they discovered that the Americans, while withdrawing from the front of the town, had commenced an encircling movement on both sides, thus forming a ring almost completely around it.
"The Americans used machine guns, rifles, and pistols, and employed both the bayonet and the rifle butt with great effectiveness. The fighting in the streets was savage, but of comparatively brief duration.
"The Prussian Guard had voted not to surrender, and their opponents were just as anxious to see the thing through. It became an affair of small arms, but the Americans proved to be better shots, and slowly picked off men here and there.
"Then the Americans began to advance, and slowly their encircling ring closed about the village. As the ring drew closer and the defenders saw their doom approaching, they redoubled their fire; but still the Americans came on unfalteringly, like a storm, or the unavoidable stroke of fate.
"When the Americans reached the precincts of the village their fire ceased, and with one wild yell they closed with the foe. The fierce uproar suddenly gave place to a strange silence as man grappled with man. Only the clash of steel on steel and the groans of the stricken could be heard.
"The issue was never in doubt for an instant. At this kind of fighting the American is more than equal to any Prussian Guardsman, and in a little more than ten minutes all was over. Except for a few German prisoners, every German in the village had breathed his last. Such was the final capture of Seringes."
The Americans awaited the coming of other Germans, but they came not. So the French and Americans moved on beyond the village, straightening out the line from that point to Cierges by bringing their heavy artillery to bear on mile after mile of barbed wire which the Germans had placed through the hills, forests, and other open places.
The Americans reached Fismes, on the Vesle River, on August 2, 1918, the Germans retreating before them. They had advanced about forty kilometers in fifteen days, fourteen kilometers having been gained in the last two days of their pursuit. On July 18, 1918, they were intrenched only about Château-Thierry to Belleau; now they were in the heart of the German salient, which, thanks largely to American aid, was a salient no more.
PART X—RUSSIA
CHAPTER LVIII
THE PEACE WITHOUT TREATY
Throughout the first ten days of February, 1918, the world waited impatiently and anxiously for a final conclusion to the peace conference between the representatives of Russia and the Central Powers, at Brest-Litovsk. Trotzky was still the central figure. Meanwhile the Bolsheviki leaders were straining every effort to spread their propaganda throughout the civilian populations of the Central Powers, as well as among the soldiers on the eastern front. Rumors of strikes in Germany inclined even those who had previously been skeptical to believe that the Bolsheviki method might yet gain a great victory for the cause of the democratic nations.
Ukrainia, as already noted, had declared itself an independent nation, with a republican form of government, professedly socialistic in tendency, with Vinitchenko as President. As a matter of fact, however, the Rada, or Ukrainian legislative assembly, was almost completely in the hands of the landowners who, naturally, were bitterly opposed to Bolshevikism and its program of land nationalization. Against them had risen the Bolsheviki elements of Ukrainia, supported by the Petrograd Bolsheviki. The conflict between the two factions had created a state of civil war. The landowners' Rada had sent delegates to the peace conference, and at first the Petrograd delegation, under the chairmanship of Trotzky, had raised no objection against the Teutons recognizing them as the proper representatives of Ukrainia. But during the last days of January, 1918, came reports of the military success of the Ukrainian Bolsheviki, even that they had captured Odessa and Kiev, and then Trotzky contended that the Ukrainians at Brest-Litovsk no longer truly represented their constituency. The Germans, however, had forestalled him by quickly recognizing Ukrainian independence under the Rada.
The German policy was obvious. By recognizing the conservative Rada, they created a split among the Russian delegates as a whole. Furthermore, they realized that the Ukrainian landowners feared the Bolsheviki domestic program far more than they feared German domination, and in whatever treaty they entered into would offer large concessions in return for German military aid against Bolsheviki domination. Thus the Central Powers suddenly found an ally in the Ukrainian Republic. It also gave them a moral pretext for their attitude toward the provinces under dispute: Courland and Lithuania, and parts of Livonia and Esthonia and what had formerly been Russian Poland, whose populations, the Germans contended, had already declared themselves for German suzerainty.
The session of the Brest-Litovsk peace conference which was held on February 9, 1918, was the one at which both sides concluded their arguments and worked up to the climax of the following day. That same day the Teutonic delegates had signed a treaty of peace with the Ukrainian delegates.
"We have officially informed you," said Trotzky, "that the Ukrainian Rada was deposed, yet the negotiations with a non-existent government have been continued. We proposed to the Austro-Hungarian delegation that a special committee should be sent to Kiev, in order to verify our contention that the Kiev Rada no longer exists and that further negotiations with its delegation would have no value. We were told that this would be done and that the delegates of the Central Powers would not sign a peace treaty until the return of the investigating commission. Now we are told that the signing of the peace treaty could no longer be postponed.... Such conduct arouses doubts of the sincerity of the Central Powers.... The conduct of the other side, so far as this question is concerned, gives us the impression that they are endeavoring to make the situation impossible for us. We cannot consider any treaty binding to the Russian Federal Republic which is not signed by our delegation."
The main point of difference, however, remained the same as before: the refusal of the Central Powers to withdraw from what had been Russian territory, in order to allow the populations to decide for themselves what their governments should be. This was the ultimatum of the Germans, as worded by Von Kühlmann: "Russia must agree to the following territorial changes which will enter into force after the ratification of the peace treaty. The regions between the frontiers of Germany and Austria-Hungary and the indicated line will not be in the future a dependency of Russia. As a result of their former adhesion to the Russian Empire no obligations will bind them to Russia. The future destiny of these regions will be settled in agreement with the peoples concerned, namely, on the basis of those agreements which have been concluded between them and Germany and Austria-Hungary."
In the afternoon the conference was adjourned that the delegates might consult among themselves. The last and climaxial session was held on the following day, the 10th, when Trotzky, after a hot denunciation of German imperialism, declared that Russia would never agree to the German terms and would refuse to sign any treaty on such a basis. At the same time he declared that Russia would not fight any longer and would withdraw from the war. This decision was approved at Petrograd and an order for the demobilization of the Russian armies had been sent out.
This unprecedented conclusion rather nonplused the German delegates and deeply displeased them. Kühlmann was of the opinion, however, that Russia could not end her participation in the war in this fashion; that peace could only be brought about by a special treaty, in the absence of which the state of war would automatically be resumed at the termination of the armistice, which had only been arranged for the purpose of arranging a peace by understanding. The fact that one of the parties concerned was demobilizing its forces would not change the situation. The Russian version of the session, as given out officially from Petrograd, was as follows:
"Yesterday, at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Councils, the president of the peace delegation, Trotzky, reported on the course and results of the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. Not only the representatives of those political parties constituting the Government majority, but the representatives of the opposition groups as well, recognized the fact that the decision taken by the Council of the People's Commissaries was the only correct one and the course which could be taken with dignity. The speakers of the majority and the opposition put forward the question as to whether there was the possibility of a resumption of German hostilities against Russia. Nearly all were of the opinion that such an offensive was extremely unlikely, but all uttered warning against too optimistic an attitude in this regard, because the war party elements in Germany might force the German Government to such a course. In the opinion of all the speakers it would be the duty of all Russian citizens, in such a case, to defend the interests of the revolution. All were of the opinion, however, that the masses of Germany and Austria-Hungary would not allow a resumption of hostilities against the Russian socialists, because such a course would be too obviously a raid for plunder. The People's Commissary for Foreign Affairs concluded this report with the statement that Russia is withdrawing from the war not only in appearance, but in reality. It is canceling all agreements with its former allies, and reserves perfect freedom of action for itself in the future. At the conclusion of the session a resolution was passed approving the action of the delegation to the Brest-Litovsk Conference."
The first general news of peace with Russia caused public rejoicing in Germany and Austria-Hungary, but when the details became known the German and Austrian papers showed the bitter disappointment which prevailed.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians were further playing into the hands of the Central Powers, spurred on by the domestic situation. Said the "Cologne Gazette," for February 17, 1918:
"Our bread peace with the Ukraine is threatened. Fighting between the Bolsheviki and the Rada already has brought the Rada government into such peril that it has been transferred from Kiev to Zhitomir, and the suburbs of Kiev are already in the hands of the Bolsheviki.... The Bolsheviki are rushing troops to reenforce the anti-Rada forces.... Further fighting is to be expected, of serious significance to us."
The true significance of the pact between the Ukrainian landlords and the Germans became still more obvious on February 17, 1918, when an appeal "to the German people" was published. In this document the bourgeois character of the Rada Government was indignantly denied and socialistic principles were proclaimed. The Bolsheviki were bitterly denounced and accused of possessing nothing more than a desire for conquest and pillage. Having thus prepared the German mind for its reception, the appeal is delivered in the final paragraph, in the following words:
"In this hard struggle for existence we look around for help. We are firmly convinced that the peaceful and order-loving German people will not remain indifferent when it learns of our distress. The German Army, standing on the flank of our northern enemy, has the power to help us and, by its intervention, to protect the northern frontiers against further invasion by the enemy. This is what we have to say in this dark hour, and we feel confident that our voice will be heard."
Such was the moral pretext of the Central Powers for a further invasion of Russia. In return for the protection of their private property, the landowners constituting the Rada Government were willing to accept German domination and to send all surplus foodstuffs across the frontier.
Germany gave ample warning of her intention to continue active hostilities at the expiration of the armistice at noon on February 18, 1918. It was officially announced that this decision had been taken at a conference of all the German war chiefs and political leaders, attended also by the emperor. Austria-Hungary, however, took a very much more moderate stand and showed strong disinclination to renew the war. The Vienna papers were practically unanimous in their opinion that Austria had no further business in Russia, since there was no longer a common frontier, and with Ukrainia there was a definite peace treaty. On February 18, 1918, it was officially announced from Vienna that "an agreement has been reached between Germany and Austria-Hungary whereby, in the event of military action being necessary, the German troops will be confined to the frontier of Great Russia, and the Austrians to the Ukraine only."