Revolutions: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk - David Stone
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- Опубліковано 2 бер 2018
- On March 3, 1918, Vladimir Lenin's new Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, ending Russia's participation in the First World War. Join us as award-winning author, Russian- military history expert and professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Dr. David Stone, explores how Brest-Litovsk shifted the course of the war, planting the seeds of conflict in Eastern Europe that are still with us today.
Presented in partnership with Russian House of Kansas City and The University of Kansas Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org
Great background which helps explain the current Russian/Ukrainian War.
Had him as a professor while earning my PhD in History from K-State. Loved him, a wonderfully kind and intelligent instructor.
Wow what a great channel. .I've listened to like 10 of these today. Very good stuff and very well done.
This guy best speaker on this channel .....easy
This man is so intelligent, well dressed well mannered, he is an exemplary example of what a professor of history should be!!!
Very proud that a Wabash graduate like Dr. David Stone has accomplished so much and teaches future naval officers. WWI has always been a favorite subject of mine and took me a couple minutes to realize who he was...he has barely aged! 😄
I had professor Stone for a few classes at K-State in 2005-2006. Easily my favorite professor. I always looked forward to attending his lectures on Russian history. Great speaker. Very engaging.
Bravo David Stone! Thank you for the amazing lecture.
Clear, organized, likable speaker.
Interesting that the Russian borders today in the West are pretty much exactly where they were after Brest-Litovsk.
Because thats where the real area naturally (without forced relocation, settling and brutal russification) inhabited by Russians ends. All else was the result of the preceeding two hundred years of russian imperialism creeping towards the Central Europe (to the universal detriment of the inhabitants).
@@CzechMirco Ukraine, Kiev Rus, was the first Russian state. Just saying. I agree about Poland etc but Ukraine-Russia is a family affair. Tragic
@@PMMagro Russian? Set up by Vikings travelling down to Byzantium
And it was what Stalin wanted as prize for winning WWII
45:21 😮
one thing is incorrect, Lenin was in Russia when Bolsheviks took over in October/November, he was not there when the Tsar resigned and the temporary government was in charge.
Germans made sure Lenin was in place on time
Correct. Tsar Nicholas II resigned 15 March 1917, the same month the Provisional Government took over. It was this government that the Bolsheviks overthrew in October 1917.
The Spring Offensives were not as close to success as claimed here, they had already essentially failed by the second Battle of the Marne in July 1918. The only chance they had of success is if Ludendorf had recognised the chances to take the vital Railway hubs of Reims and Amiens, but he did not, not in time. By April 1918 there was essentially no chance of a breakthrough. While tactically brilliant the Offensives had no over arching Strategic Goal, and they suffered from exactly the same problems as Entante Offensives prior.
At some point the infantry outruns its artillery and logistical support, and the infantry grinds to a halt. It takes far longer to move guns, supplies and fresh troops forward during an offensive than it took for either side to move fresh troops into a threatened sector due to the huge mass of lateral railways (which was why Reims and Amiens were so important). Essentially the Spring Offensives actually made the German Armies situation worse.
It had lost in the region of a million men, the lions share of those casualties being taken by the Stormtrooper Divisions which represented the best troops Germany had available, thus were irreplaceable. The new Front Line was around 100 miles longer, with fewer troops to defend it, all the land taken meant the new lines were great salients which were essentially impossible to defend due to lack of resources and infrastructure. Much of the land taken was the shell smashed landscape of previous battles, like the Somme for example, which exacerbated the supply problems.
While not the start of the 100 Days Offensive, the Second Battle of the Marne signalled the death knell of the German Army in Western Europe, Amiens a few weeks later simply confirmed it.
If Paris had fallen, it is likely the French would have been demoralized enough to give up. So yes, the Second Battle of the Marne was the key swing around which the whole war changed. The Germans said it, the French said it. Really, only the British don't agree.
@@CJ87317 Paris was well fortified. It could have become a battleground but at the time the Americans were arriving and much more importantly Lloyd George was giving men to Haig. A big part why it was the French who had to shoulder the responsibility for the second Marne was that Lloyd George couldn't manage to fire Haig after Somme and Passchendaele but he could refuse to send him men in order to take away Haigs ability to do costly offensives. After the spring offensive troops started to flood the front from the UK. British divisions were reinforced and now it was Ferdinand Foch who got the overall command of the allied front just before the second Marne and kept it for the following 113 days that ended the war.
But even the fresh brits or the Americans didn't decide the war. The Austro-Hungarian empire disintegrated at Vittorio-Veneto and the way was open for the Italians and the army of Saloniki all the way to Bavaria. Meanwhile 500-760 thousand germans had died of malnutrition and the next winter would have resulted in total famine. Germany was a dead man standing.
Even if the Germans took paris it wouldn't of been enough. America had too much to offer
yeah it was not nearly as close as Lecturer claims.
Germans gain land, but throughout whole Kaiserslacht they didn't actually captured anything of importance
@macrolophuscaliginosus1610 haig was a twat can't believe he kept his job. Julian Byng was an absolute genius and haig defenders try to use his genius to defend an absolute dinosaur of a man
It's interesting seeing the antagonism between Churchill and the early Soviet Union. It must have made things rather uncomfortable when he was forced into allying with Stalin years later.
I only have one quibble with Dr Stone’s otherwise excellent lecture - the French High Command’s response to the 1917 mutiny was the opposite of draconian: they condemned 250 ring leaders to death yes but only carried out 49 actual executions. 49 out of an army of 2 million active servicemen who had engaged in what were euphemistically called “acts of collective indiscipline.” Statistically almost meaningless. What the French government did instead was to appoint General Pétain to the post of inspector general with the very public mission of improving the lot of the average Poilus at the front: better food, more frequent leave and promotion etc.
great presentation
Great presentation. Thank you for sharing. 🌹
Great presentation!!!
"Putin fears this is what the West could do", exept the result of Brest-Litovsk is basically the same as what Russia is in now.
When Germany lost the war, did Germany get to keep the territory it took in the treaty or did it go back to pre war lines and all the new nation states?
New nations, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Poland and Baltic states etc. They used to all either be part of Russia empire, Germany or the Hapsburg empire
good work
4:27 Remember the Alamo?
Also, if "independent Ukraine" is so bad for Russia, why didn't the USSR reincorporate "the area known as Ukraine" back into Russia?
A fine presintation
That was a great presentation! I see in the comments that it might contain certain factual inconsistencies, but those are minute compared to the insight it gives.
The ripple effects that the Treaty ostensibly had on future events are mind boggling. One that goes unmentioned here, but makes sense to me as such in light of this, is the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s. I always wondered why would the central Soviet government sacrifice its own population like that on the basis of nationality when they were all supposed to be equal citizens within the communist empire. While I believe that the covert Russian nationalism played a role in that, the fact that Stalin was a Georgian doesn't quite fit in that theory. But seeing how the Russians perceived the Ukrainians as proverbial traitors, and Stalin had personal reasons to do so as well, it paints a fuller the picture of the motivation behind that crime against humanity.
Да вы задолбали. Голод был даже в НЕЗАВИСИМОЙ ПОЛЬШЕ. Не говоря уж об ваших колониях. Не хотите подсчитать сколько сдохло от голода там ?
You screwed up. There was famine even in INDEPENDENT POLAND. Not to mention your colonies. Don't you want to count how many died of hunger there?
@@wederMaxim There was no famine outside of the USSR.Typical russian liar.
32:35 So, if the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is so evil, should Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine belong to Russia? Clearly, some people appear to have problems in understanding the concept of self-determination. While territorial changes are always problematic, there is a difference depending on who inhabits a territory, which language they speak, what culture they have, and to which country they want to belong to.
In subjugated Ireland the language and religion of the native people was made illegal and land inheritance was controlled by the English. Guess who benefited?
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was not about self-determination. The local population was not consulted on its terms and their liberation had never been the real goal of the fighting on the Eastern Front. A large chunk of Russian Poland was meant to be directly annexed to Germany (and ethnically cleansed of Poles and Jews); "independent" Ukraine was meant to be the Central Powers' grain supplier, whether it liked it or not; and the Baltic Provinces were meant to be ruled by their local German aristocracy, not the Latvian and Estonian majority. Ask some Polish people what they think of Brest-Litovsk.
Also, it's my experience that the people who shout the loudest about self-determination are usually the ones who don't understand it. They're always quick to add extra rules or gerrymander the boundaries so that the outcome happens to align to their own preferences and prejudices. And sometimes they'll just flat-out call something an example of self-determination when it was nothing of the sort, as you've done here.
Brest Litovsk Documantery :Victory of Central Powers (Hohenzollern-Habsburg-Ottoman-Bulgaria)
Fascinating take on Putin's view of Ukraine and the west stemming in part from this treaty.
I learned about this treaty in high school. I had no idea it will be so relevant in the 21st century. And Stalin was in Siberia during the early stage of the revolutions he was nobody at the moment. And he forgot about Cehia too as an independent state after the war.
32:38 As other commenters have noted: The treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Versailles must not be compared directly, as they came about under much different circumstances.
This is not to say anything about their respective merits or deficiencies, it is just calling out bad historiography.
[timestamp added]
I feel they can be compared as long as criteria is set up when comparing them. As you say they have major differences.
Fascinating. Learned a lot from this. Thanks.
What is astonishing is how Lenin was able to be put in the position to even negotiate. The German’ put him there!
Great lecture i do disagree with the throw away line about irish recruitment but still great lecture
Fun fact: at the time of this class it had just come out that Lenin did promise to get Russia out of the war... promise Berlin, that is. Who bankrolled his little campaign into Russia.
So you could potentially have, loosely speaking, a German agent and a British agent (Lenin and Trotsky) continuing the war between Germany and England by politics, inside the cabinet of a Russian communist party
It would have been good to actually go over the particulars of the negotiations to explain *why* Germany ended up making that peace, instead of the far less draconian initial proposals.
The Brest-Litovsk Treaty was also important in the 1930's because the Allied Powers had developed a guilty conscience in that the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair to the Central Powers. Hitler's actions, therefore, in attempting to unite all German speaking peoples under the German Reich was an attempt to right this historical wrong. It was believed that once this had been achieved Germany would make to further territorial demands. What was forgotten at the time by people who should have known better was that the B-L Treaty was far, far more severe than the Versailles treaty. If the Allied Powers had used the B-LT as the model for the Versailles and had the will to back it up militarily, then Germany have been finished as a major industrial power.
Also, what Dr Stone's otherwise excellent presentation omitted, was that in addition to the territorial grab the Germans demanded that the Russians 300 million gold marks as part of the reparation.
Enjoyable and interesting, but In ww1 the draft did not apply in Ireland. The 200 ,000 who fought in the British Army were all volunteers
I'd like to see a lecture on the displaced political class after the bokshevics took over Russia. I'm sure a bunch fled but what about the ones that stayed behind?
Their life expectancy declined dramatically.
Most of them got shot! The rest died in the Gulag!
Depends on what party, many in the Left SR and Mensheviks came over to the Bolsheviks, some for revolutionary reasons some as careerists. Even Tsarist military officers were employed in the civil war by the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was not a Bolshevik until 1917, Stalin used this fact later to besmirch him.
The Stalinist control of the government made it so it didn’t even matter if you were a longtime Bolshevik Stalin would have everyone who was a revolutionary or not killed if he had a suspicion
A man born into the Russian nobility led the Soviet space shuttle program.
You’re a German soldier and you’ve somehow survived fighting through the entire war, seen both fronts, you’ve killed so many people at this point you are feeling very guilty about not knowing how many. You’ve believed for months that Germany would lose. You worry about your family and what will happen after. Then Russia signs Brest Litovsk, and you are transferred to the Western front. For the first time in a very long time, everyone has hope. With so many men, the war could very likely be over and the Germans emerge victorious. It’s all playing out perfectly in your mind; just as you receive word that an attack will begin shortly. You feel some of the air of 1914 fill your lungs. The whistle blows. Over the top, and across that deadly space you’ve crossed many times. But this time you remember how it was the first time and you remember not being so hungry. Oh, to feel that once again! Into the enemy trench, and the unknown body count climbs by three. You clear the trench. You see a few of your comrades duck into an enemy dugout. You start to head in. You hear the sounds of battle continuing as your eyes adjust to the dim interior. Like a vision, you see it. A table from another time, not holding a few scraps that men argue intensely over; but abounding with food. Fresh cooked sausages, bread, eggs, butter.. and what you can only hope is an unopened bottle of wine. A very brief thought tells you the war is not won yet, but like the food quickly vanishing from the table in front of you, that thought disappears. You hurry to the table and scarf down anything you can reach. It strikes you that you thought it would taste better, but then you realize your eating so many different foods and so fast that you couldn’t possibly distinguish between each taste… and then blackness. For some time you feel yourself completely devoid of senses. You first think that a hidden enemy must have picked you to be the one German he kills from his hiding spot under the table. So this is what it feels like, huh? Not so bad after all. But suddenly you see images flashing across your eyes. Images of a future. It is unclear at first what the images mean, but soon enough you start to realize that Germany must have lost the Great War. Then there appears images of another war, much larger and deadlier. Germany loses that war also. Occupation, tyranny, starvation, a police state, upheaval.. and then a magical square with a moving picture of a man speaking. You are confused at first, because he seems to be speaking about the Great War. He’s speaking of the peace that Russia signed. He says the reason their signing was so important is that it changed the rest of the war, allowing German troops; meaning you in fact, could be transferred to the west to help win the war. He says Germany was so close, so very very close.. and then he says the phrase that brings you back to the table of food… “German troops would actually stopped their attack to eat the food they found in the enemy trenches… if that had not happened Germany would very likely have won the war.”
Worse than Versailles? Russia did not lose any Russian territories, lost control of FOREIGN peoples, that is a HUGE difference. Plus.
They got to keep an army and navy.
They were not saddled with reparations.
So Russia did not lose anything Russian, compare that to Germany... or to Austria-Hungary!
Russia did not lose any Russian territories?
Germany also lost foreign peoples land, most of the land that was taken away from Germany was given the right to plebiscite and was in most cases majority Polish, French, Chezch or Danish populated. Austria-Hungary was always a multicultural country and lands that were taken from it were all majority Slav and Romanian, except for Szekely land which was fully surrounded by Romanian populated land in Transilvanya, and Sudetenland which never stood a chance of staying within the German Austria because it was simply uncontrolable and undefeandable.
Also, the reason that Brest Litovsk treaty was worse than Versailles is because Russia, already majority peasent country, lost all of it's Industry which was located in the West, it lost it's entire defense against the West, it basicaly lost about 400 years of it's History in a few months. It was a far bigger geopolitical catastrophy for Russia than anything that happened to Germany. Russia worked for it's geopolitical position to be what it was, especialy in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and their access to warm waters, all of that lost within a few months, where as German geopolitical aspirations weren't even thought of until after the Wien conference. And German industry was stil very capable of recovering, also add to that the addition of how educated the German population was. I don't think the Versailles treaty was nearly as bad as what the Germans had done to Russia.
Russia lost Ukraine, the heart or Russia.
Matt Helme, Ukraine is the heart of Russia as much as Scotland is the heart of England.
No comment. No apologies.
How does Trotsky abstaining give Lenin a majority unless somebody else abstained.
Trotsky abstained on behalf of his supporters , therefore Lenin outvoted Bukharin and his supporters...
I hope some Western European politiocans listens to this man...
The problem with the intervention was that the US troops were under operational control of the Brits. The Brits gave us tea instead of coffee, therefor, Stalin came to power because Americans couldnt get coffee
"That Ukraine was created as an independent state as a tool of the West to harm Russia."
As a Ukrainian, not only can I agree with this observation, I endorse it!
Bollocks
@@jezalb2710 I'm with you Bro
Ukraine has the right to have its own state for 1000 years. And no other country can stop this.
I don't think Germany could have won WW1 under any circumstances.
The spring offensives were a last gasp.
The British blockade, the downright deadly tactics being developed by the British,
(the Australians and Canadians had been the first storm troopers, in 1917);
coupled with the fighting spirit of the French, flagging though it was, they were nowhere near defeated;
the imminent arrival of the US in force,
plus the technological advantage that tanks,
and other new weapons were beginning to demonstrate on the battlefields,
not to mention the huge economic advantages in the Allies favour
would have won out in the end...
the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk merely prolonged the inevitable defeat
looming over the Central Powers
The arrival of the US army was decisive for the faith of the German army.
Britain, France and the German Empire we're tired of fighting. The US brought fresh man into the conflict.
A “Peace without annexations” could have been possible if Germany renounced all ambitions in Belgium and Luxembourg. When the US intervened, everything was decided, as Ludendorff said at the end of the war: “We cannot fight the entire world “
The Brits were mere auxiliary troops, as they were in WWII. "Deadly tactics"? Like planning to drop their guns and flee, as they did in Dunkirk?
Brest Litovsk was not as bad as Versailles. It was actually in the interests of the west. These new states were set free from Leninism and the horrors Bolshevism would bring, they had a bit more autonomy than they had under the Russian empire, AND Germany needed resources and food for the war effort. Also Baltic Germans had made up large parts of the ruling class for centuries in some of these lands. Brest Litovsk has a justification for being greedy, it was NEEDED! Also what’s so bad about essentially changing 1 imperial master for another? These lands went from Russia domination to Germany domination, it was simply a change of hands, and one which gave them more autonomy than before. Arguably a preferable alternative to communism too.
There was also no war guilt clause, no ridiculous reparations, and very little separation of a unified people group unlike at Versailles. Versailles was vindictive, emotional, drew up ridiculous boarder arrangements and made conditions in Germany unbearable.
The ‘stab in the back’ also isn’t entirely a myth. Germany agreed to an armistice on Wilson’s 14 points. Instead what they got as an INTENSIFIED starvation blockade and a completely dishonourable peace treaty. So yes this was a political stab in the back. They were duped into disarming when they still occupied enemy land. Of course it’s likely they would have collapsed anyway, but they gave up the fight on a false pretence…..
Revisionist Moron
American Frank Martin DiMeglio has surpassed Newton and Einstein.
Anyone else watching this as Ukraine gets invaded by Russia?
The Ukrainians relish rubbing all that in the Russians’ noses, by using the symbols of the Hetmanate, all the more since February 2022.
They use white crosses on their tanks, sometimes even the Balkenkreuz, they have a ‘Jaeger’ brigade with the Edelweiss badge.
Their naval ensign is based on the German imperial ensign and war flag, the national flag and trident symbol are from the Hetmanate, etc etc.
Strange way of talking about a people resisting a genocidal invasion.
@@williamfrancis5367 - I support Ukraine. My comment was factual. I have no problems with the symbols of Hetmanate, which was a German satellite nation under the 1918 Brest treaty.
If it annoys the Russians, all the better.
What's so strange?
Or inaccurate?
What's untrue?
is he insane? Fortress of Brest "falling down"? It looks so because of all the damage sustained during the WW2.
The war from 70 years ago? If they wanted it fixed they would have.
I have always found it sort of amusing, in a morbid way, that the Germans complained so much about the Versailles treaty after they inflicted Brest-Litovsk on the Soviets. The latter treaty was far more draconian.
Perhaps. But I think the context is different - while Germans had to fight an uphill battle in the west - Treaty of Versailles is signed after unconditional surrender. I think he should have mentioned it.
Kühlmann lol
Why is the treaty of Brest-Litovsk seen as so negative? Couldn’t it be argued that is was freedom for the people and nations invaded and cruelly ruled by the Russians. Self-determination. Or is the lecturer arguing Finland, Poland etc. rightfully belong to Russia? Also, there were no reparations, no payments, no war guilt paragraph and no land grab by Germany or Austria-Hungary at all. How is this even remotely comparable to Versailles? I really don‘t get it, can anybody explain?
The Germans apart from the land grab also demanded 6 million marks as reparations.
@@normanconnor2771
6 million isn’t much compared to 6.6 BILLION!
@@normanconnor2771 Not at Brest-Litovsk. There were no reparations.
@@normanconnor2771Oh, and what land grab?
300 million gold marks as rep
Trotsky would have ruined Soviet Russia,and was replaced as negotiator.
Soviet Russia?
"all power to the Soviets" - the organs/instruments of workers power were effectively stripped of power. The monopoly of one party rule, and subsequently the banning of factions.
You really over exaggerated how close germany were to winning the war. Sure it made the British and French shit themselves. And eventually had one person in ferdinand foch in charge. But the Germans were running low on everything, the Austrians were crumbling and so Bulgaria and the ottomans. Having the American meant meant it was too much for Germany to deal with
I agree. There was no realistic possibility of the British evacuating mainland Europe. They new that with the combined British and French armies under Foch
they just had to maintain their positions whilst the German push runs out of steam.
Interesting watching this in June 2023 right after Prigozhin Wagner Group mutiny. Nightmare for Putin.
'Nightmare' - Really?
The world would be a better place if Germany was allowed to keep these territories.
VlaDEEmer Lenin. I thought it was Vlad uh MEER....
Actually is VLAdeemer.
So Austria is getting Hungry and wants to end the war but Tortsky is Stalin.
Lazy "point in history" case. When speaking about contemporary events he forgets to mention the famines both Lenins War Communism & Stalins Holodomor mass murdered through genocidal summary executions & forced labor in Ukraine primarily but also in areas around the Fergana Valley, Crimea, & the Caucuses were done then to centralize Totalitarian power & is used today to justify Russian chauvanism.
Super weak emphasis on the consequences of Treaty of Brest-Livtosk.
The legacy of this treaty allowing independence to people under the thumb of reactionary regimes for hundreds of years is a better subject to cover.