Page:Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin - Two Years of Foreign Policy (1920).pdf/11

 concurrent arrival of Comrade Yoffe in Berlin. On April 28 our peace delegation, which was proceeding on its way to Kursk, had already commenced conversations with the Ukrainian delegation then already at Voronezh, which resulted on May 4 in the first local armistice with Ukraine, which, however, was not very secure. The opening of peace negotiations with Ukraine was complicated by the fact that technically communications with Kiev depended on the German authorities, who were hindering the negotiations. Only on May 17 Comrade Rakovsky and Manuilsky left for Kiev, where they carried on negotiations, among other things, as to the boundary line, simultaneously with similar negotiations between us and Germany in Berlin and Moscow. On June 11 a treaty was concluded with Ukraine providing for an armistice, reciprocal repatriation and trade relations. The whole of May was an extremely unsettled time, owing to the gradual movements to the north and north-east, partly of German troops and partly of irregular bands supported by the former. But the main blows of the Germans at this time were directed toward the south-east,—on Bataisk and further in the direction of the grain producing Kuban. While the Turkish troops at this time, disregarding the treaties, were advancing in the Caucasus and were supporting there the fictitious counter-revolutionary governments. Considerable progress toward the fixation of the relations with Germany resulted from the exchange of notes between Moscow and Berlin, which took place about the end of May and the beginning of June, with regard to the question of the return of our warships from Novorossiysk to Sevastopol and with regard to a definite settlement of the boundary line. This exchange of notes enabled the "political commission" and the "economic commission" in Berlin to commence their work. As early as April 26, when, despite the conclusion of peace at Brest, there was actually no state of peace and the German troops in the southern part of the Russian Republic were moving further toward the north, advancing on Orel, Kursk and Voronezh, the