Page:Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin - Two Years of Foreign Policy (1920).pdf/23

 revealed the most unbridled appetites, desiring to annex the whole Kola Peninsula and Korelia up to the White Sea. It became clear that the negotiations were hopeless and they were suspended.

In the meantime our break with the Entente had considerably strengthened Germany's diplomatic position against us. At the same time the "Bolshevist menace" threatening Germany had become palpable and not merely theoretical. The German press cast off the restraint which had characterized its attitude toward us in the first months after the Brest treaty. Our internal difficulties, the unrest among the peasants, and the counter-revolutionary insurrections gave the German Government an impression of our apparent weakness. Thus the decline of the German power, which was already noticeable, was neutralized by the impairment of our position in relation to the German Government. In August it was becoming ever more difficult to negotiate with Germany. Nevertheless, after continued delays the labors of the "political commission" and the "economic commission" were concluded by three supplementary treaties of August 27 which fixed the amount of our payments on various obligations to Germany which we had assumed, for the losses inflicted on German nationals by our acts of nationalization up to July 1, at one and a half billion marks in gold and bank-notes, in five installments, one billion marks in commodities, and a loan of 2½ billion marks to Germany. Simultaneously with our payment of these sums Germany was to evacuate White Russia. Germany also pledged itself not to support any more the slicing off of more of our territory. Germany bound itself to evacuate a part of the Donetz basin and Rostov. The treaty acknowledged as a fact the recognition by Germany of Georgia's independence. Baku was recognized as belonging to us, and we bound ourselves to