Page:Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin - Two Years of Foreign Policy (1920).pdf/7

 The new frontier of Russia cut away Riga and Vilna, leaving to Russia Dvinsk, Vileika and Minsk, and leaving entirely with Germany the determination of the fate of Courland and of a considerable part of Livonia, Lithuania and Poland. Esthonia and the remaining part of Livonia were left under the temporary control of German "police power", "until the institutions of the country will be able themselves to restore public safety." Nothing was said about ending the sovereignty of Russia in these countries. In reply to a question by the Social-Democrats during the discussion on the Brest treaty in the German Reichstag, the German Government was compelled to admit that the sovereignty of Russia in Esthonia and northern Livonia was still in force. Only later, in the treaty of August 27, the Soviet Government declared that it took into account the de facto situation and recognized the end of the sovereignty of Russia in these countries. In addition, the localities which had been occupied by the German troops during their rapid advance at the end of February and in the early days of March were to remain under temporary German occupation until the conclusion of a general peace, though Russia retained the sovereign power. Having taken Pskov and reached Orsha, the German troops occupied all the places up to the line which they had decided upon from military considerations. On March 3, immediately after the signing of the treaty, which act had been somewhat delayed by the Germans in order to enable their troops to advance to the line that had been decided upon, General Hoffmann issued an order to halt military action. The boundary lines were established by the local command in the next few days, and during the endless conflicts which occurred in the following months on the boundary line, we were confronted by certain local agreements between the military commands, mainly of March 6 and 6, The Brest treaty forced Soviet Russia to withhold all aid to Finland and Ukraine against the German military monster which was preparing to occupy these countries and to carry