Lafayette C. Baker
Union Army officer
Lafayette Curry Baker (October 13, 1826 – July 3, 1868) was a United States investigator and spy, serving the Union Army during the American Civil War and under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Early life.
Baker was born in Stafford, New York, on October 13, 1826. He became a mechanic, moved to Michigan in 1839, returned to New York in 1848, moved to California in 1853, and was a San Francisco vigilante in 1856. He moved to the District of Columbia in 1861.
American Civil War.
Baker's exploits are mainly known through his book "A History of the Secret Service" which he published in 1867 after his fall from grace. During the early months of the Civil War, he spied for General Winfield Scott on Confederate forces in Virginia. Despite numerous scrapes, he returned to Washington, D.C., with information that Scott evidently thought valuable enough to raise him to the rank of captain. As Provost Marshal of Washington, D.C., from September 12, 1862, to November 7, 1863, Baker ran the National Detective Bureau also sometimes known as the "National Detective Police Department." He was appointed colonel of 1st D.C. Cavalry, May 5, 1863. According to Glenn Hastedt "Although his accomplishments were many, Baker operated with little regard for warrants or the constitutional rights of those he pursued. He is also reported to have employed brutal interrogation techniques in order to obtain information."
Baker owed his appointment largely to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, but suspected the secretary of corruption and was eventually demoted for tapping his telegraph lines and packed off to New York.
Lincoln assassination investigation.
Baker was recalled to Washington after the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865. Within two days of his arrival in Washington, Baker's agents in Maryland had made four arrests and had the names of two more conspirators, including the actual presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Before the month was out, Booth along with David Herold were found holed up in a barn and Booth was himself shot and killed by Sgt. Boston Corbett. Baker received a generous share of the $100,000 reward offered to the person who apprehended the president's killer. President Andrew Johnson nominated Baker for appointment to the grade of brigadier general of volunteers, April 26, 1865, but the United States Senate never confirmed the appointment. Baker was mustered out of the volunteers on January 15, 1866.
Firing and death.
The following year, Baker was sacked from his position as government spymaster. President Johnson accused him of spying on him, a charge Baker admitted in his book which he published in response. He also announced that he had had Booth's diary in his possession which was being suppressed by the Department of War and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. When the diary was eventually produced, Baker claimed that eighteen vital pages were missing. It was suggested by Otto Eisenschiml in his book, "Why Was Lincoln Murdered?," that these would implicate Stanton in the assassination. However, this notion has been proven as speculation by author Edward Steers Jr. and based on non-reputable sources.
On July 3, 1868, Baker retired to home complaining of soreness from a gun wound during a hunting trip. He had been out drinking with Wally Pollack, his brother-in-law, and came home feeling sick, passing away later that night, reportedly from meningitis.
A widely criticized 1977 book, "The Lincoln Conspiracy" by conspiracy theorists David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, alleges that Baker was poisoned by high-placed conspirators, including Stanton, who supported John Wilkes Booth's plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and early 1865. The conspirators supposedly planned to have Lincoln impeached in his absence. The authors speculate that the conspirators were concerned that Baker could link them to the planned kidnapping, which might lead to accusations that they were conspirators in Lincoln's assassination. The authors believe the conspirators did not support Booth after March 1865. Academic historians have treated the book with hostility and derision, having many objections based on errors and misuse of sources in the book.
Interment.
Baker is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In popular culture.
Baker was portrayed by Patton Oswalt in the 2024 Apple TV+ miniseries series "Manhunt"
Notes.
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Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes
Valley within Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, United States
The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is a valley within Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska which is filled with ash flow from the eruption of Novarupta on June 6–8, 1912. Following the eruption, thousands of fumaroles vented steam from the ash. Robert F. Griggs, who explored the volcano's aftermath for the National Geographic Society in 1916, gave the valley its name, saying that "the whole valley as far as the eye could reach was full of hundreds, no thousands—literally, tens of thousands—of smokes curling up from its fissured floor."
Prior to the eruption, the area now called the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes was an unremarkable and unnamed portion of the Ukak River valley. Although never permanently inhabited by humans, it served as a pass for the Alutiiq people, as well as animals such as grizzly bears.
The 1912 eruption was the largest eruption by volume in the 20th century, erupting a magma volume of about . As many as 14 major earthquakes between formula_1 6 to 7, and over 100 earthquakes greater than formula_1 5, resulted from the collapse of the caldera at Mount Katmai and movement within the magmatic plumbing system.
The ash-filled valley covers a area. The ash can be up to deep. In places deep canyons have been cut by the River Lethe, allowing observers to see the ash flow strata. Since the ash has cooled, most of the fumaroles are now extinct and despite its name the valley is no longer filled with 'smoke' (i.e. steam). Vegetation still does not grow in the valley. The signs of volcanic activity are still visible on nearby hills.
Katmai's most recent eruption was in 1927, but there have been non-eruptive events as recently as 2003. The Alaska Volcano Observatory still monitors Katmai's activity as part of the Katmai Cluster, where there are five active stratovolcanos within of Katmai.
Visitors to the valley most commonly arrive via bus along the road from Brooks Camp, which is the only road in Katmai Park. The valley is a source of creative exploration by photographers and naturalists.
Geology.
Basement rocks in the area consist of the Late Jurassic Naknek Formation, which is composed of siltstones, and arkosic sandstones 1.7–2 km thick deposited in a marine shelf and submarine fan delta environment during the Oxfordian-Tithonian. Some 20 dioritic and granodioritic Tertiary plutons pierce the formation. Most prevalent though are the Quaternary stratovolcanoes along the Aleutian Arc associated with the Aleutian subduction zone.
The 1912 Novarupta eruption was characterized by three main episodes spanning 60 hours. Episode I included both a rhyolitic ignimbrite and a simultaneous Plinian dispersal of rhyolitic tephra fallout. The ignimbrite consisted of 9 separate packages of pumiceous pyroclastic flow deposits, radiating outward 9 km, and which filled 11 km3 of the valley to a depth of 100–200 m in the upper portion and 35 m in the lower over the span of 16 hours. It is indurated in the upper valley while nonwelded in the lower. The ignimbrite is noted for its fumaroles, phreatic craters, welded tuff, and flattened fiamme. At the same time, a Plinian dispersal of 8.8 km3 of rhyolitic tephra occurred depositing layers A and B. Episode II consisted of a second Plinian dispersal, but one consisting of dacite tephra, depositing 4.8 km3 of layers C and D. Episode III was also a Plinian dispersal of dacite tephra depositing 3.4 km3 of layers F and G.
The explosion from the eruption was heard as far away as Fairbanks and Juneau, while earthquakes continued until mid-Aug. Ball lightning near the ground was noted in addition to regular thunder and lightning, rare in South Alaska, while severe static disrupted wireless transmissions. Volcanic dust reached Wisconsin on June 8, Algeria on June 19 and California on June 21. Fields of pumice were seen floating in Katmai Bay, 241 km to the southwest, in 1913. Griggs noted 1000 fumarolic plumes over 500 feet high in 1916. In 1917, diffuse steam emanations were still evident and temperatures were 97 °C just 1 m below the surface. In 1918, Jasper Sayre and Paul Hagelbarger noted 86 vents with temperatures greater than 190 °C, the hottest being 432 °C. The steam was measured to be 99.5% water vapor with some acidic gases of HCl, CO2, H2S and HF. Only a few hundred emanations were seen by 1929, and just 10 were left by 1940.
Astronaut training.
The Katmai Peninsula in general, and the valley in particular, were used by NASA and the USGS to geologically train the Apollo astronauts in recognizing volcanic features, landforms and materials, especially fumaroles and vents. Two separate groups of astronauts trained here, the first in June–July 1965 and a second group in August 1966. Their field exercises included simulating a lunar mission. "Playing the Moon game", involved pairing up astronauts and placing them in a location with very little prior information. They then planned traverses and collected representative samples. They communicated with their geologist instructors via radio. Astronauts who would use this training on the Moon included Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 12's Alan Bean, Apollo 14's Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 15's James Irwin, Apollo 16's Charlie Duke, and Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt. Notable geologist instructors included Garniss Curtis and Gene Shoemaker.
References.
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Dale (landform)
Open valley
A dale is a valley, especially an open, gently-sloping ground between low hills with a stream flowing through it. It is used most frequently in the North of England and the Southern Uplands of Scotland; the term "fell" commonly refers to mountains or hills that flank a dale. As with many other words, "dale" was preserved by Viking influence in Northern England.
It appears in various contexts, such as up hill and down dale "over every hill and dale", and "up all hills, down all dales.
Etymology.
The word "dale" comes from the Old English word "dæl", from which the word "dell" also derived. It is related to Old Norse word "dalr" (and the modern Icelandic word "dalur", etc.), which may have influenced its survival in northern England. The Germanic origin is assumed to be *"dala-". "Dal-" in various combinations is common in placenames in Norway. Modern English valley and French vallée are claimed to be related to dale. A distant relative of "dale" is currency unit dollar, stemming from German "thaler" or "daler", short for joachimsthaler coins manufactured in the town of Joachimsthal in Bohemia.
The word is perhaps related to Welsh "dol" (meadow, pasture, valley), Russian "dol" (valley, reverse side) and Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian "dolina" (basin, "doline" is a geological term for certain surface depressions in karst areas). The uses are semantic equivalents to many words and phrases, suggesting a common Indo-European affinity. Vale and thalweg are also related.
Uses.
The following are several examples of major dales that have the name dale. The river name is usually appended with "-dale". There are also many smaller dales; this is not an exhaustive list (see dale (place name element) for more).
The name Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia) is similar in form.
References.
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Alaska Purchase
1867 sale by Russia to the United States
The Alaska Purchase was the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire by the United States for a sum of $7.2 million in 1867 (equivalent to $ million in 2023). On May 15 of that year, the United States Senate ratified a bilateral treaty that had been signed on March 30, and American sovereignty became legally effective across the territory on October 18.
During the first half of the 18th century, Russia had established a colonial presence in parts of North America, but few Russians ever settled in Alaska. Alexander II of Russia, having faced a catastrophic defeat in the Crimean War, began exploring the possibility of selling the state's Alaskan possessions, which, in any future war, would be difficult to defend from the United Kingdom. To this end, William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, entered into negotiations with Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl towards the United States' acquisition of Alaska after the American Civil War. Seward and Stoeckl agreed to a treaty for the sale on March 30, 1867.
At an original cost of $0.02 per acre ($ per acre in 2023), the United States had grown by . Reactions to the Alaska Purchase among Americans were mostly positive, as many believed that Alaska would serve as a base to expand American trade in Asia. Some opponents labeled the purchase as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox" as they contended that the United States had acquired useless land. Nearly all Russian settlers left Alaska in the aftermath of the purchase; Alaska would remain sparsely populated until the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was renamed the District of Alaska in 1884 and the Territory of Alaska in 1912, ultimately becoming the modern-day State of Alaska in 1959.
History.
Russian America was settled by , merchants and fur trappers who expanded through Siberia. They arrived in Alaska in 1732, and in 1799 the Russian-American Company (RAC) received a charter to hunt for fur. No colony was established, but the Russian Orthodox Church sent missionaries to the natives and built churches. About 700 Russians enforced sovereignty in a territory over twice as large as Texas. In 1821, Tsar Alexander I issued an edict declaring Russia's sovereignty over the North American Pacific coast north of the 51st parallel north. The edict also forbade foreign ships to approach within 100 Italian miles (115 miles or 185 km) of the Russian claim. US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams strongly protested the edict, which potentially threatened both the commerce and expansionary ambitions of the United States. Seeking favorable relations with the U.S., Alexander agreed to the Russo-American Treaty of 1824. In the treaty, Russia limited its claims to lands north of parallel 54°40′ north and also agreed to open Russian ports to U.S. ships.
By the 1850s, a population of once 300,000 sea otters was almost extinct, and Russia needed money after being defeated by France and Britain in the Crimean War. The California Gold Rush showed that if gold were discovered in Alaska, Americans and Canadians would overwhelm the Russian presence in what one scholar later described as "Siberia's Siberia". However, the principal reason for the sale was that the hard-to-defend colony would be easily conquered by British forces based in neighboring Canada in any future conflict, and Russia did not wish to see its archrival being next door just across the Bering Sea. Therefore, Emperor Alexander II decided to sell the territory. The Russian government discussed the proposal in 1857 and 1858 and offered to sell the territory to the United States, hoping that its presence in the region would offset the plans of Britain. However, no deal was reached, as the risk of an American Civil War was a more pressing concern in Washington.
Grand Duke Konstantin, a younger brother of the Tsar, began to press for the handover of Russian America to the United States in 1857. In a memorandum to Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov he stated that <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Konstantin's letter was shown to his brother, Tsar Alexander II, who wrote "this idea is worth considering" on the front page. Supporters of Konstantin's proposal to immediately withdraw from North America included Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin and the Russian minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl. Gorchakov agreed with the necessity of abandoning Russian America but argued for a gradual process leading to its sale. He found a supporter in the naval minister and former chief manager of the Russian-American Company, Ferdinand von Wrangel. Wrangel pressed for some proceeds to be invested in the economic development of Kamchatka and the Amur Basin. The Emperor eventually sided with Gorchakov, deciding to postpone negotiations until the end of the RAC's patent, set to expire in 1861.
Over the winter of 1859–1860, Stoeckl held meetings with United States officials, though he had been instructed not to initiate discussions about the sale of the RAC assets. Communicating primarily with Assistant Secretary of State John Appleton and California Senator William M. Gwin, Stoeckl reported the interest expressed by the Americans in acquiring Russian America. While President James Buchanan kept these hearings informal, preparations were made for further negotiations. Stoeckl reported a conversation in which he asked "in passing" what price the U.S. government might pay for the Russian colony and Senator Gwin replied that they "might go as far as $5,000,000", a figure Gorchakov found far too low. Stoeckl informed Appleton and Gwin of this, the latter saying that his Congressional colleagues in Oregon and California would support a larger figure. Buchanan's increasingly unpopular presidency forced the matter to be shelved until a new presidential election. With the oncoming American Civil War, Stoeckl proposed a renewal of the RAC's charter. Two of its ports were to be open to foreign traders and commercial agreements with Peru and Chile to be signed to give "a fresh jolt" to the company.
Russia continued to see an opportunity to weaken British power by causing British Columbia, including the Royal Navy base at Esquimalt, to be surrounded or annexed by American territory. Following the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, the Tsar instructed Stoeckl to re-enter into negotiations with William H. Seward in the beginning of March 1867. President Andrew Johnson was busy with negotiations about Reconstruction, and Seward had alienated a number of Republicans, so both men believed that the purchase would help divert attention from domestic issues. The negotiations concluded after an all-night session with the signing of the treaty at 04:00 on March 30, 1867. The purchase price was set at $7.2 million (equivalent to $ million in 2023), or about 2 cents per acre ($4.74/km2).
American ownership.
The Russian name for the Alaska Peninsula was "Alyaska" ("Аляска") or "Alyeska", from an Aleut word, "alashka" or "alaesksu", meaning "great land" or "mainland". The United States chose the name "Alaska" to refer to the area purchased from Russia.
Seward told the nation that, according to Russian estimates, Alaska had about 60,000 inhabitants. This included about 10,500 who were under the direct government of the Russian fur company: about 8,000 indigenous people and 2,500 people of Russian or mixed Russian and indigenous descent (for example, having a Russian father and a native mother). The remaining 50,000 or so were Inuit or Alaska Natives living outside of Russia's jurisdiction.
Seward also said that the Russians were settled at 23 trading posts, placed on accessible islands and at points along the coast. At smaller trading posts, typically only four or five Russians were stationed: their job was to collect furs from the natives for storage and then for shipment when the company's boats arrived to take the furs away. There were two larger towns. One was New Archangel (now named Sitka), established in 1804 to handle the valuable trade in the skins of sea otters; in 1867, it had 116 small log cabins and 968 residents. The other was St. Paul, in the Pribilof Islands, which had 100 homes and 283 residents, and was the center of the seal fur industry.
Seward and many other Americans expected that Asia would become an important market for U.S. products, and that Alaska would serve as a base for American trade with Asia and globally, and for the extension of American power into the Pacific.
Senator Charles Sumner, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sponsored the Senate bill authorizing the U.S. to approve the treaty to acquire the territory. He not only agreed about the benefit to trade, but also said he expected the territory to be valuable on its own; having studied the records of explorers, he believed it contained valuable animals and forests. He compared the acquisition to contemporary European colonial acquisitions, such as the French conquest of Algeria. The United States Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 37 to 2.
Public opinion favors the purchase.
Many Americans believed in 1867 that the purchase process had been corrupt, but W. H. Dall in 1872 wrote that "there can be no doubt that the feelings of a majority of the citizens of the United States are in favor of it." The notion that the purchase was unpopular among Americans is, a scholar wrote 120 years later, "one of the strongest historical myths in American history. It persists despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, and the efforts of the best historians to dispel it", likely in part because it fits American and Alaskan writers' view of the territory as distinct and filled with self-reliant pioneers.
A majority of newspapers either supported the purchase or were neutral. A review of dozens of contemporary newspapers found general support for the purchase, especially in California; most of 48 major newspapers supported the purchase. Public opinion was not universally positive; to some the purchase was known as "Seward's folly", "Walrussia", or "Seward's icebox". Editorials contended that taxpayer money had been wasted on a "polar bear garden". Nonetheless, most newspaper editors argued that the U.S. would probably derive great economic benefits from the purchase, such as considerable mineral resources that previous geological explorations of the region suggested were available there; friendship with Russia was important; and it would facilitate the acquisition of British Columbia. Forty-five percent of supportive newspapers cited the increased potential for annexing British Columbia in their support, and "The New York Times" stated that, consistent with Seward's reason, Alaska would increase American trade with East Asia.
The principal urban newspaper that opposed the purchase was the "New York Tribune", published by Seward opponent Horace Greeley. The ongoing controversy over Reconstruction spread to other acts, including the Alaska purchase. Some opposed the United States obtaining its first non-contiguous territory, seeing it as a colony; others saw no need to pay for land that they expected the country to obtain through manifest destiny. Historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer summarized the minority opinion of some American newspaper editors who opposed the purchase:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />Already, so it was said, we were burdened with territory we had no population to fill. The Indians within the present boundaries of the republic strained our power to govern aboriginal peoples. Could it be that we would now, with open eyes, seek to add to our difficulties by increasing the number of such peoples under our national care? The purchase price was small; the annual charges for administration, civil and military, would be yet greater, and continuing. The territory included in the proposed cession was not contiguous to the national domain. It lay away at an inconvenient and a dangerous distance. The treaty had been secretly prepared, and signed and foisted upon the country at one o'clock in the morning. It was a dark deed done in the night… The "New York World" said that it was a "sucked orange." It contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct. Except for the Aleutian Islands and a narrow strip of land extending along the southern coast the country would be not worth taking as a gift… Unless gold were found in the country much time would elapse before it would be blessed with Hoe printing presses, Methodist chapels and a metropolitan police. It was "a frozen wilderness."
Transfer ceremony.
The transfer ceremony took place in Sitka on October 18, 1867. Russian and American soldiers paraded in front of the governor's house; the Russian flag was lowered and the American flag raised amid peals of artillery.
A description of the events was published in Finland six years later. It was written by a blacksmith named Thomas Ahllund, who had been recruited to work in Sitka:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />We had not spent many weeks at Sitka when two large steam ships arrived there, bringing things that belonged to the American crown, and a few days later the new governor also arrived in a ship together with his soldiers. The wooden two-story mansion of the Russian governor stood on a high hill, and in front of it in the yard at the end of a tall spar flew the Russian flag with the double-headed eagle in the middle of it. Of course, this flag now had to give way to the flag of the United States, which is full of stripes and stars. On a predetermined day in the afternoon, a group of soldiers came from the American ships, led by one who carried the flag. Marching solemnly, but without accompaniment, they came to the governor's mansion, where the Russian troops were already lined up and waiting for the Americans. Now they started to pull the [Russian double-headed] eagle down, but—whatever had gone into its head—it only came down a little bit, and then entangled its claws around the spar so that it could not be pulled down any further. A Russian soldier was therefore ordered to climb up the spar and disentangle it, but it seems that the eagle cast a spell on his hands, too—for he was not able to arrive at where the flag was, but instead slipped down without it. The next one to try was not able to do any better; only the third soldier was able to bring the unwilling eagle down to the ground. While the flag was brought down, music was played and cannons were fired off from the shore, and then, while the other flag was hoisted, the Americans fired off their cannons from the ships equally many times. After that American soldiers replaced the Russian ones at the gates of the fence surrounding the Kolosh [i.e. Tlingit] village.
After the flag transition was completed, Captain of 2nd Rank Aleksei Alekseyevich Peshchurov said, "General Rousseau, by authority from His Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United States the territory of Alaska." General Lovell Rousseau accepted the territory. (Peshchurov had been sent to Sitka as commissioner of the Russian government in the transfer of Alaska.) A number of forts, blockhouses and timber buildings were handed over to the Americans. The troops occupied the barracks; General Jefferson C. Davis established his residence in the governor's house, and most of the Russian citizens went home, leaving a few traders and priests who chose to remain.
Aftermath.
After the transfer, a number of Russian citizens remained in Sitka, but nearly all of them very soon decided to return to Russia, which was still possible at the expense of the Russian-American Company. Ahllund's story "corroborates other accounts of the transfer ceremony, and the dismay felt by many of the Russians and creoles, jobless and in want, at the rowdy troops and gun-toting civilians who looked on Sitka as merely one more western frontier settlement." Ahllund gives a vivid account of what life was like for civilians in Sitka under US rule and helps to explain why hardly any Russian subject wanted to stay there. Moreover, Ahllund's article is the only known description of the return voyage on the "Winged Arrow", a ship that was specially purchased to transport the Russians back to their native country. "The over-crowded vessel, with crewmen who got roaring drunk at every port, must have made the voyage a memorable one." Ahllund mentions stops at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, Tahiti, Brazil, London, and finally Kronstadt, the port for St. Petersburg, where they arrived on August 28, 1869.
American settlers who shared Sumner's belief in the riches of Alaska rushed to the territory but found that much capital was required to exploit its resources, many of which could also be found closer to markets in the contiguous United States. Most soon left, and by 1873, Sitka's population had declined from about 2,500 to a few hundred. The United States acquired an area over twice as large as Texas, but it was not until the great Klondike Gold Rush in 1896 that Alaska generally came to be seen as a valuable addition to U.S. territory.
The seal fishery was one of the chief considerations that induced the United States to purchase Alaska. It provided considerable revenue by the lease of the privilege of taking seals, an amount that was eventually more than the price paid for Alaska. From 1870 to 1890, the seal fisheries yielded 100,000 skins a year. The company to which the administration of the fisheries was entrusted by a lease from the US government paid a rental of $50,000 per annum and in addition thereto <templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" />$2.62+1⁄2 per skin for the total number taken. The skins were transported to London to be dressed and prepared for world markets. The business grew so large that the earnings of English laborers after the acquisition of Alaska by the United States amounted by 1890 to $12,000,000.
However, exclusive US control of this resource was eventually challenged, and the Bering Sea Controversy resulted when the United States seized over 150 sealing ships flying the British flag, based out of the coast of British Columbia. The conflict between the United States and Britain was resolved by an arbitration tribunal in 1893. The waters of the Bering Sea were deemed to be international waters, contrary to the US contention that they were an internal sea. The US was required to make a payment to Britain, and both nations were required to follow regulations developed to preserve the resource.
Financial return.
The purchase of Alaska has been referenced as a "bargain basement deal" and as the principal positive accomplishment of the otherwise much-maligned presidency of Andrew Johnson.
Economist David R. Barker has argued that the US federal government has not earned a positive financial return on the purchase of Alaska. According to Barker, tax revenue and mineral and energy royalties to the federal government have been less than federal costs of governing Alaska plus interest on the borrowed funds used for the purchase.
John M. Miller has taken the argument further by contending that US oil companies that developed Alaskan petroleum resources did not earn enough profits to compensate for the risks that they incurred.
Other economists and scholars, including Scott Goldsmith and Terrence Cole, have criticized the metrics used to reach those conclusions by noting that most contiguous Western states would fail to meet the bar of "positive financial return" using the same criteria and by contending that looking at the increase in net national income, instead of only US Treasury revenue, would paint a much more accurate picture of the financial return of Alaska as an investment.
Alaska Day.
Alaska Day celebrates the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, which took place on October 18, 1867, according to the Gregorian calendar which came into effect in Alaska the day following the transfer, replacing the Julian calendar, which was used by the Russians (the Julian calendar in the 19th century was 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar). Alaska Day is a holiday for all state workers.
References.
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Russian State (1918–1920)
White Russian political entity during the Russian Civil War
The Russian State () was a White Army anti-Bolshevik state proclaimed by the Act of the Ufa State Conference of September 23, 1918 (the Constitution of the Provisional All-Russian Government), “On the formation of the all-Russian supreme power” in the name of “restoring state unity and independence of Russia” affected by the revolutionary events of 1917, the October Revolution and the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.
Ufa State Conference act.
The delegations from Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Siberian Government, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals, Cossack Troops governments, governments of a number of national-state entities, several all-Russian political parties that were present at the meeting formed the Provisional All-Russian Government (the so-called “Ufa Directory”), which was headed by Nikolai Avksentiev. It was found that the Provisional All-Russian Government "until the convening of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly is the sole bearer of the supreme power in the whole space of the Russian state". The act provided for “the transfer to the Provisional All-Russian Government, as soon as it requires it,” “all the functions of the supreme power.” Thus, the sovereignty of regional entities was abolished, which was replaced by the “wide autonomy of the regions”, the limits of which were completely dependent on the “wisdom of the Provisional All-Russian Government”.
The All-Russian government was charged with helping to speed up the convocation of the Constituent Assembly and subsequently unconditionally submit to it "as the only supreme power in the country".
The fundamentals of the national-state structure of Russia should have proceeded from federal principles: “the organization of liberating Russia on the basis of recognition of its individual areas of the rights of broad autonomy, due to both geographical and economic, and ethnic characteristics, suggesting the final establishment of a federal organization on federal principles by the full Constituent Assembly ..., recognition for national minorities that do not occupy a separate territory, the rights to cultural-national self definition.
With regard to the Russian Army, the Act spoke of the need to “re-create a strong, combat-ready, unified Russian army, delivered outside the influence of political parties” and, at the same time, “the inadmissibility of the political organizations of servicemen and the elimination of the army from politics”.
The following tasks were identified as urgent tasks for restoring state unity and independence of Russia:
Centralization of management.
On October 9, 1918, the Provisional All-Russian Government moved from Ufa to Omsk in connection with the approach of the Red Army to Ufa.
On November 4, the Provisional All-Russian Government appealed to all regional governments with a request to immediately dissolve “all without exception Regional Governments and Regional Representative Institutions” and to transfer all powers to manage the All-Russian Government. On the same day, on the basis of the ministries and central administrations of the Provisional Siberian Government, the executive body of the Directory was formed - the All-Russian Council of Ministers, headed by Pyotr Vologdsky. Such centralization of state power was due to the need, first of all, to “recreate the combat power of the motherland, so necessary in the struggle for the revival of Great and United Russia”, “to create the conditions necessary for supplying the army and organizing the rear on an All-Russia scale”.
Thanks to this, it was possible to achieve the abolition of all regional, national and Cossack governments in the east of Russia and thereby consolidate the forces of anti-Bolshevik resistance.
The November 18 coup.
On November 18, 1918, the members of the Directory who were in Omsk were arrested, the Council of Ministers announced the assumption of full supreme power and then decided to transfer it to one person, conferring on him the title of Supreme Leader. Admiral Alexander Kolchak was elected by secret ballot to members of the Council of Ministers for this post. The admiral accepted the offer and announced the assumption of the rank of Supreme Commander. A new Russian government was formed, which went down in history as Omsk government, or the Kolchak government, which existed until January 4, 1920.
All commanders of the White armies in the south and west of Russia as well as in Siberia and the Far East recognized the supreme ruler of Admiral Kolchak; at the turn of May — June 1919, the generals Anton Denikin, Yevgeny Miller, Nikolai Yudenich voluntarily submitted to Alexander Kolchak and officially recognized his Supreme Command over all armies in Russia. The Supreme Commander at the same time confirmed the powers of commanders. By order of the supreme leader Miller and Yudenich received the status of governor-general.
From this point on, the Armed Forces of South Russia, the Northwestern Army, the Northern Army and the Eastern Front acted on the fronts of this united army.
The name “Russian Army” was approved as the unification of all the white fronts, the status of the front commanders formally from the commander-in-chief was given to the commanders of the Northern and North-Western armies generals Yudenich and Miller.
Alexander Kolchak continued the economic and political course of the Provisional Siberian Government, the former head of which - Pyotr Vologodsky, who became for the supreme ruler a symbol of the legitimacy of his rule, was left as chairman of the Council of Ministers. In the very first statements after the “November 18 coup”, both the Russian government, the supreme leader himself, and the white rulers and governments of other Russian regions that recognized his authority confirmed the need to convene a National Constituent Assembly, which was to become a truly unifying center, without any participation "Revolutionary radicals". For this, a new electoral law was developed.
State symbols.
Anthem.
On November 19, 1918, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution at the suggestion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Yury Klyuchnikov to consider the oldest spiritual anthem of the Russian Empire, "How Glorious Is Our Lord in Zion", to be the national anthem of Russia. The rules of the anthem repeated the order of the hymn "God Save the Tsar!".
Coat of arms.
In January - April 1919, in Omsk, on the initiative of the Society of Artists and Fine Art Lovers of the Steppe Territory, competitions were held to create a new text of the national anthem and a new state coat of arms. It was announced that, under the terms of the competition, the state coat of arms, “preserving the image of the two-headed eagle, should be compiled in more artistic forms, in the basics of the ancient Russian style, and should correspond to the modern understanding of decorativeness”, and “instead of the removed emblems of the tsarist era (crowns, scepter and powers) the coat of arms should be decorated with emblems characteristic of the new reviving statehood".
During the competition, 210 versions of the text of the anthem and 97 projects of the State coat of arms were proposed. The most likely contender for victory was considered a project created by an artist from Kazan, Gleb Ilyin, a two-headed eagle, above which stood a cross with the motto “In this, conquer!”. The regional coats of arms of the Russian Empire were removed from the wings of the eagle, but the Moscow arms with Saint George was kept, the crowns were also removed, and the scepter was replaced by the sword. Although none of the submitted projects of the coat of arms was finally approved by the jury, the submission of Gleb Ilyin was often shown on stationery stamps, on the pages of the Siberian press, and was used on banknotes.
On May 9, 1919, the decree of the Council of Ministers of the Russian government approved the symbolism of the Supreme leader is a flag and a pennant with a double-headed eagle, but without signs of “imperial” authority.
State awards.
Simultaneously with the competition for a new anthem and emblem, a competition was held for new State Orders - “Revival of Russia” and “Liberation of Siberia”. The submitted drafts Order of the Revival of Russia did not receive the approval of the jury. Only the draft of the Order of the Liberation of Siberia, approved by the same Gleb Ilyin, was approved.
The main reason for the lack of competition results was considered the “ideological inopportunity” of such events. As a jury member, writer Sergei Auslender, recalled: “The main content of the overwhelming majority of projects was the idea of“ Russia on the march ”, which, of course, did not correspond to the task set - to create the sovereign symbolism of the updated Russian state”. The jury also expressed doubts about the lack of monarchical symbolism in the submitted projects, which went against the principle of “non-denial” declared by the white government.
State-political structure.
The state consisted of three separate parts, only the Omsk and Arkhangelsk governments for some time were able to connect their territories.
Laws that were passed in Omsk became binding for all territories of the Russian State.
The Omsk government provided financial assistance to the South. To address the issue of lack of bread, Miller's northern government made purchases in Siberia.
The structure of government consisted of temporary government bodies. These authorities were limited to the duration of the wartime and the restoration of the full order in the country.
Government.
The Supreme leader was the sole head of state, with full supreme legislative, executive and judicial powers. According to the position, he was the Supreme Commander of all land and sea armed forces of Russia. The only person holding this post was Admiral Alexander Kolchak. On January 4, 1920, he signed his last decree, in which he announced his intention to transfer the powers of the “Supreme All-Russian Power” to Anton Denikin. Pending receipt of instructions from Anton Denikin, "the full military and civilian authority throughout the Russian Eastern Fringe" was provided to Lieutenant General Grigory Semyonov. Anton Denikin did not officially enter this position, although he actually performed it.
The Council of Ministers was the highest legislative and executive authority of the Russian state, the guarantor of the supreme power of the head of state.
Composition:
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The Council of the Supreme leader was an advisory and advisory body on the most important state issues under the Supreme leader of the Russian State.
Composition:
The Emergency State Economic Meeting was a consultative body on economic issues at the Council of Ministers. Performed the functions of "industrial-cooperative" representation. It existed in the original composition until May 2, 1919.
Composition:
The State Economic Meeting was a special advisory body on major economic issues under the Council of Ministers, established on May 2, 1919, by transforming the Extraordinary State Economic Meeting. Developed projects to improve economic policy, which were subsequently submitted to the Supreme Governor for review and approval.
Composition:
The Committee of the Council of Ministers on the observance of law and order in management was the control and deliberative body of the Council of Ministers, which has supervised control functions in the area of compliance with the law and the rules of order.
The Office of the Supreme Leader was a state body that performed functions in order to ensure the activities of the Supreme Leader as head of state in the exercise of supreme state power.
Economics and finance.
Alexander Kolchak had Russia's gold reserves in the form of gold coins and ingots, as well as jewelry, platinum, silver and securities, captured by the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Kazan in August 1918 and later transported to Omsk. Gold reserves were estimated at 650 million rubles in gold at the pre-war rate. The government of Kolchak spent 240 million gold rubles for the payment of the tsar's debts and for the supply of the allies. It was impossible to do without these supplies, because in an atmosphere of economic chaos during the Civil War, industrial enterprises reduced production several times.
Foreign policy.
In foreign policy, Alexander Kolchak steadily adhered to the orientation on Russia's former allies in the First World War. As the Supreme ruler and successor to the pre-October Russian governments (tsarist and interim) in a declaration of November 21, 1918, he recognized their external debts and other contractual obligations (by the end of 1917, Russia's foreign debt exceeded 12 billion rubles).
The chief representative of the white governments abroad was the former tsarist foreign minister, an experienced diplomat Sergey Sazonov, who was in Paris. All Russian embassies abroad, remaining from the pre-revolution period, submitted to him, retaining their apparatus, property and functions.
The Russian state was de jure recognized internationally by only one state: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. At the end of June 1919, Chargé d'affaires of the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry Jovan Milanković arrived in Omsk. Vasily Strandman was appointed Ambassador in Belgrade.
The Russian state was de facto recognized by the countries of the Entente and the countries that emerged after the collapse of European empires: Czechoslovakia, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic Limitrophe states.
The declaration of the All-Russian Government of December 7, 1918, on the end of world war expressed the hope of Russia's participation in the Paris Peace Conference. The government created a special commission at its Foreign Ministry to prepare for a peace conference in the hope that Russia will be represented at Versailles as a great country that suffered huge losses and for three years held a second front, without which the final victory of the Allies would be impossible. This was assured by Russia, in particular, by the head of the French military mission, General Maurice Janin, speaking on his arrival in Vladivostok in November 1918. It was assumed that if prior to the convening of the conference, the new Russia's government is not legally recognized by the allies, then any of the diplomats of old Russia will represent its interests in agreement with the white governments. However, the position of the allies in this matter soon changed. The decisive argument was the absence of a legally recognized government of all Russia.
As a result, the conference decided: to postpone consideration of the question of Russia, its international status and borders until the end of the Civil War, when a single government will be established throughout its entire territory, and then convene a special international conference on all issues related to it.
In January 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George launched an initiative to convene a special international conference on the Russian question on the Princes Islands, to which representatives of both opposing sides were invited: the Bolsheviks and the whites. The Soviet government responded to this proposal. Among whites, however, the proposal of the Allies to negotiate with the Bolsheviks caused a wave of indignation. Kolchak and Denikin refused to send their representatives to the Princes' Islands.
Military.
September - December 1918.
On September 28, 1918, Lieutenant-General Vasily Boldyrev, a member of the Directorate of the General Staff, was appointed commander-in-chief of all land and naval armed forces of Russia and took command of the combined Russian armed units of Eastern Russia (the Siberian army, the Orenburg and Ural Cossack units, the remnants of the People's Army of Komuch and the Czechoslovak Corps).
At first, the unification of the Siberian and People's Armies did not lead to success: the new command could not properly use the available capabilities, and the units of the People's Army left to themselves continued the retreat that began as early as September. October 3, 1918 Syzran was left, October 8 - Samara.
In early October, General Boldyrev reorganized the command of the armed forces of the East of Russia, distributing all the troops subordinate to him on three fronts: Western, South-Western and Siberian. The structure of the Western Front included all Russian and Czechoslovak troops operating against the Soviet troops of the Eastern Front north of the line Nikolaevsk-Buzuluk-Sterlitamak-Verkhneuralsk-Kustanay-Pavlodar. The commander-in-chief of the Czechoslovak Corps, Major General Jan Syrový, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, and General Mikhail Dieterikhs was appointed Chief of Staff of the Front. The front consisted of Russian, Bashkir and Czechoslovak military units in the Urals and in the Volga region: two divisions of the Czechoslovak Corps and the Yekaterinburg group (commanded by Radola Gajda), the Kama group (commanded by lieutenant-general Sergey Lyupov), the Samara group (all groups with rights armies), (commander - colonel (later Major General) Sergei Wojciechowski); Kama military river flotilla (commander - Rear Admiral Mikhail Smirnov). The Ural and Orenburg Cossack troops, as well as regular units operating to the south of this line on the Saratov and Tashkent directions, formed the South-Western Front, led by the ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army, Lieutenant General Alexander Dutov. All anti-Bolshevik troops operating on the territory of Siberia became part of the Siberian Front, whose commander-in-chief was appointed Commander of the Siberian Army, Major General Pavel Ivanov-Rinov.
Due to the transformation of the military ministry of the Provisional Siberian Government into the military and naval ministry of the Provisional All-Russian Government, on November 2, 1918, Pavel Ivanov-Rinov was relieved of his post as governor, but retained the post of commander of the Siberian army.
The reorganization of the management of the anti-Bolshevik armed forces of the East of Russia was completed by Admiral Alexander Kolchak, as Supreme Commander. On December 18, 1918, he ordered the elimination of the corps areas of the Siberian Army and the formation of military districts instead:
By the same order, Kolchak approved the Orenburg Military District with the headquarters in Orenburg (Orenburg province without Chelyabinsk district and Turgay region), which was formed by the order of the military circle of the Orenburg Cossack army.
In the autumn - winter of 1918, the situation on the front favored Kolchak's plans for uniting disparate anti-Bolshevik forces. On November 29, the Yekaterinburg group of the Siberian Army, having launched a decisive offensive, completely crushed the 3rd Army of the Red Army, took Kungur (December 21) and Perm (December 24), where it took huge trophies.
After the establishment in December 1918 of the headquarters of the Supreme Commander Admiral Kolchak, the Siberian army was disbanded.
On December 24, a new Siberian army was formed from the Yekaterinburg Group of Forces (as part of the 1st Mid-Siberian Corps, 3rd Steppe Siberian Corps, Votkinsk Division and Krasnoufimsky Brigade), whose temporary command was entrusted to General Radola Gajda. For the formation of the army headquarters, it was proposed to use the headquarters of the former Siberian Army, which should be redeployed from Omsk to Yekaterinburg as soon as possible. General Boris Bogoslovsky, Chief of Staff of the Yekaterinburg Group, was appointed to execute the Chief of Staff of the Siberian Army.
The Western Army, led by General Mikhail Khanzhin, commander of the 3rd Ural Corps, was formed from parts of the Samara and Kama Group of Forces, the 3rd and 6th Ural Corps. Chief of Staff of the Samara Group, General Sergey Schepikhin, was appointed Chief of the Army Staff. On the basis of the troops of the South-Western Front, the Orenburg Separate Army was formed under the command of General Alexander Dutov. The troops of the Siberian Front were reorganized into the 2nd Steppe Siberian Separate Corps of General Vladimir Brzezovsky, which operated on the Semirechensky direction.
1919.
In January–February 1919, the reorganized Siberian Army repulsed the Red Army counter-offensive against Perm.
In early March, the Siberian and Western armies launched an offensive.
The Siberian army, advancing on Vyatka and Kazan, in April took Sarapul, Votkinsk and Izhevsk and entered the approaches to Kazan. The Western army occupied Ufa (March 14), Belebey, Birsk, Bugulma (April 10), Buguruslan, and approached Samara. The South Army group of the 4th Army Corps and the Consolidated Sterlitamak Corps, which was attacking Aktobe-Orenburg, which is under its operational subordination, entered the suburbs of Orenburg and together with the Orenburg Cossacks laid siege to the city in late April.
As a result of the general offensive, the whole of the Ural was occupied, and Kolchak's troops came very close to the Volga.
It was at that moment that the strategic miscalculation of the White Army command became obvious: the offensive that developed along concentric divergent directions was stopped by the troops of the Eastern Front of the Red Army, and on April 28 the Southern Group of the Eastern Front of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive against the Western Army. She defeated her near Buguruslan and Belebei and threw her across the White River. At the end of May, the troops of the Western Army were consolidated into the Volga, Ural and Ufa groups. In the battle for Ufa (May 25-June 19), the Western army was again defeated and retreated to Chelyabinsk.
The Siberian army was forced to stop its offensive and start a withdrawal due to the threat to its left flank. In June, due to the continuing retreat of the Western Army, parts of the Siberian Army were forced to begin a hasty retreat along the entire front and in July they withdrew to the Trans-Urals. Ekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk were left.
On July 22, 1919, the Siberian army was divided into the 1st (on the Tyumen direction) and the 2nd (on the Kurgan direction) Siberian armies, which together with the 3rd army (the former Western army) formed the Eastern Front under the command of General Mikhail Diterikhs .
The southern army group of the Western army did not manage to take Orenburg, and in August, after the beginning of the general retreat of the whites, it also retreated to the east.
The 1st and 2nd Siberian armies successfully participated in the Tobolsk offensive operation (August - October 1919), but after the collapse of the Eastern front, which took place in October–November 1919, their remnants retreated to Transbaikalia, where they continued to fight against the Bolsheviks until November 1920.
Relations with allies.
At first, the governments of Britain and France believed that the whole struggle against the Bolsheviks in Russia should be conducted under Western leadership. General Maurice Janin, the head of the Allied mission, who arrived in Omsk via Vladivostok at the end of 1918, presented a mandate signed by Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George, according to which he was authorized to command all the troops in Siberia, both allied and Russian. Alexander Kolchak categorically rejected this mandate, saying that he would rather refuse foreign aid altogether rather than agree to such conditions. After the negotiations, the Allied governments made concessions, and a compromise was reached: Admiral Kolchak remained the Supreme Commander of the Russian troops, and Maurice Janin was appointed by the Kolchak order of January 19, 1919, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces, that is, the Czechs, as well as the smaller detachments of Serbs, Italians who arrived later, Romanians and Poles. Janin, however, did not forgive Kolchak of his decline in status. The British military mission under Kolchak was headed by General Alfred Knox, who was responsible for supplying the Kolchak army. He, unlike Janin, was loyal to Kolchak and showed a friendly attitude.
The units of the Allied forces were located in the rear. On the front for a short time there were only a small French detachment and an English brigade, in which the rank and file was recruited mainly from the Russians. The Japanese and American troops stationed in the Far East did not submit to Janin. The Japanese kept in the territory from the Pacific Ocean to Transbaikalia a 40-thousand corps (originally even up to 70 thousand military men), the Americans - only 7-thousand brigade.
The main assistance of the British and French allies was reduced to supplying the armies of Kolchak and Denikin with weapons and uniforms. The Czechoslovak Corps, despite the efforts of the Allied representatives, failed to return to the front. After the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary in the war, they sought to return home, not wanting to fight in a foreign country for goals they did not understand, especially after the Kolchak coup in Omsk, which the Czechs categorically did not support. With all the ostentatious "friendliness", the relationship between the Russians and the Czechs became increasingly strained. The only thing that the Czechs agreed to under pressure from representatives of the Entente was to carry in the rear security guards of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Novonikolayevsk to Irkutsk.
As for the USA and Japan, they were limited mainly to maintaining political relations with Kolchak and the role of "friendly" observers in the Far East, waiting for the development of the situation, pursuing their economic interests and competing among themselves for the predominant influence in the region. At the same time, the American command was not inclined to actively intervene in Russian affairs, and even essentially hostile to the Kolchak regime because of its “undemocratic” nature and white terror. The Japanese, however, not only intervened, but also actively sought to subjugate the Far East to their influence. In the Far East, due to its remoteness, the small number of Russian troops and the presence of foreign troops, the power of the All-Russian government was almost nominal.
International legal recognition.
The Russian state was recognized by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia). On May 19, 1919, Prime Minister of the Kingdom Stoyan Protić issued an official note that he informed the All-Russian Government that the Kingdom recognized him as the legitimate Russian authority. Russia also recognized this Kingdom. In Omsk, Jovan Milanković was appointed attorney in charge of the Kingdom, and the interests of the Provisional All-Russian Government in Belgrade were represented in 1919 by Vasily Shtrandtman.
References.
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Sergey Ten
Russian politician
Sergey Yurievich Ten (; born 25 August 1976, Irkutsk) is a Russian political figure and a deputy of the 6th, 7th, and 8th State Dumas.
From 1999 to 2001, Ten worked as Deputy General Director for Property and Strategic Development of Trud CJSC. In 2003, he was appointed the Head of the organization; he held that position until 2011. From 2006 to 2009, Ten was the Head of the Irkutsk branch of the Young Guard of United Russia. In 2011, 2016, and 2021, he was elected deputy of the 6th, 7th, and 8th State Dumas from the Irkutsk Oblast constituency, respectively.
Sanctions.
He was sanctioned by Canada under the Special Economic Measures Act (S.C. 1992, c. 17) in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine for Grave Breach of International Peace and Security, and by the UK government in 2022 in relation to Russo-Ukrainian War.
References.
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Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
1918 treaty between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, which followed months of negotiations after the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917, was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus).
The Soviet delegation was initially headed by Adolph Joffe, and key figures from the Central Powers included Max Hoffmann and Richard von Kühlmann of Germany, Ottokar Czernin of Austria-Hungary, and Talaat Pasha of the Ottoman Empire. In January 1918, the Central Powers demanded secession of all occupied territories of the former Russian Empire. The Soviets sent a new peace delegation led by Leon Trotsky, which aimed to stall the negotiations while awaiting revolutions in Central Europe. A renewed Central Powers offensive launched on February 18 captured large territories in the Baltic region, Belarus, and Ukraine and forced the Soviet side to sue for peace.
Under the terms of the treaty, Russia lost control of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and its Caucasus provinces of Kars and Batum. The lands comprised 34% of the former empire's population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways. The Soviet government also confirmed the independence of Finland, which it had recognized in January 1918, and pledged to end its war with the Ukrainian People's Republic, which the Central Powers had recognized under the prior Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (9 February 1918). A supplementary protocol signed in August 1918 required Russia to pay Germany war reparations of six billion marks. The treaty was controversial in Russia, giving a unifying cause to the White movement and opening a rift between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, whose representatives withdrew from the Council of People's Commissars after its signing and later rebelled in the Left SR Uprising.
The treaty was annulled by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, in which Germany surrendered to the western Allied Powers. Subsequent attempts by the Soviets to restore power in the lost territories during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) had mixed results, with the Red Army being defeated in the independence wars of the three Baltic countries and in the Polish–Soviet War, but achieving victory in its invasions of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia and in the Ukrainian–Soviet War. The border with Turkey established by the treaty was largely affirmed by the Treaty of Kars (1921). Under the Treaty of Rapallo (1922), Russia and Germany renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other.
The Russian borders established by the treaty bear an almost exact similarity to the post-1991 borders established after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Background.
By 1917, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia were stuck in a stalemate on the Eastern Front of World War I and the Russian economy had nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort. The large numbers of war casualties and persistent food shortages in the major urban centers brought about civil unrest, known as the February Revolution, that forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The Russian Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar in early 1917 continued the war. Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov sent the Entente Powers a telegram, known as the Milyukov note, affirming to them that the Provisional Government would continue the war with the same war aims that the former Russian Empire had. The pro-war Provisional Government was opposed by the self-proclaimed Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, dominated by leftist parties. Its Order No. 1 called for an overriding mandate to soldier committees rather than army officers. The Soviet started to form its own paramilitary power, the Red Guards, in March 1917.
The continuing war led the German Government to agree to a suggestion that they should favour the opposition Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who were proponents of Russia's withdrawal from the war. Therefore, in April 1917, Germany transported Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and thirty-one supporters in a sealed train from exile in Switzerland to Finland Station, Petrograd. Upon his arrival in Petrograd, Lenin proclaimed his April Theses, which included a call for turning all political power over to workers' and soldiers' soviets (councils) and an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. At around the same time, the United States entered the war, potentially shifting the balance of the war against the Central Powers. Throughout 1917, Bolsheviks called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and an end to the war. Following the disastrous failure of the Kerensky offensive, discipline in the Russian army deteriorated completely. Soldiers would disobey orders, often under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, and set up soldiers' committees to take control of their units after deposing the officers.
The defeat and ongoing hardships of war led to anti-government riots in Petrograd, the "July Days" of 1917. Several months later, on 7 November (25 October old style), Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government in what is known as the October Revolution.
A top priority of the newly established Soviet government was to end the war. On 8 November 1917 (26 October 1917 O.S) Vladimir Lenin signed the Decree on Peace, which was approved by the Second Congress of the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. The Decree called "upon all the belligerent nations and their governments to start immediate negotiations for peace" and proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from World War I. Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the new Bolshevik government. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and the representatives of the other Central Powers, Leon Trotsky appointed his good friend Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks at the peace conference.
Peace negotiations.
On 15 December 1917, an armistice between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers was concluded. On 22 December, peace negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk.
Arrangements for the conference were the responsibility of General Max Hoffmann, the chief of staff of the Central Powers' forces on the Eastern Front ("Oberkommando-Ostfront, Ober Ost"). The delegations that had negotiated the armistice were made stronger. Prominent additions on the Central Powers' side were the foreign ministers of Germany, Richard von Kühlmann, and Austria-Hungary, Count Ottokar Czernin, both the Ottoman grand vizier Talaat Pasha and Foreign Minister Nassimy Bey. The Bulgarians were headed by Minister of Justice Popoff, who was later joined by Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov.
The Soviet delegation was led by Adolph Joffe, who had already led their armistice negotiators, but his group was made more cohesive by eliminating most of the representatives of social groups, like peasants and sailors, and the addition of tsarist general Aleksandr Samoilo and the noted Marxist historian Mikhail Pokrovsky. It still included Anastasia Bitsenko, a former assassin, representing the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who were at odds with the Bolsheviks. Again, the negotiators met in the fortress in Brest-Litovsk, and the delegates were housed in temporary wooden structures in its courtyards because the city had been burnt to the ground in 1915 by the retreating Russian army. They were cordially welcomed by the German commander of the Eastern Front, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who sat with Joffe on the head table at the opening banquet with one hundred guests. As they had during the armistice negotiations, both sides continued to eat dinner and supper together amicably intermingled in the officers' mess.
When the conference convened Kühlmann asked Joffe to present the Russian conditions for peace. He made six points, all variations of the Bolshevik slogan of peace with "no annexations or indemnities". The Central Powers accepted the principles "but only in case all belligerents [including the nations of the Entente] without exception pledge themselves to do the same". They did not intend to annex territories occupied by force. Joffe telegraphed the marvelous news to Petrograd. Thanks to informal chatting in the mess, one of Hoffmann's aides, Colonel Friedrich Brinckmann, realized that the Russians had optimistically misinterpreted the Central Powers' meaning. It fell to Hoffmann to set matters straight at dinner on 27 December: Poland, Lithuania and Courland, already occupied by the Central Powers, were determined to separate from Russia on the principle of self-determination that the Bolsheviks themselves espoused. Joffe "looked as if he had received a blow on the head". Pokrovsky wept as he asked how they could speak of "peace without annexations when Germany was tearing eighteen provinces away from the Russian state". The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians planned to annex slices of Polish territory and to set up a rump Polish state with what remained. The Baltic governorates were to become client states ruled by German princes. Czernin was beside himself that this hitch that was slowing the negotiations; self-determination was anathema to his government and they urgently needed grain from the east because Vienna was on the verge of starvation. He proposed to make a separate peace. Kühlmann warned that if they negotiated separately, Germany would immediately withdraw all its divisions from the Austrian front; Czernin dropped that threat. The food crisis in Vienna was eventually eased by "forced drafts of grain from Hungary, Poland, and Romania and by a last moment contribution from Germany of 450 truck-loads of flour". At Russian request, they agreed to recess the talks for twelve days.
The Soviets' only hopes were that time would make their allies agree to join the negotiations or that the western European proletariat would revolt and so their best strategy was to prolong the negotiations. As Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky wrote, "To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying". Therefore, Trotsky replaced Joffe as the leader.
On the other side were significant political realignments. On New Year's Day in Berlin, the Kaiser insisted that Hoffmann reveal his views on the future German–Polish border. He advocated taking a small slice of Poland; Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted much more. They were furious with Hoffmann for breaching the chain of command and wanted him to be dismissed and sent to command a division. The Kaiser refused, but Ludendorff no longer spoke with Hoffmann on the telephone since the communication was now through an intermediary.
The German Supreme Commanders were also furious at ruling out of annexations, contending that the peace "must increase Germany's material power". They denigrated Kühlmann and pressed for additional territorial acquisitions. When Hindenburg was asked why they needed the Baltic provinces he replied, "To secure my left flank for when the next war happens." However, the most profound transformation was that a delegation from the Ukrainian Rada, which had declared independence from Russia, had arrived at Brest-Litovsk. They would make peace if they were given the Polish city of Cholm and its surroundings, and they would provide desperately needed grain. Czernin no longer was desperate for a prompt settlement with the Russians.
When they reconvened, Trotsky declined the