effort that they needed to defeat the Alliance (Ulam, p. 88). Russia’s rather ineffective involvement in the war came in 1918 when Lenin signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. The treaty that allowed Russia to achieve peace with Germany by giving concessions of land and heavy economic resources to the Germans. To the Allies, it appeared that the Russo-German peace agreement simply saved Russia at their expense. Now the Allies were incapable of fighting the Germans as effectively as they could if Russia was involved in the war. It appeared that Russia had turned its back on France and Britain by saving itself. The Allies also began to explore the possibility that Russia had secretly aligned with Germany because the massive concessions given basically made Russia an economic slave to Germany (Ulam, p. 91). With Russia bowing out of the war, the Allies were on their own and they became more cautious in their future dealings with the Russian state.The events of W.W.I also brought major sources of discord between Germany and Russia. Throughout the war, Russia chose to take more offensive positions against Austria-Hungary than towards the Germans (Ulam, p. 80). They tried to fight the Triple alliance, yet at the same time not acting in a way to infuriate Germany and cause a massive German assault on Russia (p. 89). Due to Lenin’s assumption that Russia would not be able to survive an all out German attack, he signed the rather costly Treaty of Brest Litovsk and thereby gave major concessions to the Germans in exchange for their neutrality (Ulam, p. 89). The “harshness” (p. 89) of the treaty that was dealt by the Germans created much disenchantment between the two sides (p. 89). The reparations called for the Germans to be paid 6 Billion German marks in gold and goods that would have inevitably made Russia an “economic satellite” of Germany (p. 89) After the treaty was signed, Germany created tension by not ...
