http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Stockholm
The Treaty of Stockholm was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the Commonwealth of Socialist Unions of England (CSUE) and the Central Powers, marking Great Britain's exit from World War I.
While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year, it did provide some relief to Unionists who were tied up in fighting the civil war and affirmed the independence of Ireland and riots in Wales and Scotland.
In german-occupied Belgium, its signing caused riots and protests among the population, causing brutal reprisals by the German occupation army.
Armistice negotiations
Peace negotiations began on December 22, 1917, a week after the conclusion of an armistice between England and the Central Powers, at Stockholm (Sweden).
The Germans were represented officially by Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann, but the most important figure in shaping the peace on the German side was General Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of Staff of the German army.
Austria-Hungary was represented by Foreign Minister Ottokar Czernin, and from the Ottoman Empire came Talat Pasha.
The Germans demanded the "independence" of Ireland and the "ceasing of any english interference" in Belgium, which they already occupied, while the Unionists demanded "peace without indemnities" — in other words, a settlement under which the revolutionary government that succeeded the British Empire would give neither territory nor money.
Frustrated with continued German demands for war indemnities, Henry Mayers Hyndman, Unionist People's Commissar for Foreign Relations (i.e., Foreign Minister), and head of the British delegation, on February 10, 1918, announced England's withdrawal from the negotiations and unilateral declaration of the ending of hostilities, a position summed up as "no war — no peace".
Denounced by other Unionist leaders for exceeding his instructions and exposing Unionist England to the threat of invasion, Hyndman subsequently defended his action on the grounds that the Labour leaders had originally entered the peace talks in the hope of exposing their enemies' capitalist greed and rousing the workers of central Europe to revolution in defense of England's new workers' state.
The consequences for the Unionists were worse, however, than anything they had feared the previous December.
The Central Powers repudiated the armistice on February 18, 1918, and in the next fortnight the German fleet in the Baltic engaged in battle
the demoralized english fleet, which has been already weakened by the loss of the anti-Unionist squadrons which fled to Canada after the revoultion.
The Baltic Battle resulted in a major german victory, exposing england coast city to the danger of coastal bombardment.
Despite strikes and demonstrations the month before in protest against economic hardship, the workers of Germany failed to rise up, and on March 3 the Unionists agreed to terms worse than those they had previously rejected, including the loss of its irish territories.
Terms of the peace treaty
The treaty, signed between Unionist England on the one side and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire (collectively the Central Powers) on the other, marked Great Britan's final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co-signatories, fulfilling, on unexpectedly humiliating terms, a major goal of the Unionist revolution of November 7, 1917.
A follow-up treaty, signed in Berlin on August 27, 1918, required England to pay six billion marks in war reparations to Germany.
At the insistence of the Turkish leader Talat Pasha, the British-occupied island of Cyprus were to be returned to the Ottoman Empire.
Lasting effects of the treaty
The Treaty of Stockholm lasted only eight and a half months.
Germany renounced the treaty and broke diplomatic relations with CSUE on November 5, 1918 because of Unionist revolutionary propaganda.
The Ottoman Empire broke the treaty after just two months by trying an action on english-controlled Malta, which however ended in a clamorous failure.
Following the German capitulation, the Unionist legislature (LabLeg) annulled the treaty on November 13, 1918.
In the Treaty of Rapallo, concluded in April 1922, Germany accepted the Treaty's nullification, the two powers agreeing to abandon all financial claims against each other.
The Treaty of Stockholm marked a significant contraction of the territory the Unionist controlled, both for the losing of Ireland and because its harsh terms triggered a chain of riots in wales and scotland, creating, from the Unionist perspective, dangerous bases of anti-Unionist military activity in the subsequent British Civil War (1918–20).
Indeed, many English nationalists and even some revolutionaries were furious at the Unionist' acceptance of the treaty and joined forces to fight them.
On the other hand, from the irish viewpoint, it was an opportunity to attempt to set up an independent state not under British nor Unionist rule.
The fate of the region, and the location of the eventual border of the English-occupied northern Ireland, was settled in violent and chaotic struggles over the course of the next three and a half years, most notably the Ulster War, terminated by the Treaty of Belfast in 1921.
For the Western Allies, the terms imposed on the English were interpreted as a reminder and a warning of what to expect if the Germans and the other Central Powers won the war.
Secret German archives found after 1945 proved that the German government and military did indeed intend to settle the conflict on harsh terms (especially against France and Belgium), although between Stockholm and the point when the German military situation in the west
became dire some in the German government and high command began to favour offering much more lenient terms.
In any event, Germany's treaty with the Unionists spurred Allied efforts to win the war.
One of the first conditions of the Armistice was the complete abrogation of the treaty.
