A German-Russian secret agreement: the Treaty of Rapallo
April 16th, 1922. Germany and Russia, the former adversaries of World War I, met in the Italian city of Rapallo to sign a treaty through which each renounced the territorial and financial claims set in 1918 by the Peace Treaty of Brest - Litovsk. The Treaty of Rapallo...
The Union Act of Democratic Moldavian Republic of Bessarabia
On April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, Sfatul Țării decided with 86 votes for, 3 against and 36 abstaining (mostly non-Romanians), for union with the Kingdom of Romania, conditional upon the fulfillment of agrarian reform, local autonomy, and respect for universal human...
The Independence of Lithuania – The Act of Independence of 16 February 1918
The outcome of the First World War created the preconditions for Lithuania, still suffering from German occupation, to reach the long-term goal of the nation: restore an independent state. In 1917, over 200 delegates convened for the Vilnius Conference and adopted a...
Manifesto to the peoples of Estonia
The Estonian Declaration of Independence, also known as the Manifesto to the Peoples of Estonia is the founding act of the Republic of Estonia from February 24th 1918. In the course of centuries never have the Estonian people lost their desire for independence. From...
The Proclamation of the Moldavian Democratic Republic – December 2nd 1917
The Moldavian Democratic Republic, also known as the Moldavian Republic, was a state proclaimed on December 2nd 1917 (December 15, the Gregorian calendar) by the Sfatul Țării (National Council) of Bessarabia, elected in October–November 1917 following the February...
The Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. The...
The Declaration of Independence of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
After the outbreak of the February Revolution in Petrograd in 1917 and the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Romanians in Bessarabia sought their way to self-determination by creating local bodies that would provide them with autonomy at the very least, if not...
Woodrow Wilson’s War Message to Congress
President Wilson addressed Congress to announce that diplomatic relations with Germany were severed. In a Special Session of Congress held on 2 April 1917, President Wilson delivered this 'War Message.' Four days later, Congress overwhelmingly passed the War...
The Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth on the peoples’ self-determination in 1851
In the history of the peoples’ self-determination right, the historians gave an important role to the Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894). He was a politician, statesman and Governor-President of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–49,...
Peace offer by the Pope – August 1917
The war could ended one year before we Pope Benedict XV propose a peace. The war and its consequences were Benedict's main focus during the early years of his pontificate. He declared the neutrality of the Holy See and attempted from that perspective to mediate peace...