Anyone who thinks the Kaiser would have been a good chap after a victory over France should consider what his government did to Russia after the victory there in 1917.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is little known in the West because it was annulled by the German defeat in 1918.

According to the conservative American historian Spencer Tucker, "The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator."

Germany demanded (and got) the cession of nearly 400,000 square miles of Russian territory, about 25% of the national population, and 90% of the coal mines. Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Finland became either part of Germany or came under German military protection.