On 26 February, having received news of the Bolshevik surrender, the Germans halted within a few days’ march of the Soviet capital. Four days later, running a gauntlet of hostility from the local Russian population, the grizzled old Bolshevik Grigori Sokolnikov returned to Brest-Litovsk ready to accept whatever terms were offered. Embarrassed by how far things had degenerated since their first relatively cordial meetings, the German and Austrian diplomats had hoped to soften the brutality of the proceedings by setting up a series of subcommittees, in which they would spin out technical
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