Germany’s food situation in the coming winter was truly alarming. As Friedrich Ebert, one of the most energetic leaders of the majority Social Democrats, spelled out to his colleagues in the Reichstag on 20 December 1917, ‘in April and May we will be faced with a void. So nothing but shortened bread rations to 110 grams per day. That is impossible.’10 With Russia suing for an armistice, the fabled granary of the Ukraine beckoned in the East. But to gain access to those desperately needed supplies, short of wholesale occupation, Germany and Austria needed a trade deal. Whereas the Bolsheviks
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