After the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Hetman visited Germany and was received cordially by the Kaiser. The Austro-Hungarians postponed ratifying the Treaty because of secret claims on Ukrainian border-territories, Galicia and Bukovina. When Rumania occupied Bessarabia in March 1918, the Hetman could only make a token protest. Further difficulties arose with the proclamation of Crimean independence and threatened action from the Don region, now under the leadership of Ataman Pyotr Krassnoff, which remained unrelentingly monarchist, but a treaty was eventually signed between the Ukraine and the Don Cossack Host in August 1918. With the end of hostilities between the Great Powers the Germans began to withdraw from the Ukraine, leaving Skoropadskya without any real support. Liberal forces resumed control of the Rada, but leftist and nationalist (‘Greens’) groups refused to co-operate. In November 1918 a Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic was formed to lead the uprising against Skoropadskya. The Directory’s chief leaders were Vinnichenko, Petlyura, Shets, Makerenko and Andriievsky. Kiev was defended by Russian and German units. The Directory (‘Greens’) forces offered a guarantee to the Germans that they would be allowed to return safely home if they declared their neutrality. The Germans accepted. On December 14 the Hetman abdicated and fled with the Germans. On December 19 the Directory forces entered Kiev and the nationalist leadership became the official government of the Republic.
Although controlling most of the Ukraine, the Directory was almost immediately faced with the threat of invasion from a recently independent Poland, anxious to reclaim its Ukrainian empire, from the Bolsheviks and from the White Russians (who had supported the Hetman) in the northern Caucasus. By this time Entente (France-Greek) forces were supporting the White Russians and were threatening Odessa and Nikolaieff. Fundamentally a ‘moderate’ socialist regime, the Directory had support from a number of other left-wing elements, although Bolsheviks and Anarchists (who were inclined to take an internationalist view) refused to acknowledge it as anything but a ‘bourgeois-liberal’ government and continued to work against it. When the Bolsheviks began their second invasion in earnest (under the command of Trotsky and Antonov) many of these elements agreed to bury their differences and fight against the Red Army. By this time Makhno commanded a very large and effective fighting force, using innovative tactics which the Red Cavalry were eventually to borrow wholesale. Other ‘revolutionary’ or insurgent leaders of sometimes doubtful political conviction included Hrihorieff (Grigoriev) fighting in the Kherson region, Ataman Anhel in Chemihiv, Shepel in Podilia and Zeleny in northern Kiev province. These had some of the characteristics of the Warlords, who would later take advantage of China’s civil unrest, but by and large at this stage they were all content to hold their own territory rather than attack Petlyura or give active support to the Bolsheviks, whom they mistrusted as Russian imperialists. In January 1919, however, the Bolsheviks, now aided by some insurgents, drove for Kiev and in February the Directory forces evacuated the city and allied themselves with the French and, therefore, the Whites. This lost them considerable mass support. Hrihorieff, in particular, put his army at the disposal of the Bolsheviks and attacked the Directory’s forces. Hrihorieff then appears to have developed strong personal ambitions and begun a broad attack on various towns and cities with the object of reaching Odessa and ousting the Entente-White forces holding the Ukraine’s most important port. The best account of this may be found in
