An agreement between Soviet Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, signed in the town of that name in Poland. The conference opened in December 1917 in order to end Soviet participation in World War I. Trotsky skilfully prolonged discussions in the hope of Allied help for the Russian Revolution or of a socialist uprising of German and Austro-Hungarian workers. Neither happened. Lenin capitulated and ordered his delegates to accept the German terms. By the treaty, Russia surrendered nearly half of its European territory: Finland, the Baltic provinces, Belorussia (now Belarus), Poland, the Ukraine, and parts of the Caucasus. The German armistice in the west (November 1918) annulled the treaty, but in the Versailles Peace Settlement Russia only regained the Ukraine.