The Russian Soviet Federated Republic began negotiations with the Central Powers on 22 December, one week after the armistice beginning 15 December 1917. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918 and it left the Bolshevik army free to pursue the civil war. The Treaty also recognised the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania but not Poland, then occupied by Germany. The harshness of the treaty formulated by the German General Staff on the Eastern Front would haunt the Germans who would have little grounds for complaint during the negotiations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.