On November 26, 1917, the temporary popular assembly, which had meanwhile been called together, known as the Rada, proclaimed itself the supreme authority throughout Ukrainia, and elections were called for a legitimate constituent assembly. This new republic covered a vast territory, including some of the best agricultural sections of Russia; the governments of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Taurida, and parts of the governments of Voronesh and Kursk; it extended to the Black Sea, Odessa, and the Crimea, and eastward to the territory of the Don Cossacks, where Kaledine had organized his people. At least part of the Black Sea fleet attached itself to the Ukraine Government, recognizing its authority. But the Ukraine Government, though revolutionary, was not Bolshevist. Here the Bolsheviki did not gain control, though they continued the same agitation which had been carried on up in Petrograd for so many months. Occasionally there were open attacks and violent fighting between the two factions, in which the Bolsheviki from the Great Russian sections assisted them, giving the general impression that the two republics were at war and raising the hope in the Allied countries that, through the triumph of the Ukrainians, assisted by the Cossacks, the Bolsheviki and their peace policy would yet be ousted. But, as subsequent events have since shown, there was no less danger of a separate peace on the part of the conservative Ukrainians than from the Bolsheviki. CHAPTER XXII THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS Meanwhile the Central Powers were responding to the Russian proposals for peace negotiations with poorly concealed avidity. On November 30, 1917, Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, replied to the Russian proposals as follows: "The guiding principles announced by the Russian Government for negotiations for an armistice and a peace treaty, counterproposals to which are awaited by the Russian Government, are, in the opinion of the Austro-Hungarian Government, a suitable basis for entering upon these negotiations. The Austro-Hungarian Government therefore declares that it is ready to enter upon negotiations as proposed by the Russian Government regarding an immediate armistice and a general peace." Thus Austria-Hungary was the first government to extend to the Lenine-Trotzky Cabinet official recognition. The Allied representatives, in protesting against the peace negotiations which had already been initiated, had addressed themselves to the commander in chief at Mogilev. So much did Trotzky resent this attitude that he issued the following warning on November 30, 1917: "The Government cannot permit Allied diplomatic and military agents to interfere in the internal affairs of our country and attempt to excite war. Further steps in this direction will result in the gravest complications, responsibility for which the Government now disclaims."