Article 11.--Each party is to pay for damage done within its own limits during the war by acts against international law with regard to the subjects of other parties, in particular, their diplomatic and consular representatives, as affecting their life, health, or property. The amount is to be fixed by mixed commissions with neutral chairmen. Article 12.--Prisoners of war who are invalids are to be immediately repatriated. The exchange of other prisoners is to be made as soon as possible, the time to be fixed by a Russian-German commission. Article 13.--Civilian subjects, interned or exiled, are to be immediately released and sent home without cost to them. Article 14.--Russian subjects, of German descent, particularly German colonists, may within ten years emigrate to Germany, with the right to liquidate or transfer their property. Article 15.--Merchantmen of any of the contracting parties, which were in the ports of any of the other parties at the beginning of the war, and also vessels taken as prizes which have not yet been adjudged, are to be returned, or, if that be impossible, paid for. Article 16.--Diplomatic and consular relations are to be resumed as soon as possible. When these terms were read in Petrograd, the strongest indignation prevailed; it was Article 2 especially which the Russians were unwilling to accept. The Russians had indeed emphasized the right of small nationalities to determine their own fates, even to separate from Russia, if so they desired. They also recognized their right to join any other national organization, if they chose. Of this stand the Germans took full advantage, in rather a clumsy way. Germany insisted that those certain nationalities specified, Poland, Esthonia, Livonia, Lithuania, and the others, having declared their separation from Russia, could, and undoubtedly would, now declare themselves a part of the German Empire. At any rate, this was to be assumed. The Germans had also explained, through General Hoffmann, that Germany would not evacuate Riga, Libau, and other occupied points until certain that all Russia sanctioned peace. Germany's imperialistic schemes in the direction of Russia were very plainly revealed. Trotsky vaunted it as a signal success for his so-called diplomacy that he had forced Germany to make manifest her real purposes. But it was only in Russia that people hoped for any other attitude on the part of the Central Powers, with Russia's military power destroyed. Naturally, the peace offer made by Germany to the Allies was rejected with derision; or, at least, no official reply was made to it. But it did inspire a speech by President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, in which the war aims of the United States were definitely stated and the Russian peace deputation was given credit for at least the unmasking of German hypocrisy.