The occupation of the western part of former Russian Empire ultimately proved a costly blunder for Berlin, as over one million German troops lay sprawled out from Poland nearly to the Caspian Sea, all idle and depriving Germany of badly needed manpower in France. The hopes of using Ukraine's grain and coal proved abortive; in addition, the local population became increasingly hostile to the occupation. Revolts and guerrilla warfare began breaking out all over the occupied territory, many of them inspired by Bolshevik agents. German troops also had to intervene in the Finnish Civil War, and Ludendorff became increasingly concerned that his troops were being affected by propaganda emanating from Moscow, which was one of the reasons he was reluctant to transfer divisions to the Western Front. The attempt at establishing an independent Ukrainian state under German guidance was unsuccessful as well. However, Ludendorff completely ruled out the idea of marching on Moscow and Petrograd to remove the Bolshevik government from power. Germany transferred hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to the Western Front for the 1918 Spring Offensive, which shocked the Allied Powers but ultimately failed. Some Germans later blamed the occupation for significantly weakening the Spring Offensive. The Germans began slowly but steadily withdrawing personnel from the occupied territories from east to west as the troop transfers to the Western Front continued throughout 1918. Local independence movements, particularly those based in what is now Belarus and Ukraine, moved in to fill the void the Germans left behind and established themselves in the newly freed territories. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine became independent, while Bessarabia united with Romania. Russia lost 34% of its population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways. Russia was also fined 300 million gold marks. Territorial cessions in the Caucasus At the insistence of Talaat Pasha, the treaty declared that the territory Russia took from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), specifically Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi, were to be returned. At the time of the treaty, this territory was under the effective control of Armenian and Georgian forces. Paragraph 3 of Article IV of the treaty stated that: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia rejected the treaty and instead declared independence. They formed the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. Soviet-German financial agreement of August 1918 In the wake of Soviet repudiation of Tsarist bonds, the nationalisation