wanted to negotiate with Germany, but failed to get approval from his council until late February. In a desperate attempt to end the war, as promised in their slogan ‘Peace, Bread, Land’, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), ending the bloodshed. The Allied Powers felt betrayed and turned against the new regime, aiding its "White" enemies and landing troops to prevent Russian supplies from reaching Germany. According to historian Spencer Tucker, the Allies believed the Bolsheviks wouldn't provide an orderly enough regime to stand up to German domination. "With Brest-Litovsk, the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention." The perception of betrayal removed whatever reservations the Allied Powers had about overthrowing the Bolsheviks. According to William Henry Chamberlin, even before Brest-Litovsk, "Downing Street contemplated a protectorate over the Caucasus and the Quai d'Orsay over Crimea, Bessarabia and Ukraine" and began negotiating deals for funding White generals to bring them into being. R. H. Bruce Lockhart and another British agent and a French official in Moscow tried to organize a coup that would overthrow the Bolshevik regime. They were dealing with double agents and were exposed and arrested. French and British support for the Whites was also motivated by a desire to protect the assets they had acquired through extensive investment in Tsarist Russia. Czechoslovak Legions The Czechoslovak Legion was at times in control of most of the Trans-Siberian Railway and all major cities in Siberia. Austro-Hungarian prisoners were of a number of various nationalities; some Czechoslovak POWs deserted to the Russian Army. Czechoslovaks had long desired to create their own independent state, and the Russians aided in establishing special Czechoslovak units (the Czechoslovak Legions) to fight the Central Powers. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ensured that prisoners-of-war (POW) would be repatriated. In 1917, the Bolsheviks stated that if the Czechoslovak Legions remained neutral and agreed to leave Russia, they would be granted safe passage through Siberia en route to France via Vladivostok to fight with the Allied forces on the Western Front. The Czechoslovak Legions travelled via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. However, fighting between the Legions and the Bolsheviks erupted in May 1918. Allied concerns The Allied Powers became concerned at the collapse of the Eastern Front and the loss of their Tsarist ally