[2] The Grand Duchy of Finland was a part of the Russian Empire at the time of the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Russia on 6 August 1914.
In the October Revolution, the provisional government was deposed and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic established.
A Finno-German peace treaty was signed with the government of the conservative Senate of Finland—as opposed to the workers' republic allied with Russia—on 7 March.
Germany then sent military assistance to the Finnish government, which defeated the workers' republic by the end of April.
The signatories were, on the Austro-Hungarian side, Foreign Minister Stephan Burián von Rajecz and Ambassador Kajetan von Mérey, who had been the Austro-Hungarian negotiator for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and, on the Finnish side, Edvard Immanuel Hjelt, who had negotiated the peace treaty with Germany and was envoy and minister plenipotentiary to Germany, and Count Allan Serlachius, interim chargé d'affaires to Norway.