After the outbreak of World War I, Grodno was occupied by Germany (3 September 1915) and ceded by Bolshevist Russia under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. After the war the German government permitted a short-lived state to be set up there, the first one with a "Belarusian" name—the Belarusian People's Republic. This declared its independence from Russia in March 1918 in Minsk (known at that time as Mensk), but then the BNR's "Rada" (Council) had to leave Minsk and fled to Grodno. All this time the military authority in the city remained in German hands.