CHAPTER I

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_THE WHITE EAGLE OF POLAND_

E. F. BENSON

BY E. F. BENSON

THE WHITE EAGLE OF POLAND

CRESCENT AND IRON CROSS

THE FREAKS OF MAYFAIR

THE TORTOISE

MICHAEL

THE OAKLEYITES

DAVID BLAIZE

ARUNDEL

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

NEW YORK

THE WHITE EAGLE

OF POLAND

BY

E. F. BENSON

AUTHOR OF “CRESCENT AND IRON CROSS,”

“THE FREAKS OF MAYFAIR,”

ETC.

[Illustration: Colophon GDH]

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1919,

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

This book is divided into two parts, the first of which is mainly

concerned with the reconstruction of a Polish State after the victorious

close of our war against the Central Empires, a policy to which the

Governments of the Powers of the Entente, including America, have

repeatedly given expression both in independent and in joint utterances.

In this part an attempt is made to set forth how Poland will form an

indispensable link in the cordon of free states which will for all time

prevent Germany from penetrating Eastwards at will, absorbing the

countries through which she eats her way until she lays hands on Egypt

and India, and there follows on the disintegration of the British Empire

her domination of the world.

To avert this, it is necessary that, among other provisions, there shall

be established a powerful Polish State, living in harmony with Russia

(in whatever form Russia will emerge from chaos) and constituting a

permanent barrier against the Teutonic power on its West. It is vital to

the peace of the world for which the Entente is fighting that Poland,

once split up by the partitions, should be reunited and independent

again, and thus the aim of the Entente is identical with the aspirations

of Polish patriots. It is safe to say that no more gigantic and

complicated question has ever arisen in international politics, but it

is hoped that the reader may find in this part of the book some

statement of the problem which will enable him to realize what the

German menace Eastwards means, and how it may be checked.

Chapter II of this part of the book deals with the partitions of Poland

which took place at the end of the 18th century, so that the reader may

understand not only how such a restoration of Poland is necessary for

the peace of the world, but how the Polish nation, on the grounds that

nationalities have a right to separate and independent existence, claims

the fulfilment of one of the avowed aims of the Entente, and the

righting of an intolerable injustice.

Part II deals with the internal conditions of the Russian Kingdom of

Poland from the outbreak of the war in August, 1914, down to (roughly)

the end of February, 1918, and is mainly based on such information as

has reached England from Polish, German, Austrian and Russian sources.

Accounts of the happenings there since the country has been occupied by

the enemy are sometimes conflicting, for information derived from Polish

sources does not invariably tally with the German or Austrian view of a

question, but, as a rule, subsequent news has disentangled the truth.

These sections and those dealing with the various proposed “solutions”

of the Polish question as set forth by the occupying powers, will, it is

feared, be found difficult to follow, and while craving indulgence for

any failure to present the case lucidly, the writer ventures to remind

his readers that, where a question is in itself complicated, no lucidity

of treatment can make it easy of comprehension. All he has hoped to

avoid is confusion.

Statistics with regard to the populations of Poland, Lithuania, etc.,

are, since the country has been in the enemy’s hands, difficult to

verify, and in most cases the figures given are pre-war figures, which

must be taken as being only approximately true.

Two maps will be found at the end of the book. By consulting the first

of these the reader will realize the extent of the ancient republic of

Poland before the partitions, and the nationalities of which it was

composed: the second represents Poland as it was in 1914, when shared up

between Germany, Austria and Russia.

Finally my best thanks are due to the officials of various Government

departments and to the representatives of the Polish National Committee

in London and Paris for the information with which they have so

generously furnished me. Without that it would have been impossible to

present, however faintly, the main lines of what is perhaps the most

intricate problem that will arise when the Powers of the Entente are at

length completely victorious over the Central Empires.

E. F. BENSON.

CONTENTS

PART I

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND

CHAPTER PAGE

I POLAND AND MITTEL-EUROPA 13

II POLAND UNDER THE PARTITIONS 34

III POLAND AND THE ENTENTE 54

IV POLAND’S PLACE IN NEW EUROPE 118

PART II

THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF POLAND

I THE RUSSIAN PROCLAMATION 135

II THE FIRST YEAR OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION 152

III ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS 170

IV POLISH INDEPENDENCE (MADE IN GERMANY) 188

V (i) THE POLISH LEGIONS 216

(ii) FURTHER INDEPENDENCE OF POLAND 229

PART I

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND

CHAPTER I

POLAND AND MITTEL-EUROPA

At the beginning of the war it is probable that few people of average

education had any very accurate idea even of the place which the Kingdom

of Poland occupies on the map of Europe, and to the English mind it but

belonged to that nebulous system of geographical expressions such as

Bohemia, Galicia or Serbia, indefinite, shadowy states towards the East

of Europe, concerning which it was necessary to consult an atlas. Fewer

still knew anything about its past history or its present condition,

beyond, perhaps, that it was connected with Russia, since they mildly

remembered that the Tsar of all the Russias was also King of Poland,

much as the German Emperor was also King of Prussia. And fewest of all

even among the skilled and well-informed augurs of political omens saw

or guessed that before the war was over Poland would have acquired so

huge a significance as it, and the problems connected with it, imply

to-day. For to-day the majority of far-seeing and large-minded

statesmen, both in England and the Allied countries, are perfectly well

aware that the eventual solution of the question of Poland, which at

present is in joint German and Austrian occupation, will supply a fair

and adequate criterion as to which group of belligerents may be

considered to have won the European war. Germany knows that no less well

than we, and though her armies might be beaten in the field, and though

she might be compelled to accept a peace without other annexations,

coupled with the retrocession of Alsace and Lorraine to France, with the

restoration of Belgium and the re-establishment of Serbia, if she could

make an arrangement about Poland and the problems of her eastward

expansion which are bound up with it satisfactory to her own statesmen,

she would be entitled to consider herself at any rate undefeated. For

the economic and political victory she would have won would fully

compensate for a disaster to her arms, and in ten years or less she

could be the aggressor in another war which would in all probability

leave her mistress of the world. This may sound an exaggerated menace,

but it is in truth a sober and considered statement of fact, for the

policy known as the Mittel-Europa policy would have achieved a signal

victory of supreme importance which would be certain to lead to further

success and the ultimate realization of its complete aims. Intimately

bound up with the destiny of Poland is that of Bohemia: this does not,

however, except marginally, fall within the scope of this book.

Broadly speaking, there are two parties in Germany which by different

methods seek the attainment of world-power. They are in harmony with

each other in that each cordially approves of the other’s policy as an

auxiliary of its own. The Pan-German party seek the expansion of the

German Empire and the overthrow of the British primarily by conquest and

annexation westward, while the Mittel-Europa party (with Hindenburg to

help) seek the same expansion and the same overthrow by an easterly

progression. Thus the Pan-Germans proclaim as a sine-qua-non of

peace-terms the retention of Antwerp and of Alsace and Lorraine by the

Central Powers (in other words, Germany), and the reduction of Belgium,

under the guise of a German-protected autonomy, to the position of a

German province. The Mittel-Europa party, on the other hand, aim at the

expansion and extension of German “spheres of interest” (or whatever

meiosis they care to adopt as synonymous with the simpler word

“conquest”) eastward, hoping to bring about the realisation of the same

“far-off event” by the direct menace to Egypt and India. Already they

have achieved much, and not only is it necessary for the prosperity and

even the existence of the British Empire that their work in this

direction should be checked, but much that they have done must certainly

be undone again before security against universal German domination can

return to the world. As Mr. L. B. Namier has admirably said: “The old

continental dream of Napoleon--an overland route into Asia--has become

the cardinal issue of the war.”[1]

This expansion of Germany eastwards by means of “peaceful penetration”

had made great strides before the outbreak of the European war, as the

events of the war soon discovered for us. The chaos and annihilation of

Russia as a Power, for instance, has not been due solely to the

socialistic upheaval which finally produced its impotence, and indeed

that upheaval itself was largely brought about by the peaceful

penetration of German gold. But apart from that, German intrigue and the

disintegrating acid of German influence had already eaten the sap out of

the Empire of the Tsars, and the fall of the Imperial family, the fall

of Kerensky, and the complete anarchy produced by the Bolsheviks were

all as much due to German machinations as to the inherent instability of

that ricketty colossus, the Russian Empire. In Russia, Germany’s

programme, in accordance with the policy of Mittel-Europa, has been to

sow the seeds of self-destruction in foreign fields, and when that crop

was reaped to fertilize them afresh with vigorous Teutonic grain. A

strong efficient Russia would always have been a barrier to her

progress; for Russia, mistress of herself and her millions, and

competent to develop her inexhaustible riches of men and material, would

have been fatal to Germany’s unlimited expansion eastwards. Whether or

no she has made a huge miscalculation, and in helping to create the

anarchy of Bolshevism has raised a Frankenstein monster which she is

unable to control, and which may penetrate to the heart of Germany

herself, whither the Russian legions were unable to force a way, is a

question that is now troubling the shrewdest brains in Berlin, and is

likely to trouble them more before they have framed a reassuring answer.

A strong Russia, then, was the last thing that Germany desired, for she

could not possibly hope to use the strength and stability of Russia for

her own ends, and therefore Russia’s strength was a barrier to her

advance. But (still tracing the policy of the Mittel-Europa party) her

method with regard to Turkey was precisely the opposite to her Russian

programme. The sick man (to adopt Lord Aberdeen’s obsolete and

misleading phrase) could never seriously threaten the advance of her

plans, and while the rest of the European powers were propping up the

throne of Abdul-Hamid and, subsequently, the Camorra of the Young Turks,

for fear of the confusion and quarrelling that would follow on the

disintegration of the Turkish Empire, Germany, with a livelier foresight

and an experter medical skill, was, as it were, transfusing her own

blood into the veins of the patient. What she wanted was not a weak

Turkey, but a strong Turkey who should be hers, and from the earliest

days of the reign of the present Emperor, Wilhelm II, until to-day, she

has been strengthening the hands of the Turk, knowing that the strength

with which she supplied him was being converted back into her own.

Like, it is true, seeks like, and the psychical affinity of Turk and

German was very clearly shewn in their respective treatments of

Armenians and Belgians, but there was more than brotherly sympathy in

the hand-clasp of Berlin and Constantinople. To-day the Sultan writhes

in the famous iron grip of the hand that sought his so cordially.

It is worth while, with the object of understanding the policy of

Mittel-Europa, to survey quite briefly its dealings with Turkey,

dictated with the view of turning Turkey, as Germany has now completely

done, into a German province, not less dependent on her and her armies

than is the kingdom of Hanover or Bavaria. The merchant of Bremen knows

very well that his prosperity is bound up with the military efficiency

of the Fatherland, and in exactly the same way Talaat and Enver and the

Sultan (who once was the shadow of God, and is now the shadow of Wilhelm

II) know that unless the victory in the present war rests with the

German arms, the ill-knit Ottoman Empire, in which the majority of the

populations consists not of Turks but of alien races, will be in large

measure taken from them by the dispositions of the Allies, who have

pledged themselves to free those peoples from the unspeakable tyranny of

the Turk. The Sultan by now understands, too, that his empire has

already become a vassal state of Germany, who permits him to manage its

internal affairs only in so far as they concern massacres and reforms of

that description. In other respects, all Turkish matters, military,

naval, economical, educational and financial, are in German hands. And

this result is the work of the Mittel-Europa policy, part of the

projected scheme.

The Emperor Wilhelm II paid a memorable visit to Abdul-Hamid not long

after the Armenian massacres of 1895, and on that occasion ineffectually

tried to gain his consent to a scheme for German colonisation of the

lands depopulated by the massacres. This time he plucked at a fruit that

was out of reach, and it was not till after the deposition of

Abdul-Hamid by the Young Turk party that the loaded bough began to droop

into accessibility. Germany wanted a strong Turkey, and while her

peaceful penetration prospered and she got Turkish concessions, and

proceeded apace with the Bagdad railway, her officers were busy

introducing Prussian thoroughness into the ramshackle organisation of

the Turkish army. Though the Young Turk movement momentarily upset her

plans, she soon saw the wisdom of allying herself, heart and soul, with

it, and continued her support when it was merged in the Nationalist

movement, penetrating all the time, and within a few days of the

outbreak of war in 1914, Enver Pasha returned to Constantinople from

Berlin with a Germano-Turkish treaty in his pocket. By the end of

October the mobilization of the Turkish armies was complete, and our

diplomatic relations with Turkey were severed. From that day to this,

Germany has never halted for a moment in her exploitation of Turkey for

her own ends, ends concerned not only with the military conduct of the

war, but with the ultimate objective of the Mittel-Europa policy. While

she has immensely increased Turkey’s resources, she has also reduced the

Ottoman Empire to a state of complete bankruptcy by the simple expedient

of advancing paper money, and bargaining for its repayment after the end

of the war in gold. And not one penny of that paper money has benefited

Turkey in any way, for it has all been spent in the raising of troops to

fight for Germany, and in industrial schemes of which the produce is

used for the internal and the military needs of Germany. There are

irrigation works at Adana which greatly increase the cereals that supply

the Central Empires: there are thousands of acres under beet-cultivation

at Konia, the sugar from which goes to Germany. There are training

schools and boyscout establishments all over the empire which raise men

for the armies that Germany employs, there are wireless stations that

send her messages, and submarine bases that harbour her pirate-boats.

The Taurus tunnel on the Berlin-Bagdad railway has been finished,

hundreds of miles of other railways have been opened up, others, under

German efficiency, have been made to pay substantial dividends, while

the labour and materials necessary for these exploitations have been

discharged by German paper lent to Turkey and to be repaid in gold. And

though such part of the native populations as is not of use to Germany

may be starving, Turkey’s value as a military, an industrial, and an

economic asset is vastly greater to-day than it ever has been, for

Germany has set the Ottoman house in order since it is an annexe in the

plans of her own world-wide palace, and Anatolian soldiers are a wheel

in the great German war-machine, which shall Juggernaut its way over the

entire globe.

It may reasonably be asked what induced Turkey to give over into German

hands all that constitutes a nation’s independence, and the answer is

the “attractive proposition” which Germany laid before her. This bait

which she has so temptingly dangled before the rulers of the Ottoman

Empire in order to persuade them to let her raise men and materials to

fight her battles for her is the vision of an immensely expanded Ottoman

Empire which shall have its capital at Constantinople. The book written

by Tekin Alp, under which pseudonym nestles a Salonica Jew (I believe

called Cohen), admirably sets this forth. His work, entitled “Turks and

the Pan-Turkish Ideal,” published in 1915, and distributed broadcast

over the Ottoman Empire as German propaganda, shews us into what

dreamings have the Turks been hypnotised. All Moslem peoples are to be

comprised in this re-united Turkey, which will include the whole of

Egypt as far as Victoria Nyanza, Arabia, Persia, the greater part of

India, the littoral of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea. All

this will be Turkey’s, if Turkey will prosecute Germany’s war to its

victorious close. But should she detach herself or should the Allies be

victorious, she knows what to expect; Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Armenia,

Mesopotamia, will be plucked from her, and until lately (January, 1918)

the Allies had proclaimed that they would expel her from Europe

altogether. It was “up to her” to choose, and she chose. But, if she

only knew it, not only will she never get, in the event of Germany’s

victory, one yard of all those territories that are so succulently

dangled in front of her, but under German penetration she has already

lost the last remnants of her Empire. Should Germany be victorious,

Turkey will no longer exist: there will be but a new Germany in Europe

and a new Germany in Asia, where Turkey once was. Germany will not

technically have annexed it, since no doubt there will still be a Sultan

in Constantinople. But none the less it will be hers, and its

acquisition will be a stout volume, bound like a prize, in the records

of the Mittel-Europa policy. For Turkey will, in other words, form part

of the great high-road which Germany is constructing (with paper money

to be repaid in gold) to lead from Berlin to Bombay. As for the value of

German promises with regard to the augmented Empire, Turkey is already

beginning to learn something, for though the littoral of the Black Sea

was promised her, she has lately been very smartly snubbed for venturing

to intrude herself in affairs concerning the Crimea.

Now, far-distant as Turkey is from mid-Europe, Germany’s policy with

regard to her is an integral and essential part of the Mittel-Europa

scheme. It is precisely that which some of our Western politicians have

completely missed. Because Turkey is not the immediate link in the chain

that is designed to connect Berlin with Egypt and India, they think

that it has nothing to do with that chain, and will find out to the

infinite cost of the country whose eyes and intelligence they are

supposed to be, that once given that Germany succeeds in obtaining a

peace based on the apparent reasonableness of the formula “no

annexations,” she will by her “spheres of influence” in Bulgaria,

Roumania, the Ukraine, and Turkey, have pushed her frontiers to the edge

of the Persian Gulf. There is nothing that Mittel-Europa politicians

would like better than to conclude a peace to-day on the basis of no

annexations, for, technically, she has not annexed the Ottoman Empire

(any more than she has annexed Poland, to whom she has several times

granted “independence”). But the effect would be that while we should

have to clear out of Mesopotamia and Palestine, we should leave her in

literal no less than in virtual possession of the lands between the Sea

of Marmora and the Persian Gulf. That is what “no annexation” means to

Germany, and on such a basis that is what she has already acquired, and

if the unfathomable ignorance of certain sections of the English press

gives any indication of the ignorance of the nation with regard to

Turkey, its ignorance in the event of a peace at all in agreement with

German ideas would be very speedily instructed. Those who maintain that

Turkey is a nation of peaceful and gentlemanly agriculturists, harassed

in the past by the unwarrantable aggression of Russia, and now desirous

only of being left to live a calm and Arcadian existence, are merely not

aware that Turkey at the present time has no existence except as a

military province of Germany, an acquisition of the very astute

politicians of the Mittel-Europa school, who have hoodwinked them as

completely as they have hoodwinked Turkey itself. Without for a moment

suggesting that these blunt arrows for Turkey’s defence have been

supplied by Germany, it is at least reasonable to be amazed at the

confidence with which a guileless Grub-street bowman faces the

triumphant advance of the Central Empires.

Turkey, then, at the present moment, so far from being a bar to the

advance of Mittel-Europeanism, is but a forged link in its chain, if the

doctrine of “no annexation” is accepted. Russia has ceased to be able to

resist the explosions of internal trouble, far less to oppose a front to

attack from without (indeed, she is more like a squib that lies

smouldering and may explode anywhere, than a light that shines), and the

question immediately confronts the Statesmen of the West as to how any

dam can be erected which shall check the otherwise inevitable inundation

of the German waters eastwards. No nonsense was so refined and distilled

as that which saw in Turkey even the foetus of a nation that could

resist the German advance, for it is on Germany that its misplaced hopes

of future existence depend. That these hopes will never be realised if

once the doctrine of “no annexations” is accepted, is of course obvious

to any one who looks at all steadily at the situation or has “heard

tell” of Mittel-Europa. But then some people have not. They at least

escape the danger of a little knowledge, since that little has not been

granted to them.

Meantime the Eastward expansion of Mittel-Europa has scored a huge

success in the Ukrainian peace, for the Ukraine will as surely be put

away in the great German pocket (that receptacle that aims at pouching

the whole world) as Turkey has been, if Germany emerges from the war in

a position to consolidate her easterly acquisitions, and weld them into

the Mittel-Europa chain. The Black Sea, according to her programme, must

become a German lake, and already she sees in her victory over Roumania

a further important link in the fetters which if one attached to Eastern

Europe can never be unshackled. In the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ of Feb.

27, 1918, she jingles a fresh handful of these which ought to make any

one capable of thought pause and consider. It is a typical piece of

Mittel-Europa propaganda, the sort of thing which appears constantly in

the press of the Central Empires, and it is good for English readers to

know what they are talking about over there.

The article in question, clearly inspired, begins as the statement of

German schemes usually begins, benignly enough, and dreamily proposes

that the Dobrudscha might possibly be given to Bulgaria as a reward for

her military exertions, and that Rumania might be compensated (_pace_

the Ukraine) with the south of Bessarabia. These two territories, of

course, embrace the mouth of the Danube. Then, less dreamily, it awakes

to the fact that German interests are owed a Germano-protected region at

the mouth of the Danube, for the Danube rises in German soil, and

Germany has a further claim on territory at its mouth, since the

conquest of the Dobrudscha was largely due to German arms, and “in

political life it is always a mistake to exercise liberality without

seeing that you get something for it.” Germany must therefore

reconsider her first plan of giving the Dobrudscha in its entirety to

Bulgaria.

The argument is now broad awake. It finds that on ethnological grounds

Germany has a right to claim territory in the Dobrudscha, because among

the 300,000 inhabitants of that district there are at least 10,000

German colonists. Germany therefore is entitled (on the principle she

has always advocated of no annexation but the national right to national

territory) to one-thirtieth of the acreage of the Dobrudscha. That will

perfectly content her, and she claims a fraction of her one-thirtieth at

the mouth of the Danube. On similar grounds she claims a similar footing

in Bessarabia (otherwise Rumania) and takes her acres exactly opposite,

on the other bank of the Danube. She is still below the estimate of her

proper percentage of territory, and so our article alludes to a

convenient island in the Black Sea called Schlangeisel, which is 50

kilometres from the mouth of the Danube, and that she likewise earmarks.

There is a poetic suitableness in her getting this little island, for

the article naively observes that Schlangeisel at the mouth of the

Danube quaintly corresponds to Heligoland at the mouth of the Elbe.

Now the foregoing is a typical example of German reasoning, and it is

allowable to wonder whether it even cares to deceive or is not rather a

deliberate irony. In virtue of her German colonists, Germany is entitled

to one-thirtieth of the Dobrudscha, and claims some paltry acres of this

at the mouth of the Danube. A similar claim is advanced with regard to

the other bank, and thus by judicious selection of her acreage Germany

obtains precisely all she wants, i.e., control of the Danube, because

she has a certain number of German colonists in the Dobrudscha; and to

complete the acreage due to her she adds this convenient Schlangeisel.

By a similar reasoning she might claim a few square miles of Great

Britain in virtue of German residents there, and select for those few

miles the city of London, or perhaps the harbours of Dover, Liverpool

and Southampton.... It is faintly possible that this soberly-propounded

German scheme may induce a more public comprehension of what

Mittel-Europa stands for.

* * * * *

But the people who had never heard of Poland in the year 1914 must four

years later be surprised at the frequency with which they have since

then heard of it in the pronouncements of the Governments of the

Entente. Again and again official statements about the objects for which

the Allies are fighting, since the famous and unfortunately still-born

proclamation of the Grand Duke Nicholas during the first fortnight of

the war, have alluded to the Independence of a united Poland as one of

the conditions on which the treaty of peace shall be based. Not

unreasonably the public has asked “What has the war got to do with

Poland?” But that a peace which postulates an independent and united

existence for Poland is one of the irreducible minima of the Allies

cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. For beginning with

the first pronouncement of the Grand Duke Nicholas, France by the mouths

of MM. Clemenceau, Pichon and Ribot,[2] Italy by the mouth of Sig.

Orlando, America by the mouth of Mr. Wilson, and England by the mouth of

Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Lloyd George, and above

all Mr. Balfour, have unanimously insisted on the independence of Poland

and the reconstruction of the Polish State as an essential part of the

aims of the Allies. To emphasize and unify these separate

pronouncements, the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, France and Italy

jointly declared, on June 3, 1918, that “The creation of a united and

independent Polish State, with free access to the sea, constitutes one

of the conditions of a solid and just peace, and of the rule of right in

Europe.”

England and France, and subsequently Italy and America, have all

reiterated the same demand with a firmness that has never varied,

although Poland had not been an independent country wantonly overrun by

the armies of the Central Empires. For over a hundred years Poland had

been a dismembered kingdom, part of which belonged to the Tsar, part to

the German, part to the Austrian Empire, and yet the course of the war

has caused all the allied countries in turn to demand and to reiterate

their demand for the independence of Poland. That Poland had many

friends in these countries who still regarded the partition she suffered

in the 18th century, when her territory was divided between Prussia,

Austria and Russia was a monstrous injustice, that there were many who

regarded the confirmation of those partitions at the Congress of Vienna

in 1815 as a crime of international import, is perfectly true, but it

could not be (nor was it) merely the reparation of an ancient wrong on

which the Allies so strenuously and repeatedly insisted. They demanded

this, one and all, not primarily as a belated act of justice, nor,

perhaps, primarily as the right of nations to a national existence, but

as a measure of future defence against Germany, for Poland is a vitally

essential part of the breakwater which they must erect against the

hammerings of the Mittel-Europa billows. Without such a breakwater,

without such a wall against the encroachments of the hungriest sea that

ever beat upon a coast, the world will undoubtedly be battered into

wreckage, and eventually be submerged. Even as at the end of the

Gotterdämmerung the Rhine rises in flood, and Walhalla is consumed with

fire, even so will the tide of German domination spread over the world,

and the free nations and the palaces of civilisation will be burned in

the hell-fire of Prussian militarism.

CHAPTER II

POLAND UNDER THE PARTITIONS

The claims of the Poles themselves to be reunited into an independent

kingdom rest on historical and ethnographical grounds which it is

necessary to state briefly in order that these claims may be appreciated

and understood. Little as they or the basis on which they rest are known

in England, it is the duty of the Allies, so the champions of Polish

union and independence assert, to recognise and act on them, since they

have repeatedly insisted on the rights of all nations to their national

territory. The Allies for instance demand the retrocession of Alsace and

Lorraine to France, although the present possession of those provinces

by Germany is a matter altogether outside the present war. But those

provinces, plucked from France in 1870 are rightfully French, and must

be re-united to France just as certainly as Belgium must be given back

to the Belgians. In the same way, they contend, there are certain

provinces in Germany, Austria and Russia, which for historical and

ethnographical reasons must be united and restored to form an

independent Kingdom of Poland. They are inhabited by a Polish

population, which is quite distinct from the various nations who have

partitioned its territories among themselves, and the fact that Poland

has suffered so long under this wrongful appropriation which was finally

confirmed more than a century ago does not abrogate or dilute the

justice of the claim. A national injustice does not lapse with the mere

passage of time, if present conditions still render it unjust. It

cannot, like a right of way, be established and legalized by mere usage.

And this particular injustice has not lapsed, because the territories of

ancient Poland, now for more than a hundred years divided among the

ambient powers, are for the most part still Polish in blood, in

language, in sentiment, and in religion. The Polish race has neither

died out, nor has it been merged in the blood of the nations who have

appropriated its territory. It exists to-day more numerous and more

conscious of its national existence than ever before. Among other

symptoms of this we may note the fact that apart from what is known as

the Golden age of Polish literature in the 16th Century; the whole of

Poland’s artistic and literary achievements have blossomed after the

partition.

Briefly then the historical grounds on which these claims rest are as

follows; they are matters of fact, not of theory or political

expediency, and as far as they go are indisputable. Up to the year 1772

when the first partition of Poland occurred it was a state of great

extent with a sea-board on the Baltic, and a united realm, embracing not

only what is now known as the Kingdom of Poland in Russia, but

stretching eastwards as far as the Dnieper, and including the north-west

and south-west provinces of Russia, i.e., the governments of Kovno,

Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, Mohileff, Vitebsk, Volhynia, Podolia, Kieff.[3] In

Austria-Hungary it included Galicia and originally Austrian Silesia

(Teschen); in Germany, so-called Royal Prussia (West Prussia and

Ermland) and Posen. The whole course of the Vistula lay within its

frontiers from its rise in the Carpathians to its debouchment at

Dantzig, which was a Polish port. East Prussia also had been originally

a fief of Poland, and the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg vassals of its

king. Early in the 17th century, however (1611), when Sigismund III was

on the Polish throne, East Prussia ceased to pay its tribute-money and

Poland was in too weak a state to enforce it. From that date therefore,

until the partitions Eastern Prussia was an island, so to speak, in

Poland, severed by the Polish territory on the Vistula from Brandenburg.

For some century and a half before the first partition of Poland in

1772, the country had been weakly governed, and, as to-day, was split up

by many internal antagonisms, sedulously nourished and fostered by

Germany. This no doubt contributed to her incapacity for a vigorous

national existence, but what really decided her fate, was the

international condition of Europe at the epoch when the partitions were

made. England and France to whose interests it was then to prevent the

partitions, which as we can see now, were the germ which has since

developed into the Mittel-Europa policy, were strongly antagonistic, and

Frederick the Great, who was the prime mover in the partition of 1772

was England’s ally. Thus the possible interference of the Western Powers

in this partition was removed. On the other side of Poland was Russia,

who for the time being made common cause with Prussia, and secured her

own share. The two following partitions were contemporaneous with the

disorganization caused by the French Revolution, and by them Poland, as

a nation, completely disappeared from the map of Europe. Then followed

the Napoleonic wars, in which for a time Russia was in extreme peril,

and it is highly interesting to note that even as in 1914 when Russia

was in peril from German arms, Polish reunion was promised by the Grand

Duke Nicholas, so, when the French peril threatened Russia, a hundred

years before, Prince Michael Oginski in 1802 issued a proclamation to

Poland signed by Alexander I. strangely similar to that of the Grand

Duke Nicholas speaking with the authority of Nicholas II. Yet perhaps

there is little strangeness about it, for similar circumstances evoked

it. It ran as follows:

“Poles! I, as at the head of a nation which, like yourselves is

descended from the valiant Slavs, as one who has sworn to fight to

the last drop of blood for the integrity of my country, for its

honour and independence, and as chief of the Army ... as a monarch

full of desire that Poland should form a sure bulwark for Russia, I

hereby declare before heaven and earth that I will rebuild and

restore the Kingdom of Poland, and calling forth the aid of

Almighty God, I put on my head the Polish crown, a separate crown,

but through my person connected with the Russian empire ... and on

that basis I will rule, govern and cooperate with you to secure and

establish your happiness.”

These were fair promises, but Poland, hereby completing her ruin, allied

herself to Napoleon, and when in 1815 the Congress of Vienna met, it

confirmed the partition. Prussia was formally granted such part of the

Ancient state of Poland as is still hers, Austria obtained Galicia, and

Russia the rest, and from that year till to-day Poland has been a nation

without one yard of territory of its own, but has preserved its national

language, its national sentiment, and its national religion, which is

Roman Catholic. Thus it remained until, immediately after the outbreak

of the present war, the Grand Duke Nicholas proclaimed once more that

the territories of Poland, split up between the warring nations should

be reunited. But for the one remaining year in which Poland was in

possession of Russia, the Government took no single step to redeem the

promise then made, nor exerted themselves to convince the Poles of their

sincerity. Subsequently we shall see in more detail what purpose lay

behind that promise, and estimate its real value.

During these ninety-nine years, from the Congress of Vienna up to the

outbreak of the European war, the inhabitants of the dismembered Poland,

shared up between Germany, Austria and Russia suffered diverse treatment

at the hands of the annexing Powers. They were promised at the Congress

that they should enjoy independent political organizations, certain

national rights and certain economical privileges, including, for

instance, free navigation of the whole course of the Vistula. These

promises were variously interpreted by the three nations in whose hands

it was placed to carry them out, and as might be expected, the

fulfilment of them was strongly coloured by the national characteristics

of their interpreters. In order to understand the feelings of the Poles

at large on the partition of their people among three different nations,

it is necessary to recount briefly the treatment they experienced at the

hands of each.

From 1815 to 1830 the inhabitants of that part of Poland which fell to

Prussia’s share had nothing to complain of except the outrage of the act

of annexation itself. They had a Polish regent, Prince Anthony

Radziwill, the possession and authority of the Polish nobles was upheld,

their religion was respected and government posts were given to them.

The Polish language was taught in schools, and in the administration of

the country it was used equally with German. But in 1830 occurred the

Polish revolution in the Kingdom of Poland, which, by the partition,

went to Russia, and for fear of a similar insurrection, the liberal

policy of Prussia was changed for a far more rigid Germanization. Prince

Radziwill was replaced by a German, Flottvell, who was made President of

the Duchy of Posen.

With the object of smothering the national spirit, the power of the

Polish nobility and clergy was curtailed, the German language began to

take the place of Polish in schools and public business, special

encouragements were given to Prussian settlers in the country, and the

Polish officials were replaced by Prussians. For a while under Frederick

William IV. (1840) a more liberal policy was pursued, but an

insurrectionary movement in 1848 caused to be administered to the Poles

a redoubled dose of Germanization. This continued to be the fixed policy

of Bismarck, who avowedly did all he could to stamp out any sense of

national existence in the Poles, and to absorb them in his work of

uniting Germany. Religion and language are two of the strongest ties

which hold together those of the same blood, and Bismarck set to work

to loosen these, even as did the Young Turks when they ordered that a

translation into Turkish should be made of the Koran, to be used in

mosques, and that the prayer for the Caliphate should be recited no

longer in Arabic.[4] Polish bishops were imprisoned, church-schools and

charitable institutions managed by the clergy were closed, endowments

were confiscated, and parishes deprived of their pastors. The tie of

language was similarly dissolved, and between 1870 and 1874 Polish was

no longer permitted to be taught in second-grade schools, and German

took its place, so that the next generation it was hoped, would grow up

without any literary knowledge, at any rate, of their own tongue. German

was similarly made the sole official language, and the whole of the

administration of the country, legal and political, was carried on in

that tongue. Simultaneously Poles were prohibited from holding any

government post, and the names of Polish towns were Germanized.

The Polish population, as was found by the census of 1880, was

increasing more rapidly than the German in Prussian Poland, and fresh

steps were necessary for its suppression. All Poles, subjects of Austria

and Russia, were therefore expelled from Prussian Poland, and in 1886

Prussia voted the sum of 100 million marks for the purchase of land from

Polish proprietors, and the settlement on these lands of Germans. Next

year the complete elimination of the Polish language from all schools

was effected and German was made the only language for religious

instruction of Polish children. With the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890

the rigidity of these restrictions was relaxed for a few years, but in

1894 an even more active propaganda for the Germanization of Prussian

Poland was organized by the “Ostmarken Verein,” or Hakatist Association

(so called after the initials of its founders Hannemann, Kennemann, and

Tiedemann). Another 100 million marks was voted in the Prussian Diet for

the purchase of Polish lands and the settlement thereon of German

Colonists, and these were introduced into villages in solid blocks with

their mayor and their Protestant church. By the aid of the state grants

these settlers acquired their land at ludicrously low prices, but were

not permitted to part with it again to Polish proprietors, and a couple

more regulations rounded off the general policy, the total effect of

which was to forbid Poles either to acquire land or to erect houses. A

further grant of 125,000,000 marks was voted in 1908 for fresh

acquisition of land and the establishment of German settlers.

Territorially the result of these measures was entirely satisfactory

from a German point of view, for in 1912, a quarter of the whole

territory nationally Polish and inhabited by Poles was owned by Germany.

But neither these restrictions and prohibitions nor Bismarck’s declared

policy directed against the destruction of Polish nationality have been

able to render moribund the inherent vitality of this nation, or to

extinguish the flame of its individual life. The Prussian Poles

organized against the hostility of the Ostmarken Verein a system of

defence for their land, their language, and their stability, and if we

take for consideration a series of years, say from 1870 to 1900, we find

that they developed national banking corporations in such perfection

that they were declared by German economists to constitute an internal

peril. Similarly in spite of legislation the land in Polish hands was

larger at the end of that period than at the beginning, while, most

significant of all, the population of Poles in Prussian Poland increased

more rapidly than that of the nation that aimed at submerging them. The

fact had already been disclosed by the German census of 1880, and by

1900 the percentage of Germans in Posen had decreased from being 45 per

cent. of the whole population to 38 per cent. National consciousness and

like force alike proved themselves superior to repressive legislation.

Such in brief has been the hundred years’ history of that part of Poland

which, with promises of liberty and autonomy, was assigned to Prussia.

The policy of Mittel-Europa has striven (and has largely succeeded) in

stripping it of its lands, its religion and its tongue, patching the

rents with German fabric. It is not much to be wondered at that when in

November 1916 the Central Empires proclaimed the independence of Russian

Poland, which they still jointly occupy, its inhabitants put but little

faith in the significance of the boon, for they were familiar with the

interpretation placed by the Germans on the word independence. Their

suspicions have been amply justified.

The three partitions had given to Russia certain Eastern Polish

provinces mentioned above[5] which had formed part of the ancient

republic, and by the Congress of Vienna this arrangement was confirmed

and the district known as the Kingdom of Poland was added. A

constitution was granted it which assured it of equality of citizenship

with Russian subjects, liberty, its own language, to be taught in

schools and to be used officially, and a national government consisting

of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The observation of these pledges

was of the shortest duration, and Russia soon began infringing them and

depriving Poland of any semblance of independence or self-government.

The effect of this was the insurrection of 1830, which ended in the

victory of the Russian armies and the capture of Warsaw. Russia

thereupon deprived the Kingdom of Poland of its constitution and of its

army, and put at the head of the administration a Russian general,

Paskevitch, who ruled the country by martial law. All literature dealing

with subjects calculated to keep alive feelings of patriotism among

Poles was suppressed, and the national church was deprived of her

position as state church.

The accession of Alexander II. in 1855 saw a more liberal policy

introduced. A Council of administration was established again, Polish

was taught in schools, and Polish officials were employed in the civil

administration. But after the second insurrection of 1863 the separate

administration of the Kingdom of Poland was abolished, the country was

finally incorporated into the Russian empire, Poles were expelled from

all official posts, and their places taken by Russians sent from Russia,

and all shadow of self-government and semblance of liberty was

withdrawn. The possessions of the church were confiscated, communication

with the Holy See was forbidden, and in 1874 the rites of the orthodox

church were made compulsory. Polish schools were suppressed, the Polish

language forbidden in schools and as the official language, and in a

word the whole of that part of the kingdom of Poland which had fallen to

Russia was completely Russified so far as laws and the penalties for

breaking them could ensure the process.

In Lithuania, once also belonging to Poland, this second insurrection

was visited with even greater severity under the administration of

General Muravieff (suitably styled “The Hangman”), who was given

unlimited power to punish the insurgents as he chose, and used that

power with the utmost ability of his savage mind. He treated the Poles

as enemies of the state, he shot the ringleaders, he destroyed whole

Polish villages and sent their inhabitants to Siberia, he suppressed all

Polish papers, he prohibited the use of the Polish language in public

altogether, even in conversation in the streets, and in particular he

inflicted heavy fines on landowners and clergy who did not fall under

direct suspicion of having had any part in the insurrection, in order to

render them more powerless for the future. The proof, even the suspicion

of complicity, was not required: perfectly innocent men were deprived of

the power of doing again what they had never done at all. No Pole was

permitted to acquire land in Lithuania or Little Russia, so that any

Pole who wished to sell his land, must sell it only to a Russian: this

measure was supplemented by a further ukase in 1887 which provided that

if any Pole not being a Russian subject, inherited real estate in

Lithuania or Little Russia, he had to sell it within two years. Catholic

churches were transformed into orthodox, orthodox monks were put in

possession of Uniat monasteries.

Now revolutions are dangerous things, and the state, among whose peoples

occur such risings as the Polish insurrections of 1830 and 1863, is

perfectly right to put them down, for the state’s first duty is to

ensure its own safety. If it is a liberal and beneficent government, it

will remedy the injustices that have given rise to discontent, but it is

primarily its business to suppress what is dangerous to its own

existence. But in the case of Russian Poland it must be remembered that

it was the disregard of the Russian Government for the promises which it

had made to its Polish acquisitions that directly produced these

risings: it had shewn itself an irresponsible autocracy to whom its own

treaties and obligations meant no more than they mean now-a-days to

Germany, and having put down those risings, Russia in no way redressed

the wrongs that had occasioned them, but aggravated the burdens and

disabilities of the people to whom she had promised rights and liberty.

In the democratic crisis that followed the Japanese war, it is true,

certain concessions were made to the Poles, certain liberties granted

them--they sent, for instance, thirty-four members to the Duma (a number

reduced in 1907 to twelve)--but, broadly speaking, during the hundred

years that succeeded the partitions, neither Russia nor Prussia shewed

any sincere intention of fulfilling the obligations they had entered

into after the Congress of Vienna, but both alike pursued the settled

policy of extinguishing the national consciousness of the people whose

territories they had appropriated. In this, though they tried to loose

all the ties which bind a people together, they have utterly failed. The

national vitality of the Poles, as a race, has survived the century of

bondage, and exists to-day with no less vigour than it did when those

partitions were made. The tie of blood has proved to be insoluble by

oppression, and the shedding of it has but cemented its coherence.

The Poles of the province of Galicia, which was assigned to Austria,

fared no better, up to the year 1867, than their fellow-countrymen in

Prussia and Russia. The most rigid system of Germanic bureaucracy was

brought to bear on them, and they suffered barbarous oppression.

Economically also Austria worked for the ruin of the country.[6] She

suppressed both the natural resources of the country and the industries

of its inhabitants. But after Austria’s defeat in the war of 1866, she

had to reform her internal policy and grant rights to her subject races

and from that date the conditions of the Poles of Galicia were greatly

ameliorated. Polish, for instance, is the official language of the

province, and is taught in Polish schools, and the fact that Austria

belongs to the Roman communion has assured religious liberty for the

Poles, who have their Archbishop at Lemberg, and three Bishops at

Cracow, Tarnow, and Przemysl. They have freedom of access to Rome, and

are appointed jointly by the Holy See and the Emperor. Galicia is

represented in the Chamber of Deputies at Vienna (which consists of 545

members) by 106 members, of whom 28 are Little Russians, the rest Poles.

The Minister of Galicia who has a seat in the Cabinet at Vienna, is

always a Pole, and in the central administration at Vienna about seven

per cent. of the officials are of Polish birth. Galicia enjoys an

autonomy, though a limited one, with a Diet of its own under a Marshal,

73 per cent. of the members of which are Poles. The Crown is represented

by a Lieutenant-General, who since 1849 up to the outbreak of war has

always been a Pole. Since then the appointment has been held by two

Germans in succession, first General Collard and then General Diller.

Economical exploitation, however, still continues; there are, for

instance, differential tariffs and railways, facilitating imports from

Austria to Galicia and penalizing imports from Galicia into Austria.

Such in brief have been the fortunes and misfortunes of the nation which

for more than a hundred years has been dismembered and assigned to its

three neighbours. Two of them, Russia and Germany, have, as we have

seen, made no pretence of granting the autonomy they promised to the

people of the territories which they received, and up till the outbreak

of the war, Lithuania and the kingdom of Poland have not enjoyed the

autonomy that was guaranteed them more than have the Polish inhabitants

of Posen or Royal Prussia. In both cases the policy of the annexing

nations has been to absorb, to merge, to kill the consciousness of

separate nationality. As far as legal disabilities, lingual suppression,

religious bondage go, they have done their utmost. But it is one thing

to stifle the expressions of national feeling, and quite another to

extinguish the spirit that animates them, and in that regard they have

signally failed. Austria alone for the last fifty years has acquitted

herself of her obligations, and has granted to Galicia a fair equality

of rights with the other races who compose her patch-work Empire, and a

reasonable measure of autonomy. But it is not equality of rights among

the subjects of different nations that the Polish National spirit

desires. It does not ask for decent treatment at the hands of Germany or

Russia or Austria. What it demands, and what the governments of the

Entente have repeatedly promised it, is that it should be reunited and

independent: it does not crave indulgence, but its due. On the grounds

of the rights of smaller nations to exist, it claims that the

territories into which Germany, Russia and Austria have divided it,

should be reunited into a sovereign and independent state. But it is not

merely as an act of belated justice that the Allies have insisted both

in separate and in joint pronouncements on the execution of this: had

there been, for instance, no European war, for other reasons, it cannot

be supposed that any of them would have provoked it in order to give

Poland the rights which they now claim for her. The significance of

Poland to them is in relation to the menace of Germany’s Mittel-Europa

policy.

CHAPTER III

POLAND AND THE ENTENTE

As we have already seen, England, France, Italy and America have

repeatedly declared, by the mouths of those officially pronouncing the

will of their respective governments, that the union and independence of

Poland are among the objects for which they are to-day waging war on the

Central Empires. Russia, though no longer a member of the Entente, since

her bastard government of the moment has torn up her treaty with her

allies and has signed a separate peace with Germany, has also in the

days before her collapse declared for the same policy, for the Grand

Duke Nicholas in August, 1914, proclaimed the unity of Poland implying

thereby the union of the Kingdom of Poland with Prussian and Austrian

Poland, while the revolutionary government announced the independence of

Russian Poland in March, 1917, thereby relinquishing Russia’s

sovereignty over the Kingdom. Since then Russia has ceased to exist as a

member of the Entente, and indeed, temporarily, as a nation at all, and

so we may take it, without provoking argument, that the Entente is

unanimous for Polish unity and independence.

Meantime, owing to the military situation none of the Entente powers

have been in a position to accomplish this aim, which necessarily

implies the total defeat of the Central Powers, without which neither

Germany will give up a yard of Prussian Poland, nor Austria of Austrian

Poland, nor either of them a yard of what once was Russian Poland

concerning the partitioning of which between them, irrespective of

Polish feeling on the subject, they have held and are still holding

prolonged debates, occupying it in the interval with Prussian

callousness. Whatever solution they intend to adopt, they will not

unless compelled to do so by force, whether of internal trouble or

military defeat or both, suffer their grip on any part of what was once

Polish territory to be relaxed. Till then, a starved and subject

country, sick with the deferred hope of autonomy which has been

repeatedly promised to it, is in their hands to misuse as they think

fit.

Now, broadly speaking, there can be no doubt, if any meaning is to be

attached to words, what the general intentions of the Powers of the

Entente are. They intend (as indeed they have declared) to unite those

portions of Central Europe which are contiguous to each other, and in

which the Poles are indubitably the predominant nationality, into one

state, and to give that state independence in a political, an economic

and a military sense. They intend also to give it access to the Baltic,

without which it cannot hope to prosper or maintain itself. While the

affairs of Eastern Europe are in a state of such chaotic flux, it would

be useless to lay down with any approach to definiteness the actual

frontiers of the new realm, or the territories which it will embrace,

but the Governments of the Entente have singly and jointly proclaimed as

one of the objects for which we are now fighting, the foundation of this

new Poland the inhabitants of which may properly be described as Polish

in blood, culture and sympathies. Districts lying contiguous to each

other and to the once-Russian Kingdom of Poland will be united to form

this free and reconstructed realm, which will have in round figures a

purely Polish population of about twenty-one million people. Some claim

that the total will prove to be higher than that: some estimate it as

less, but this figure may be taken as sufficiently correct.

Historically, also, the new Poland has a valid claim to these

territories that will be assigned to her, since up to the time of the

three partitions, confirmed and modified by the Congress of Vienna, they

formed part of the ancient Republic. If this is not the clear and

obvious signification of the repeated declarations of Mr. Balfour, Mr.

Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, MM. Briand, Clemenceau, Ribot,

Pichon, Signor Orlando, and Mr. Wilson it is impossible to guess what

their signification is. Before that can be accomplished German arms must

suffer a complete defeat, but unless it is accomplished, the

Mittel-Europa policy will have won over the Entente and especially over

England, Germany’s chief opponent in this little matter of world-wide

dominion, a victory of the most decisive nature. For should Poland

remain in a condition of dependence on the Central Powers--whom for the

future it will be truer and more convenient to call simply

“Germany”--and be obliged to lean on them, there will no longer be

possible any bar or obstacle to the victorious advance of Germany

eastwards. The Ukraine has declared peace, so too has Rumania; Bulgaria

is her ally, Turkey is in her pocket, and she can penetrate eastward to

Bagdad, until those countries are soaked with her influence and

domination as a sponge is soaked with water, and when “Der Tag” comes

again, she can sever our connection with India and Egypt and the

British Empire will be hers. The Black Sea with its main ports is

already now a German lake, as completely as if it were a mountain tarn

in the Black Forest: and its main ports Varna, Costanza. Odessa, Batoum,

Trebizond, and the key to them all, namely Constantinople are controlled

by Germany. In the north the Baltic already, as the map stands, is a

German lake, and no less is the Adriatic Sea, if Trieste, and the

Austrian ports on the East Coast with their maze of defending and

defensible islands remain in the hands of the Central Empires. Even the

most ostrich-like of politicians when they consider this, can hardly

miss the significance of Count Czernin’s pronouncement when in declaring

for the freedom of the seas, he expressly and explicitly stated _that

the freedom of the narrow seas is not included in the freedom of the

seas_. In other words, the three seas which are of vital importance to

Germany as bases are to remain her private and inviolable harbours which

she can close at any time, and, when she desires, project a fleet from

them.

* * * * *

But to make her road completely open it is essential to her that Poland,

in the sense of the words in which the statesmen of all countries of

the Entente have used it, namely a United Poland, consisting of some

union of Russian, German and Austrian Poland, should be under the

control of Berlin either directly or indirectly through Vienna. It is

equally essential to the aims of the Entente that it should not. If, in

fact, at the end of the war, Posen and West Prussia remain in German

hands, Galicia in Austrian hands and the Kingdom of Poland, whether

joined to Galicia or not (as by the Austrian solution), in the control

either of Austria or Germany, then, whether or not Germany gives back

Belgium with suitable reparation, and restores Alsace and Lorraine to

France, the Entente will have lost the war. Indeed, so vital to the

interests of the Central Empires is the retention of Poland, that M.

Hervé (evidently with information behind him) has suggested that Austria

would be willing even to cede Trieste and Pola to the Italians on

condition of the Entente consenting to see the Kingdom of Poland joined

to Galicia under a Habsburg suzerainty. This junction of the Kingdom of

Poland with Galicia, is known as the “Austrian Solution,” and has been a

policy debated between Germany and Austria since they occupied Poland in

1915. It is treated of in detail in Part II of this book.

Now it must clearly be understood that it is not merely nor even

primarily in the cause of abstract justice that the pronouncements of

the governments of the Entente have stated and reiterated their

declaration with regard to Poland. A great wrong was undoubtedly done to

the country when by the partitions and the Congress of Vienna more than

a hundred years ago, a free nation was divided and wiped off the map.

But the Entente did not go to war in order to redress that ancient

wrong, though undoubtedly one of the main reasons, indeed the main

reason, why they now cannot arrive at some basis from which

peace-discussion could arise, is that they will not accept any such

solution of the Polish question as implies unlimited German control over

these territories. Nor is there any conceivable cause why Germany should

yield in this matter until she is forced to, for the creation of such an

independent Poland as the Entente demands, will be the most serious

check that could possibly be dealt to her Mittel-Europa policy, and also

implies an immense loss of territory for herself.

The historical claims then of Poland to these territories does not

concern the Entente or the objects for which they are fighting. At the

most it is a supplementary consideration marginally noted at the edge of

the real question at issue. The historical claim is admitted, but it

does not exercise weight. Calais once belonged to England, Syracuse once

belonged to Athens, but nobody proposes to restore them to England and

to Greece because they once belonged to them, and the Entente do not

propose to restore either German or Austrian territories to Poland for

the similar reason. But the ethnographical reason is a very different

matter: the population of these lands is neither Russian nor German nor

Austrian, but Polish. One nation inhabits them, and, as a nation, it has

a right according to the programme of the Entente, to a national

existence, for it has shown itself for centuries able to cohere and

govern itself, and it was a series of unjust provisions that tore it

apart. And this acceptance by the Entente of this ethnographical claim

coincides with the necessity of securing a check to the Mittel-Europa

expansion of Germany. It is essential for the peace of the world and the

integrity of the British Empire that there should exist just here a

strong state that does not lean on Germany, but shall be in itself a bar

to German absorption eastwards, and shall naturally find its orientation

and its development independent of and opposed to Teutonic penetration.

At present as we all know and deplore, there is chaos east of Poland,

and to lean on chaos is to be engulfed in the whirlwind. But no sane

thinker, unless he believes in the sanity of Bolsheviks can doubt that

some day out of chaos and outer darkness a light shall shine again, and

a call of a people’s will shall be heard, and when fire and tempest have

passed shall come the “still small voice” for which the prophet

hearkened. Socialistic, revolutionary against the order of those things

that have been swept away, it will no doubt be, but what it will not be

is the mad destructive hurricane which at present is the only

manifestation of the power behind it. Unless Germany wins the war, there

will be a democratic Russia, sympathetic in blood and in constitution to

a democratic Poland. Out of the disintegration that Germany has made in

the nation of her foe, will arise order again, but it must not be order

as established by Germany. It is vital and essential to the peace of the

world, unless by the “peace of the world” we imply a complete Germanic

domination of the world, that a united and independent Poland should

voice the will of a free people, and that her cry of “Liberty” should be

re-echoed by Russia. Anything that makes for discord between the new

Russia and the new Poland is a nail driven into the coffin that contains

the corpse of a free world.

It is necessary to descend into the bewildering arena (mixed metaphors

are the only way to express it) of Polish politics, in order to

understand the feeling of the country itself with regard to its fate.

That country at the present moment lies in the hand of Germany, but not

“tame as a pear late basking over the wall,” but more like a bomb with a

time-fuse attached to it. It lies there for the moment in Germany’s

hand, quite quiet, since it cannot extricate itself from that iron grip,

but it has not only the potentiality, but the necessity for explosion.

Never was there a country so crammed with the chemicals that make the

explosive mixture. Could a plebiscite be taken not only of the “Kingdom

of Poland,” but of Prussian and Austrian Poland as well, there is no

shadow of doubt that an overwhelming majority would elect for the

formation of a national unit, independent of Russia, of Austria and of

Germany, that should form a united State of Poles. Such (and the numbers

that would make up that choice are quite incontrovertible) is the will

of the Poland that the Governments of the Entente have declared that

they will call into being. If the Poles of Russian, Prussian and

Austrian Poland could be given voting papers, there would be so great a

majority for the declared intentions of the Entente, that the minority

would rightly be unrepresented. But of the unrepresented minority the

most numerous as the most powerful factor would not by nationality be

Polish or Austrian, or Russian or Prussian at all, but Jewish. The Jews,

of whom there are very large numbers, as will subsequently be shown,

both in Russian and Austrian Poland (in Prussian Poland their numbers

are very insignificant) cannot possibly be expected to support the union

rather than the disintegration of Poland, and the cause of this is so

simple that it hardly needs to be pointed out. They have no national

affinity for Poland at all, nor is there the smallest reason why they

should have. Racially, they were detested by the Poles, and they were

abhorred and persecuted by the Russians during the century in which

Poland was under Russian government. But since Germany has been in

occupation their lot has been vastly ameliorated and their yoke

lightened. She has given them greater liberty and rights than they ever

enjoyed in Russian Poland before; she has admitted them to the Council

of State, she has founded Jewish schools, and above all she has given

them “business.” In both Poland and Russia she has employed the Jews on

the mission of disintegration with the success that up till now has

always attended the policy of Mittel-Europa, and to-day the Judaic

interest in the question of Poland cannot, in the very nature of things,

be pro-Polish. _Pour le bon motif_, that is to say, for the interest of

their nation, they support the German interest here, there and

elsewhere, on patriotic grounds.[7] They have no national territory at

stake; they are but the mistletoe, a strong parasitic growth, on other

trees, and, as regards Poland, they have selected the tree that they

consider most likely to give them nutriment. That tree is Germany. Here,

on behalf of the Entente’s declaration, is another reason for cutting

down the tree. But better still would it be to convince the Jewish

element in Poland that it would be more advantageous to root itself in

the tree of the Entente, than on the world-ash of the Central Powers. It

is, indeed, essential for the prosperity and coherence of the new

Poland, that for the shrill antagonism that to-day exists between Poles

and Jews there should be substituted the concord and community of

interest that will make them friends.

Mittel-Europa is not yet quite entitled to sing its Paeans of victory,

for the whole world knows that the fate of Germany at the present

moment, hangs on the military operations on the West front. Should

Germany gain a victory there, or even obtain an effective stalemate, her

Mittel-Europa policy would proceed precisely as she desires it to

proceed. But should Germany sustain a smashing defeat there, or a

stalemate which her internal conditions render ineffective, all her

policy, whether in East or West, whether Pan-German or Mittel-European

must topple and fall. The Jews in Poland who are a very numerous and

important body have definitely betted on Germany. The Entente has betted

against her. While the military situation in the West remains

unresolved, there is no conclusion to be reached. It is only necessary

to note that the Jews of the whole of Poland as an independent united

state, have put their money on Germany, because they believe that

Germany will control the destinies of these territories.

But the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland are not only Pro-German but also

anti-Polish, and it is noticeable that, whereas all Jews in German

Poland declare themselves German, when a census was taken at Lodz after

the German occupation, only 2,300 Jews declared themselves Poles, while

153,000 declared themselves Jews. The Poles claim that originally they

were tolerant and hospitable to Jews, but that in the insurrections of

1830 and 1863, the latter sided against them with the Russians, and that

during the last twenty years they have consistently organized themselves

as a separate nationality, shewing marked hostility to the Poles. About

1907 they began a boycotting policy against Poles, forbidding their

countrymen, for instance, to consult Polish doctors, and in 1909 when

the Poles proclaimed a boycott of German products in Poland, this

boycott failed because the Jews lent all their support to German

commerce. The ill-feeling between the two has been steadily on the

increase, and came to a head when in 1912, at the election of the fourth

Duma, for which M. Kuckarewski and M. Dmowski were standing at Warsaw,

the Jewish vote succeeded in defeating both of them and electing their

own candidate. This led to a Polish commercial boycott of Jews, and at

present the antagonism between the two is hostile and fierce. The

feeling of the Poles towards them is not so much anti-Semitic as such,

but is the antagonism of a race for a foreign and hostile dweller in its

lands. Germany to-day is in possession of Poland, and the Jews of Poland

lean over the shoulders of the landlord, protected by his bulky form

from the hisses and hatred below. For if there is one face that the

Pole, as a nationalist and patriot hates more than the German face, it

is the Jewish face. Whatever the rights and the wrongs of this

antagonism are, the antagonism acutely exists, and no solution, Austrian

or otherwise will dissolve it. The Pole believes that the Jew is at

present completely antagonistic to his national ideal, unless it is a

German ideal. But for Poland to become a united independent state, not

fearing German penetration, it is essential that a liberal policy

towards Jews should convince the latter that their interests are cared

for and appreciated by the national government.

(ii) _Polish Parties_

In the shifting kaleidoscope of Polish politics a party is formed one

day to dissolve or amalgamate itself with another the next, and the

trumpetting that heralds its birth may only imply that a dozen men who

happen to agree with each other have after dinner christened themselves

by some high-sounding name. It would be useless to define the vast

majority of these parties, to render an account of the various shades of

opinion which are congregated into the Parliamentary terms of Left or

Right, or explain in what points the Christian Democrats, for instance,

or the National Federation or the Union of Economic Independence who

form part of the Right differ from each other. But three of these groups

with their main policies must be outlined.

I. A considerable body of opinion among Poles favours the Austrian

Solution, that is to say, the union of Russian Poland with Galicia

forming an autonomous state under a Habsburg prince. The Social

Democratic party of Galicia and Silesia is identified with this, but the

policy of the whole group is based on the notion that this is the best

solution that Poland can possibly hope for, and the pillars that support

the structure are not love of Austria, but hatred of Germany and Russia.

Its adherents do not believe that an independent and united Poland,

consisting of German, Russian and Austrian Poland, is within the

horizons of practical politics, and they would prefer to see Russian and

Austrian Poland under the sceptre of the Habsburgs, while Posen and West

Prussia remain German, rather than that the Kingdom of Poland should

remain in German grip. But they accept this because they consider it the

best that can be had. The powers of the Entente, it is hardly necessary

to state, would never willingly consent to such a solution, since it

would defeat the object for which they are fighting. Poland would thus

come under the direct control of the Central Empires, and though

nominally she would enjoy autonomy under Austrian suzerainty, she would

assuredly be fitted into the Mittel-Europa structure. For the Dual

Monarchy has in fact to-day no independent existence. It is Germany and

Germany alone that keeps it together, and Poland partitioned between

Germany and Austria, even though the Austrian province should be granted

a large measure of autonomy, would remain a link in the chain of

Mittel-Europa expansion, a story in the structure of the Mittel-Europa

house.

Germany hitherto has never quite admitted the Austrian solution, though

on several occasions since she and Austria have occupied the kingdom of

Poland she has come near to doing so, and, while still they occupy it,

may yet do so, for though it would remove the kingdom of Poland from her

direct control, she knows very well that she controls the Dual Monarchy.

Indeed her domination over Austria would be thereby increased, for she

would no doubt demand as the price of her consent that the seats in the

Austrian Parliament hitherto occupied by Poles should henceforth be

occupied by Germans, for the Poles would no longer have any voice in the

Reichsrat but would sit in the assembly of the newly-made autonomous

state. Germany would thus secure a preponderance in the Austrian

Parliament over the Czech element. These and other points have from time

to time inclined her to the Austrian solution with the condition

attached that she should annex to Germany a certain portion of the

Russian Kingdom of Poland, leaving the greater part to be joined to

Galicia.

But on the whole she has hitherto considered that the disadvantages to

her personally of the Austrian Solution outweigh the advantages. Should

the greater part of Poland pass into Austrian control, it would be

Austria who recruited her armies from among the Poles, and thus Germany

would not directly obtain the quarries of man-power which she would

like. The more thorough-going Junkers, such as Hindenburg and the Crown

Prince, are in favour of her annexing the Kingdom of Poland herself,

directly and openly, and what probably keeps her back from so doing is

the knowledge that she would have on her hands a turbulent province

always ready to break into insurrection, for of the nine and a half

millions of Poles who inhabit it, there is not one who would not

protest against such an annexation. The fact of her having declared the

existence of a Polish state with all the creaking machinery of the sham

Regency Council and the sham Council of State, does not for a moment

deter her from tearing up the Constitution she has granted; what does

give her pause is her inability to balance _pros_ and _cons_ and

determine in precisely what solution of the Polish problem lies her

greatest aggrandisement. Nor can she at present risk a rupture with

Austria, and in the meantime the question of the appointment of a Regent

and the Austrian Solution hangs fire.

II. The second solid party in the affairs of Poland is not Polish at all

but Jewish. The Jews do not compose even one of the twenty-three parties

of Polish opinion or form a bloc in the Council of State, and for this

reason they are as a rule totally overlooked by those who want to

estimate the values and weights of different sections of Polish

politics. Without fear of contradiction we may say that they are, at the

present moment, favourable to German aims and interests, and will

undoubtedly by a grave danger to the stability of any future Polish

state, unless the long-standing quarrel between the Poles and them is

reconciled by liberal and democratic legislation.

III. The third main group in Polish politics consists of the parties

which uphold and work for an independent and united Poland. Chief of

these are the National Democrats who are allied with the Realists. The

Realists in the main are landowners, and represent the upper classes of

Poland. They have solid interests there, and their patriotism is

confirmed, or as their opponents say, diluted, by the fact that they

have a stake in the country.

But when we come to the National Democrats and their allied groups we

find for the first time in this short analysis of the main Polish

parties, one that is as solid as the Jews, as well organised as any

political party, largely dispersed and severed from its native land, can

be, completely in accord in its aims, and representative not only of

themselves but of many other parties in Poland, who would undoubtedly

ally themselves to them, if they thought that the aims of their policy

could be realized. These groups have as their entire aim the unity and

independence of Poland. Their ascendancy in Russia during the years

immediately preceding the war may be gauged from the fact that in the

first Duma of 1906 and in the second and third Dumas of 1907 they and

their supporters won all Polish constituencies. In the fourth Duma of

1912 they won all but two, and these two, a witness to the growing power

of Jews and German penetration, were lost by them and won by the Jewish

interest. One of them was the constituency of Warsaw already alluded to.

That their aims constitute the national aims of the Poles taken as a

whole to-day was indicated at the elections to the National Council in

April, 1918, for out of 52[8] of the elected members no less than 37

belonged to the Inter-party club of Warsaw, which adopts the National

Democrat programme as opposed to either the Austrian Solution or any

German disposition of the future of the country. It is, however,

important to remember with regard to the significance of those

elections, that the deputies were elected by certain small bodies called

Dietines, which have no claim to democratic representation, for in the

German sphere of occupation those Dietines were appointed by Germans.

Moreover, the Dietines in which the predominant vote was Radical or

Socialist, abstained altogether from taking part in the elections, and

thus the Inter-party Club, consisting largely of land-owning Realists

had matters its own way. A further consideration is that the Realists,

without being in the smallest degree pro-German, have yet this common

bond with them, namely that both are equally concerned in resisting any

revolutionary movement like that which lately caused the collapse of the

Russian Empire, for the Realists represent the landed classes, while

perhaps the greatest danger that faces Germany on the East is the spread

of Bolshevism. We must, in fact, with regard to their elections realize

that there was German support for the Inter-party Club. Though the

Inter-party Club support the National Democratic programme, it was

itself supported by German interest, which, equally with it, was opposed

to the Socialist vote.

At the same time, to us in England, and indeed to the cause of the

Entente generally, the National Democrats are of peculiar interest,

since they, like the spokesmen for the various governments of the

Entente, aim at the unity and independence of Poland, which is among the

avowed objects of us and our allies.

But the National Democrats go further than the declarations of the

governments of the Entente, and their programme now includes not only

the union of Prussian Poland (as partitioned by the Congress of Vienna)

of Austrian Poland and of the Russian kingdom of Poland, but they wish

to see united into one anti-German state, additional territories of the

ancient Republic, which included the North-west and South-west provinces

of Russia, territories which are not nowadays, nor indeed ever were

inhabited by a Polish majority. In the Polish state, as the National

Democrats would construct it, are included, “the whole Lithuanian

linguistic territory and the country south of it as far as the eastern

extremity of Galicia, i.e. the present governments of Kovno, Vilna,

Grodno, the larger part of Minsk and of Volhynia.” This quotation,

embodying the delimitation of the Eastern frontier, is taken from a

privately printed document of which it may be affirmed that though,

strictly speaking, it is not an official manifesto, it is an

authoritative and correct expression of this party of Polish national

feeling, and is accepted by the National Democrats as a true exposition

of their aims. M. Dmowski is their acknowledged head, recognised as such

not only by them, but also by the statesmen of the Entente, and, whether

we agree with the whole programme or not, we have to give it our most

careful attention, since of all Polish parties, the aims of this party

approximate more closely to the avowed objects of the statesmen of the

Entente, for both have proclaimed and are working for a united and

independent Poland. Since M. Dmowski is the acknowledged spokesman of

the National Democrats and their policy, and has allowed this formal

manifesto of their aims formally accepted by his party to be circulated

privately among those whose business it is to deal with Polish affairs,

it is necessary to go into these aims in a detailed manner, and also to

indicate the different shades of opinion through which M. Dmowski

himself has passed.

It says nothing against a serious and exceedingly shrewd politician as

M. Dmowski undoubtedly is, that his opinions have changed, and that in

these changes he has carried a solid and unsplit party with him, but it

is important to recognise that the aims of the National Democrats to-day

are not what they were in August, 1914, and to state the causes which

led to this change. That they have been not only misunderstood but

misconstrued is an additional reason for doing this. Since the outbreak

of the war the National Democrats have taken no share whatever in party

politics, but have devoted themselves entirely to the realization of

their national aims. We will state first the programme as it stands

to-day, and the grounds on which it is based.

The proposal is to restore to the new Polish State the great majority

of the territories that once belonged to the Ancient Republic before its

partitions. The claims on which this proposal are based are: (I)

historical, (II) ethnographical, (III) religious. But though the

historical basis is completely valid, for it is a mere matter of fact

that all and more than the National Democrats claim did once belong to

the Ancient Republic, the ethnographical and religious claims do not so

uniformly coincide with it or with each other. Very often both are

commensurate with the historical basis, but sometimes, as we shall see,

not both, but only one of them covers the historical field. The

historical field again in certain instances, stretches itself out alone,

and gets no support from ethnographical or religious considerations.

Eastwards the National Democrats do not claim the whole of the original

territories which once extended as far as the Dnieper in the South, and

from there ran more or less due north, and included the government of

Mohileff, Vitebsk and a large part of the Ukraine. Instead, as stated

above, they would leave out governments like Mohileff (where Poles are

in an infinitesimal minority) but they include Lithuania, Minsk, and

Volhynia. Along the north they make their frontier the Baltic from the

mouth of the Niemen to the north-west extremity of the Bay of Dantzig.

From there the frontier is drawn roughly south-wards, and includes in

the new state the territories of West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia.

On the South the Carpathians form a natural frontier, and thus there is

included in the new state the whole of Galicia. Poland would thus be

reunited and, according to the authority already quoted as a reliable

mouth-piece of their aims, “it may be taken for granted that on the

territory of a Polish state, as roughly outlined above, the population,

Polish in language, culture, ideas and feeling would represent not less

than seventy per cent. of the whole number of inhabitants.” New Poland

would on these lines “have an area of about 200,000 square miles--nearly

equal to that of France or Germany, and a population--about

38,000,000--nearly equal to that of France.” It would have its seaboard

on the Baltic with its ports of Dantzig and Koenigsburg, thus exercising

a perpetual veto on the Baltic becoming a mere German lake: its

river-road of the whole course of the Vistula, its immense Silesian

coal-fields, its petroleum-producing area in Galicia, its valuable

metallic deposits in the district of Kielce; its industries in iron,

cement, sugar, textiles already flourishing before the war would revive

again, and to them would be added the industries of Galicia and of

Prussian Poland, which, as I think M. Dmowski clearly sees, is the

key-stone of the new structure. It would raise a national army that

would easily suffice to protect its national interests and independence,

its size and population would perhaps even give it rank among the Great

Powers, for already the Poles themselves constitute numerically the

sixth European nation. Dawn would break on the night that has lasted for

a hundred and fifty years of starless darkness. Such are the aims and

the aspirations of the groups of Polish patriots, of whom the National

Democrats are the chief.

Now the advantages both for the Polish nation and for the powers of the

Entente secured by the successful construction of such a state are so

obvious that they need hardly be pointed out. The Polish interests in

fact are identical with those of the Entente, and, as we shall presently

see, they form but a part of the much larger programme for the checking

of the Mittel-Europa expansion in which both are vitally concerned. The

strength and independence of Poland, her affiliation to Slav interests

instead of her subordination to German interests are an essential factor

in the aims of the Entente. An independent and powerful Poland in fact

is essential to secure the failure of the Mittel-Europa scheme. But

before passing on to those wider issues it is necessary to examine the

constructive aims of the National Democrat party, and their acknowledged

leader, M. Dmowski, somewhat more in detail.

The National Democrat Party sprang from the National League which was

organised about 1885, and its aims were to bring together the efforts of

all Poles in all three parts of Poland for the reunion and independence

of their country. In 1895 M. Dmowski founded the _Pan-Polonic Review_,

which was devoted to the development of this policy, and published its

official programme. In 1907, the year which saw the creation of the

Anglo-Russian Entente, the National Democrats deliberately adopted the

orientation of the Powers of the Entente as opposed to that of the

Central Empires, believing that before long the conflict must break out,

and their motives and policy was fully set forth in “_La question

Polonaise_,” by M. Dmowski, which was published in Paris in 1909. Here

it is stated that Germany is the chief enemy to Polish aspirations, and

that her aim is the destruction of Polish national ideals. A development

of this policy was seen in the participation of Poles in the so-called

“Neo-Slav” movement, the aim of which was to unite all Slav countries

in the coming struggle against Germany. After the annexation of Bosnia

and Herzegovina in 1909, when Austria was preparing for war against

Russia, there began (also among patriotic Poles) a propaganda against

Russia, as being a chief enemy to Polish independence, and General

Pilsudski, whose patriotism and honesty have never been questioned even

by those who most disagree with his policy, organised the Polish legions

on behalf of Austria against Russia. This had the unfortunate effect of

splitting up into opposed camps the most fervent Polish patriots,

Pilsudski believing that Russia was the chiefest of Poland’s enemies,

while the National Democrats under the lead of M. Dmowski had decided to

adopt the orientation of the Entente powers as against Austria and

Germany, and thus when the war broke out, we find one party of Polish

patriots in the military service of Austria against Russia, while the

other, by the mouth of M. Jaronski, a Polish member of the Duma,

declared in that assembly, on behalf of the Polish nation, that the

Poles would support Russia against the Central Empires, and expected

that the war would effect the realization of their dream of national

unity and independence. Immediately following on that came the

proclamation of Polish union by the Grand Duke Nicholas, which was

accepted by the National Democrats. As we have seen, this was taken by

them to imply the union of Prussian and Austrian Poland with the Russian

kingdom of Poland under the sceptre of the Tsar, but naturally it did

not include Lithuania and the other Russian provinces which the National

Democrat programme now claims. It was not until the Russian revolution

of 1917, when the utter disorganisation of Russia was evident that the

National Democrats put out the extension of their aims and demanded

these Russian provinces also. Up till then they supported Russia and the

aims of the Entente. But on that, while continuing to support the

Entente, they drafted their wider bill.

M. Dmowski, as has been seen from this short analysis of the policy of

the party which he has always led, and of which he is the acknowledged

spokesman, is a politician of the flexible type, or rather his tactics

have been flexible, so to speak, though his strategy has been

inflexible. His aims, that is to say, have never varied, though he has

always been willing to ally himself and his party with any power which

he thought was likely to grant some fraction of his invariable

aspirations which throughout have been the unity and independence of

his country. Thus at one time he was violently opposed to the

land-owning Realists, with whom he is now firmly allied, on the grounds

of their being too subservient to the Russian Government. Opportunist he

certainly has been, but it must be remembered that opportunism only

becomes an intellectual or moral dishonesty when the aim of a policy,

not the tactics that are likely to secure it, varies. And M. Dmowski’s

aim has always burned with a flame that has never flickered. But it is

curious to note that while his aims have been invariable, his policy has

always been precisely the opposite of Pilsudski’s. The latter, now

languishing in German internment, has always fought with Poland’s chief

enemy, whoever that was, while M. Dmowski has always made friends with

any who promised concessions.

It was for this last move, namely, the demand for provinces belonging to

a disintegrated country which hitherto he had supported, that his

enemies and opponents, Socialists, Jews and Cadets, chiefly deride his

career and politics as those of a “Facing-all-ways.” It has made him an

easy target for caricature which, to the present writer, misrepresents

him or does not understand him. For he accepted the manifesto of the

Grand Duke as giving Poland the best chance of unity that was then

likely to be offered. He staked then on the success of the Russian arms,

and Russia would never give Poland the Russian provinces which he now

includes in his Polish State. Then came the collapse of Russia, upon

which, still staking on the success of Russia’s allies he enlarged his

aims. To make the unity of the Polish nation complete, he added the

provinces which Russia while it existed, would not give, but which

non-existent Russia could not withhold. Without attempting to justify

his policy, or approve of its wisdom, we must realize that it was not

inconsistent. The motive behind it all was to secure the largest

possible measure of unity and independence for Poland, and the collapse

of Russia had now made possible--given that the Entente, minus Russia,

was victorious--a greater Poland than was possible when the Grand Duke

Nicholas made his proclamation, and the National Democrats accepted it.

His enemies misunderstood this, and on the accusation of political

knavery, they built a further accusation of political imbecility. For

they point to the programme of the National Democrats as it now stands,

and say, “How on earth can this be realized? That Russia should give to

Poland the provinces that belong to her implies a Russian defeat, and a

triumph of German arms. Unless forced to do so, Russia would never give

up her own provinces. On the other hand, Germany and Austria will not

give up Galicia and Prussian Poland unless they are defeated and Russia

victorious. Therefore the Poland that M. Dmowski postulates implies a

total defeat of both sides, which is impossible, and, therefore, M.

Dmowski is a political imbecile.”

Now this is very shallow reasoning, and is based either on

misunderstanding or misrepresentation. As pointed out, the difference in

tactics between the acceptance of the Grand Duke’s manifesto and the

completer demands now made by the National Democrats corresponds to the

difference between the Russian situation of 1914 and the Russian

situation of 1917. What was not possible in 1914 is, theoretically,

possible now, and should the Central Empires be completely beaten, there

is no practical reason why the National Democratic programme should not

be realised. The Entente powers, that is to say, would, if completely

victorious, be able to unite Lithuania and the other Russian provinces

with Poland, and thus accomplish what M. Dmowski’s opponents say was not

possible except on the supposition that both Germany and Russia were

simultaneously to suffer a crushing defeat. Whether that is desirable

or not is another question, but it is not an imbecile dream founded on

the total defeat of two opposed belligerents. It was not possible in

1914, but it must be remembered that the National Democrats did not put

forth that demand then. They accepted the Grand Duke’s proclamation, for

doing which then, and for claiming a completer Poland now, M. Dmowski

has already been labelled a “Facing-all-ways.” But if he is that, he is

not an imbecile in demanding concessions that imply a total defeat of

both sides. His enemies may make their choice as to which label they

attach to him, but they really must not attach both. One of the two

slips off.

But there are points in this programme of the National Democrats which

demand much more serious consideration and criticism. It will be

remembered that the National Democrats aspire to a new Poland of

38,000,000 inhabitants of which not less than 70 per cent. are “Polish

in language, culture, ideas and feeling.” Now 70 per cent. of 38,000,000

is 26,600,000, a number which vastly exceeds the total number of Poles

in the whole area under discussion. Estimates as to this total differ;

Mr. Geoffrey Drage, for instance, in his “Pre-War Statistics of Poland

and Lithuania,” gives the total number of Poles in these territories as

18,626,000, a deficit of 6,000,000 below those in the privately-printed

document. Similarly M. Olechowski, himself a Nationalist, who likewise

makes out a strong case on behalf of united Poland, puts the total down

as 19,400,000, and I have nowhere been able to find any authority or to

construct any system of calculation which places the aggregate of the

true Polish population as higher than between 21,000,000 and 22,000,000.

Or, to apply another test, let us take in detail the various constituent

parts of the new Polish state, and see how the percentages in them

correspond with the percentage given above. They are as follows:--

Percentage of Poles.

Kingdom of Poland 74.0

Lithuania 18.47

Minsk 10.3

Volhynia 9.97

Galicia 58.55

Teschen 54.9

Posen 61.5

West Prussia 35.5

Government of Allenstein 50.0

These are pre-war statistics, but they are the latest available, and it

is at once clear from them that you cannot get out of them an average

of anything approaching 70 per cent. of Poles. In addition to this, the

total population of the areas under consideration is considerably more

than 38,000,000, and must be put down as being over 40,000,000, which

again dilutes the percentage of Poles.

On the other hand, it will be noticed that the author of our document

says that this 70 per cent. is “Polish in language, culture, ideas and

feeling,” and does not definitely say “Polish in blood.” But the reader

would rightly infer that this was meant, since his argument is

ethnographical, and he himself confirms that impression, for he

immediately goes on to speak of the various other nationalities which

compose the remaining 30 per cent., leaving you to conclude that the 70

per cent. are Poles by blood. Ethnographically, then, his figures are

wrong, and seriously wrong, while if he means exactly (though

misleadingly) what he says, we must suppose that he includes among

“those of Polish culture, etc.,” those of Polish religion, e.g. the

Lithuanians. Some colour is given to this explanation by the fact that

he says that “the Polish state ... ought to include those provinces

where Western (Polish) civilization is ineradicable ... or where the

majority of the inhabitants are Catholics.” Unless he includes all

Roman Catholics as “Polish in culture, etc.,” he cannot justify this 70

per cent., while (apart from the fact that if he does so include them,

he ought to have said so) he must be aware that a very large percentage

of those Roman Catholics are bitterly and violently anti-Polish. He

tells us, for instance, that a great majority of the Lithuanians would

vote for union with Poland, on which subject we shall speak presently,

and on such unsupported assertions I think that he must base his 70 per

cent. By no other means can he possibly arrive at it, and if these are

the means he adopts, it must be noticed that he drops the ethnographical

argument altogether, and substitutes for it the argument that

co-religionists are always amicably inclined to each other. How

dangerous such an assumption is, we shall see when we come in detail to

the question of the inclusion of Lithuania in the Polish state.

Our author recognises that the Jews will be an anti-Polish and

pro-German element, and true to his anti-Jewish views, which are

perfectly sound, as derived from present conditions, admits that “so

large a number (two and a half millions) of Jews on the territory of the

Polish states presents a very serious disadvantage.” But here again, in

his desire to present the stability of his future state, he both

magnifies its strength and underrates its weaknesses, of which the

pro-German Jewish population is among the greatest. For instead of there

being only two and a half million Jews to be reckoned with there must be

well over four millions of them, the various censuses showing:--

JEWS.

Russian Poland (1911) 1,716,000

Galicia (1910) 900,000

Lithuania (1897) 697,000

Minsk and Volhynia (1897) 740,000

Prussian Poland (1905) 68,483

---------

4,121.483[9]

To the new state of Poland, of which the Poles, _pur sang_, do not

probably exceed twenty-one millions at the most, this Jewish element,

consistently anti-Polish, of over four millions is a danger which the

National Democrats do not seem adequately to appreciate. For not only

are they formidable in numbers, they are formidable in position also,

when we consider that 80 per cent. of the total trade in the Kingdom of

Poland and Lithuania before the war passed through their hands.

Certain trades like the leather trade and the stocking trade were

entirely theirs, and Jewish money-lenders infested the small provincial

towns, bringing ruin on their general interests. They are largely

town-dwellers, and in centres of industry they form a much larger

fraction of the population than in country districts, where their

influence would be more scattered and less capable of being concentrated

and organized; in Warsaw, for instance, they make up 35 per cent. of the

whole population. Moreover, since the occupation of the Kingdom of

Poland by the Central Empires, the Germans have opened Jewish schools,

removed the disabilities which previously attached to their race, and

done all in their power to encourage them and strengthen their position,

well knowing that by so doing they were tightening their own grip on

Poland. All this our author minimizes, and hopefully remarks that there

has been a “strong tendency among them towards emigration, which is

likely in the future to develop on a larger scale.” He commits the

strategical error, in fact, of underrating the strength of his

adversaries, which the Jews most undoubtedly are. In Lithuania, it is

true, the Germans originally treated the Jews very differently,

squeezing and despoiling them during the earlier months of their

occupation, for the reason that they then contemplated having to give

back Lithuania to Russia, and wanted to make as much out of it as

possible, so that they would restore it in a completely impoverished

condition. But in the Kingdom of Poland they have encouraged Jews as

being their allies and coadjutors, for they never meant to let Poland go

back to Russian domination. From this point of view, it is no wonder

that when late in 1917 a Jewish deputation waited on the Minister of

Justice and Social Affairs, asking for further privileges, the minister

replied that the best remedy for Jewish grievances was the emigration

from Poland of Jews. This was a short-sighted and foolish reply, for the

Jewish problem in Poland, if we are to see a strong and united Poland,

is not to be solved by belittling their importance, or by hostility to

them with a view to eliminating them. It cannot, indeed, be too strongly

stated that a liberal policy with regard to Jews is absolutely essential

to the coherence of the new Polish state. They are far too important and

numerous to disregard, and hostility to them would merely result in

making a strong pro-German party in a state which, in order to exist,

must purge itself of pro-German elements. This particular purging cannot

be effected in any other way than by shewing the Jews that Polish

prosperity is involved with their well-being.

(iii) _The Question of Lithuania_

We now come to a more detailed consideration of the question of

Lithuania, which the author of our document claims for inclusion in the

new state. Historically the whole of Lithuania formed part of the

ancient republic of Poland up to the time of the partitions, and roughly

consisted of the following provinces, viz., Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, Minsk,

Vitebsk and Mohilec. Out of these no claim, quite naturally, is put

forward with regard to Vitebsk and Mohileff, where the percentage of

Polish population is so small as to be completely negligible, for in

Vitebsk Poles number only 50,000 out of a total of close on one million

and a half inhabitants, while in Mohileff the percentage of Poles is but

a third of that in Vitebsk, for in Mohileff there are but 18,000 Poles

in a population of nearly 1,600,000. Thus out of “Lithuania,” as

considered as a part of the ancient Republic, all are agreed to omit

Vitebsk and Mohileff altogether, for the obvious reason that they are

not Polish at all. Ethnographically the overwhelming majority of their

inhabitants are White Russians, a race closely allied in blood and in

language to Russia proper.

There remain, therefore, on our author’s claim to Lithuania for the new

united Poland, the provinces of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno and Minsk. Of Minsk

he claims the “greater part,” as also of another Russian province

Volhynia. Since he separates the claim for Minsk and Volhynia from the

claim for “Lithuania,” we will follow his grouping, and understand by

the term “Lithuania” the three provinces of Kovno, Vilna and Grodno.

His argument is that they once belonged to the Polish republic (which

everybody allows), and so, on historical grounds, should be returned to

it, and he supplements this by the consideration that the Lithuanians,

at any rate, out of the inhabiting populations are co-religionists with

the Poles. But the real reason on which his case rests, and for which

(apart from the Mittel-Europa question) the Powers of the Entente have

all declared themselves in favour of a united and independent Poland, is

not a matter of history (otherwise England might claim Calais) or of

creed (otherwise she might claim Protestant Germany), but of race. The

cause that underlies the justice of a united Poland is the right of

nations, small or great, to exist, and ethnographically this demand for

the annexation of Lithuania, and the greater part of Minsk and Volhynia,

utterly breaks down.

With regard to Lithuania, our author allows that there would be included

in the new Polish state two and a half millions of Lithuanians “linked

to the Poles by religion and civilisation, who would find in the Polish

state the conditions most favourable to their national progress.” Read

in its context, which claims for the new state 38,000,000 inhabitants of

which 70 per cent. are “Polish in culture, etc.,” this sounds as if

ethnographically the inclusion of Lithuania might be admissible. But

when we come to look at Lithuania itself, it wears a very different

aspect. For according to the most reliable information obtainable the

census figures for Lithuania are these[10]:--

Total population 5,728,000, of which 18.47 per cent. are Poles; or in

detail:--

Vilna 26.3 }

Kovno 11.4 } per cent. of Poles.

Grodno 17.0 }

The Russian return of 10 per cent. Poles in the province of Vilna is

certainly below the mark, in fact it shews considerably less than half

the true population, which is 26.3 per cent. But it is not admissible on

purely ethnographical grounds to claim as national territory a district

in which the nation in question only numbers a quarter of the

inhabitants. As for the rest of Lithuania the percentage is lower yet,

consisting as it does of 11.4 per cent. in Kovno and 17.0 per cent. in

Grodno. This minority, it is true, consists to a considerable extent of

land-owning Poles, as opposed to the mass of the Lithuanian peasantry,

for Lithuania, is emphatically a country of rural populations, and in

the whole of its three provinces there are but seven towns containing

more than 20,000 inhabitants,[11] but if the ownership of land

constitutes a claim for Poland over Lithuania, the same claim of the

Germans over Silesia holds good, for a quarter of all Silesia belongs to

six German proprietors. If then on the Democratic principle Poland

refuses to admit the German claim there, she must abandon a similar

claim of her own with regard to Lithuania, in so far as it is founded

on ownership of soil. And mere ownership of soil is a singularly poor

Democratic argument.

Now since in these three provinces the total population is over five and

a half millions, of which two and a half only, according to our author’s

figures, are Lithuanians, and of which Poles form only 18 per cent.,

what of the remaining millions? The answer is that by an immense

majority they are White Russians, who, both by blood and by language,

are closely connected, not with Poles at all, but with the inhabitants

of Great Russia. Out of the three provinces, Kovno is overwhelmingly

Lithuanian by blood, for the Lithuanians constitute a majority over

Great Russians, White Russians, and Poles all added together. In Vilna

the White Russians constitute a similar majority, outnumbering Great

Russians and Poles and Lithuanians, and also, though not so

overwhelmingly, in Grodno. There in the western part of the province the

Poles have a local majority, and by a small rectification of the

frontier it would be easy to include in the new Polish state a slice of

territory, contiguous to the present Kingdom of Poland, where Poles will

be in an indubitable majority, and a similar inclusion might reasonably

be made with regard to parts of Vilna. On ethnographical grounds, which

are the only ones that the Governments of the Entente recognise as

valid, these rectifications are desirable. But this is a very different

thing from claiming for the future State of Poland a vast area of

provinces which by no tie of blood or language can possibly be

considered as authentically Polish. Kovno is overwhelmingly Lithuanian,

Vilna and Grodno are overwhelmingly White Russian. In none of the three

provinces of “Lithuania” is there an approach to a majority of Poles.

The percentage in Vilna is the highest, for there Poles form one quarter

of the total population. But to make an ethnographical claim on such

grounds is to reverse the usual sense of the word “ethnographical.”

However, the will of the people, self-determination, may constitute,

even if ethnographically the conclusion is unsound, a reason for the

fusion of one nationality in another, and our author asserts that a

Lithuanian plebiscite would vote for inclusion in this new state. But

even allowing that reports from Lithuania are coloured in Germany (which

in itself does not seem probable, since Germany has before now

considered the possibility of uniting the Kingdoms of Poland and

Lithuania under German suzerainty, and so would not emphasize the

dissonance between Poles and Lithuanians), such evidence as is

accessible does not bear out this assertion. For the inhabitants of

Lithuania have repeatedly protested against a fusion with Poland,

regarding the Poles as their bitterest enemies. In 1916, for instance,

the Lithuanian Socialists demanded independence, and declared against

union with Poland: the Union of White Russian peasants in the following

year (at a Congress they held at Minsk) issued a proclamation demanding

union with Russia; in 1917 the Lithuanian Army Congress in Petrograd

demanded that Lithuanians then included in Polish regiments should be

allowed to transfer themselves to Russian regiments. Such instances, it

is submitted, are tangible evidence against a mere assertion, in support

of which no evidence is produced.

It is, moreover, a dangerous thing to lay too much stress on the value

of the bond of religion in such a consolidation as this unless that bond

is cemented by the stronger ties of blood, for while religious

differences have often constituted a cause of quarrel, we do not, as a

matter of practical experience, find that a unity in religion

constitutes a very binding force, except when, perhaps, there is

religious persecution which brings co-religionists together. Such has

not been the case in Lithuania, and as a matter of fact Polish and

Lithuanian co-religionists have before now arrived at a very acute pass

in the matter of the language to be used in churches, Lithuanians

advocating a Lithuanian ritual, in those portions of the mass where

Latin is not used, and Poles championing their own tongue. In fact, the

religious bond has been the cause of considerable differences in

opinion, and free fights have taken place in churches. Accounts of such

disturbances have no doubt been exaggerated, but it is important to

avoid exaggeration on the other side, and find in a common religion a

valid cause for incorporating Lithuania in the new state. This religious

bond, moreover, whatever it is worth, is only applicable as between

racial Lithuanians and Poles. But in the three provinces which

constitute Lithuania the numerical majority of the inhabitants are White

Russian, whose national religion is not Roman Catholic but Greek

orthodox. If then a common religion binds two of these nationalities,

the same bond is equally valid between Russians and White Russians.

Similarly in the Russian province of Minsk (the greater part of which is

claimed by the National Democrats for the new state) and of Volhynia,

we can find no ethnographical reason for this fusion since the Polish

population of Minsk constitutes at the very outside but 10.3 per cent.

of the total population, while in Volhynia it is slightly less, or 9.97

per cent. And in the absence of ethnographical support, have these

districts shown any self-determination towards union with Poland? I

think our author would have mentioned it if they had. Finally, in

Eastern Galicia he only claims a minority of 25 per cent. for the Poles,

and this seems, if we compare it with other estimates, to be rather a

rosy view of the extent of the consanguinity.

There is then no sound ethnographical reason why these former Russian

provinces should be joined to the new state, but there are very sound

reasons why they should not. To begin with, the whole case for the unity

of Poland rests on ethnographical grounds, and to incorporate provinces

in none of which Poles form anything like a majority is to stultify

those grounds. To incorporate these Russian provinces not by their act

of self-determination, but as far as we can see, in direct opposition to

their will, would be to introduce a constant element of friction in the

new state. There are, God knows, enough Polish parties as it is, and

the inclusion of these malcontent populations would have the result not

of strengthening the new state by adding to its numbers, but of

weakening it by introducing discordant and rebellious elements. The

fallow-field has to be sown with corn, and if the Entente permitted

this, they would themselves be sowing tares there.

But German politicians were more far-sighted--they the enemy sowing

tares--than Polish patriots, who on the complete explosion of Russia ran

to the spot and picked up fragments of the disjected structure. Germany

from time to time has seriously considered a scheme for the union of

parts of Lithuania with Poland, and ideas have been mooted for the

colonization of Lithuania and Courland, in the further distant future,

by Poles. Either of these schemes was worthy of her policy of dividing

and so governing, and it was partly the more short-sighted

sabre-rattling insistence of the Hindenburg Junkers and the opposition

of Austria, who wanted a juncture between Poland and Galicia under a

Habsburg prince, that prevented these policies from being carried into

effect; partly, she anticipated serious trouble in Lithuania itself, if

she attempted to carry out such an unnatural union. She would have liked

to do it, for such policies were policies of disintegration, which are

the sharpest arrows in the whole of German diplomacy, and the

astonishing thing is that Polish patriots, who genuinely, but less

long-sightedly, desire the union of Polish nationalities, should have

advocated the same programme as Germany, with the opposite end in view,

also desired. Germany, a thousand times was right in wishing to join

Lithuania to Poland as a means of defeating the aims of the National

Democrats. M. Dmowski and the National Democrats, I venture to think,

are wrong in proposing this unnatural union as a source of strength to

the future Polish State.

There is another reason, stronger than any yet, against this

unhomogeneous welding together of states that by blood are in the main

alien, that by religious conviction make a cause of grievance rather

than a tie out of a common creed, and have only the historical bond, the

fragrance of which is that of dried flowers, to bind together utterly

dissimilar elements. Supposing the victorious Entente can construct the

State of Poland as it chooses, what will be the result, either from the

Nationalist Polish standpoint or from that of the foes of the

Mittel-Europa policy, of this forced union? Some time and somehow, when

once there is a bar erected against the Mittel-Europa expansion, there

must, if that bar is to be effective, arise a Slav state, or several

Slav states, eastwards of Poland. Russia, in some form or other, will

arise from its ruins, possibly united again, but probably separated into

a Muscovite state and a Little Russian state, and to make the bar

against Mittel-Europa capable of resistance to German interests the

State of Poland must infallibly orientate eastwards, and not look to the

German frontier for its friends. But should Lithuania and the other

provinces be forcibly torn away from Russia, they will form a new and

acuter Alsace and Lorraine in the Slav power which it is our design to

erect against the expansion of Germany eastwards. Muscovy and South

Russia, or, if they are conjoined, both of them, will indubitably want

to recover the lost provinces, while the State of Poland will want to

retain them. And the ally ready to help either of them will be Germany.

New Russia will appeal to Germany to recover her provinces, or New

Poland will appeal to Germany in order to retain them. One or other will

make such an appeal, and it will not fall on deaf ears. Russian and

German arms, as in the case of the original partitions, will fall on

Poland, or Germany in alliance with Poland (thus mending up the broken

chain of Mittel-Europa again), will march against Russia. In either

case, Germany will advance a step further on her eastward march. Should

Russia and Germany come to an understanding, the new state will be

crushed and repartitioning will begin again, should Germany and Poland

come to an understanding, Germany will have affiliated herself to Poland

afresh, and have a valuable ally against Russia.

This is not a fantastic conclusion, for Germany, never fantastic, has

already foreseen it. As long as a year ago (February, 1917) Herr

Gothein, one of the most acute of German political writers, advocated

that Russian territories mainly inhabited by non-Poles should be united

to Poland, because Poland would then be in a “natural permanent

antagonism to Russia.” Germany would create, in fact, an Alsace-Lorraine

problem, such as existed between her and France. But in this case she

would, again on the principle of ‘_Divide et impera_,’ create it between

her antagonists, an undeniably attractive scheme. One or other of them

she would be bound to draw into her net, and Mittel-Europa, checked for

the time by defeat in the present war, would resume its progress. Either

the independent Polish state, created with such care by the Powers of

the Entente, would be organized and armed and employed by her, or she

would make friends with Russia, and crush the new Polish state out of

existence. In either case she would “score.”

So, for both reasons, namely the homogeneity of the new Polish state,

since the inclusion of Lithuania and Minsk and Volhynia would

undoubtedly lead to internal disruption, and for the quashing of the

Mittel-Europa policy it is of primary importance that the new state

should not contain discordant elements, or elements that belong not to

her, but to the Power with which she must be affiliated, namely the Slav

element eastwards, and not the Teutonic element westwards. One or other

of the new states, either some form of Russia or the more distinct form

of an independent and united Poland, must otherwise, if the new state

attempts to incorporate provinces that are Russian by the ethnography

which is the basis of the new state, be driven into the embraces of

Germany, who, as already noticed, will be ready to receive it with open

arms.

Such, outlined as briefly as possible, seems the only really debatable

point about the programme of the National Democrats with which,

otherwise, the policy of the Entente is in complete accord. If united

Poland, according to the programme of M. Dmowski and the National

Democrats, ever succeeds in including Lithuania, Minsk and Volhynia,

she will have sowed the seeds of her own destruction. And if the powers

of the Entente, successful, as is postulated from the first, over the

Central Empires, consent to such an arrangement, they will have sowed

tares among their corn.

The harvest that will eventually be reaped will have been of their own

deliberate sowing. They will have sown the seeds of dissonance between

their own allies, and when that harvest is ripe it will be Germany who

will put in the sickle. A new Russia is essential to their aims as well

as a new Poland, and it is vital that the two shall not start life

growling over a contentious bone. The new state of Poland, with the

perpetual menace or the insidious Mother-Wolf smile of Germany on one

side of her, must be buttressed by the Slav interests contiguous to her

on the East, and to sow cause of dissension between a resurrected Russia

and the recreated state would be an act, in the opinion of the present

writer, of political imbecility that positively calls for trouble, and

he finds it hard to see how there can be any divergence of opinion among

those who recognise the actual and potential menace of Germany’s _Drang

nach osten_. To attempt to enlarge Poland by the introduction of

discordant elements, unsupported by ethnographical validity, at the

expense of the country with whom she must be allied is to create a

quarrel between those on whose union of interest the whole

anti-Mittel-Europa policy depends.

Finally, on grounds of even wider and more essential expedience, this

inclusion of Lithuania and the other Russian provinces in the new state

of Poland is undesirable, since it would be an anti-democratic step,

based not on the will of the people, but, precisely, on the

Imperialistic spirit which our armies and our navies are fighting. The

mere desire of possession is all the reason that can be produced for the

National Democrat claims to Minsk and Volhynia, while ownership of land,

which is at the base of the plea for Lithuania, is scarcely less

Imperialistic than the other. If the new state is to prosper it must be

built on such democratic foundation as that on which Russia will

sometime arise again, and not on the principles by which Germany annexes

and governs. She, the friend of tyrants, knows democracy to be her

bitterest and most dangerous foe, and to found a Poland which is not

hallowed by democracy would be to create a friend to Germany in the

people whom we desire to establish in impregnable resistance to her. And

the pillars which support that state must be the undivided and

invincible will of all those who compose it.

What, then, must be the fate of Lithuania if the Polish solution is

inadmissible? Either she must form an autonomous state, or revert to

some, as yet non-existent, Russian combination. So long as Russia is in

its present condition of chaotic anarchy, it is quite impossible to

foretell what that combination will be, but it is unthinkable that such

chaos is anything but temporary. Given the defeat of the Central Empires

and an end to their unhindered policy of disintegration there, order

will eventually be restored and a firm political establishment emerge,

to which Lithuania, considerable sections of which are in favour of the

Russian solution for their country, will be attached. Other sections of

opinion there vote for independence, but the political objection to that

is the smallness of a possible Lithuanian state, while its complete

isolation implies a territory strategically indefensible among more

powerful neighbours.

I have presented the case against the proposed absorption of Lithuania

in the new Polish state at some length, because the principle involved,

namely, that of securing harmonious relations between the states which

will form the barrier to the unlimited expansion of Mittel-Europa

eastwards, appears to me of supreme and vital importance. It is only

fair, therefore, to state with equal clearness the views of the leading

National Democrats on the question who are in favour of the inclusion of

Lithuania in the new Poland.

They argue that this cession of Lithuania to Poland is not in the least

likely to cause friction between the Polish and Russian states since,

according to their views, Russian politicians recognise that the country

was wrongfully wrested from Poland by the partitions, and that though

its inhabitants are not in the main of Polish blood they are just as

little of Russian blood, but form a nationality of their own, too small

to be constituted into a wholly independent state, and therefore to be

attached with some considerable degree of self-government to a

neighbouring state. That state should in equity be Poland, of which for

four hundred years Lithuania formed a part, whereas only the political

crime of the partition has joined it wrongfully to Russia for a quarter

of that period. The National Democrats place second to none of their

aims the rehabilitation of Russia, but as Russia is now, and must

continue for many years yet, in a state of disorganization, it is vital

to the anti-Mittel-Europa policy of the Entente that Lithuania should

not remain in loose confederation with a Power whose whole energies and

resources will be taxed to the uttermost for years to come in

establishing order and government among the peoples who directly belong

to it. Furthermore, the most sanguine of optimists cannot expect that

Russia can recover her strength and solidity before the lapse of many

decades, and it is necessary that while Russia is weak, so,

proportionately, should new Poland be made as strong as possible in

order to render firm the barrier to Germany’s expansion eastwards.

Just as Russia will not, according to the view of the National

Democrats, object to the loss of Lithuania, so Lithuania will not object

to Poland’s gain. Educated opinion there sees as clearly as the National

Democrats themselves that she cannot stand alone, for that would

speedily mean that she would be penetrated by Germany, and her most

natural affiliation is to Poland. By blood she is a non-Russian country,

and though by blood she is not predominantly Polish either, yet the

Poles form a not negligible percentage of her population, while her

civilization is purely Polish. The two countries have a common religion,

and economically she is far more closely bound to Poland than to

Russia, and for years her trade has gravitated to Warsaw and not to

Petrograd or Moscow. Linguistically also, though the native language has

as little to do with Polish as it has with Russian, no educated

Lithuanian is ignorant of Polish, and it is impossible for an educated

man to live there with interchange of ideas and civilized thought

without speaking Polish. Russian is merely the official language imposed

by the dominating state, and the necessity of the employment of the

Polish tongue was seen when, during the advance of the German army, the

troops passed out of Poland into Lithuania. For the Germans arriving

there dismissed their Polish interpreters under the impression that

Russian alone would now be needed. But they could make no headway

whatever in that language, and had to send for their Polish interpreters

again.

It is with these arguments, many of which have undoubtedly considerable

weight, that the Polish leaders of the National Democrats support their

claim for Lithuania. The matter does not admit of compromise, for

Lithuania must be united either to Poland or to Russia. Ethnographically

she strictly belongs to neither, but with all due respect to the right

of separate nationalities to enjoy a national and independent

existence, it is clearly possible to push that principle too far.

Basques and Bretons are not ethnographically French, nor are the Welsh

English, but just as no sane thinker would dream of demanding for any of

those a separate independent existence, so no one who has studied the

problems of Eastern Europe could wish to create an independent

Lithuania. She must be joined to Russia or to Poland, and the reader who

reflects on the arguments advanced on the one side and the other must

make up his mind in which direction wisdom points.

NOTE.--_Mr. Harold Williams has very kindly read over and discussed

with me the foregoing arguments advanced by the National Democrats

for the inclusion of Lithuania, and has sent me the statement of

his view’s on the question, which I append:_--

“NOTE ON THE CLAIM OF THE POLISH NATIONAL DEMOCRATS TO LITHUANIA.

“The National Democrats are powerfully influenced by the Polish

historical tradition. That is their strength, but it also creates

certain difficulties in the search for an equable solution of the

problems of Eastern Europe. Without going into the larger question

of the extent of territory that may ultimately be included in the

reconstituted Polish state, it may be sufficient to point out in

reference to Lithuania:--

“(1) That it includes a very considerable White Russian population

which is certainly more Russian than Polish. The official language

of the Lithuanian state which under Jagello was united with Poland

was White Russian, and the ground of the claims of the Grand Dukes

and Tsars of Moscow and Russia on Lithuanian territory was the fact

that Lithuanian territory was largely ‘Russian,’ and included

principalities which in the Kiev period formed a part of the

loosely federated Russian state. This purely historical argument

has little force now, but the ethnographical argument retains its

weight.

“(2) The Lithuanian National movement, which has developed in

recent years, is predominantly anti-Polish, and is not

anti-Russian, though it strongly opposed the oppressive measures of

the Russian Government. Russian was not merely an official

language. It was, next to Lithuanian, the principal language of

civilised intercourse used by the Lithuanian educated class. It is

true that numbers of educated Lithuanians also spoke Polish, but in

their modes of thinking and methods of action the influence of

their training in Russian schools and universities is very

noticeable.

“(3) The assertion that the inclusion of Lithuania in Poland would

not cause friction between Poland and a reconstituted Russia is

hardly tenable, and would certainly not be upheld by responsible

Russian politicians of any party. The restoration of an independent

Poland within her ethnographical frontiers is an axiom of Russian

statesmanship, but to my knowledge it is equally certain that

Russian political leaders do not admit any Polish claim to

sovereignty over Lithuania. If the physical possibility of

deliberate and unfettered choice can be established, it is of

course for the peoples of Lithuania themselves to decide with which

neighbouring political unit they prefer to be more intimately

connected. But from the standpoint of political stability in

Eastern Europe, which is the consideration of greatest importance

to the Allies, it would be more desirable to see Lithuania

federated in some way with Russia, while giving certain economic

privileges to Poland. The ideal solution would be one that would

make Lithuania a link, and not a bone of contention between Russia

and Poland.

HAROLD WILLIAMS.”

CHAPTER IV

POLAND’S PLACE IN NEW EUROPE

At the present moment the policy of the National Democrats with regard

to a united and independent Poland is concurred in by the Realists

(landowners), the Progressives, the Christian Democrats, the party of

Economic Independence and the National Union. Their united aims,

including access to the sea for the new independent State, have been now

centralized in the Polish National Committee, which has been formally

recognised by the Entente Powers. M. Dmowski is its President in Paris,

Count L. Sobanski represents it in England, M. Skirmunt in Italy, and M.

Paderewski in America. But since many, if not all of the Polish Parties

in the Kingdom of Poland (with the exception, a weighty one, of the

Jews) would support its policy, if they thought that there was a chance

of its being realized, it is very important that it should clearly be

brought to their knowledge that the powers of the Entente are solid for

the establishment of the new State, that, in fact, it forms an

essential part of their scheme for annihilating the Mittel-Europa policy

of Germany. It is true that there have been many single pronouncements

on behalf of one or other of the Entente governments to this effect, but

I would venture to suggest that a joint declaration[12] would be useful

in order to restore in Poland a fuller confidence in the sincerity and

unanimity of the Entente’s aims in this regard. During the events of the

last year, owing to Germany’s success in her detachment of Russia and

her crushing of Rumania, this confidence has undoubtedly been shaken,

and an impression, zealously fostered by German propaganda, has been

produced that the Entente, in the absence of a solid declaration on the

subject, may be treating the question of Poland as a counter for

bartering with. There has, too, been an ambiguity in the latest

utterances of the Entente which has aroused suspicion, which it is most

important to allay. Mr. Lloyd George, for instance, in January of this

year, said “We believe that an independent Poland composed of all the

_genuine Polish elements_ desiring to form part of it is an urgent

necessity for the stability of Eastern Europe,” and Mr. Wilson echoed

the ambiguous “genuine Polish elements” by the phrase “incontestably

Polish.”

This expression has been pounced on by Germany, and interpreted to the

Poles as signifying the exclusion of any territory where the population

is not completely Polish, and the insinuation has been made that since

no territory is exclusively inhabited by Poles, the Entente mean to do

nothing for them, except keep them as a make-weight to balance other

concessions which Germany might have to make. It would restore Polish

confidence in the sincerity of the promises made by the statesmen of the

Entente, if it were possible for them to define their purposes a little

more clearly, and “make known the interpretation thereof.”

Best of all would it be to demonstrate to the Poles that the existence

not of a small Poland but a large one, not of a weak state but a strong

one is as essential to the aims of the Entente as it is dear to the

heart of all Polish patriots; that Poland’s interests are identical with

their own, not merely for the reason that nations small and large have

the right of a national existence, but because of the stark necessity of

preventing German expansion at will eastwards. The motive of

self-interest is always the clearest and most comprehensible to other

people, and it is the self-interest of the nations of the Entente that

Poland should be a nation too. The whole scheme is not difficult of

explanation, and it is necessary to attempt it.

It may be taken for granted that when Germany has asked for peace and

has obtained it, not on her own terms but on those of the Entente, the

Dual Monarchy will automatically fall to bits. It is at present governed

by two minorities, the Magyar and the German, which jointly exercise

authority over a non-cohering congeries of nations alien to them in

blood. Of such are the Czechs, the Croatians, the Poles, the Slovaks,

etc., who are held together by the cement of German predominance.

Touching but briefly on this, and as it were, for the instruction merely

of Poles who do not understand how essential is the erection of the

strong Polish state to the success of the policy of the Entente, we may

note that, as has been incontrovertibly pointed out, another necessary

link in the chain of Slav countries which will bar Germany’s progress

eastward will be a new Bohemia, comprising the present Kingdom, Moravia,

part of Austrian Silesia and perhaps the northern or Slovak portion of

Hungary. This kingdom would consist of a large Czech majority, and would

number altogether some eleven million inhabitants. This Czech obstacle

in the middle of Germany’s highway to the East, is of the very first

importance. A long frontier of this state would thus run between the New

Poland and the New Bohemia, and the two would have between them the

strong cement of a common German antagonism.

The restoration of a reinforced Rumania similarly, though not bearing

directly on Poland, forms part of the scheme of the Entente; so too does

the construction of the much-discussed Yugo-Slav state. Into all the

intricacies of this, admirably set forth in the anonymous pamphlet

quoted in the last chapter, it is not necessary to go, and indeed the

mere analysis of the question is a matter for a separate treatise. To

state the terms of it as briefly as possible, this Yugo-Slav state will

consist of a population of Serbian speech, and include Serbia,

Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slavonia, and part at

any rate of the Adriatic provinces of Dalmatia and Istria. This latter

is of the first importance with regard to the effective combination of

the Entente as touching Germany’s expansion eastwards, for it brings a

new, powerful, Slav and anti-German state into touch with Italy and

completes the cordon of the Western Allies.

It will be seen from this mere enumeration what the general policy of

the Entente is with regard to these Slav countries. The Entente want to

make the largest possible political units of them. To attempt to bar

Germany’s progress by the creation or by the retention of a series of

small states, would but give the signal for Germany to begin her

nibbling again. Solid masses, not sundered units, must be put in her

path, not a handful of pebbles which she can remove one by one, but

ponderous rocks against which she will break in vain.

It is for this reason that the Yugo-Slav combination has been

propounded, and for precisely the same reason the policy of the Entente

demands a Poland that shall be powerful and united, not leaning for

support on Germany, nor easily to be penetrated by her, but joined for

all future years in sympathy and interests with the Slav nationalities

that will be at her back for her support and buttressing, as she faces

the power that tried to enslave her and failed. A small Poland, not

uniting the vast majority of its nation, has no part in Polish aims, and

it has none in the aims of the powers that will her unity. _To be of

practical use to them they must enable her to realize her own

aspirations._ To-day the powers of the Entente are facing a front of

Germans and German vassals that stretches from Ypres, solid and unbroken

through Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey, as far as Hit on the Euphrates.

Behind it, at the disposal of the Central Empires lie the once-free

countries they have enslaved or conquered, and, as in a barred room,

their diabolical surgery goes on in the bodies of the bound, helpless

but alive nations. But presently it shall be otherwise, and instead, a

ring of living and vigorous peoples shall confine the power that once

thought to enslave the world. From the shores of the Baltic, right

across Europe to the shores of the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and from

those shores westwards through Italy and France and northwards to

England (the fort set on the seas that are free), and so across to the

Baltic again shall the circle be formed, of which every part is

essential and irreplaceable. And like some inexhaustible regiment in

reserve America watches from the west.

But it is not only by land to check the soaking of the corrosive German

acid eastwards, “peacefully” distilled by Jews and Turks, or to stay

the march of German legions that a free and united Poland shall stand

insolubly linked to anti-Teutonic forces, but by sea also that she shall

hold in her hand the containing cord. As we have already noticed, the

Central Empires have let slip what they really mean by the freedom of

the seas, and by their gracious permission they concede to the rest of

Europe undisputed passage over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: but they

have explicitly told us that the freedom of the high seas does not

extend to the narrow seas. The Black Sea therefore and the Adriatic and

the Baltic must remain as they are to-day, German lakes, where perhaps

ships of other nations may cruise for their own pleasure or for

Germany’s profit, so long as Germany has not more serious business on

hand. Then up shall go the signal “Closing Time,” and they shall be

barred to us until Germany, behind fortified entrances and mined waters

shall have made her naval preparations. There is no exaggeration about

this: this is precisely what Germany means, and what she has said.

Thus not on land alone Poland shall be significant for the freedom of

Europe; she will be, with the coast of the Baltic in her hands,

significant as regards the freedom of the narrow seas over which

Germany claims the sole control. For not only will the loss of this

coast be an open door into the sea which otherwise Germany, in her

present domination of the Baltic, might close at will, but in a far

larger measure than this Poland will be an essential link in the chain

that by sea no less than by land will effectually bar the limitless

expansion of Germany’s scheme of slavery for the world. For here will be

the northern termination of the line of unbroken anti-German states that

will extend in a south-easterly direction across Europe to the ports of

the second of the narrow seas that to-day is German, and from Dantzig to

Costanza the line of federation will be complete. There on the Black Sea

to-day every port is in German control. Through Turkey’s subordination

to her she has her finger on Trebizond and Batoum, and the key to the

whole of that littoral, Constantinople; by her peace with the Ukraine

she is port-master of the South Russian harbours. By her conquest of

Rumania, Costanza is controlled from Berlin.

But in order to ensure the freedom of the seas (by which we do not mean

a freedom in the sense so clearly laid down by Count Czernin, according

to which the control of the three European seas that are of supreme

importance to Germany is excepted), it is vital to the interests of the

Entente that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles should remain no longer

in Turkish hands. Earlier in the war the expulsion of the Turkish

government from Constantinople was laid down as among the aims of the

Entente in the prosecution of their purpose, but a few months ago that

provision was cut out (perhaps with a view to inducing Turkey to desert

the Central Empires), and she was told that she might keep

Constantinople. This formed the subject of satirical comment on the part

of a certain Turco-phil portion of the English press, and we were

reminded that it was but reasonable to tell Turkey that she might retain

that which we had been unable to take away from her. But whatever was

the object of that concession it failed to detach Turkey, and it is most

sincerely to be hoped that since Turkey rejected what she certainly

understood to be an offer of terms to her, that offer and that

concession will now be considered to be withdrawn. They were made, they

were rejected, and--there is an end of them. For with Constantinople

still in Turkish hands there can be but an insecure freedom of the Black

Sea. It is impossible, however firmly, in a territorial sense, we may

separate Germany from her present vassal, to prevent her reconstructing

her hold over the Ottoman Empire. And with Constantinople and (in

consequence) the Straits in Turkish hands, it will be worth Germany’s

while to intrigue and permeate again, so that, at her bidding, Turkey

can close the Straits, as she has often done before, when convenient to

Germany. Our policy here, in fact, ought not only to aim at securing a

reliable freedom of the Black Sea, but by the removal of the Turkish

power from straits and capital alike, to make Turkey useless to Germany.

Unless the Entente abate more of their demands, Turkey will at the

conclusion of the war lose Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Arabia, but

so long as she holds the straits in her hand she may be of use to

Germany. And when a thing is of use to Germany she generally picks it

up, and puts it in her pocket. She has already done that to Turkey, and

though at the end of the war we must take Turkey out of her pocket

again, she will assuredly put her back there some day when we are not

looking (which occurs most days) if Turkey still holds the Straits.

It is, then, quite essential to the completion of the chain of seas

which form part of the barrier that will prevent the armies of the

Central Empires from progressing eastwards in accordance with any new

scheme of conquest which they may frame, that the Black Sea shall not

have doors that turn it, when closed, into a German lake: and equally

essential is it that the Adriatic shall not have ports and harbours and

defensive islands linked by interior lines of communication with the

Central Empires. Treitschke once declared that Trieste was more

important to Germany than Hamburg, and earlier yet Bismarck

pronounced--and none of his utterances goes further to prove the genius

of his statesmanship--that Trieste was the point of the German sword.

That is profoundly true to-day, and since that sword-point is sharper

now than ever, and flashes, poised with graver menace, it is the

business of the Entente to break that point off and weld it shining and

strong on to the sword of Italy. Europe is not to see the Adriatic with

its long Italian coast-line on the one side, and the Dalmatian ports and

islands on the other, turned into a German lake, according to Count

Czernin’s programme. Too long already has the Adriatic constituted the

cleavage between the East and West of Europe, with the powers of the

Central Empires bridging it at the top, thus enabling them to menace and

strike now East, now West. In the new Europe Italy shall join hands with

the Yugo-Slav State on the East of that sea, with coast-line for both,

and the Adriatic shall be under the guardianship of those to whom its

shores belong.

It is not by bombing the holy places and palaces of Venice that Austria

will cow the eternal youth of Italy into a senile submission, and though

in sheer wantonness at the bidding of German Kultur she wrecks and makes

irreplaceable the loveliest things that the hand of man has builded in

answer to the instinct of the heart that loves beauty, she destroys not

them only, but, irreplaceably also, her claim to be a civilised power,

being naught else than the vassal of her mistress whom the world will

never forgive. Like the St. George of Donatello, Italy stands there to

guard her land, and her feet are beautiful upon the mountains and swift

upon the plains where the Huns are gathered to destroy the loveliness of

all the ages. By her are Jeanne d’Arc and St. George of England, and

when the menace of Attila has been hurled back, Italy will reach out her

hand across the narrow sea that Germany designed to be one of her

harbours. And what Italy is in the south of Europe, and as regards the

Adriatic, that precisely is Poland in the north and as regards the

Baltic. Each links together the East to the two quarters of the West,

completing the circle of free states that shall form the barrier

against enslaving Powers. Each section of that encircling barrier is

equally essential, for no security can come to the world till it is

welded and complete.

* * * * *

It was in January of this year that a Polish member of the Chamber of

Deputies in Vienna called attention to the iron oppression which Germany

exercises over his native land, and a fellow-member whose nationality

need not be indicated said to him--

“Dear Colleague, you forget that Germany is the power that has saved

you.”

“If I fell into a river,” replied the other “and my saviour after

pulling me out of the water refused to let me go, but constantly

repeated ‘Now I have saved your life, you must be my slave,’ then I

would pray God to save me from my saviour.... Stop this rescuing! Enough

of this Salvation!”

And there in bleeding drops spoke the heart of Poland.

PART II

THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF POLAND PART II

THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF POLAND

CHAPTER I

THE RUSSIAN PROCLAMATION

On the 14th of August, 1914, the world being then at war, the Grand Duke

Nicholas, uncle of the Tsar and Generalissimo of the Russian forces,

issued the following proclamation on behalf of the Crown. It was signed

by him and not by the Tsar, since international etiquette forbids the

Monarch of one state to address the subjects of another state, and this

proclamation was addressed, as will be seen, to subjects of Austria and

Germany as well as to Russian subjects:--

“Poles! The hour has struck in which the sacred dream of your

fathers and forefathers will be realised. A century and a half ago

the living body of Poland was torn, but her soul did not die,

sustained as it was by the hope that for the Polish people the

moment of resurrection would arrive and at the same time the

fraternal reconciliation with the Great Russian Empire. The Russian

army now brings you the solemn tidings of this reconciliation. _May

the boundaries be annihilated which cut the Polish nation into

parts!_

“May the Poles in Russia unite themselves under the sceptre of the

Russian Tsar! Under this sceptre Poland shall be re-born, free in

faith, in language, in self-government.

“Russia only expects of you the consideration due to the rights of

those nationalities with which you became allied through past

history.

“With friendly feelings and cordially-outstretched hands the Great

Russian Empire steps forward to meet you. The sword that conquered

the enemy at Grünwald[13] has not grown rusty. From the shores of

the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Seas the Russian armies are

marching. The dawn of a new life is breaking for you. May the sign

of the Cross illuminate this dawn, symbol of the Passion and the

resurrection of the nations.”

Now the meaning which it is natural to attach to this proclamation about

which there is a vague and sumptuous magnificence, is that Russia

intended (i) to grant independence to Poland; (ii) to restore to it (as

it indeed states) freedom in religion, in language, and in

self-government, thereby acknowledging that Poland, in spite of the

promises made it, had not hitherto enjoyed these benefits; and (iii) to

unite to it, “by the annihilation of the frontiers which divide it,” the

territories which at the three partitions in 1772, 1793 and 1795, were

assigned to Germany and Austria. Poland was henceforth to be free and

united under the suzerainty of the Tsar. Owing to the defeat of the

Russian armies by those of the Central Powers, the Government was never

in a position to effect this reunion, for a year afterwards Galicia and

the Kingdom of Poland were in the hands of the enemy.

But during that year no practical steps of any serious or sincere sort

were taken to give the smallest effect to this proclamation, and,

without cynicism, it seems more reasonable to suppose that the motive

behind it was in the main a defensive one on the part of Russia with

“disarming intent.” Russia was proposing to advance victoriously on

Berlin and Vienna in the crushing manner of the steam-roller about

which our Press was once so irresponsibly resonant, and she knew very

well that to have in the rear of her armies a race that for a hundred

years had seethed with discontent at the withholding of the freedom that

had been promised it, was to court disaster. It would have been

necessary for her security to leave at least 20 per cent. of her forces

to guard the lines of communication, and ensure quiet and order;

moreover, in the Russian armies were enrolled some 800,000 Poles, who

were being led against the armies of the Central Empires, which

contained nearly the same number of men of their own race, drawn from

the districts of Posen, Silesia, West Prussia and Galicia, and love of

Russia, founded on detestation of Germany, had to rise superior in the

breasts of her Polish soldiers, to love of race. The mention, moreover,

of Grünwald, and the Grand Duke’s confidence that the Polish sword had

not grown rusty, indicate that Russia asked for Poland’s loyal and

unstinted military support. The Poles, soldiers and civilians alike,

were for the moment capable of being a grave menace to the Russian arms,

and this proclamation, endorsed as it soon was by the Governments of the

Entente, was the surest way of commanding their loyalty and

co-operation. In fact, the Grand Duke Nicholas did precisely what

Alexander I had done a hundred years before, when in the Napoleonic wars

Poland was able to constitute a menace to Russia, and had proclaimed the

independence of Poland, in order to kindle Polish enthusiasm on Russia’s

behalf. On that occasion, Poland, as we have seen, did not respond to

this invitation, but joined the cause of Napoleon, with the result that

in place of the fulfilment of the fine words, there followed for her the

Congress of Vienna, which, instead of giving her independence, but

confirmed the partitions and ushered in a century of oppression.

A further point to be noted about this proclamation is that it contains

no hint that the provinces of the ancient republic now part of the

Russian Empire, such as Lithuania, should be included in the reunited

Poland to which the Grand Duke alluded, or that Russia contemplated in

the faintest degree placing within the frontiers of the new autonomous

state those territories which for the last hundred years she had

incorporated into herself, and which were in fact ethnographically

non-Polish, since the bulk of their inhabitants were White Russians or

Little Russians. The National Democrats, and their allied groups also,

who for years had worked for the unity and independence of Poland, at

that date made no such claim, though their policy to-day includes the

reunion with Poland of these provinces, but they accepted the Grand

Duke’s manifesto as meaning that Russia intended to reunite with the

Kingdom of Poland, Prussian Poland and Austrian Poland, and to place the

whole with self-government, under the sceptre of the Tsar. Had Russia

advanced into Germany and Austria, and made good her advance, so that in

conjunction with France and England she could have dictated a peace, it

is pretty clear that this was what she meant to do, and she probably

would have been obliged to do it, since the Grand Duke’s proclamation as

regards Poland was presently endorsed by all the Allies.

Now Russia never had the opportunity of fully vindicating her good faith

with regard to the proclamation, for while she was in a state of war,

and must needs strain every nerve to the vigorous prosecution of that,

it would have been unreasonable to expect her to devote energies to the

accomplishment of her promise, and within a year her armies, as we have

noticed, had retreated from the Kingdom of Poland and Galicia

altogether, leaving the enemy in possession. But during that year the

Russian Government, distrusting perhaps the effect of the Grand Duke’s

proclamation, did not endorse it by any practical measure, but on the

other hand preserved and pursued a policy which was distinctly

anti-Polish. Notices on the railways and in other public places written

in Polish were suppressed, and the Russian advance through Galicia was

followed by the importation of civil servants from Russia to replace

Poles. As a guarantee of good faith, the Government might at least have

begun placing Poles in official positions hitherto held by Russians, but

nothing of the sort was done. Up till August, 1915, when the Germans

were at the gates of Warsaw, the Russian Government made no official

announcement about Polish independence, nor did they take any practical

steps to warrant sincerity. All that the Russian Government did with

regard to the fulfilment of the Grand Duke’s proclamation during that

period was to nominate a Russo-Polish Commission in May, 1915, with the

object of elaborating a project of Polish autonomy. There were six Poles

on this commission, including M. Dmowski and Count Wielopolski, and six

Russian representatives under the Presidency of the Prime Minister

Goremykin. They could not come to any agreement, and the Polish members

thereupon drew up and presented to the Government their own proposals.

These dealt with two points: (i) immediate changes in the administration

of the Kingdom of Poland, (ii) a constitution for Poland which

recognised her as a separate state, under the Russian sceptre. This

project was never even considered by the Russian Government, and, as was

only natural, the sincerity of the Grand Duke’s proclamation came to be

seriously questioned. But it is most significant that at the moment of

Germany’s advance into Poland, Goremykin, then Minister of the Interior

in Russia, announced to the Duma the granting of autonomy to Poland. The

object of this was perfectly clear: now, when the enemy was in

possession, the Government at last confirmed the Grand Duke’s promises

in order to prevent the Poles from embracing the cause of the Central

Empires and furnishing recruits for their armies. The confirmation, in

fact, of the original proclamation, unrealisable, since the German

armies were in occupation, was made in the same spirit as the

proclamation itself. We may then, I think, take it for granted that no

independent Polish state, to include all the territories of ancient

Poland, was ever for a moment contemplated by Russia, nor demanded by

Polish Nationalists, and that, as far as practical steps can supply a

criterion of motive, the proclamation of the Grand Duke was little more

than a defensive measure against Polish disloyalty in the face of the

enemy.

Had there been any seriousness of purpose in the Russian Government of

granting Poland the national rights so long promised her and so long

withheld, some earnest of that purpose would have been given during the

year when Russia was in a position to do so. Nothing of the sort was

done, and it was not till Germany was in occupation that the

independence of Poland was announced to the Duma, and then again no hint

of any reality behind this can be ever so faintly detected, for when the

Tsar summoned a conference in February, 1917, to discuss the

constitution of Poland, it got no further than to debate whether the

Polish National prayer might in special circumstances be recited in

church! This weighty question was left, as far as I can ascertain,

undecided.

* * * * *

In their retreat the Russian armies did their utmost, in obedience to

the necessity of the military situation, to render the country a desert

in front of the advance of the Central Powers. According to the report

of a Dutch Relief Committee, 5,000 villages were destroyed, two million

head of cattle and a million horses were requisitioned or died from want

of fodder, and 400,000 workmen were out of work. The Russians cut down

trees and dragged them across the fields where the crops stood high,

thus helping to create the famine from which Poland still suffers; they

dismantled industrial establishments, smashing up the machinery and

carrying away such as they could transport into Russia, and in the midst

of the desert they had made there were left more than a million Polish

peasants homeless and absolutely destitute. Others, the more

able-bodied, fled in front of the retreating army, and the country was

stricken with the sufferings and the horrors that resulted from the

_débâcle_ of the Russian armies. These acts of devastation were, no

doubt, dictated by the military necessity, but it was no wonder that

they produced the greatest bitterness in the minds of an indigent and

starving population, to whom, less than a year before, independence had

been promised and the dawn of the fulfilment of their national

aspirations proclaimed. Those weeks of the retreat from Galicia and the

Kingdom of Poland did more to embitter Polish feeling against Russia

than decades of neglect and misrule. Instead of freedom, this military

disaster gave them famine, and made a desert of the territory that had

been promised liberty.

The native Polish population took the German entry into Warsaw in silent

composure. They ignored, they disregarded it, except that in some of the

streets blinds were drawn down, as if in protest or in mourning, when

the troops passed. Hostile demonstrations were out of the question, but

assuredly among the mass of the population there was no enthusiasm.

After the manner in which the Russians had treated this unhappy country,

both during the hundred years of their possession and at this crisis, it

is no wonder that there possibly were, if the German accounts can be

trusted, certain local exhibitions of thanksgiving over the removal of

the Russian yoke, or that on the anniversary of the German entry in

August, 1916, there was a demonstration, organised by the pro-German

Club of the Polish state at the memorial set up at Warsaw to commemorate

the death of Polish insurrectionists who had been shot by the Russians

in 1864. Otherwise only the Jews, who constitute 35 per cent. of the

inhabitants of Warsaw, hailed the Germans as deliverers, and on the same

day on which the pro-German Club of the Polish state held their

commemoration, we find recorded in the _Warschauer Tageblatt_, a Jewish

organ, an enthusiastic celebration of the German entry, which proclaims

that this day should be inscribed in golden letters in the records of

Polish Jews. “The spirit of Europe,” it remarks, “entered in contrast to

Asiatic tyranny,” and it speaks of the Sporting Clubs, the Scout

Societies instituted by Germans, in which orders are given in Yiddish

for the sake of the Jews now at length allowed to become members of

them. For German administration proclaimed full equality for Jews, gave

their children religious education, and admitted them to hold office in

various state departments hitherto not open to them. This treatment of

the Jews was part of German policy to accentuate the acute bad feeling

already existing between them and the Poles, for anything, according to

German views, which sows discord in the non-German population of her

empire is to be encouraged, since it relatively increases her own

ascendancy. But we cannot possibly take these demonstrations as

illustrative of the Polish national spirit, for they were not of Polish

but of Jewish origin. Beyond doubt the Poles, by now, bitterly detested

the Russians, who had cajoled them with empty promises of which the

fulfilment was famine, but they were not a whit the more friendly to the

invaders.

Apart from the defeat of the Russian armies, Germany and Austria hoped

that the acquisition of Poland would supply the Central Empires with

man-power and with foodstuff. In both these respects they suffered a

considerable disappointment, for neither came within leagues of their

expectations. But they used the dearth of supplies caused by the

destruction in the Russian retreat and augmented by the needs of their

own armies as an instrument whereby they might encourage emigration of

Poles into Germany for industrial work, while to accentuate the

sharpness of this instrument both they and the Austrians laid hands on

such foodstuffs as were available. Before the war the production of

grain in Russian Poland completely covered the country’s own

consumption, and a certain amount was exported; now, owing in part to

the Russian destruction of crops, and in part to this commandeering of

supplies, there was an acute bread famine. Train-loads of potatoes and

wild geese left for Vienna, while Germany during the ensuing months

managed to secure 253,000 wagons of provisions, chiefly corn and meat,

from the districts of Lomza, Plock and Kalisch, where the Russian

retreat seems to have been too hurried to allow systematic destruction,

and setting her tabulating statisticians to work she calculated that

Poland should be able to send annually into Germany sixty million eggs

and a million wild geese. It was also ordained that Poland should

support the army of occupation, and permission was given to soldiers to

send parcels of food to their relatives in Germany, the contents of

which should not be deducted from the rations of the recipients.

Similarly all copper, tin, lead and pewter were requisitioned for the

needs of the army. At the same time large quantities of seed-corn were

brought into the country from Denmark, making a provision for the army

and possibly for the Poles in future years.

It is no wonder that, when we consider that these levies were made on a

population that was already starving, the destitution of thousands

became appalling, and in especial the mortality among infants. In many

towns milk and all fats were absolutely non-existent; we read of

children so soft of bone that they could not stand upright, and of a

plague of scurvy in Warsaw, which affected 90 per cent. of the poorer

classes. Food-riots were frequent, and were suppressed with Prussian

thoroughness. Yet when the British Foreign Office asked Berlin for a

guarantee that supplies let through the blockade should be used for

Poland and not for Germany, and that the native foodstuffs should not be

used for the maintenance of the occupying armies, it was refused.

Needless to say, a chorus of vituperation burst from the Press at

British inhumanity, which inhumanity consisted precisely in this,

namely, that the British Government did not see its way to let the

charity of other countries revictual Germany. Such relief as reached

Poland by land routes was put into the hands of Hindenburg to

administer, which augured well for the comfort of German soldiers, if

not for that of those for whom it was sent.

This policy of starving the Poles in order to supply their own wants

both Germany and Austria continued brutally to exercise, and as late as

November, 1917, innumerable trucks of fruit, corn and potatoes were

passing out of the starving country into that of its occupiers. We may

judge from this what fraction of foreign supplies would have been

allowed to feed the people for whom they were to be sent.[14]

The starvation which was intended to further Polish emigration into

Germany failed in its effect, and we find that only about 21,000 Poles

were induced to go, of whom a certain number were taken by force. They

did not respond at all eagerly to the bait of “peace and plenty” in the

Fatherland, and they viewed with a suspicion that their “deliverers”

could ill understand, letters purporting to come from their countrymen

there who spoke of the delightful conditions prevailing in Germany. On

one occasion von Beseler, the German Governor of Warsaw, sent such an

account to the Editor of a Warsaw paper, who refused to publish it

unless he inserted a footnote saying that the entire communication came

from the German military authorities. For this contumacy he was fined

4,000 marks. Those of the Poles who went were, like the Jews and natives

from Lithuania, not permitted to return, and we hear of some of them at

work in the Zeppelin sheds at Oldenburg, while interned Polish prisoners

were trained and sent to the front.

Similarly the man-power desired by the Germans for recruits in the

armies of the Central Empires was not forthcoming at all. Germany had

made a grave miscalculation, for though there were tens of thousands of

Poles ready to fight against Russia from patriotic motives, there was

not one per cent. of these who were ready to fight for Germany. Germany,

according to the official German view, had delivered the country from

the Russian yoke, and had zealously proclaimed her liberating rôle. But

what she failed to understand was that the national sentiment of Poland

had no greater affection for Germany than it had for Russia. There were

few, except the Jews in Poland, who looked on Germany as their

deliverer, though Germany made the most of the very gratifying remarks

which they addressed to the Kaiser about the invincibility of his

armies. But as a practical test of the extent and depth of such

emotions, the result of recruiting for purely German purposes after the

declaration of the Polish state was not encouraging. For the Poles

resented the Germanization of Posen and Silesia just as much as they

resented the Russification of other parts of the ancient realm. The

result, in any case, of the appeal to die, not for Poland but for

Germany, as we shall see later, was highly unsatisfactory. The occupied

territories made no response whatever.