THE FIRST YEAR OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION
Germany seems to have realised from the first that the management of the
occupied territory of the Kingdom of Poland would present difficulties,
and, apart from its systematic starvation, necessitated by the needs of
her armies, and her desire for industrial emigration into Germany, she
adopted a wiser policy than she did, for instance, in Belgium. Warsaw
was taken on August 5, 1915, and schools were reopened there by August
25th, and both in primary and secondary classes Germany allowed Polish
to be taught. German and Polish in fact were compulsory languages in
schools, and German was taught by Poles. Russian, however, was
completely prohibited, and no books or papers other than those that had
passed a German censorship were allowed to be introduced into the
territory at all. Similarly as an anti-Russian measure she permitted the
Byzantine ritual for Greek Catholics, which Russia had prohibited. Now
Germany had barred the teaching of Polish in schools in the Duchy of
Posen and Prussian Poland, but then she had definitely annexed them and
incorporated them into the German Empire, and any attempt at
conciliation there was mere weakness. But she was still doubtful whether
this fresh conquest was ripe for a similar coercion, and in the interval
she tried with an amazingly small degree of success to establish
friendly relations with the inhabitants.
Russia, moreover, in this summer of 1915, was far from disabled, and
there might still be severe fighting on the Eastern frontiers of Poland.
It was wise therefore, firstly, so long as no sacrifice was entailed, to
seem to adopt a more liberal policy of government than Poland had
previously enjoyed, in order, if possible, to make the inhabitants of
the occupied territories better content with her rule than that of
Russia. Just as in 1914 the motive of the Grand Duke’s proclamation was
to avoid having a disloyal and discontented population in the rear of
the Russian armies, so in 1915 such indulgences as were given to the
Poles were granted by Germany for precisely the same reason as they had
been dangled in front of them before by the Russians. Secondly, a fresh
invasion of the occupied territory from the East was still to be
reckoned with, and her armies might be pushed back. In that case she
would have secured, once more in the rear of the enemy’s line, a
population that found it had fared better under her temporary rule than
under that of the power which had laid their country waste. A third
alternative was that she would remain permanently in possession of
Poland, and so she proceeded apace with her usual penetrative work, on
which we will touch presently.
But what chiefly occupied her with regard to Poland was the
determination of what she wanted to do with it. Given that Poland was
not going to be reconquered by Russia, there were the proposals of her
Austrian Allies, who were meditating a programme far more attractive to
the Poles than was any arrangement which Germany had the slightest
intention of proposing, to be digested and disposed of. In brief, this
“Austrian solution” was as follows the Kingdom of Poland, hitherto
Russian, should be joined to Galicia, ceded by Austria, to form a
self-governing state under a Habsburg prince, who, being Catholic, would
be acceptable to the nation. This scheme obtained some adherents among
the Poles, especially the Poles of Galicia of the class whose interests
were bound up with the Austrian government, for during the last fifty
years they had received far better treatment at the hands of Austria
than either Russia or Germany had granted to the provinces that fell to
them through the partions. Hatred of Russia combined with hatred of
Germany, who made no corresponding proposal about the cession of the
Duchy of Posen, inclined many of the more moderate Polish groups, such
as the League of the Polish State, to welcome some such Austrian
solution as the best that they were likely to secure, and almost
immediately after the German occupation of Warsaw the Austrian
government published the manifesto of the Galician Supreme National
Council, which set forth the general terms of the proposed arrangement.
Germany strongly objected to this as inopportune in its appearance, the
inopportunity chiefly consisting in the fact that she had not sanctioned
it, and did not mean to. In consequence, a similar resolution of the
Polish Parliamentary Club in Vienna was only privately circulated.
Simultaneously Count Julius Audrassy announced that the Central Powers
were agreed that Poland should never go back to Russia, that a new
partion would be dangerous, and that she should form a political body
with assured individuality as a state with a Polish government. This was
confirmed in December, 1915, by a joint declaration of Baron Burian and
Bethmann-Hollweg. As we shall see, the consideration of the Austrian
solution, and the discussion over it between the two Central Empires
lasted more than a year before Germany finally vetoed it, declaring on
November 5, 1916, to the Poles of the Kingdom of Poland, the
establishment of a State of their own. From the first she viewed this
Austrian solution with distrust, as checking her own development
Eastwards, for it was a very different matter from creating a state
which she herself could penetrate, easily riddling it in an economical
and political, and, in spite of the fiasco she was about to experience
with regard to recruiting, in a military sense. But it was objectionable
to contemplate a new Kingdom of Poland, subject to a Habsburg prince,
interposed in the eastward march of German influence. Much might be
gained, no doubt, by the withdrawal of Polish representatives from the
Reichsrat who would henceforth sit in the Diet of the new state, thus
increasing German preponderance in the Reichsrat. Indeed, since the
occupation of part of Russian Poland by Austria, many high Polish
officials in Vienna had been drafted into the Administration of Poland,
and their places had been taken by Germans, but Germany was uneasy about
it all. Possibly Austria, with this fresh accession of territory, and
the chance of raising an army where Germany had failed, might assert an
inconvenient independence of Berlin, whereas at present she was bound to
her. For the dependence of Austria on Germany, her indissoluble
Alliance, which amounts to exactly the same thing as her complete
subjugation, was a thing not lightly to be risked.
But though the solution of the Polish question might wait, there was no
reason why a revised system of taxes should do so, and by March, 1916,
Germany was in receipt of a very handsome revenue from her occupied
territory. The chief of these taxes were as follows:
(i.) She levied an annual contribution of about 50,000 roubles on
many towns, as she had done in Belgium.
(ii.) She passed a regulation that every Pole over 15 years of age
must take out an annual passport. For this various sums were
charged up to five roubles a head, and this tax probably produced
about 1,000,000 roubles.
(iii.) She levied a land-tax, a personal property tax, and an
“ordinary” tax, producing 34,000,000 roubles. (What the “ordinary”
tax was, does not appear. Probably it was a tax on the right of
individual existence.)
(iv.) She instituted additional taxes, i.e., stamp tax, dog tax,
fire-arm tax, producing about 8,000,000 roubles.
(v.) She levied certain permanent monthly taxes on imports, etc.
(vi.) She insisted that sums due to Russian custom authorities from
merchants in the occupied territory should be paid to her,
otherwise the goods for which these duties were liable would be
confiscated.
In fine, it was close on a year and a half after the occupation of
Warsaw by the Germans that any sort of announcement was made by the
Central Empires with regard to the constitution of Poland, and even when
that came, as we shall see, the proposed national constitution was
nothing more than an impotent conjugation of irreconcilable units who,
incapable of legislation, could only quarrel among themselves. Here and
there small local governments had been formed, as for instance at Lodz,
where Hindenburg, in July, 1916, instituted the following:
(i.) A municipal board of ten members, two of whom were Poles, the
rest Jews or Germans.
(ii.) A municipal council of thirty-six, of whom twelve were Poles,
twelve Jews, and twelve Germans.
Such a body, it will be agreed, did not do much for local Polish
autonomy, since the Jews in Poland were notoriously pro-German. But then
Germany was not “out” for doing much for Polish autonomy. Her main
object during the first year of her occupation was to mark time and to
await the developments of her military and other operations in Russia.
She wanted to avoid trouble with the Poles, to avoid any measures that
should conceivably weaken her grip and strengthen that of Austria, and,
perhaps above all, to avoid anything that should tend to throw the Poles
back into sympathy with Russia, as her forcible annexation of the
country, or her partitioning it again between herself and Austria would
have done. Probably (for Russia at that date was a long way from being
beaten) she thought she would be best employed in peaceful penetration,
which facilitated business between the two countries.
She started a German Chamber of Commerce with its head-quarters at
Warsaw, in order to encourage trade between Poland and Germany in a
manner most profitable to the latter. Poles who wished to become members
of it had first to give a guarantee of their German proclivities by
subscribing to the War-Loan, or contracting for the German army; they
then on payment of an annual subscription of 100 marks, could put their
wares on the German market. That encouraged Poles to enter into
relations with Germany, and Germany, entering into similar relations
with Poland, flooded the country with hardware and other goods. She
Germanized Warsaw, and a letter from a German resident there in 1916
proudly describes how every week it became more like a garrison town of
the Fatherland. There was a government band which played in public,
there were tennis clubs started, the population was vaccinated, a more
sanitary drainage system was introduced, and many new German newspapers
appeared. Vaccination and sporting clubs and drainage were, of course,
amply looked after in Warsaw before, and this account is but part of
Germany’s “make-up” as the deliverer of unhappy Poland from the
barbarous conditions in which she had lived under Russian rule.
Elsewhere, as at Bialystok, propagandist newspapers were printed in
Polish, German and Yiddish[15] the latter for the sake of the large
Jewish population there. There was a lack of bullion in Poland, for the
Russians had broken into banks both there and in Galicia on their
retreat, and had carried off what they could find, and so Germany
introduced a worthless iron coinage, which obtained currency in a land
wholly hemmed in by the armies of her and her allies. In order to
confirm her grip she took over the administration of many Polish
organizations, and closed others in order to withdraw the executive from
native hands. This was not always a success, for, when in January, 1916,
she closed the “Central Citizen Committee” in Warsaw, which regulated
provisions, civic guard, Bureau for refugees, etc., the most abysmal
confusion resulted, and she was forced to re-establish it again. But
this time she put it in the hands of Count Ronikier, one of her most
reliable partisans.
Altogether there was plenty to do in the way of organization, in opening
High Schools, in establishing banks, in bringing in notaries and lawyers
from Germany, in abolishing Polish juries, in furthering propagandist
campaigns, and though once or twice she had to instruct her police to
watch Polish students at Warsaw, who might be dangerous, and send some
to other educational establishments in Galicia, in Silesia and
occasionally to prison, while as a further Germanizing measure she
imported into the University German students, she did not bring any
intolerable hand of oppression on the peoples of the occupied
territories, and the instances of her introducing forced labour where
her schemes for voluntary labour had failed, are the exception rather
than the rule.[16] But, while the future was still so uncertain, and
the difficulties of any solution of the Polish question so immense, she
delayed any decision on that point until she could give it exhaustive
consideration. In the interval she let her fresh provinces enjoy such
liberty as was not dangerous to her own grip, and considerably relaxed
the rigour of her early days of occupation, for she did not want a
rebellious population in the rear of her Eastern armies.
Lithuania, meantime, which the German armies had likewise overrun, was
suffering under a far more rigid and tyrannical rule, for Germany had no
notion when first she invaded it, that she would be able to retain it,
but expected eventually to give it back to Russia; Poland, on the other
hand, forming as it does a huge salient in the Eastern frontier of
Germany, she and Austria alike were determined, if possible, never to
allow to pass back under Russian rule. In the interval therefore, while
Lithuania was in her hands, she determined to get as much out of it as
she possibly could, and return it to Russia in a completely impoverished
and disorganized condition. She had woods felled everywhere to supply
her with timber, and compelled the peasants to give up to feed her
armies the wheat which they had stored for the spring sowing. The army
of occupation was entirely supported by the starving country; all
schools were closed except for the teaching of German, and the whole
province was divided up into small districts, and the inhabitants
forbidden to pass from one into another. Wholesale deportations were
made for forced labour, and the peasants were sent to dig trenches in
the firing line. All men in the government of Vilna, between the ages of
17 and 60, were called on to report themselves and be examined as to
their fitness for work. It was possible for the more well-to-do to get
exemption for six months, on payment of £30, which, it was announced,
would be spent in procuring warm clothes for the workers and maintenance
for their families. Similarly, with a view of getting all that could be
squeezed out of the country, Germany raised money there directly, and we
find the Governor of Vilna issuing a proclamation for a loan of a
million roubles. It was to carry interest at the rate of 5 per cent.,
and to be paid off at par five years after the end of the war. Should
this loan not be subscribed, the naive prospectus briefly announced that
any deficiency would be made good by compulsion, and the money seized
would neither carry interest nor be repaid at all. With the same end in
view, namely, that of giving back Lithuania in as troublous a condition
as possible, she encouraged quarrels between the Bieloruski (White
Russian) Committee, who demanded autonomy and separation from Russia,
and the Union of Peasants, which demanded that the country should form
part of Russia.
Equally marked and equally significant was her treatment of Lithuanian
Jews. Whereas in Poland, which she hoped to retain, she removed the
disabilities under which they had lived, and recognised their importance
to herself as Germanizing agents, knowing how powerful and numerous they
were (for they form 14½ per cent. of the entire population of the
Kingdom of Poland, and the large majority of Polish trade passes through
their hands) here in Lithuania, which at first she did not dream of
being able to retain, she had no use for them except to get as much as
she possibly could out of them. The most of the cash in the country was
in their hands, and she resorted to a hundred tricks for getting hold of
it, such as printing innumerable regulations about the tenure and
lighting of houses, etc., in German only, and then fining the Jews, who
could not read German, for breaking them. In the same way, when
volunteers for labour in Germany did not readily come forward, since
labour in Germany meant working in munition factories, which was
unlawful for Russian subjects, she invented out of those who did not
offer themselves, a class of “suspicious persons,” whom she forcibly
expatriated. The hours of work were twelve per diem, with an elaborate
system of fines and imprisonment for unpunctuality. Wages were 200 marks
a month, which proved to be not so liberal since 100 marks per month
were automatically deducted for board and lodging, by which was meant
six feet of floor space in a barrack, and a small allowance for
potatoes. Out of the remaining hundred marks, the workmen had to pay
both German and Lithuanian taxes, which latter the Germans were kind
enough to collect. What remained was then paid, not to the workman, but
to his “community” in Lithuania, and was, on arrival there, confiscated
by the military authorities. Thus Germany got her munition work done for
the cost of board and lodging.
But as the months went on, and Russia showed no sign of a returning
vigour that might snatch Lithuania again out of German hands, Germany
began to consider what she would do with it in case she could retain it.
In this connection an inspired utterance of that very astute
politician, Herr Gothein, published in the autumn of 1916, shortly
before a constitution--of a kind--was granted to Poland, is of interest.
After giving figures that show the increase of Poles in Prussian Poland,
he says “If Poland should become an independent state, it would be
desirable to assign her a special sphere for internal colonization, and
for this purpose Lithuania and Courland would come under discussion.”
Now, this has a two-fold significance. On the one hand it was put forth
as a bait to Poland, for it hinted at the possibility of Lithuania being
added to a Polish state (thus gratifying Polish Imperialistic
ambitions), and on the other it shews that the creation of a large
“independent” Poland formed at the expense of Russia, and in reality
dependent on Germany was already under consideration in anticipation, it
would seem, of the event that has since occurred, namely, the total
collapse of Russia, Mittel-Europa, in fact, was broad awake, and its
sagacity proved to be justified by what subsequently happened. For the
collapse of Russia brought with it conditions more favourable than
Germany could then have anticipated, for she never guessed how complete
the collapse would be, and these conditions bear directly on her plans
for Lithuania, which at the present time (April, 1918) she certainly
wants to retain under her direct control. There are two reasons for
this, the first that the Ukraine is (in spite of its independence) in
her hands, and Lithuania forms a convenient bridge to link it up with
her. It was not therefore surprising to find the _Lokal-Anzeiger_
inspired to say (March 9th) that Lithuania was not ripe for
independence, since if left to herself, she would become dependent on
Poland.
The second reason is that Lithuania forms a bridge to Courland, the
Landesrat of which sent the following almost unanimous resolution to
Berlin in March, 1918:--
(i.) It asks the German Emperor to accept the Ducal Crown of
Courland.
(ii.) It wishes to connect Courland as closely as possible with
Germany by conventions covering affairs of army, customs, trade,
railway, coinage, and law.
(iii.) It expresses a hope that all the Baltic country will be
united politically with Germany.
On this the _Lokal Anzeiger_ frankly says that if Courland wants to
become part of Germany by expressed self-determination, Lithuania must
necessarily become German too. The Emperor, in reply to the Courland
resolution, expressed his liveliest gratification at these flattering
remarks, but with an unusual modesty did not actually accept either the
Ducal Crown or the allegiance of Courland, though recognizing the
re-created Dukedom of Courland, as a free and independent Dukedom, and
assuring it of the protection of the German Empire. In other words, it
looks as if what Germany is now contemplating is that her sphere of
influence should embrace Courland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine. In this
case, Austria would probably be given the greater part of the Kingdom of
Poland, to unite with Galicia, while the rest would go to Germany. There
are, at any rate, indications that this programme is favoured by
Germany.