(i) THE POLISH LEGIONS
Of the various factors with had produced this crisis by far the most
important from the German standpoint was the utter failure to induce
Poland to furnish Germany with an army. The German authorities had tried
to raise it themselves and had succeeded in enlisting 600 fit men, when
they had hoped to raise between 700,000 and 800,000. But they believed
that one man was able to raise this army for them, and this was
Pilsudski, whom they had now imprisoned, despairing of success, on the
charge of conspiracy. He had not conspired at all: he had but
consistently refused to conspire or to exercise the huge moral force
which he had in Poland, in the matter of raising an army, unless (as we
have seen) that army was intended to be the defence and shield of a
Polish independent State, which the German authorities, up till the
present time had refused to call into existence, or to grant it a
Constitution that was anything more than a swindle. A very brief
_résumé_ of the history of this remarkable patriot, and of the legions
which he had created will help the reader to understand how great was
the prestige with which the Germans rightly credited him, and how
significant to them were the Polish legions which he had raised at the
beginning of the war.
Pilsudski was a Lithuanian Pole, and his father, like himself, was a
sturdy Polish patriot. As a student in Petrograd he joined the
Socialistic movement, and was deported to Siberia. He came back, having
escaped from there, in the early nineties, and leaving Russia, became a
founder of the Polish Socialist Party, the first that included the
struggle for Polish independence in its programme. He spent some years
as an emigrant in London, where he published the organ of the Polish
Socialist Party. In 1904 he went to Japan, and, unsuccessfully tried to
get the assistance of the Japanese Government in organizing an armed
rising in Poland against Russia. He returned from there to Russian
Poland, where he was the leader of a revolutionary movement, was again
arrested and imprisoned at St. Petersburg. Once more he escaped, and
settled in Galicia. After the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in
1909, when Austria was preparing for war against Russia, he came into
contact with the Austrian staff and offered to raise a volunteer legion
on their behalf. He began to organize this in 1911, three years before
the outbreak of the present war. It consisted mainly of Socialistic
emigrants from Russian Poland, many of whom were trained as officers
with the help of the Austrian military authorities. When the war broke
out, the legion was put on an official basis. Pilsudski was appointed to
its command, and both his staff and the rank and file were Polish
Socialists, largely young men studying in Galicia, who had come under
the influence of Pilsudski’s propaganda, but a considerable number of
Austrians joined it also.
As a military leader Pilsudski shewed marked ability; politically, his
inspiration was his whole-hearted hatred of the old Russian regime of
Tsarism, and thus owing both to his qualities and their defects he could
not analyse the peculiar difficulties of the Polish question generally,
or see that Germany was just as strong an opponent of Polish liberty as
Russia, and infinitely the more insidious. To this patriotic Pole living
in territory grabbed by Russia from the ancient Republic, Russia was the
obvious enemy. He had no sympathies for any powers either on the side of
the Central Empires or on that of the Entente: his only motive was to
fight the enemies of Poland. Poland was encircled by foes, and it really
mattered little to Pilsudski what segment of that circle he originally
“went for,” provided only that he hurled himself, like a wild cat, at
something hostile. He appears to have made up his mind, years before the
war, that Russia, anyhow, was a foe to his fatherland, and he rated the
proclamation of the Grand Duke Nicholas at precisely its proper value.
Indeed it might have been of him, as the incarnation of the Polish
national spirit, that a Russian, Professor Bierdiayew, said: “The Poles
do not want Russian sympathy and friendship, but their own
independence.... The Polish question is not and cannot be a Russian
problem for them: it is a matter of their own, and at the same time a
matter that should concern the whole world.... It is more than obvious
that for a Pole the future arrangements for Poland cannot be part of the
future arrangements of Russia or Germany or Austria. For them there is
no Russian or Austrian orientation. They do not want their freedom as a
reward from anybody ... Poland is not in decadence; it is at the height
of its vitality and strength.... Poles have no Russian or Austrian
orientation, only a Polish one....”
Pilsudski was always ready to take the “best chance” for the
independence of Poland (as when in 1904 he went to Japan and offered on
behalf of the Socialists to organize an armed rising in Poland against
Russia) and thus, since Russia at the outbreak of war was the wrongful
holder of Lithuania and Poland, he raised the legions to fight against
the most conspicuous opponent of Polish independence. Whatever Power, be
it Russian or German, was in possession of Poland, that Power was
Pilsudski’s enemy, and he always “went for” his enemy. This undeviating
purpose invariably dictated his course.
As such he was the first to lead troops into Russian territory, and at
the opening of the war made a skirmishing advance out of Galicia into
Russia on the side of the Austrians. He was recalled, as leading an
“irregular body,” and in order to regularise that irregular body, the
Austrian command found it somehow reasonable to embody him and his
legions in their regular army. There they remained till December, 1915,
partaking in the Austrian retreat and, subsequently, in its advance. By
this time the Germans had taken possession--though largely with Austrian
troops--of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, and had seen the
potentiality of Pilsudski in the way of raising a Polish army,
consisting not merely of the legions, who were a body of a very few
thousand men, but of a Polish force, consisting, so they hoped, not of a
few thousand men, but of at least 700,000, to fight in the interests not
of Austria nor of Poland, but of Germany. With this in view Germany
managed, without detaching the Polish legions from the Austrian army, to
include them in the general advance to the Stokhod front in December,
1915. There they served till the late summer of 1916, when Pilsudski,
after constant friction with Bernhardi, who was the German commander of
that section, suddenly refused to serve there any more, and, by flat
mutiny, withdrew on August 28th a number of his troops from the front
and marched them back to Warsaw. That there had been friction between
him and Bernhardi there was no doubt, but the reason for his withdrawal
of himself and his division was a much more honourable and consistent
motive: it was in fact his invariable purpose of fighting the most
obvious of Poland’s foes that dictated it. For a year now, Germany, and
in a minor degree Austria, had been in possession of Poland, and had
altogether shelved the question of Polish independence. It was for that
alone that Pilsudski cared, and his mutiny was without doubt due to
political motives. At any cost he wanted Polish independence, and he
transgressed every code of military discipline in order to provoke a
political crisis. Just as, when the Russians were in possession of
Poland, he fought against the Russians: so now, when the Germans were in
possession, he refused to fight against the Russians. But in each case
his motive was perfectly clear: he would not support an enemy of Poland,
and his action, doubtless, contributed to induce Germany to declare the
independence of Poland.
It says volumes for the value which the Germans attached to him and his
influence that he was not instantly shot for this mutiny. But they knew
perfectly well that if any one could raise a Polish army for them it was
Pilsudski, and instead of shooting him, both of the Central Empires
tried to make friends with him. In September, 1916, just after his
mutiny and retirement with his troops, it was announced from Vienna
(Wiener Korrespondenz Bureau) that the Polish legions were going to be
transformed into a Polish Auxiliary Corps. So far from being shot as
mutinous they were recognised as the _cadres_ of a Polish army, to guard
the State which the Central Empires were proposing to create. Instead
of having their badges torn off them and being laid in nameless graves
they were given a Polish uniform with the ancient Polish badge of the
White Eagle. “They will depend,” so ran the official proclamation, “in
matters of tactics on the High Command of the armies of the Central
Empires, but they will be independent as regards their own organisation,
and they will fight in conjunction with the Austro-Hungarian army.”
But until the success of this diplomacy was assured the Central Empires
thought it wiser that Pilsudski should be in retirement, and for the
next month “for the sake of his health” he was inaccessible at
Zeleopane, under the guise of a rest cure. That was all the punishment
inflicted on him for the rankest mutiny, and while he was “resting” the
Polish legions in October, 1916, passed a resolution to do their duty on
behalf of an independent Poland and to _stand by Pilsudski_. In fact,
the nucleus for a Polish army refused to help the Central Empires in any
way until they had got their Pilsudski again. Next month, accordingly
(November, 1916) he was rested and reappeared. His mutiny had been
completely successful: he had forced the Central Empires to promise to
let him form an army of the Polish State. But at that point there broke
across the common path an unbridgeable chasm, for the Germans wanted a
Polish army to help Germany, and Pilsudski never contemplated such a
thing. If he was to raise a Polish army, that army would be raised for
Poland and Poland alone.
On the eve (literally the eve) of the German and Austrian declaration of
the “State of Poland,” Pilsudski declared in favour of the breaking up
of the Polish legions, and of the using of them as _cadres_ for the
formation of a Polish army. He professed himself able to raise an army
of 700,000 men, but this would depend on the nature of the imminent
declaration of independence. Here again, now that Germany and Austria
were in possession of Poland, he was “up against” the occupying Powers,
for they on their side declared that Poland must prove herself worthy of
independence, by shedding her blood on behalf of Germany. The legions by
the mouth of Pilsudski refused to do anything of the kind. But still
Pilsudski was neither interned nor arrested nor shot. The Central
Empires considered him as their most valuable asset as a recruiter, if
they could only get him to see “eye to eye” with them.
They continued to work at their impracticable project, and in December,
1916, declared Pilsudski as the organiser of the new army, in
conjunction with Sikorski, a Polish Colonel who was much more amenable
to sweet German influence than his coadjutor. A great inauguration
ceremony for the new army was arranged, and on its being handed over at
Warsaw in April, 1917, to the Governor, General von Beseler as _cadres_
for the new Polish army, von Beseler addressed the troops in the most
gratifying terms. He said:--
“Comrades! I greet you most heartily in the capital of your
fatherland, in whose liberation your bravery has assisted....
Certainly a Polish army will soon arise from your brave ranks, and
this army will defend and guard your country. We are glad that we
(sic) are able to fight still further shoulder to shoulder with
you. A free Kingdom of Poland! Hurrah!”
Now these were very “handsome expressions” considering that the last act
of the Polish legions was to march away without permission from the
front at Stokhod, and again this emphasises the enormous importance that
Germany attached to the power of Pilsudski. After this warm welcome the
ill-starred von Beseler drew up a “Flagoath” for the legions and
attempted to administer it. By the proposed flag-oath, the Polish
soldiers had to swear allegiance, on the Polish colours, to the German
Kaiser, their Commander-in-chief, and to the Monarchs of the two Central
powers as guarantors of the independent Polish state. This is
interesting, as it shows that the German orientation had for the present
extinguished the Austrian, but from the point of view of the Central
Empires it was uninteresting, since Pilsudski and his legions refused by
an enormous majority to take any such oath. They were not prepared to
promise anything of the sort.
It must be borne in mind, that when the Polish legions were taken over
to form the nucleus for an army, they were absolutely unimportant in
point of actual numbers. They consisted at this time of three full
brigades, i. e. six regiments of infantry, with nine batteries of 8 cm.
quick-firing guns, one regiment of cavalry, and complete equipment of
wireless, ambulance, doctors, etc. But Germany, quite correctly, saw in
them the potentiality of a much larger force. If they, and in especial
if their creater Pilsudski, could be brought to see themselves “as
others saw them,” Germany would get her projected army of 700,000 to
800,000 men fighting for her. But again the insuperable difficulty was
Pilsudski: he had declared himself capable of raising, and without doubt
could have raised such a force, _but_ (here was the German “but” turned
against its originators) there had first to exist a Polish independent
state on whose behalf this army was to be raised. Given a satisfactory
solution of the Polish question, in other words the creation of a real
and independent Poland, Pilsudski would and could have equipped it with
a suitable army, for defensive and perhaps offensive purposes of its
own. But he was not going to raise, nor were his countrymen going to
form part of an army to be used by Germany for her own ends. Then in
March, 1917, came the Russian revolution, and to Pilsudski’s frank and
filibustering mind, the new Russia, since it too was revolutionary and
the foe of tyrants, became his spiritual brother, and when the offer was
made him to command the Polish army in Russia he did not refuse it,
though I cannot find that he accepted it. Upon which, the German
authorities, at last despairing of getting him to throw himself into
German schemes arrested him for conspiracy. His last public declaration
was that Germany had created a Polish state in order to raise a Polish
army for herself. He was perfectly right, and if he had said that she
had created a sham state in order to raise a real army, he would have
been righter still.
* * * * *
By August, 1917, the Provisional Council of State had ceased to be in
any way representative of the Polish nation, for Pilsudski’s party which
contained all that was truly national in Poland no longer took any part
in it. Fresh riots occurred in Warsaw owing to his imprisonment, and
another impotent attempt was made on the part of Germany to induce the
Polish legions to take the oath of “fraternity of arms” with the Central
Powers. Feeling ran equally high in Galicia over Pilsudski’s arrest, and
in order to justify it von Beseler published the reasons for his
imprisonment. These were:
(i) He was the soul and spiritual leader of Polish national
sentiment against Germany.
(ii) He had not declined the offer to command the Polish army in
Russia.[22]
The publication of this did not have the effect of calming public
feeling, it only enshrined Pilsudski in the hearts of patriots. Then,
since it did not serve its purpose, Germany resorted to directer
measures of repression, and immediately afterwards she announced that
the Polish auxiliary corps, instead of preserving the slightest
appearance of independence, as the nucleus for a national force, should
be placed under Austrian command. The effect of this was that the
National Council resigned in a body.
(ii) FURTHER “INDEPENDENCE” OF POLAND
Chaos was now complete, and probably Germany intended that, for she was
intending to “scrap” the constitution which she has proclaimed nearly a
year before, since it had not produced for her that for which she had
granted it, namely an army to fight her battles. In this year she had
but succeeded in fusing the whole Polish population of the occupied
territory into enmity against her, and since they now declared foes,
she proceeded to treat them as such. She had openly become a tyrant over
a conquered people: she had imprisoned the man who voiced national
sentiment, she had tried to raise troops of another nation to fight for
her, and now she proceeded to any sort of petty tyranny that suited her
convenience. She demanded that German schools in Poland, the management
of which had in April been entrusted to Poles, should now be directly
controlled from Berlin, in spite of her having given matters dealing
with education and justice into the care of the Council of State, she
closed Polish schools and opened new German ones. All matters connected
with education and administration of justice were, for the future, to be
dictated by German military control, and she ordained that the
Governor-General might demand re-examination of the legitimacy of
decisions in law-courts (so that if an anti-German verdict was returned,
it could be revised); she reserved also to the Governor-General the
right of approval or reversal of any measures passed by the country’s
representatives, in so far as they affected “war-conditions,” and again
banished or imprisoned Polish students. Finally she directly threatened
to annex such part of Poland as she needed for rectification of her
frontier, leaving Austria to annex the remainder. The immediate effect
of this would be to render all Poles liable to military service either
with her or with Austria. As a protest against this which was a frank
and open repartition of the Poland she had declared independent, the
Austrian Polish Socialists, the peasant party and the National Democrats
in the Reichsrat formed a _bloc_ to demand an independent Poland with
access to the sea. Austria remonstrated with her partner, and together
they settled to drop the final adjustment of Poland, at any rate till
the end of the war, scrapped the declaration of November 5th, 1916, and
proceeded to announce a new system of government. This was not done
without strong and expressed warnings from Germany itself, and among
others Prince Lichnowsky declared in the _Berliner Tageblatt_ that the
Polish question constituted for Germany the gravest question of the war,
far, graver than that of Belgium or Alsace, and that she was playing
with it in the manner of a child with a toy that would not work. He was
quite right, for while Germany by these tyrannies was acquiring material
advantages for the Mittel-Europa policy in the way of expansion
Eastwards, she was also building up against that expansion a solid wall
of hate and antagonism.
The patent for this new constitution appeared in the middle of
September, 1917, and appointed:
(i.) A Regency Council of three members to be nominated by the two
Emperors of the Central Powers.
(ii.) An administrative Cabinet under the Presidency of the Prime
Minister, who was to be appointed by the Regency Council.
(iii.) A representative Parliament.
The names of the Regency Council appeared by the end of the month, and
consisted of Prince Lubomirski, Archbishop Kakowski and M. Ostrowski.
These were to hold office until the appointment of a Regent was made,
and since they were appointed by the Central Empires, and in turn
appointed a Premier, it can be conjectured that Poland was not intended
to gain much measure of true autonomy, for Germany’s hand was still on
the throttle, to prevent any real development of horse-power.
Of the three, Prince Lubomirski is the predominant personality: He is a
very able man, aristocratic and of Liberal tendencies. He has enjoyed
considerable popularity since the occupation of the country, first as
chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, and as President of Warsaw, and
throughout has shewn great firmness and dignity in his dealings with the
German authorities. M. Ostrowski is a wealthy landowner, who has worked
with the group of Polish conservatives for a reconciliation with Russia.
He has had more political experience than Lubomirski but lacks his
ability, and is the victim of a strange nervous disease that causes him
to fall asleep for several weeks at a time. His power of application to
business therefore, is not particularly valuable to anybody. Archbishop
Kakowski is a man of common-sense but of narrow horizons who has no
qualifications for a post of political authority. His appointment, as a
Roman Catholic prelate, is chiefly interesting as an indication of a
certain swaying of the balance again towards an Austrian solution which
presently became a more pronounced movement. For some weeks after the
appointment of this Council the post of the Prime Minister was vacant,
for the Germans vetoed Count Tarnowski, the Austrian candidate, and it
was not until the middle of November that M. Jan Kucharzewski was
appointed, a man of ability and honesty but without much strength or
decision, and a student of history rather than a maker of it.
The swing of the pendulum, indicated by the _personnel_ of the Regency
council, towards some form of Austrian solution soon grew more marked,
and it was understood that the Crown Council held in Berlin in November
favoured the idea of the union of Poland and Galicia under the Emperor
of Austria, while by way of adjusting the balance Courland and Lithuania
would be annexed by Germany. But though this scheme would be manifestly
to the advantage of Germany, since German influence would increase in
the Reichsrat now that Polish deputies would no longer sit there but in
the Diet of their new state, there were two vital objections to it which
aroused the opposition of the entire German press. One was that such
annexation was definitely contradictory to the “no-annexation” doctrine
officially proposed, the other that to take over Lithuania and Courland
would be to incur the bitter and lasting enmity of Russia. Russia might
be at present an almost non-existent factor in international politics
(and was soon to advance nearer vanishing point) but no sane politician
could base his schemes on the impossible premise of her total and
permanent extinction. A third objection, one, however, to which Germany
attached no weight whatever, was that the Little Russians (Ukrainians)
who formed by far the largest national body in East Galicia would fight
to the last gasp before being united with, and governed by a Polish
state. Indeed this consideration, so far from being an objection in
Germany’s view, constituted an argument in favour of this arrangement,
since there would thus be bitter hostility between Ukrainians and Poles.
Meantime the Polish Club in Vienna were strongly in favour of the
Austrian solution, and it had many adherents among the Conservative
Poles of Galicia, while Count Julius Audrassy writing semi-officially in
the _Fremden Blatt_ in December, 1917, declared for it saying that Posen
was inalienable from Germany, but that Galicia formed a natural adjunct
to the Kingdom of Poland. Equally significant as to the fact that some
form of “Austrian solution” though often rejected by Germany, was on the
tapis again, was that Kucharzewski speaking of the reception of the
Regency Council by the Emperor of Austria, in January, 1918, said that
the union of Galicia and Poland was a heart-felt desire of the whole
Polish nation. This statement followed immediately on a visit he had
paid to Berlin, and was, if not authorized, allowed to remain
uncontradicted.
There were certainly more elements in this new constitution of a
self-governing state than in any which Germany had yet permitted to take
shape. Hitherto her main use for Poland had been that Poland should
supply her with an army against Russia, and up till now she had declared
that Poland must establish her claim for independence by shedding her
blood for Germany. But now, in the swift disintegration of Russia there
was no longer any need for a Germano-Polish army, and so she could be
advanced a step towards independence and create an army for herself.
Germany by no means wished to have a rebellious and discontented
province in her sphere of occupation, though in days gone by, she would
sooner have been supplied with such an army as Pilsudski could have
raised for her than satisfy the aspirations of the Poles. But now at
last she consented, as an experiment, to Poland devoting herself to her
own coherence and stability, when suddenly all was turmoil again, and
the rights and territorial integrity granted to Poland were violated
more wantonly than ever before. For in February, 1918, there took place
the peace-negotiations with Russia at Brest-Litovsk in which Poland
claimed a voice, which was not granted her, and the Polish government
thereupon stated that no agreement bearing on Poland’s fate or
prejudicing her rights would be accepted by the nation as legally
binding. Then followed the Ukrainian peace, which sheared off the entire
Government of Cholm, hitherto Polish, and gave it to the Ukraine,
thereby making a fresh partition which went a step further than even the
Congress of Vienna had done, for it cut off 10,000 square miles of
territory from the Kingdom of Poland (by way of granting it
independence) and created, if it was allowed to stand, a lasting
fratricidal contest between Poland and the Ukraine.
The Austrian Poles retorted by a vigorous and successful move, supported
by the Czechs, who opposed a treaty which sowed discord between Slav
peoples. The whole of the Polish Club in the Reichsrat under Baron von
Goetz went over to the opposition and threatened to vote not only
against the Budget, but against the Provisional budget about to be laid
before the House; they also issued a unanimous manifesto demanding the
presence of Polish representatives in the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk,
while in Poland itself the whole Polish Cabinet with Kuckarzewski
resigned. In the Reichsrat Glombinski, a Polish deputy, asserted the
proclaimed independence of Poland and its right, as independent, to make
its treaties, when they concerned its frontiers, with any other
country, while Goluckowski read a similar manifesto in the upper house.
Similarly M. Daszynski, a Polish Member of the Reichsrat, issued an
appeal to Austrian Poles on February 18th, saying:
“The soil of Cholm and Podlasie has belonged to Poland for
centuries; both territories are Poland’s children, consecrated by
the blood of her martyrdom.... Now it seems that this land is to
serve as a bridge for German soldiers and goods on their march to
Eastern Europe, to the Black Sea and the Caucasus. And the Poles,
bereft of every individual connection with the East, are to be
plunged into deadly conflict with the Ukraine.”
This is a peculiarly interesting document, as shewing that the
Mittel-Europa aims of Germany were appreciated by the Poles, and also
that they grasped the second reason of this seizure of Polish territory,
namely the German design to produce enmity between the Ukraine and
Poland, according to Germany’s invariable policy.
Simultaneously the Poles received the official support of the British
government to their protest, for it was announced in the _Gazetta
Narodowa_ of February 29th, that Count Sobanski, the recognised
representative of the Polish National Committee in London, had received
official information from the Foreign Office that the British diplomatic
agent in Kiev had been instructed to declare that England did not
recognise the peace concluded between the Ukraine and the Central
Empires, and would not recognise any peace with regard to which the
interested Poles had not been consulted.
This action of the Austrian Poles produced the desired effect, and the
Central Powers under pressure this time from Austria, said they would
reconsider the cession of Cholm to the Ukraine, and promised a mixed
commission to decide on its fate with due regard to the wishes of its
population. What conclusions the “mixed commission” will come to still
remains to be seen. Kuhlmann on behalf of Germany hinted at the
possibility of the new Polish frontier being moved eastwards instead of
westwards, and simultaneously at Brest-Litovsk, Count Czernin announced
that he would welcome Polish representatives at the negotiations. He
declared that in his view Poland was an independent state, and that he
desired the attachment of it to Austria, only if it was voluntary. The
German press incidentally, bewailed the continued ingratitude of Poland,
and the Union of German National Parties declared that German blood had
been freely shed to _secure the independence of Poland_. Comment would
be impertinent: we must only bow the head in reverence to the
newly-discovered fact that one of Germany’s objects in the war was the
independence of Poland. Nobody had guessed that!
* * * * *
Such in brief up till the end of February, 1918, is the history of
Poland under German and Austrian occupation. Famine still reigns there,
and though Austria in the autumn of 1917, made some attempt to alleviate
it by starting an Agricultural Institute at Pulawy and granting supplies
of grain and seed, Germany has limited herself to developing a market
for her own trade, with branches at Warsaw, Lodz, Kalish, Grodno, Vilna,
etc. She has also discovered coal-fields which she is working for her
own consumption, and metallic deposits of tin and copper in the
government of Kielce.
Finally in December, 1917, what remained of the Polish legions
(Pilsudski being still interned at Magdeburg) was sent, officers and
men, to Galicia to join the Polish Relief Corps. Their final extinction
occurred in March, 1918, when three regiments stationed in Bukovina
mutinied, and two crossed the frontier to join the Polish army corps in
the Ukraine, and the third was nearly annihilated in a fierce battle
with the Austrians. Some remnants escaped and have now arrived in
France, where to-day they are fighting on the Western front. Among them
is General Haler, who was in command of the 2nd Brigade of the Polish
legions when first they marched against Russia in 1914.
* * * * *
In a word, since Germany and Austria have occupied Poland, they have
ruled it merely by the momentary whims of a tyrannical despotism,
promising it independence one day and fulfilling that promise by
creating a sham administration, and tumbling that down the next day to
make way for another cardboard constitution to meet the exigencies of
some temporary crisis, and to mark time until they should agree between
themselves what to do with the country. For cynical indifference to the
desire and to the sufferings of its inhabitants, and to their own
promises, the rule of the Central Empires has created a new record which
is likely to remain long unchallenged.
NOTE.--According to the latest news, it is reported that the
Central Powers have come to an agreement about Poland, by which
certain districts (Dombrova, Kalisch, and perhaps the Narev
territory) will be retained by Germany, who will also have complete
control over Lithuania, Courland and the Ukraine. Austria will
obtain the rest of Poland, which she will incorporate with Galicia.
Probably nothing definite has been arrived at, but there clearly is
in the air a compromise which grants the Austrian solution with the
counter-weight that part of Poland shall be German. This will mean
that the “independence” promised to Poland by the Central Empires
will merely end in a fresh partition. The Ukrainians of Eastern
Galicia will, according to this arrangement, be under Polish rule,
in order, as suggested above, to keep up a permanent estrangement
and hostility between them and the Poles. Should such an
arrangement be confirmed, it will probably imply the appointment of
the Arch-Duke Charles Stephen as Regent of that part of Poland
which falls to the Austrian Crown.
[Illustration: _Map I_
ETHNOGRAPHICAL
MAP OF
POLAND]
[Illustration: _Map II_
SOUTHERN
EUROPE]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “The Case of Bohemia,” by L. B. Nanier, p. 3.
[2] M. Ribot’s pronouncement, less well-known than that of other
spokesmen, of the aims of the Entente, was in answer to a message from
the Polish Congress in Moscow, in August, 1917. In it he greeted the
re-construction of Polish independence, and the re-uniting up to the
shores of the Baltic Sea, under the sovereignty of the Polish State, of
all the Polish lands.
[3] The town of Kieff itself was not Polish in 1772.
[4] Bismarck’s policy with regard to this continues to this day, for
as late as 1917 there was a strong protest made by Germans in Posen
against religion even being taught to Polish children in their native
tongue.
[5] These were Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, Vitebsk, Mohileff, Minsk,
Volhynia, Podolia, and Kieff.
[6] A typical instance of this is the way in which she treated the
cloth industry. Cloth made in the country for consumption in the
country had to be taken to Vienna, paying an import duty on the way, to
be stamped there and taken back, after paying another duty, to Galicia.
Production was thus rendered impossible, and the factories were closed.
[7] In Russia similarly they have played Germany’s game, both by aiding
and abetting the Bolsheviks while they were Germany’s tools, and by
persistently making bad blood between the Poles there and the Russians.
[8] According to the Constitution there should have been 55 members
elected, but I have not been able to ascertain who the remaining three
are.
[9] These figures, however, include the populations of _all_ Lithuania,
Minsk and Volhynia, which are slightly greater than those in the
programme.
[10] “Pre-War statistics of Poland and Lithuania,” G. Drage, p. 8. This
estimate, if we compare it with others, gives the highest percentage of
Poles.
[11] These are Vilna (205,000), Bialystock (90,000), Grodno (60,000),
Brest-Litovsk (60,000), Schaulen (22,000), Slonim (22,000). These
figures are derived from a recent German source.
[12] This has now been done, for at a meeting at Versailles on June 3,
1918, the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, declared
that a united and independent Poland, with access to the sea, was one
of the conditions of a solid and just peace.
[13] It was at the battle of Grünwald (1410) that the Polish armies,
under Ladislas Jagello, completely defeated the Teutonic knights.
[14] Galicia was little better off than Poland, and the same
commandeering of supplies has gone on there ever since; as late as
December, 1917, a Polish deputy, Stapinski, called attention to it in
the Reichsrat.
[15] Yiddish, it may be explained, is not Hebrew at all, as is
popularly supposed, though it is printed in Hebrew characters. It is
really a Swabian dialect, and 70 per cent. of the words in it are
German. Its more scientific name is Judaeo-Germanic.
[16] In certain districts, notably that of Kielce, there was a
considerable amount of forced labour, for men were badly wanted to work
in the unexploited mines there. Similarly we find that an appeal was
made to the Pope in November, 1916, asking whether such compulsion was
not an act of “intolerable tyranny.” After a considerable delay His
Holiness replied that “as a neutral” he could not interfere in such
internal questions. But in spite of such instances we shall probably be
right to conclude that Germany did not make forced levies for labour to
any considerable extent.
[17] Too much stress, however, must not be laid on the force of
religious conviction in Poland, as the following incident shews.
General von Beseler made an order not long ago that German should be
used as the language of instruction in Protestant schools in Warsaw,
since Germany claimed as German, children who were of the German and
not of the Polish national creed. A certain Dr. Machlejd, a pastor of
Lutheran theology, protested against this, and pointed out that if it
was insisted on, it would be perfectly easy for the children to become
Roman Catholics.
[18] The _Czas_, the leading Cracow paper, remarks with regard to
this Club, “it ought to be remembered that the Club of the Polish
State works with the idea of basing the existence of the Polish State
on a connection with Germany, that it conducts an active propaganda
in Warsaw in favour of that programme.” It is equally strongly
anti-Russian, for in September, 1916, we find it passing a resolution
that the Central Empires will permit certain measures which will allow
the Poles “to take an active part in the struggle against Russia.”
[19] About this time the National Democrats issued the following
proclamation about enlistment in German armies:--“Poles, brothers,
you are being forced to enlist. If you do not wish to draw down on
your heads the curse of an entire nation, if you wish to preserve the
spotless purity of your emblem, the White Eagle, do not play the part
of German conspirators.”
[20] This large percentage was due to the fact that it was chiefly
able-bodied men who fled into Russia at the time of the retreat of her
armies in 1915.
[21] The Inter-party Club represents pro-Entente opinion in Poland.
[22] The subsequent fate of this Polish army in Russia was as follows:
The Russian peace and the treaty with the Ukraine completely paralysed
its potentialities, for it numbered only about 15,000 men (exaggerated
by report to 60,000), and there was no longer any Russian army for
them to fight in conjunction with. Their commander, General Musnicki,
therefore signed a treaty with Germany, by which the duties assigned
to them were to defend certain territories between the Dneiper and
Mohileff from Bolshevik lawlessness. Germany, in fact, recognised his
army as a neutral army. This was rather a melancholy conclusion, but it
is difficult to see what else General Musnicki could have done. In any
case, the Bolsheviks were no less a danger to Poland than to Russia or
Germany, and the solution was probably the best possible.
End of Project Gutenberg's The White Eagle of Poland, by E. F. Benson