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Title: The White Eagle of Poland
Author: Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Language: English
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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.
CHAPTER II
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.
CHAPTER III
ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS
All this year then the occupying powers could come to no decision about
the constitution of Poland, Austria made proposal after proposal,
leaning towards the ‘Austrian Solution,’ to each of which Germany
demurred, on the ground that any such arrangement would give too great a
preponderance to her Ally. Also German opinion--that is to say, the
opinion of the governing classes in Germany--was crucially divided.
Bethmann-Hollweg, for instance, was in favour of transforming Poland
into a sort of buffer-state between Russia (which was not yet
disintegrated) and Germany, giving her some semblance of independence,
but really placing her under the political and economical control of
Berlin. To this arrangement Austria objected, as did also the more
pronouncedly Junker party in Germany itself, which, under the lead of
the Crown Prince and Hindenburg, preferred open annexation, not of
Poland only, but of Lithuania and Courland. Other ‘orientations’ in
Germany favoured a fresh partition of the Kingdom of Poland, assigning
to Germany some three millions of its inhabitants, and leaving the
remainder to Austria. There would follow a fresh partition of Galicia,
of which the Western part would go to Austria and the Eastern be joined
on to the government of Cholm. This was tantamount to a fresh partition
of Poland, to which Count Audrassy was (very rightly) opposed from the
point of view of the Central Empires, saying that such an arrangement
would but throw Poland back into Russian arms. From a military point of
view the advantages of complete annexation, with this further partition,
were to be found in the rectification of Germany’s Eastern frontier, in
which the Kingdom of Poland at present forms a huge salient;
politically, it would result in the complete destruction of Polish
nationality. On the other hand politicians who favoured the
establishment of a new state dependent on Germany, argued that
annexation would merely increase the influence of the Polish element in
the German Empire, in which already there were incorporated 4,000,000
Poles. They therefore worked for a small weak Polish state, under the
military and political control of Germany, the weakness of which would
be accentuated by the large number of Jews, to whom they would give a
separate national existence, and use as Germanizing agents. Thus the
danger of a strengthened Polish influence within the empire would be
avoided, and Polish nationality would be gradually crippled. As a
counterblast, as mild as the remote bleating of a sheep, against any
arrangement of the sort being made, the Duma, with unconscious humour,
proposed a complete dismemberment of Germany, and reiterated the
meaningless phrase about the re-union of Poland, over which Russia had
no longer the smallest control.
Poland, in fact, was being wooed by both the Central Empires, not so
much, perhaps, as a desirable maiden, but as a fly that hovered between
the webs of two spiders, and Austria, as a measure of enticement, ceded
the district of Cholm back to Poland. But this scheme of uniting Galicia
with Russian Poland, under a Habsburg regent was not, as we have seen,
acceptable to Germany, particularly when Austria suggested that the
Duchy of Posen should also become part of the new independent kingdom.
There was a certain equity about the suggestion, for if Austria
contributed Galicia, it was but reasonable that Germany should make some
corresponding cession. But Germany was not on the look-out for
equitable arrangements: she foresaw that it would be necessary to grant
some sort of constitution to the occupied territory, and very likely to
throw in the adjective ‘independent,’ but the independence that she
designed connoted a dependence on herself, and as largely as possible a
measure of independence with respect to Austria. She did not, either,
look with any favour on Austria’s selection of a regent, for Austria had
tentatively selected the Archduke Charles, who had married his two
daughters to Polish nobles, namely, Prince Dominic Radziwill and Prince
Czartoryski, and himself lived in Galicia, spoke Polish and was of
strong Polish sympathies. So from time to time she threw out the name of
a German candidate, suggesting, for instance, Prince Leopold of Bavaria
and Prince Eitel Friedrich, the Kaiser’s second son. Once during the
summer of 1916, Germany apparently made up her mind on a compromise, and
settled to proclaim Prince Leopold as regent and to accept the rest of
the Austrian solution with him as counter-weight, and the Chancellor
went to Vienna to conclude matters, in the hope that Germany would be
able to raise at least half a million men for her armies on the
enthusiasm aroused by this proclamation. But the Emperor Franz Joseph
roundly told him that such an arrangement would cause an insurrection
in Poland, and Germany had to yield. In fact a German prince on the
throne of Poland was as unacceptable to Austria as an Austrian prince to
Germany, or either an Austrian or German prince to the national
sentiment of Poland. Indeed, the solution as to the choice of a regent
for Poland has not yet been solved, and is likely to remain insoluble,
unless some military or internal crisis tightens Germany’s grip on
Austria, who may then be forced to accept a German nominee.
On the other hand, though the joining of Galicia to Poland, under a
Habsburg regent, who at any rate would be more acceptable to a Catholic
country[17] than any one whom Germany could suggest, would give a
preponderating influence to Austria in Polish affairs, Germany saw that
certain equalizing adjustments might be made here. Since the new state
would have a large measure of autonomy, it was only reasonable that the
Poles who sat in the Reichsrat should sit there no longer, for the
Polish membership would be localized in the Senate or Diet (or whatever
form of Government the “Austrian Solution” should give to Poland), and
Germany foresaw an accession of seats in the Reichsrat that would
increase her preponderance there over Czechs and Slovenes. But against
the increased preponderance of the German element in the Reichsrat must
be set the fact that with the establishment of the new state
Poland-cum-Galicia, the Reichsrat, instead of representing half the Dual
Monarchy would for the future represent only a third. More than once
during this year she came near to accepting some sort of Austrian
Solution, always providing that there should be no question of her
giving up any part of Germany at all, as a compensation for Austria’s
loss of Galicia. Indeed, she could not accept the formula “los von
Galizien”: she referred to it as the acquisition of Poland. Germany, in
fact, during the whole of this period was cudgelling her brains for a
solution that would be wholly favourable to herself.
A point on which the two Central Empires were quite agreed--indeed, this
is the only point on which they were agreed as regards the future of
Poland--was that it must never again come within the sphere of Russian
influence. While Russia was still a power to be reckoned with, Germany
contemplated a Poland with some vague measure of autonomy and possibly
even a Poland with access to the Baltic, not, it is hardly necessary to
say, the Dantzig access, but an access through Courland. Some sort of
buffer state, leaning on her, with a function similar to what she would
desire to establish in Belgium with respect to France, was not
inacceptable to her as existent between her and Russia. Lithuania and
the northern part of the Kingdom of Poland would answer the purpose.
Austria would have liked precisely the same thing, but in this case the
Kingdom of Poland and Galicia would make the buffer for her, while
Germany wanted the buffer further north. Both were agreed (or so it
seems) on having a Poland with some sort of nominal independence
interposed between them and the power that they then still feared, but
they kept shifting the proposed site of this bolster like uneasy
bedfellows. Furthermore, Germany was in the fortunate position of a
potential blackmailer; her armies had already saved Austria from what,
but for her, would have been an irresistible Russian advance through
Galicia, and Russia was still powerful and coherent enough to advance
there again. Should that occur, and should Germany refuse to threaten
the Russian right flank, as she had done before, Austria would be in a
very uncomfortable place indeed. The defeat of Austria, no doubt, would
seriously menace Germany in this case, but Austria’s “turn” would come
first. This constituted a decent blackmailing case with regard to the
disposition of the bolster.
Given some settlement of that, they were both determined in unbreakable
harmony that Russia should not have a friend in Poland. True to her
dilatory nature which has always locked the stable-door long after the
horse has been stolen, Russia who, up till the last moment when she was
finally swept out of Poland had always had the opportunity of appearing
desirous to substantiate the Grand Duke Nicholas’ promise on behalf of
the Crown, and of feeding the horse while it was in the Russian stable,
began to show it--only show it--bushels of oats after it had been
stolen, and had passed out of the stable altogether. What prompted this
belated exhibition of oats was the action of M. Dmowski on behalf of the
Polish national Committee in Petrograd. As leader of the National
Democrats, he determined to bring pressure on Russia by means of
enlisting the sympathy of the Western Entente powers for Poland, went
to Paris and presented a memorandum to M. Isvolsky, the Russian
Ambassador there. The chief points in this were--
(i) It is in the interest of all the nations menaced by Germany to
reunite the dismembered portions of Poland in one free state, and
to give it complete liberty to organize its national forces and
oppose them to the German peril.
(ii) The Poles, who form a people more numerous and more advanced
than any of the smaller nationalities of Central Europe and the
Balkans, have the same right as they to be an independent national
state, and they cannot in conscience renounce this right which has
been recognised by all the other nationalities.
(iii) By recognising this right Russia and her Allies would arouse
the enthusiasm and suppress at the same time the suspicion of other
nationalities who are solicitous for their independence, and who
would all then rise against Germany.
The precise application of this last clause is not very apparent (it
refers, I imagine, to Balkan states), but this memorandum and the
action of M. Dmowski in enlisting the sympathies of Paris and London
much impressed the Russian Government, and in especial Sazonoff, who
thought it was necessary for Russia to settle the Polish question at
once on Russian lines, for fear of its becoming an international
question. Towards the end of April, accordingly, he presented a
memorandum to the Tsar, urging that the Polish question should be
determined without delay, since not only Germany and Austria were
preparing a solution of it, but the Western powers of the Entente were
also being interested in it. With this memorandum Sazonoff presented the
Tsar with a project for Polish autonomy.
In July, 1916, this project of Polish autonomy was discussed in a
Ministerial Council at Petrograd, and the idea of a Poland unconnected
with Russia was dismissed as impossible. Of all the Cabinet at Petrograd
at that date, Sazonoff was the only man who realised that to win Polish
allegiance back for Russia it was necessary not only to make promises
but to do something as earnest of their fulfilment, such as the
amelioration of the misery of the Poles then in Russia, or to make
solemn reiteration on the part of Russia with regard to Polish
independence. His motives seem to have been those of a keen Russian
nationalist, desirous of gratifying Polish aspirations in order to
secure Poland’s adhesion to Russia, and at the same time to prevent the
Polish question becoming an international interest. At this Council he
came to loggerheads with Stürmer, whose sympathies with Germany were
notorious, and who, in opposition to Sazonoff’s policy, persuaded the
Tsar to take no definite step at all in the Polish question, thus
playing the German game and helping to alienate Polish sympathies from
Russia altogether. The upshot was that Sazonoff sent in his resignation
or, as there is good reason to believe, was dismissed, and Germany
scored another signal victory, from the Mittel-Europa point of view, in
the retention of Stürmer, a German agent, in the Russian Cabinet.
At once a reactionary tendency set in in Russia: it was argued (here was
the voice of Stürmer) that the Russian military situation was excellent,
and that Germany was weakening. As a corollary it followed that the
proposed union of Poland (i.e. the formation of an independent kingdom
consisting of German, Austrian and Russian Poland) was of no profit to
Russia: Russia would have united Poland only to lose Poland. This view,
of course, finally disposed of any significance that could be attached
to the Grand Duke’s proclamation. It had resulted in nothing hitherto:
now it was simply torn to shreds. “_We have been led into this war_,”
said Stürmer’s voice, “_against our national interests_.” That one
sentence gives the measure of the German penetration into Russia,
hitherto unsuspected, and not recognised even then.
So, under German dictation, the friendly hands which Russia seemed to
desire to put out to Poland, though long after the time for such mere
gesture was past, were covered with German gloves, and held the dagger
which should stab the very heart of all real Polish national sentiment.
On August 12th, 1916, there was circulated a private draft concerning
the constitution of Poland, which was a miracle of efficient
composition, seeing that its object was to alienate the Poles from
Russia. The provisions in it that are of interest are the following--
(i) A united Kingdom of Poland to be formed with its own Diet.
(ii) Questions concerned with the interests of all subjects of the
Tsar, including Poles, to be decided by the Imperial Houses of
Parliament.
(iii) The state language of United Poland to be Polish. Russian to
be taught in schools.
(iv) Frontiers of the new Polish state to be determined after the
war.
Surely there was the German leaven beginning to work. None knew better
than she that this sort of thing was the precise and perfect way of
alienating Poland from Russia, and embittering Polish feeling: she could
not have drafted a more satisfactory proposal herself at Berlin. It
promised nothing except a Diet, the functions of which were left
entirely vague. For all that was said, the legislation of the Diet might
be overruled by the Duma or the Cabinet or the Tsar. Poles were included
among the subjects of the Tsar, and questions relating to them were to
be settled at Petrograd: no frontiers of the new independent state
(which by these very provisions was completely dependent on Russia) were
so much as indicated. Russia was preparing to hang herself in the rope
that Germany gave her. But Germany was in no hurry, and gave Russia some
more rope to ensure a longer drop.
It was worth waiting, for in October, 1916, Russia had fixed on her neck
the longer rope. This time a Nationalist member of the Duma, called
Tchikatchov, propounded a scheme for Polish autonomy, which was
published and submitted to the Russian Government. It suggested that--
(i) The limits of Russia should be defined, lest Russia,
“swallowing Poland, should be poisoned by her.” White Russia and
Little Russia must be independent of Poland.
(ii) A danger to be averted is the influence of Poles, whether
German, Austrian or Jewish, on Russia.
(iii) Russia must be “at home” in Poland, and the Russian language
must be used in public utterances.
(iv) All official positions in Poland must be filled by Poles, but
no official positions in Russia must be filled by them.
(v) The Secretary of State for Poland must be a Russian.
(vi) Cholm and Eastern Galicia must be excluded from Poland, and
belong to Russia.
Now is it possible to conceive a better _mise-en-scene_ for a German
declaration of independence for Poland than these amazing Russian
utterances? Both received favourable consideration from the Russian
Government, and between them (given that Russia in the event of her
victory over Germany embodied them in a constitution for Poland) they
left no shadow or semblance of independence at all. Poles might fill
official posts in Poland, but they would no longer be able to occupy any
position at all in Russia. Their seats in the Duma would be taken from
them, and whatever conclusions they came to as to the government of
Poland (whatever “Poland” might prove to be when its frontiers were
defined) would be referred to the decision of the Duma, since Poles were
still subjects of the Tsar, and Poles would no longer have seats in the
Duma. The Secretary of State was to be a Russian, and in effect this
scheme for the independence of Poland merely deprived the Poles of their
seats in the Imperial Parliament. All decisions of the Polish Diet were
to be referred to Petrograd, and instead of gaining liberties, they
would but sacrifice any such liberties as they previously had. It is
precisely as if Ireland were to lose her seats at Westminster and have a
separate Parliament of her own, the legislation of which, before it
took effect, would have to be referred to Westminster. Already, also,
Cholm had been given back to the Poles by Austria; now this scheme
confiscated it again. It is impossible to imagine a more signal triumph
for German influence than this, for of all Russia’s century of political
imbecility with regard to Poland, here was the very flower and felicity.
So Germany had not lost much by her year of waiting before she began to
take any practical measures concerning the future constitution of
Poland. She had on the contrary enabled Poland to see with devastating
clearness that even if the Russian armies (as seemed highly improbable)
gained a smashing victory over Germany, the Poles must not expect
anything from the conqueror. She had, too, by October, 1916, blackmailed
Austria into abandonment, as an official programme, of the Austrian
solution, and by this year of waiting she had caused to spring up in
Poland many shades of feeling, which formed themselves into parties,
negligible for the most part, and divided among themselves. With regard
to them, she could reflect with cynical truth that there was “safety in
numbers.” But solid against her, and she knew it, was Polish national
sentiment which underlay all the bickering little parties into which
Poland was split up. What would have satisfied all parties (and nothing
else would have satisfied them all) would have been the creation of a
real united and independent Poland, at the idea of which Germany could
laugh, not in her sleeve but quite openly. What probably added resonance
to her laughter was the public and official utterances of the notorious
Protopopoff in Paris during this month, which certainly were humorous,
considering the frankness with which the Russian Government had declared
its intentions. He announced that “a great Poland will arise, which will
unite all the Poles, Russian, German and Austrian. It will be a Poland
enjoying its own government, its own Parliament and its own language.
This must happen, because it is the wish of the whole of Russia.” There
was never a more irresponsible and futile utterance, and it deceived
nobody.
Simultaneously, in prompt contradiction, came a semi-official utterance
from Russia, proclaiming that “never will the Russian people consent
that a span of Russian earth should return to Poland, or an orthodox
Russian submit to even a shadow of Polish authority.” And Stürmer, then
Minister of the Interior, issued a regulation prohibiting the evacuated
population of Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic provinces from using
Polish at public meetings. There could scarcely have been framed a
completer comment on Russia’s benevolent intentions, and on her sympathy
with Poland, and with Poland’s national aspirations.
Germany could hardly do more than say “Amen”; her prayer was answered,
and Russia had hanged herself. And since no one else seemed inclined to
proclaim the independence of Poland, she proceeded with infinite irony
and the fervent consent of the All-Highest to do it herself. This
proclamation was issued by the Central Empires on November 5th, 1916.
* * * * *
All this year the famine in Poland had continued and Germany had taken
no steps to relieve it, for she hoped to encourage Polish emigration to
smiling, welcoming Germany by its means. In the same way, when the
citizens of Warsaw sent a petition to von Beseler that factories should
be reopened, he replied that anybody could get work in Germany. At this
time 47 per cent. of the population of Warsaw were dependent on relief.
CHAPTER IV
POLISH INDEPENDENCE (MADE IN GERMANY)
In this proclamation of a Polish state made jointly at Warsaw in the
name of the Central Empires there was a provision attached that the
Poles should raise an army to defend it. Poland, being now “protected”
and proclaimed a state by Germany, must be defended against Russia, the
common foe, and in consequence this defensive army would form part of
the armies of the Central Empire. This was convenient, for Germany
needed men, and since in the proclamation of the new State she gave
nothing away with regard to the liberties or independence to be granted
it, she hoped to raise fresh troops without loosing a little finger hold
on Poland. She wanted troops against Russia, and hoped that Poland would
furnish them. The idea was not devoid of cunning, but as so often
happens with cunning ideas, it lacked perception, and was based on an
uncomprehending stupidity.
The proclamation was followed up four days later by another joint
proclamation bidding the citizens of the new State to enrol themselves
in the army, and the Governor-Generals of Warsaw and Lublin, von Beseler
and Kuk, as directors of recruiting, issued manifestos declaring that
“In order to secure for the Polish army the position of belligerents, it
will for the time being be included in the German Army.” But the
citizens of the new state, instead of responding to the call, began to
ask themselves whether they were enlisting in a National army or in a
German Army, for the phrase “for the time being” seemed to call for
elucidation. If it was a National army for the defence of their new
independent state there must be a government of that state, and a
military department for the organization of the army. In fact, there
were four demands which must be met before the new state could feel sure
that it was asked to furnish recruits for a National army and not for a
German army. These preliminary necessities were as follows:
(i) A head of the new state, in whom shall be invested supreme
authority, must be appointed.
(ii) The spheres of occupation of the German and Austrian control
must be abolished before the State can come into existence.
(iii) Some national Council of the State must be appointed to draft
its constitution.
(iv) There must be a Military department to organize the new Army.
In a word (the logic of which is irrefutable) you cannot have an army to
defend a state, before that army has a state to defend. A state
postulates by the very meaning of the word, a constitution and laws.
Create the state, and after that it is time to think of creating an army
to defend it.
With regard to the proclamation of the state of Poland, out of all the
parties and cliques that composed that state only two voices raised
themselves in its favour. The first was that of the notoriously
pro-German “Club of the Polish State,”[18] a very small group which
sent, under the signature of its President, Studnicki, a very pleasant
telegram to the Kaiser. Studnicki, it may be remarked, had been
throughout a specimen of the rare pro-German Pole. Subsequently, in
March, 1918, he published a manifesto in the _Narod i Panstwo_ declaring
that Poland must lean on Germany “for we can only consolidate our forces
with the help of the German occupation.” The following are extracts from
Studnicki’s telegram.
“Great Monarch! On this day of joy for the Polish nation, when it
learns it will be free, the hearts of freedom-loving Poles are full
of gratitude for those who by their blood have liberated them....
“The victories of Thine invincible arms have given (us) liberation
from the Russian yoke of our two capitals, equally dear to the
Polish heart. Warsaw and Vilna ...
“We know that in all this is Thy will, Highest Lord, that the
governing faith of those historic events is the strength of Thy
spirit....”
Here, the inclusion of Vilna as a “Polish capital” is interesting. The
Club of the Polish State foresaw a further benefit in store, which has
not at present been permitted to materialize, namely, the union of
Lithuania with Poland. There was a certain ground for this aspiration
since at the capture of Vilna by the Germans, Pfeil, in command of the
German troops, proclaimed that he considered Vilna a Polish town. But
the German government did not agree with him.
The other note of congratulation was in the Cracow paper _Czas_, the
organ of the pro-Austrian Conservative party. It sees the act of God
(probably “Gott”) in the proclamation and adds,
“On the spot from which the victorious sword has driven out Russia,
the invader and oppressor, appears now, on the map of Europe the
inscription ‘Poland’.”
Naturally the German press swelled into a perfect chorus of Lobgesang,
exclaiming that while the Entente vented high talk and Pecksniffian
ejaculations about the rights and liberties of small nations to a
national existence, magnanimous Germany alone had acted instead of
talking, and had freed a down-trodden nation from the yoke of Russian
oppression.
But apart from these two instances a universal chorus of discontent
went up from every section of Polish politics. M. Roman Dmowski, leader
of the National Democrats, and of the Polish party in the Duma, issued a
manifesto on their behalf, calling attention to these points:--
(i) The Polish Nation is one and indivisible. Its aspirations can
not be content without the reunion of partitioned territory.
(ii) The proposed creation of a Polish state formed only of
occupied territories of a single part of Poland merely confirms the
partition of the country.
(iii) Without making definite pledges as to the rights and
prerogatives of the kingdom, the Central Empires only emphasize its
dependence on them. In return they require the Poles to furnish an
army.
(iv) This army is to be sent into battle to defend a cause which is
not Poland’s, and is subordinated to Germany and Austria.
(v) The military projects of Germany and Austria are disastrous for
Poland.
A large meeting of peasants, usually an unorganized body of opinion, was
held at Lodz, demanding (i.) an immediate constitution for the state;
(ii) the appointment of a King of ancient Polish lineage, who should be
a Catholic, should speak Polish, and be the supreme commander of the
Polish army, to be formed for the defence of the state. In the Duma, as
was natural, the Polish Club, with Harusewicz as spokesman, denounced
the German proclamation, saying that all true Poles repudiated it
entirely. Though German propaganda announced enthusiasm over it among
Poles in Paris, the Poles there, as a matter of fact (largely National
Democrats), passed a resolution condemning it. The Central Committee of
the Polish Socialist party did the same, making specific demands about
the appointment of a Diet, with a view to summoning which a provisional
Government must be appointed, composed of democratic elements. They were
willing to defend Poland against Russia, but Germans and Austrians could
not call them to arms. Peasants in Lublin followed the example of Lodz,
and presented a similar petition to Kuk, the Governor-General, who found
nothing better to say than that he saw with joy that the peasants took
an interest in the building of the state. In the United States an
enormous demonstration was held, representing the four million Poles
there, declaring the proclamation to be a strategic move on the part of
Germany, and protesting (i) against the formation of a Polish army to
help Germany, (ii.) against a pretended Polish government which is
merely an instrument in German hands, and (iii.) against a new partition
of Poland. The Realist party, consisting of landowners, similarly
rejected it, claiming an independent Poland (though in 1914 they had
accepted autonomy under Russia) and declared that the proclamation of a
belligerent cannot constitute a solution of the question. In
Switzerland, the Poles expressed their sentiments about the proclamation
by a manifesto of which the following is the key--“The ‘rights’ of the
independent Kingdom of Poland under German auspices seem to be the right
to die for Germany.” Even Lednicki, a supporter of the German solution,
was a patriot on paper for a moment, and issued a manifesto that “Poland
proclaims her standpoint, unmindful of German bayonets.”
Without further multiplication of such views, which were accompanied by
expressions of loss of confidence in the promises of the Entente powers,
it is sufficient to say that never were so many different political
parties in Poland united over any question as over their repudiation of
the German proclamation of the State and the consequent (November 9th)
attempt to raise a Polish army to fight German battles. This attempt may
be dismissed very shortly with the statement that instead of the army of
700,000 or 800,000 men whom Germany hoped to recruit, she succeeded,
during the next two months in enlisting 1,800 men, of whom 1,200 proved
to be physically unfit, from the effect of a year’s starvation. Six
hundred, in fact, were all the efficient support that she was able to
raise. Even the _Czas_, which had shown some enthusiasm over the
proclamation of the Polish State could not support the idea of an army
raised for the defence of the State, before the State had any existence,
and said “There can be no army without a Government. Some way must be
found whereby the Polish nation can initiate and direct the formation of
a Polish army.” Even in highly-censored Germany, the true nullity of
this declaration of Independence, was recognized, and we find Herr Max
Weber neatly summarizing it in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ of February
25th, 1917. He says “(the Central Empires) issued an unactionable
promissory note with no definite contents in favour of a beneficiary who
had not yet attained a corporate existence.”
The almost unanimous reception accorded to these two schemes made it
clear to the German authorities that some sort of Polish government must
come into existence, and four days later an order was issued for the
establishment of a government which was neither more nor less than a
swindle. Unfortunately, it was an obvious swindle. The Government was to
take the form of a Diet and a Council of State, and the provisions were
as follows:--
(i.) The Diet is to consist of seventy members belonging to the
German sphere of occupation, and to be appointed by the Town
Councils of Warsaw and Lodz.
(ii.) This Diet will appoint eight members of the Council of State,
and four more will be nominated by the Governor-General of Warsaw,
who will also appoint its Chairman.
(iii.) The language to be used both in Diet and Council is to be
Polish.
Now, so far there seems to be a certain “Polishness” about the new
Government, which vanishes cleanly and completely when we consider the
proposed functions of the Diet and of the Council of State, for--
(iv.) The Council of State is to discuss matters submitted to it by
the Governor-General, and to “possess an initiative in
legislation.”
(v.) The Diet is to discuss matters submitted to it by the
Governor-General, and have powers of taxation.
The Governor-General, in fact, provides subjects of discussion for the
two bodies, but is under no obligation to accept their conclusions. One
of these bodies, the Council of State may “initiate legislation,” a
phrase utterly meaningless, since no provision is made for the
completion of such legislation. In other words, neither body has any
powers at all, and their only functions are to converse on subjects
indicated to them by the Governor-General.
This led to a protest from the Poles, who independently formed a
Provisional National Council in Warsaw, consisting (according to the
original scheme) of 81 members, of whom Warsaw contributed 41. They
ignored the Diet and Council of State as set up by the Germans, and
demanded that,
(i.) The Council of State shall be formed on an understanding with
parties in the National Council.
(ii.) The Council of State shall have legislative power and a voice
in military affairs.
(iii.) A Regent from a friendly Roman Catholic dynasty shall be
appointed.
(iv.) The Council of State shall consist of 20 members, 12 from the
German territory of occupation and 8 from the Austrian. Of these
only one shall be appointed by the Governor-General.
These proposals, put forth by the Polish self-appointed National Council
in two successive demands, were admitted, and in this fact we can find a
certain significance. Germany had to recognize the National Council, and
thus the Poles got a certain real voice in the making of the
Constitution which they did not enjoy under the original German scheme.
Probably also pressure was put on her ally by Austria, the official
press of which country had entirely ignored the first declaration, since
it implied the total abandonment of the “Austrian Solution,” and the
only announcements given of it in the unofficial press were derived from
Berlin.
Thereupon, with a slight modification of numbers, the Provisional
Council of State, to which National Democrats, Realists, and Social
Democrats refused to belong, came into existence. It consisted of 25
instead of 20 members, 10 for the sphere of Austrian occupation, and 15
for the German. Its functions, however, were prescribed by the occupying
powers, and were to all intents and purposes as barren as according to
the first German promulgation, running as follows:
(i.) The Council is to be summoned by the two Emperors. When a
vacancy occurs it shall be filled up by them, on the order of the
Governors-General.
(ii.) Both Governors-General are at liberty to send representatives
to the Council to get opinions or to give explanations. They are
allowed to speak whenever they desire.
(iii.) Representatives of the Empires are to speak in German: Poles
in Polish.
(iv.) The Council is to make proposals about the administration.
(v.) It is to co-operate with the Allied powers in the formation of
an army.
In other words, the Council was only to meet when summoned by the two
Emperors, either of whom apparently had the power of proroguing it _sine
die_. When it was summoned, the only powers it possessed were those of
discussion, and therefore as far as constitutional functions go, it
might just as well not meet at all.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, there were, apart from the
supporters of the National Democrats, who refused to sit in the Council
of State altogether, some eighteen or nineteen parties, most of whom
consisted of a mere handful of men, and in consequence the wranglings
over the appointment of the Council of State were likely to prove
interminable. General von Beseler, after urging conciliation and speed,
without success, finally (in January, 1917) issued an ultimatum that the
Council of State must be complete in 24 hours, and apparently it was. In
this Council the National Democrats, the Realists, and the Social
Democrats refused to take part, though Pilsudski, who had raised the
Polish legions (of whom presently) said he would not enter the Council
without them. Since Germany’s own appeal for raising recruits had proved
such a complete fiasco, she knew that the only man who could possibly
obtain recruits for them was this very remarkable person. He had great
influence with the younger generation and among the working-class, and
represented the class of Polish patriotism that was directed against
Russia. For these reasons, the Germans considered him essential to their
plans, and eventually they succeeded in getting him, without the
inclusion in the Council of State of the party for which he had
bargained, since the National Democrats absolutely refused to enter it
without such rearrangements of seats as would give them and their
affiliated groups a predominant vote. Finally also the Jewish element
was included in this futile Council, which strengthened the sadly
deficient pro-German sympathies of it.
The Council of State opened; von Beseler and Kuk, the Governors of
Warsaw and Lublin first spoke, and their joint speech from the throne
was replied to by the chairman, Niemojewski, hitherto unknown as a
politician. After that no progress of any sort was made, and we learn
from _Die Post_ of January 6th, that the principal Polish parties will
not co-operate, and this is followed by a lament that in spite of
Germany’s exertions on behalf of Poland, Poland will not be her friend.
The truth was that the Poles knew very well that this Council of State
created by Germany was a sham, constructed and opened merely with the
pretence of granting the Constitution which Poland demanded as an
essential first step that must be taken before the raising of a national
army, which the Poles declared must be an army for the defence of the
state, but which Germany designed to fight her own battles. Poland, as a
whole, wanted independence and self-government, what it found it had got
was a constitution without power, and the privilege of dying for
Germany. This was openly asserted by Pilsudski, to whom Germany looked
to raise the army, and he announced in the Council that Germany had
created the Polish State in order to raise a Polish army for herself.
A semi-official admonishment to the Poles that supplies a significant
comment on opinion in Germany appeared in the _Kölnische Zeitung_ of
January 15th, 1917. It remarks that though it is only two months since
Poland was liberated, doubts as to the success of this have arisen in
Germany. It is necessary for German frontiers to be secured against
Russia, on conclusion of peace, but she cannot simply annex Poland.
Independent Poland has therefore been created, but the main condition
for its success is that it should have a close connection with Germany
and her Allies, and its army with the armies of the Quadruple Alliance.
The danger lies in the existence of Polish Nationalism which is bound to
arouse the spirit of irredentism. The acquisition of German Poland and
access to the sea are naturally part of the Polish ideal, but since
Germany can never entertain such an idea these aspirations must be given
up once and for all. As long as the war lasts, Poland must be content to
be in German occupation. Poland can only prosper under German and
Austrian protection, and the Poles must see to it that they use their
rights in a way corresponding to German interests, for both Germans and
Poles know that it was not sheer humanitarianism that called the new
state into life, but the consideration of important political interests.
The right thing for the Poles to do is to give up, once for all, their
irredentist claims on Prussian territory, and stake their lives on a
victory of German arms.
Similar exhortations appeared in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ and the
_Rheinisch Westfälische Zeitung_, urging the necessity of holding Poland
firmly in German Grip and strengthening the interests of German Kultur.
Now this extract sums up the exact _impasse_ between the “_independent_”
state and its German rulers. Germany insists that the whole well-being
of Poland depends on its German orientation--no mention of Austria
occurs at all--and that to stand well with Germany it must prove its
devotion by the shedding of its blood in the cause of Germany.[19] It
has to take Germany on trust, blind, identify itself with German aims,
give up all its aspirations, and revel in its independence! For its own
peace of mind it had better dismiss once and for all any idea of
becoming a united Poland, if by unity is meant a “German solution”
implying the joining to it of Posen, in the same way as under an
“Austrian solution.” Galicia would have been united to it. But as a
counter-attraction to this unrealizable programme we find the Council of
State permitted to issue a manifesto declaring that one of its chief
tasks is to “extend the independent state-existence to all the
territories taken away from Russia, and gravitating towards Poland.” In
other words, if Germany was determined not to give back any part of
Prussian Poland, she might be induced to promise that some of the
Russian territories once belonging to Poland should be reunited to her.
This change of subject suited Germany very well; by all means let the
Council of State amuse itself by dreams of enlarging Poland at the
expense of Russia. That would make bad blood between Poles and Russians,
and, according to the German formula, the more bad blood between other
countries the better. Professor Romer, the Cracow geographer, joined in
the chorus against Russia, conducted by Germany, and produced figures to
disprove Russian statistics which gave the Polish population of
Lithuania as 1,000,000, whereas he claimed 5,000,000 as inhabitants of
it. It is more than possible that the Russian estimate is below the
mark, but when we find that Gustav Olechowski, himself a Polish
Nationalist, only claims 1,500,000 Poles as inhabiting Lithuania, we
must conclude that the Russian estimate is nearer the mark than
Professor Romer’s. He seems to have arrived at his calculation by
including as Poles all Roman Catholics on the ground of a common
religion. The assumption is picturesque, but has nothing to do with
fact. Similarly the Polish right to annex Volhynia was put forward on
the ground that owing to the emigration of Russians eastwards, the
population now was mainly Polish.
These claims and others like them on Russian provinces called forth a
protest from the Government at Petrograd and the most violent
counterblast from the Lithuanian Nationalists, who declared that the
Poles were their worst enemies. It is probable that Germany instigated
those Imperialist demands, with the object not only of fomenting
ill-feeling between Russia and Poland, in which it perfectly succeeded,
but of giving the National Council something to occupy it, so as to
distract it from its real business of drafting the Constitution. This
succeeded also, and up till March, 1917, the Council, apart from
starting schools for officers, seems to have accomplished nothing except
to settle what the official seal of the new state was to be, and to
approve of the establishment of a Committee of National Contribution,
the first aim of which was to raise money for the Polish army.
The parties for complete Polish independence, with the union of
territories now belonging to Russia, Austria and Germany, though they
were quite incapable of getting independence, grew in numbers and weight
during this period. The cynical farce of Polish government, the
recruiting of Poles for industrial work in Germany, and their forcible
detention there, the measures introduced by Germany for compulsory work
for Poles in Posen, the census ordered by Germany for all men in the
occupied territories between the ages of 17 and 50, which the Poles
construed into a foreshadowing of conscription, the continued refused of
Germany to appoint a Regent, were rapidly bringing resentment to a head,
and Germany, who had been so successful in inspiring Polish distrust of
Russia, was diverting the main flow of suspicion against herself.
Then in March the Russian revolution broke out, and on the 29th of that
month the revolutionary Russian Government definitely proclaimed the
independence of Poland (which was a very different thing from the
meaningless phrases of the Grand Duke’s proclamation) and asked in
return for a “free military union” with the country to which it promised
liberty. In other words, Russia like Austria and Germany made a bid for
the support of a Polish army. To this reiterated promise of independence
the Council of State sent a cool reply, congratulating Russia on the
liberty that she, too, had regained, but reminding her that the Central
Empires had also promised Poland independence. But on the population
generally the effect of this Russian proclamation was wildly exciting:
Russia, democratic and free, stretched out an equal and fraternal hand,
and they vented their enthusiasm in strikes and anti-German
disturbances. The Council of State, however, had taken a truer view of
the value of the Russian declaration, for the nature of the “free
military union” was soon hinted at by the new Russian Government, who
elegantly alluded to the fact that there were a very large number of
Polish refugees in Russia (there were probably upwards of 1,000,000 of
them, of whom 500,000 were between the ages of 17 and 45.)[20] Most of
these, up to the age of 37 at any rate, had already enlisted in the
Russian armies, and what was aimed at by the “free military union”
referred to the time after the war, when Russia hoped, in spite of the
independence of Poland, to retain a considerable number of Poles in her
military forces.
The disenchantment spread, and before long it was felt that this
declaration of independence would probably prove as nugatory as previous
Russian declarations. But, in any case, Russia now, in chaos herself,
had abandoned all claim to any suzerainty over Poland, and perhaps the
most important result of the proclamation was that at this precise
moment the National Democratic party, who had previously accepted the
Grand Duke Nicholas’s proclamation, which implied the restoration of
German and Austrian Poland to a kingdom, independent, but under Russian
suzerainty, expanded their aspirations and claimed for the future
Kingdom of Poland much of the territory originally belonging to Poland
which had passed to Russia in consequence of the partitions.
To quiet the growing disgust with Germany, von Beseler made a journey to
Berlin, and returned with the German Government’s consent that a Regent
should be established, _but_ (this “but” was a familiar feature in
German indulgences) they had not yet arrived at agreement “with regard
to the person of the Regent.” This, of course, again postponed the
appointment of a Regent _sine die_, and rendered meaningless the further
promise that the Germans were resolved to leave Warsaw as soon as the
Regency had been established in such a way that the zones of German and
Austrian occupation came under his authority. In other words, though
they were resolved to appoint a Regent and thereupon leave Warsaw, they
intended to remain in possession because (in spite of their resolve)
they could not settle on a Regent. Austria had designated a Habsburg
Regent, and Germany a Hohenzollern: the appointment of either would
remove Poland too far away from the “sphere” of the other power, and
therefore Poland must wait. But this message from Berlin, delivered by
von Beseler, is of interest, because it shows that there was still some
sort of vitality in the policy of the “Austrian solution,” or, if not
vitality, the force of inert resistance. If it could not create, it
could veto. Next month (June, 1917), after a further ineffectual protest
from the Council of State and a threat of resignation, the German and
Austrian Governments both reaffirmed their desire to appoint a Regent.
Neither could do it without the consent of the other, and it served the
purposes of both to give no effective government to Poland. They agreed,
in fact, to differ, since their differing effected the point on which
they were perfectly agreed. For the same reason the joint resolution of
the Polish Deputies in the Reichsrat and of the Diet of Galicia for
Polish unification with access to the sea was the mere tap of a ripple
against a stone breakwater. Austria would certainly have granted that at
the expense of Germany, but could refer to Germany even as Mr. Spenlow
referred to the obduracy of his partner Jorkins. The Central Empires,
though they might disagree with each other, were unanimous in
disregarding any obligation they had entered into with regard to Poland.
Austria would not give way to Germany, nor Germany to Austria, and as
far as Poland was concerned, this disagreement postponed any solution of
the political _impasse_. All the time famine was raging in Russian
Poland, and also in Lithuania, where the mortality among children was
terrible. Yet still parcels of food could be sent to Germany by
occupying troops, without deducting from the food-rations of the
recipients, and still Germany refused to guarantee--whatever her
guarantee might be worth--that foreign relief for the starving Poles
should be used for them and not for exportation into Germany.
Trouble was brewing: again in June, 1917, the Council of State passed a
resolution that Lithuania should be reunited to Poland, and this was
supported by the Inter-Party Club of Warsaw[21] under the leadership of
the National Democrats, in conjunction with Realists, Polish
Progressives, Christian Democrats, the National Federation and the Union
of Economic Independence, for Germany, by her obstinate refusal to give
substance to any of her promises, had done nothing more than
consolidate Polish parties together against herself. Support was given
to the Polish cause by a further declaration of the Allies, for at a
meeting of the Polish National Club in Petrograd, M. Albert Thomas
announced in the name of the French Government that they desired
“unification independence, strength and greatness of Poland, for the
Polish question is a European and an international question.” This was
in flat contradiction of the declaration of the late Tsar’s Government
that the Polish question was an internal Russian question, and was a
direct allusion to the importance of Poland as a check to the
Mittel-Europa policy of Germany. Neither Russia nor the Central Empires
had given substance to the promises they had made, and it was clear that
if Polish national aspirations were to be satisfied, it must be the
Entente to whom Poland had to look. This revulsion of feeling against
the occupying powers led to fresh disturbances that broke out in Warsaw,
and to the refusal of the large majority, 85 per cent., of the Polish
legions to take any oath of allegiance to the Central Powers. On that
the mailed fist descended: the Polish soldiers who had refused to take
the oath were sent to internment camps, and Pilsudski, who had been the
one hope on whom rested the raising of a Polish army to fight for
Germany, was arrested on the charge of conspiracy and imprisoned, upon
which the commanders of the Polish legions resigned. Cannons were placed
in the streets of Warsaw, thousands of civilians were arrested, and the
Governor-General announced that he had authority to burn Warsaw to the
ground, in order to show how deeply Germany had at heart the welfare of
Poland.
But public opinion in Germany by no means endorsed measures of this
kind, which were as unwise as they were tyrannical, and among other
papers the _Kolnische Volkszeitung_ deplored German maladministration
which had made an enemy of the entire country. The state had been formed
too late, no king had been appointed, and it was governed by German
Jacks-in-office, who could not speak a word of Polish or French. The
fact that this was allowed to pass the Censor is an indication of the
general disgust in Germany of the military autocracy as applied to a
country which had been promised independence. More than six months had
passed since that declaration had been made, and there had as yet been
no indication that it was endorsed by the faintest sincerity of purpose.
According to her usual policy, Germany had tried to ingratiate herself
with the Poles by fomenting their hatred of Russia, but now that tide of
suspicion and distrust which she had successfully caused to flow was
ebbing strongly back upon herself. Her fair promises had been shown to
be shams, and even when she replaced cajolery with tyranny, she was
haunted by the sense of imperfect mastery. She had tried to raise an
army of volunteers to fight her battles, and had succeeded in getting
together but 600 men, and when she made a demand for the forcible
recruiting of Poles for the work of munitions and industrial concerns in
Germany, the municipality of Warsaw flatly refused to organise any such
scheme, and she had been obliged to fall back on a voluntary appeal
instead. This proved to be almost as great a _fiasco_ as her attempt to
raise troops, and only 2,629 volunteers came forward. Neither by
conciliation nor compulsion had she attained her aims, and now, when she
had been in occupation for two years, she had not succeeded in making
the Poles either her slaves or her friends. They would not willingly
fight for her or work for her, and she had failed to compel them. She
had not solved the Polish problem, and she was perfectly well aware of
that humiliating fact. She had satisfied neither herself nor her
recalcitrant dependents.
CHAPTER V
(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.
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