(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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 itsine 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 veryremarkable 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 fromDie Postof 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 theKölnische Zeitungof 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 itsarmy 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 theFrankfurter Zeitungand theRheinisch 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 exactimpassebetween the “independent” state and its German rulers. Germany insists that the whole well-beingof 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 toPoland 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 Russianprovinces 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, thecensus 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 ventedtheir 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 Regentsine 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 disagreewith 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 politicalimpasse. 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 substanceto 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 hadbeen 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 theKolnische Volkszeitungdeplored 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, Germanyhad 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 afiascoas 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.
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 briefrésuméof 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: hisonly 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 Pilsudskiin 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 hismutiny 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 thecadresof 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 tostand 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 brokeacross 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 ascadresfor 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 ascadresfor 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!”
“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 thatshe 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]
(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.
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 sheneeded 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 ablocto 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 theBerliner Tageblattthat 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 expansionEastwards, 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.
(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 andhonesty but without much strength or decision, and a student of history rather than a maker of it.
The swing of the pendulum, indicated by thepersonnelof 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, towhich 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 theFremden Blattin 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 statedthat 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 itstreaties, 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: