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 nowhas 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 singits 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, while153,000 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.
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 arecongregated 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 ishardly 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 shouldhenceforth 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 whowould 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 balanceprosandconsand 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 Dumaof 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 furtherconsideration 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 ofthe 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 PolishState 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 Niemento 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 thePan-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. Immediatelyfollowing 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 wasthen 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 Russiandefeat, 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,” givesthe 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:—
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 ofanything 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 allRoman 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 hisfuture 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:—
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 theiroccupation, 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.
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, smallor 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:—
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 claimof 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 mightreasonably 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 Lithuaniaunder 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 NationalDemocrats 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 asit 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 shewould 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, eversucceeds 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’sDrang nach osten. To attempt to enlarge Poland by the introductionof 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 closelybound 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 toenjoy 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.