This book is divided into two parts, the first of which is mainly concerned with the reconstruction of a Polish State after the victorious close of our war against the Central Empires, a policy to which the Governments of the Powers of the Entente, including America, have repeatedly given expression both in independent and in joint utterances. In this part an attempt is made to set forth how Poland will form an indispensable link in the cordon of free states which will for all time prevent Germa

At the beginning of the war it is probable that few people of average education had any very accurate idea even of the place which the Kingdom of Poland occupies on the map of Europe, and to the English mind it but belonged to that nebulous system of geographical expressions such as Bohemia, Galicia or Serbia, indefinite, shadowy states towards the East of Europe, concerning which it was necessary to consult an atlas. Fewer still knew anything about its past history or its present condition, bey

The claims of the Poles themselves to be reunited into an independent kingdom rest on historical and ethnographical grounds which it is necessary to state briefly in order that these claims may be appreciated and understood. Little as they or the basis on which they rest are known in England, it is the duty of the Allies, so the champions of Polish union and independence assert, to recognise and act on them, since they have repeatedly insisted on the rights of all nations to their national terri

As we have already seen, England, France, Italy and America have repeatedly declared, by the mouths of those officially pronouncing the will of their respective governments, that the union and independence of Poland are among the objects for which they are to-day waging war on the Central Empires. Russia, though no longer a member of the Entente, since her bastard government of the moment has torn up her treaty with her allies and has signed a separate peace with Germany, has also in the days be

At the present moment the policy of the National Democrats with regard to a united and independent Poland is concurred in by the Realists (landowners), the Progressives, the Christian Democrats, the party of Economic Independence and the National Union. Their united aims, including access to the sea for the new independent State, have been now centralized in the Polish National Committee, which has been formally recognised by the Entente Powers. M. Dmowski is its President in Paris, Count L. Sob

On the 14th of August, 1914, the world being then at war, the Grand Duke Nicholas, uncle of the Tsar and Generalissimo of the Russian forces, issued the following proclamation on behalf of the Crown. It was signed by him and not by the Tsar, since international etiquette forbids the Monarch of one state to address the subjects of another state, and this proclamation was addressed, as will be seen, to subjects of Austria and Germany as well as to Russian subjects:— “Poles! The hour has struck in

Germany seems to have realised from the first that the management of the occupied territory of the Kingdom of Poland would present difficulties, and, apart from its systematic starvation, necessitated by the needs of her armies, and her desire for industrial emigration into Germany, she adopted a wiser policy than she did, for instance, in Belgium. Warsaw was taken on August 5, 1915, and schools were reopened there by August 25th, and both in primary and secondary classes Germany allowed Polish

All this year then the occupying powers could come to no decision about the constitution of Poland, Austria made proposal after proposal, leaning towards the ‘Austrian Solution,’ to each of which Germany demurred, on the ground that any such arrangement would give too great a preponderance to her Ally. Also German opinion—that is to say, the opinion of the governing classes in Germany—was crucially divided. Bethmann-Hollweg, for instance, was in favour of transforming Poland into a sort of buffe

In this proclamation of a Polish state made jointly at Warsaw in the name of the Central Empires there was a provision attached that the Poles should raise an army to defend it. Poland, being now “protected” and proclaimed a state by Germany, must be defended against Russia, the common foe, and in consequence this defensive army would form part of the armies of the Central Empire. This was convenient, for Germany needed men, and since in the proclamation of the new State she gave nothing away wi

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 c