New Britain herald., 1914-08-19
FREEDOM FOR POLAND
Russia's Offer Now Makes Noted
 History.
(New York Sum-


 Not even the issue of that great
 battle on the plains of Belgium. where the artillery of five nations is awaken ing echoes as poprtentous as those of Waterloo. should wholly avail to dis tract the attention of the world from the momentous rescript of the Car of Russia which promises to the Poles the realization of most if not all of tke dreams and aspirations which they have treasured for nearly d century and half with a patriotism and fidelity surpassing even that which has animated the French as they looked across an arbitrary frontier to the mournful prospect of their lost provinces.
 From the congress of Vienna to the treaty of Bucharest last year the wars of the nations have been provoked by the longings of men of the same race to achieve national unity. As the French revolution carried the gospel of democracy and equality from Ma drid to Moscow each succeeding Euro pean conflict has expressed the will of men who spoke the same tongue, shared the same culture and the same racial unity to be joined. Seriatim. Servie, Greece, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Rumania, Germany, Bulgaria have esta blished their places upon the map after wars which have made the history of the nineteenth century.
 Alone of the races the Poles, divided between three great powers the sub- jects of Prussia, Russia and Austria, have failed to achieve even a partial risorgimento, although of all races they have more ardently and Loyalty preserved the memory of former solidarity and cherished the dream of future reintegration. To them now the Car, with all the solemnity and publicity of an irrefragible oath, has promised the right to speak their language, pursue the natural evolution of their own race. if, in this great European crisis they give to him and his nation the loyalty which may as- sure him victory.
 And this sacred promise does not apply merely to the 12,0OO,O0 people who live in that restricted district, no larger than New York state, which bears the name of Russian Poland and contains the ancient capital of War saw. Reading the rescript there is no mistaking the fact that it is equally instinct with hope for the 5,0O0,000 Poles now subjects of a Hapsburg and the 3,O0O,00O Poles who own reluctant submission to a Hohenzollern. In a word, the rescript of the Czar points toward new and momentous changes in the map of Europe if vic- tory shall come to the cause he has championed in this great conflict.
 A glance at an ethnological map of Europe serves to indicate the meaning of this promise. Not only is Galicia, west of Lemberg, with Cracow, an ancient capital of Poland, included in that area which the map assigns to the Poles, but Posen in Prussia, al- most at the gate of Berlin; while ncrthward to the Baltic at Danzig ex- tends another peninsula of Poles, sep arating the Germans of East Prussia from the mainland of Germanic ter ,ritory. That district which Frederick the Great took in the first partition in 1772 remains Pole by race. and Dan 1ig, Koenigsberg, all Germany east of the Vistula, might logically be in- cluded in a new Poland. together with half of the Silesia which the great Prussian king seized century and a half ago.
 And if Poland is to be re-esta blished why not Bohemia with it's millions of S,avs not less than S,00O,000, includ- iEg the Slovaks on the marches of Hungary. west of the Carpathians? Ever since the "Defenestration of Prague" ever since the battle of the White Hill that sent the Winter King into exile, Bohemia has been subject to the Germans, and millions of Szechs have maintained desperate battle for racial independence. To- day Europe is fighting because the Car chose to extend to the little Slav brother on the Danube the protection of his great empire. Today the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croats of Da1matia and Croatia, the Slovenes of Carniola, Carinthia and the Coast Lands, all the southern Slavs from the Alps to the Balkans are included in the great Pan-Slavic l which has followed the victories of the Slavs of Bulgaria and | Servia in the Balkans.
 Not as an appeal to a fraction of his l own people, not as a pledge to bind :! tho halting loyalty of some millions l of subjects on threatened frontier, is the Czars rescript to be accepted It has a far wider meaning not mistaken either in; Berlin or Vienna or indeed m London.
 ~ It is not by accident that the Car in his appeal refers to the battle of On that field 300 years ago, the Poles triumphed over the reutonic Order, won the first great -ictory over the German force which vas sweeping Slavdom eastward and aid the foundations of that Poland which, under Sobieski, was to save Europe from the Turk and in its ex- ,iring days to give Napoleon as the champion of the French revolution so many soldiers and at least one mar- ,hal of France. Gruenwald was in no slight degree the victory of the Slav ,yer the German power and culture