The sun., 1914-08-18
FREEDOM FOR POLAND" is
CRY THAT MAKES HISTORY
Reprinted from the Evening Sun Of pest crday

Slavs not less than s.000,0 900. including
the Slovaks on the marches OF Huns AIRY.
west OF the Carpathians? Ever since the
Demonstration of Prague" ever since
the battle Of the White Hin that sell; the
Winter King into exile. Bohemia has
been subject to the Germans, and millions
OF Czechs have maintained a desperate
battle for racial Independence. To-day
Europe Is hghting because the Car chose
To extend TO the little Slav brother on
the Danube the protection OF his great
empire. To-day the Serbs of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the Croats of Dalmatia and
Croatia, the Slovenes OF Carniola Carin-
thia and the Coast Lands all the SOUTH
ern Sfavs from the Alps to the Balkans
are included in the great Pan-S,avio
renaissance which has followed the VIE
tories of the Slavs OF Bulgaria and Ser
via in the Balkans.
Not as an appeal to a fraction Of rs
own people, not as pledge to bind the
halting loyalty OF some millions of sub
jects on a threatened frontier, Is the
Cars rescript to be accepted II has
FAR wider meaning not mistaken either
in Berlin or Vienna or indeed in Londof
The Battle of GruenwaId.
II is not by accident that the Car in
his appeal refers To the battle OF Gruen-
wald. on that field 500 years ago the
Poles triumphed over the Teutonic Order
won the first great victory over the Ger
man force which was sweeping Slavdom
eastward and laid the foundations Of that
Poland which under Sobieski. was to
save En- 'oNc from the TURK and in It's
expiring days to give Napoleon az the
champion of the French Revolution SO
many soldiers and at least one Marshal
OF France. Grenwald was in no slight
degree the Victory of tne Slav over the
German u "a limit IN hal
Of German power and culture which had
driven the Slav from the Elhe 10 the Wis
tula to what could the champion of the
Pan-Slav cause refer with more appro-
priateness?
What Napoleon promised and could
not quite bring himself to do Nicholas
now undertakes His promise will have
| its effect upon the Poles OF Posen who
wear the Prussian uniform. II will lie
heard by the Czechs, the Serbs. the
Slovaks, the Slovenes. the Croats. VINO
wear the Hapsburg uniform. Even the
Rumanians. who claim Roman not Slavic
origin. will find In II a suggestion that
when all Slavs are coming to their own.
they may hope TO step over into Tran
sylvania and Bukovina and redeem"
some Millions of Romans" who are the
unwilling subjects Of Austrian or Hun
gsrlan tyranny. Obviously II Is intended
to disrupt Austrian armies and stimulate
treason in Prussian forces.
Poland restored. even with its frontiers
of language alone, would give Europe a
State of nearly 25,00O,000 inhabitants
1t would take from Germany at least three
provinces and from Austria half Its popu-
lation. II TO the freeing of the Poles there
was added the logical work OF liberating
all Slavs. Austria would disappear from
the map OF Europe. There would appear
at least three Slav States In Its place ::
Poland. Bohemia and Serbo-Croatia. To
Slavdom there would be added not less
than 80, 900. 900 of Slavs. bound by ties OF
race. religion and common hatred Of the
German.
Such In its wider aspect Is the meaning
OF the rescrpt OF the Car. In It is TO be
found much warrant for the German as
sertion that at bottom the present war Is
a struggle between Slav and Teuton.