The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-07-30
(By Associated Press.)

London, July %. The desperate
fighting now going on around War
saw and throughout the Eastern zone
of operations centers attention on the
colossal tragedy of Poland, the second
Ithat unhappy country has endured,
the first having stirred America to its
depths when Kosciuszco went there
to tell Poland's own story and left its
memories in the statue of the Polish
liberator in one of the public squares
of Washington.
But that first tragedy was as moth
ing compared with what Poland is
now undergoing, the entire theatre of
eastern fighting being within the ter
ritory of the old kingdom of Poland,
with Russian armies tramping over
the country from the east, Austrian
armies from the south, and German
armies from the north and west, all
COMPRISING Poland as in a double
vice from four sides, marching and
fighting on a scale of unprecedented
magnitude, and leaving a train Of
wreck and desolation even greater
than that of Belgium or Serbia. This
is the territory of disinterested eye
witnesses, Polish, English and Ameri-
can, who have recentlp traversed the
stricken regions, including c. c. Glib
son of the Rockefeller Foundation,
who declared on his return that this
was one of the greatest tragedies the
world had known, the devastation OF
Belgium shrinking in comparison.
Such Geographic news as trickles
through from Poland, except the Of
fetal reports of military operations
from the three sides, is censored and
garbled and gives only the picture of
fighting, without that of the PROSTATE
country under the heels of the fight
ers pressing from four sides. But
from eye-witnesses returningl from
Polish student refugees from the
scourged district, and from letters to
those who have sought asylum here,
there is mass of information on the
real conditions at the scene of these
gigantic eastern operations. Much of
this information flows into the hands
of Miss Laurence Alma Tadema
daughter of the great English artist,
who for three months has been work
ing day and night as the secretary
and directing genius of the Polish re-
lief committee, whose officers and pa
irons embrace about every name of
note in England-peers, cabinet mem
bers, ambassadors, artists and au-
thors.
Think of the magnitude of this ap
paling Polish tragedy" said Miss
Alma-Tadema to a representative OF
The Associated Press. at is difficult
for us in England or America, with
conditions serene, to cast the mind S
eye across Europe and grasp the fact
that all the titanic eastern battles are
being fought on Polish soil. And it
is not only a gigantic struggle of in
vading armies from without, one fol
lowing another with all their train of
ruin and desolation, but it partakes
almost of civil conflict with Pole fight
ing against Pole.
There are" she went on. "about
twelve million Russian Poles, and
about the same number of Austrian
and Prussian Poles. All of them have
that intense longing to see Poland
rise again as unified kingdom. And
yet of these twenty-four million Poles,
million Polish soldiers are fighting
in the Russian ranks, and another
million are fighting in the Austrian
and German Enthusiastically brother
against brother. One of the reports
reaching me tells of a body of Polish
infantry on the Russian side, charging
at body of the enemy, with bayonets
raised and the battle-crys ringing from
both sides-only to distinguish as they
came to grips that both were shouting
the cry of Poland-and on that in
slant, as if inspired by common i'm
pulse, every bayonet was lowered and
every man in the facing ranks fell on
his knees and in their common Ian
guage breathed the Lords prayer.
That was Polands prayer on the bat
tIefield of this terrible eastern conflict.
"Here is another thoroughly anthem
ticated case,' said Miss Alma-Tadema:
"a Polish infantryman raised his rife
and fired point blank at an advancing
foe, only to see him pitch forward
and hear him GRIP out in Polish, My
God, / leave wife and three children
And this agonizing dying cry in Polish
rang in the ears of the brother Pole
who had fired the shot, torturing him
orl Joxv ,,nfi1 hn litnro1lv wont