Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1916-12-06
The Kaiser Follows Napoleon In Poland

By FRANK H. SIMOMDS,
AUTHOR OF 1.-THE GREAT WAR;"
Copyright, te76-The Tribune Assn
(The New York Tribune).
All through the present war sugges-
tons OF the Napoleonic precedents ave
been u~nmistakable. but rarely has there
been q more perfect parallel than that
now presented by the course of Austria
and Germany in Poland. What the
two emperors have now undertaken to
do, Napoleon did; his faults they W.
initiated for reasons that recall his.
The Poland that the Austrian and
Gertnar c1nperors have now restored
does not contain all of the territory
which Napoleon erected into the grand
duchy OF Warsaw. To that region now
known rs Russian Poland. but then in
ending territories aiken by czar and
kaiser in the earlier PARTITION, Napo-
leon added the Prussian province OF
I'Osen.
But Napoleon did leave to Prussia
the Polish district which once separ-
ntcd East Prussia from the rest of the
Brandeilburg kingdom; he left Prussia
DantZiS ana that strip to acquire which
the great Frederick had engineered the
first Polish partition. And TO his father
inlaw Of Austria he lei. Galicia.
~ ANeLPpiCOIi thC II
duchy OF Warsaw he was looking for
Polish recruits and he enlisted many.
One marshal of France, Poniatowski,
was a Pole, there VAS n squadron of
Polish lancers about the emperor on
many famous occasions and thousands
of Poles fought with him in the closing
battles of 1918.
But Napoleon did not, at the moment
ne created the grand duchy, desire to
ALLEVIATE Austria and he unwisely per-
n1ittcd Prussia to survive Jena, with the
skeleton OF her old kingdom intact. AS
historians have frequently remarked,
he left Prussia too strong. given her
capacity for reorganization.
Nov the two eNlperors are looking
for recruits. They desire to persuade
Poles TO enlist in their armies as they
did in the Napoleonic armies. To per-
a them they have created this fic-
titious Polish state. But Austria does
not wish to surrender the 5000, 900
Poles of Galicia; Germany has no in
tention of giving over her Poles. And
1t Germany considered such a policy,
1t would be suicidal, because in sur
rendering her Polish provinces h
would erect q wall of Polish territory
between the eastern and western frac-
tlons OF Prussia, TIVE two blocks Of
German speaking peoples.
If the Poland OF the Poles were re-
stored it ould include practically all
0AoiAN AiaIL VI 1ltO
2 great mass of German territory in the
provinces along the German Russian
frontier. East Prussia would be left an
island IN the midst OF Slav populations.
Here. in a region won for the Teutonic
world by the a1nOuS Teutonic knights,
there would be an inevitable recoil of
Gernanism and an ultimate absorption
by the SlavS.
If the Russian and Austrian Polish
districts were united there would be
nm pt1t Mr. -
Russian Poland is Polish, where it is
not Jewish. The same is true of western
Galicia. Together these fragments Of
h Polish kingdom would make a state
Of some $4,000 square miles, having q
population OF IL, 600, 900. But such a
state would be cut off from the sea by
German territory partly inhabited by
Poles and on the west by Ger
man provinces with a predo1ninating
Polish population in the frontier circles.
Here. then, is the seemingly insoluble
German problem of Poland. Here is the
explanation of why Germany can never
consent, save under the pressure of de-
feat. to a real Poland. At Posen such a
Poland would be dangerously near to,
Berlin; west of the Vistula it would be
a new Chinese wall separating Ger
mans. The unity of Germany, of the
Prussia. which won unity for Ger
many. was founded upon the dismem-i
berment of Poland and The question
raised now, as always, is. whether 81
10000 Poles shall be German, to insure
the connection between the Germans
east of the Vistula and those west of it,
or whether 1900, 600 Germans shall be
subjected to Polish rule, that there
may be a restored Poland
These questions the Germans and
he Austrians have not faced. Germany
has not made the smallest concession to
her Poles. actually h most prosecuted
OF all the fractions of the Polish race.
Austria has contented herself with
promising her Poles. together with the
Ruthenians in Galicia, autonomy at the
end of the war. Only Russia has prom
Used the reunion of all Poland, and Rus
STA has been driven out OF her own Pol
lsh provinces and occupies no land that
has a Polish population.
Yet 1t must be apparent from the
foregoing that in raising the question
of Polish unity the Germans and the
Austrians have taken great and obvious
risks. There was no hope OF a restora-
tion OF. Poland while three great and
rea@.sonary empires held fragments OF
the old Polish state. However much
tliey might differ on Balkan questions
t'ere was ommon ground between
I.eriin. PetrOgrad and Vienna in the
matter OF Poland.
But IL the Germans and Austrians
should succeed in maintaining them
0olvoS In Russian Poland until peace
comes anc writing into the peace
agreement the erection of a Polish
state. consisting of Russian territories
inhabited by Poles. Russia would no
Austro-German policy in the matter OF
h Poles. On the contrary. Russian
policy would inevitably ten toward the
emancipation. not merely of the Poles
An the new states, but OF all the Poles.
= tor the Austrian Poles. they have
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