Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-11-19
Looking for Polish Recruits

Looking for Polish Recruits.
But Napoleon did leave to Prussia the
Polish district which once separated
East Prussia from the rest of the Bran
denburg kingdom: he left Prussia Dant-
zig and that strip to acquire which the
great Frederick had engineered the
first Polish partition. And to this ia
ther -tn-law Of Austria he left Galicia.
When Napoleon created the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw he was looking for
Polish recruits and he enlisted many.
One marshal of France. Poniatowski.
was a Pole, there was a squadron of
many famous occasions and thousands
Of Poles fought with him in the closing
battles of 1913.
But Napoleon did not. at the moment
he created the grand duchy, desire TO
ALLEVIATE Austria and he unwiseiy per-
mitted Prussia to survive Jena, with
the skeleton of her old kingdom intact.
AS historians have frequently remark
ed, he left Prussia too strong, given her
capacity for reorganization.
Moved by Napoleon's Aim.
Now the two emperors are looking for
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to enlist in their armies as they did in
the Napoleonic armies. To persuade
them they have created this fictitious
Polish state. But Austria does not wish
to surrender the 100000 Poles of Ga
licia; Germany has no intention Of CIV
ing over her Poles. And II Germany
considered such policy, it would be
suicidal, because in surrendering her
Polish provinces she would erect wall
of Polish territory between the eastern
and western fractions of Prussia. be-
tween two blocks of German
peoples.
If the Poland of the Poles were re-
stored 1t would include practically all
of Russian Poland. half of Galicia and
provinces along the German-Russian
frontier. East Prussia would be left
an island in the midst OF Slav popula-
tions. Here, in a region won for the
Teutonic world by the famous Teu-
tonic knights. there would be an In
evitable recoil of Germanism and an
ultimate absorption by the Slavs
II the Russian and Austrian Polish
districts were united there would be no
such difficulty The population of Rus
sian Poland Is Polish. where 1t is not
Jewish. The same is true of western
Galicia. Together these fragments of
the old Polish kingdom would make a
state of some $4,000 square miles. hav-
ing populatlon OF li,UVu,UuV But SucEl
state would be cut off from the sea
by German territory partly inhabited
by Poles and bounded on the west by
German provinces with a predominant
ing Polish population in the frontier
circles.
German Unity Involved.
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
new Chinese wall separating Ger
mans. The unity of Germany. of the
Prussis which won unity for Germany,
Of Poland, and the question raised now.
as always. is, whether 100000 Poles
shall be German. to insure the con-
nection between the Germans east Of
the Vistula and those west of it. or
whether 100000 Germans shall be
subjected to Polish rule. that there
may be restored Poland"
These questions the Germans and the
Austrians have not faced. Germany has
not made the smallest concession to her
all the fractions of the Polish race.
Austria has contented herself with
promising her Poles together with the
Ruthenians in Galicia. autonomy at the
promised the reunion of all Poland, and
Russia has been driven out of her own
Polish provinces and occupies no land
that has Polish population.
Teutons Take Big Risks.
Yet it must be apparent from the
foregoing that in raising the question