New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-09
Restored" Poland

There has been no more interesting an
nouncement made in recent months than
that which comes from Teutonic sources
and now forecasts the remaklng OF 70
land. However premature and vague the
present reports are, they square with the
known conditions sufficiently to make them
worthy of examination.
In substance, it is asserted that Austria
and Germany have agreed to the creation
of Polish state, this to consist of Galicia
before the war an Austrian province
and most, but not all, Of Russian Poland.
Something like 10 per cent of Russian
Poland, so the report runs, is to fall TO
Germany. Such a plan, if carried out,
would erect a state having an area of not
less than $4,000 square miles, within
which there lived at the outbreak of the
war close on twenty-five millions of people.
No specifications are made as to the ter
ritory which Germany is to take. Yet 1t
is quite clear that for military reasons
she would desire to possess the western
bank of the Niemen River as far south as
the point where the Narew River enters
il near Grodnow and thence along the
north bank of the Narew River-in
word. the west side of the famous Me
men-Narew- Bobr line, which figured so
much in the military reports Of the war
campaign prior to the fall of Warsaw.
Certain notifications west of Warsaw and
east of Posen-perhaps the west bank OF
the Wharf.-The River would comprehend
territories of military value which Ger
many might desire and would pretty fairly
represent the percentage Of the total Of
Russian Poland which the report assigns
to Germany.
The new Polish state which is to be
created will be placed under Austrian pro-
lection, we are told, having something like
the character of Hungary. In other
words, the Dual Monarchy might conceiva-
bly, be extended to a tripartite state, made
up of Austria, Hungary and the new Po-
land, although it is quite clear that the
new Poland would not Immediately have
anything like the influence or the power
,wb;oh ,o,y halop0s 70 HUNGARY
Viewed from the Polish angle, this pro-
posal is by no means entirely bad or
utterly unsatisfactory. The best part of
the Polish race-the part which has pos
sessed the most liberty and has had the
best training in self-government, as well
as the part which has by all odds been
treated best--is Austrian Poland. Only
by placating the Austrian Poles was the
German element able to maintain itself in
power in the Austrian half of the Dual
Monarchy. A coalition between the Poles
and the Czechs would always have placed
the Germans in a minority. AS the Czechs
mounted more rapidly in numbers and in
political influence Vienna was obliged to
make its bargain with Cracow, and just
as the Hungarians have been allowed to
prosecute the Rumanians and Slavs in the
Hungarian half of the Hapsburg empire
the Poles of Galicia have been granted 8
free hand in Galicia over that Ruthe-
Man minority which is quite as hostile to
the Poles as are the Rumanians of Tran
sylvania to the Hungarans.
Since Russian Poland was conquered by
the Central Powers there has been grow
ing insistence on the part Of the Poles Of
Austria that the old Polish Kingdom
should be restored, and there has been a
growing danger for Austria in the unrest
among the Poles of her own kingdom, com
ing from their dissatisfaction with what
was proposed for the Poles Of Russia.
Unquestionably the Poles of Austria
will be entirely reconciled to the Central
Powers if they are permitted to have po-
litical association with the Russian Poles
in a state attached to the Hapsburg
monarchy. The Russian Poles, on the
contrary, will probably be only partially
reconciled, since a portion Of the Polish
speaking territory is to be assigned to
Germany, and no proposal is made to lib
crate the Poles of Posen and East and
West Prussia and join them to this new
Polish state.