August 17, 1916 
LAND & WATEK 
13 
The Establishment of Poland— I 
Wc propose to publish a series of articles from a Special 
Correspondent on the Polish question, which has in the 
last few weeks become extremely critical. The immediate 
future of the war on its strategical as on its political 
side may well turn upon the German project of con- 
scripting Polish troops, coupled with a scheme of 
Polish Autonomy under Austro-German protection. This 
enemy project may bs declared at any moment. 
THE establishment of Poland at the conclusion of 
the war, the nature of the new State, its 
boundaries, anc^ above all its relation to its 
eastern and western neighbours, will be the test 
of the campaign. By that will it be seen who are the true 
beneficiaries of the struggle, and to whom has fallen the 
future of Europe. 
That is the great historical and geographical point 
which at first Western opinion might be pardoned for 
misunderstanding, and Eastern opinion for doubting. It 
is now quite clear. 
The reason is this. To the West Germany is beaten 
and held. She can never be mistress there, for she is, 
compared with that older civilization. Barbarian. The 
test of whether she is foiled or no is the eastern establish- 
ment after the war. 
The great war must clearly end, so far as national 
establishments are concerned (omitting for the moment 
its enormous effect upon social conditions everywhere) 
in one of two conclusions, each leading to a separate* 
future. 
Either the old civilisation of Europe, with its con- 
ceptions of national honour and dignity and of clean 
fighting, and of a certain glory therein, will assert itself 
against the strange claims of Prussian Materialism — 
that can only Ije done by a complete defeat of Prussia : 
or some dissension among the Allies will lead to an in- 
conclusive peace. 
■The victory which Prussia took for granted and in 
expectation of which she suddenly fell upon the French, 
was blown to pieces at the Marne. In spite of her enor- 
mous initial advantage in men and her long continued 
advantage in machinery, it is now quite impossible, and 
during the last few months Prussia has eaten the leek 
p'ji^licly, admitted her inability to win, and moved every 
force at her disposal to obtain terms. 
The Eastern Settlement 
With every week that passes the moderation of those 
terms increases. They will further increase in the West. 
They will soon be reduced to nothing more than the right 
to live. But they will always necessarily include some 
new settlement upon the East, because there a Polish 
National settlement of some kind is now necessary, no 
matter who wins. Shall it b2 our settlement or theirs ? 
That will test all tlie war. 
If the Alliance achieve a complete victory over the 
Central Empires, the restoration of Poland as a whole 
to autonomy— a true Poland with its port upon the 
Baltic and its true national boundaries reducing Prussia 
to German soil — will be the chief symbol of our success. 
If Prussia succeeds in procuring her inconclusive peace 
her power to prevent such a resurrection will be the 
symbol of her success. A Poland mutilated of Danzig, of 
Thorn, and of Posnania, forbidden access to the Baltic 
and strictly controlled, will be granted autonomy : 
but the new State will be the creature of the German 
Powers "and will be no more than a province of the 
" Central Europe " scheme. 
Let us take a very simple and concrete example of an 
inconclusive peace. Let us suppose a partial indemnity 
paid by the enemy for the ruin he has caused. Let us 
suppose onerous economic terms imposed upon the 
enemy by the Allies — but with all this, political bound- 
aries remaining much the same as they were before the 
war. Let us even suppose Alsace-Lorraine given back to 
the French and some general scheme of disarmament 
dictated to the enemy. 
That looks to the superficial observer, who knows the 
map, but who does not know history, a tolerable con- 
clusion. It is nothing of the kind. It is a conclusion 
which would leave Prussianised Germany free to strike 
again and shortly — and the symbol of Prussia's remaining 
power would be her confirmed control over the Polish 
provinces which she first carved out of the living body of 
Poland more than a century ago, when Frederick the 
Great committed the cynical and enormous act which 
is at the root of all this last great war. These provinces 
represent but a quarter to a fifth of the Polish race, but 
they are the most bitterly oppressed, and they are the 
territory a Prussian hold upon which has been for four 
generations the hidden base of the Prussian insolence in 
Europe. 
Such a peace would leave Thorn and Posen and Danzic 
controlled by the enemy. It would leave Galicia and 
Cracow imder the milder Austrian rule — ^but that rule, 
how much Prussianised by the war ! Russia would, 
both in her own interest and in consonance with the 
spirit of the resettlement, undoubtedly erect a Polish 
province autonomous, though connected with the Russian 
Crown. But it would be a Poland quite mutilated, with 
vital portions of the State still subject to the intolerable 
Prussian tyranny ; with Cracow, the ancient and most 
sacred capital of the State, politically separated from the 
centre and the east, and with the whole nation suffering 
from mutilation. Mutilation is not to be measured in the 
size of the fragment : the loss of a hand is a mutilation. 
Poland would not be Poland under so lame a settlement. 
And Poland as the test of the new Europe would not 
be present dmong us. 
In addition to this, a certain principle of nationality 
would, as we shall see in a moment, be irrevocably 
wounded. Poland thus halved could hold out no hand 
to the Czechs of Bohemia ; just as a settlement which 
left the Balkans unnationa! could hold out no hope to 
national freedom in the Southern Slavs now under 
Austrian rule. 
The True Poland 
Now consider the alternative. With the victory of 
the Allies fully achieved Poland could arise unmutilated 
and could exist once more in Europe as a true State. 
It would necessarily be, under the impulsion of modern 
forces, a Slav State as well as a Polish State. Race and 
language speak to-day and impose themselves. They 
cannot be denied. There would, in all probability, be a 
dynastic link with Russia. There would, at any rate, 
be a political link with Russia. But the Poland so con- 
stituted and possessed of autonomy, even if not of com- 
plete sovereignty, would have about it a very different, 
character from the Poland conceived by our enemies in 
their breathing space towards further aggression. 
There, briefly, is the principle we have to bear in mind 
in the coming months. It is the one great political pivot 
upon which the settlement will turn and by which our 
victory should be tested. 
But this word " Poland " has meant so little to public 
opinion in the West hitherto that, although it is the most 
immediate and urgent Occidental need of the moment 
that a public opinion should arise upon it in England as 
in France, most men, even men who have travelled widely 
and who have read fairly deeply in the past, have but a 
vague conception of what this word " Poland " means. 
What were the boundaries of that State when it had a 
free existence ? What were its traditions ? What 
territories are now occupied by the Polish race proper ? 
What difliculties, geographical and racial, exist to the 
reconstruction of an independent Poland ? The question 
is, unfortunately, an extremely complicated one. No 
one can propose a solution absolutely final. There is too 
great room for debate among the most honest and the 
most determined of those who see in the resurrection of 
Poland the great criterion of this war. 
We can, however, establish certain conclusions upon the 
matter. We can trace upon a map the habitation of the 
Polish people, and we can see what their proportion is in 
districts not wholly Polish. There are common admitted 
data for the whole problem, which must first be grasped 
before we pass to a consideration of its solution. 
In the next article these common data, geographical, 
religious and racial, will be described. 
