RESURRECTION OF POLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 150, 25 June 1918, Page 4

RESURRECTION OF POLAND.

The appearance of a Polish army in

the field on our side and its puiblic recognition as a distinct military element in the Allied forces mark a definite step 'toward the realisation of Poland's dream of independence and freedom. The Allies .have repeatedly declared that after the war Poland shall be re-cstablisfaed as an autonomous State, and that the- just aspirations of its people dha.ll receive due consideration in strict accordance with the nationalist policy with -winch our cause is now identified. And now that the Poles, fighting once more for freedom, have received separate; military recognition, there can be no doubt that when peace comes the Allies will fulfil their premises, and will make an attempt to recompense that heroic but unfortunate people for all lihat they have lost and suffered. Apart 'from the gratification that the Poles will naturally feel at the honour thus publicly shown them, this official recognition of the Polish army will suggest to them that tooir present de--1 plorable condition cannot last, and that Che Cist duly of Uic Allies when the war is over will be to undo the evil work of disintegration and exploitation, which Germany J3 now carrying out an Russia. No doubt if the Germans were to bo left for many rears to come undisturbed in Russia, they might achieve Itheir purpose. But as the prospect of ultimate triumph for our cause grows ever clearer and brighter, the Poles may well I console themselves with the certain hope I of a speedy emancipation. I It should 'be 'hardly necessary to say I that Germany has no intention of carryling into effect the policy of liberating and conferring independence on the Poles which was announced early in the •war ac a set-off to the Czar's manifesto, i The idea that tie Central Powers would lever consent to the inclusion of East .Prussia and Posen and Galicia in a new free Poland is too preposterous to be entertained—to say nothing of Poland's 'claim, which the Allies must of necessity consider, for an outlet to the i Baltic Sea. In any cAse, the numerous ', projects put forward by Austria and ; Germany for tie erection of Poland into 'a minor kingdom, to (be ruled by a iHabsburg or Hohenzollern princeling, jhave opened the eyes of the Poles, and : prepared them for the destiny that must await them if the Central Powers win. i They would, of course, regard such a ! fate as an intolerable servitude that : would put an end for ever to their hopes ' of liberty and eel-government, and therefore they are prepared to resist it ', to the last extremity. And, quite apart I from their dearly cherished political ambitions and their nationalist ideals, I the Poles have had a terrible experience :©f the true meaning of German rule and i' - kultur," not only before the war, but i more especially since the waves of injvasion have swept , over, their

hapless country. The. atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in Poland, and the misery endured by the Poles through the foreign occupation, have produced an indelible impression upon the proud and imaginative people; and we can hardly wonder that, after the brutal desecration of the famous shrine at Czcnstochowa., when the eacred picture of the Virgin, revered by many generations of Poles, was robbed of its jewels and replaced by the portrait of the Kaiser, the Hohenzolle.rns became in the eyes of the Polish peasantry veritable incarnations of the Powers of Evil made vieible on earth.

Xo doubt the Germane, with their characteristic short-sightod incapacity for understanding other nations, despise the. Pole?, and ridicule the idea that the scattered remnants of the race tan make any serious difference to the military or political eituation either now or in the future. But though broken and oppressed and spread abroad throughout the world the Poles are a power by no means to be ignored or contemned. A singularly high-spirited, patriotic, and adventurous people, they fought most gallantly for freedom a« long as hope was left, and then, rather than bear tlie yoke of slavery, they left, their beloved land in millions, carrying with them throughout the world their lovo of freedom and their haired of despotism. In this Way, as events may yet prove, the Polos have been able to avenge themselves on the tyrannical Powers that oppressed and destroyed them. The first two partitions of Poland (1772 and 1793) -were deliberate acts of plunder and spoliation suggested and instigated by Prussia, and tarried out with the help of Austria ami Russia, and the Poles have never forgotten that the Germans were the real perpetrators of those great crime?. "Xo sophistry in the world," says an eminent historian, "'can' extenuate the villainy of the second partition"; but it is some satisfaction to us, as well as to the Poles, to know that "the annihilation of the Polish nationality has probably done more to endanger the monarchies of Europe than any one political act accomplished since the monarchies of Europe were first founded." Dispersed like the Jews throughout the world, outcasts and exiles, everywhere they have boon the harbingers of revolution. They have fought in all the wars that have been -waped for the past hundred ycare in every land against tyranny, "nomeleas and fearless, schooled in mr and made reckless by calamity, they have been the h-eralds of revolution wherever they have been scattered by the winds of misfortune." Poland was "the first martyr of the national idea": but there is now room for hope that the long vigil of this heroic people—"a soul, as it were, wandering in search of a body in which to begin life over again"—is near its end; and the dawn of freedom for Poland may well portend the annihilation and overthrow of that Hohcnzollcrn tyranny from which all its woes have sprung.