THE POLISH COUP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 26

THE POLISH COUP

ULTIMATUM TO LITHUANIA MAKING OF MODERN HISTORY LETTER FROM NEW ZEALANDER The following extract from a letter written by Mr Norman Davis, a Dunedin Rhodes Scholar, to his parents gives some interesting sidelights on the Polish coup in Lithuania, which occurred some two and a-half months ago:— It is unfortunate that things take so long to get to New Zealand from here; otherwise a timely topical article might have been worth while. By the time this reaches you the news will be very stale, but perhaps it will be still interesting as illustrating the potentialities for trouble existing in this part of Europe. A short period of residence in a small and struggling land like this makes one realise forcibly that people living in the new countries have not the faintest conception of just how lucky they are to have no frontiers with any other country, and to be sure of the protection of Britain if they were attacked. The story of this particular dispute is somewhat thus:

Early History Recalled

You no doubt know that Lithuania became part of Poland some hundreds of years ago, and later on they both became part of RussiaAfter the War they' regained their independence; but very soon after the treaties were made, Poland seized Vilna, or Vilnius, or Wilno, or whatever you like to call it, which had beep the ancient capital of Lithuania, and had been given to them under the peace treaty They also seized a considerable chunk of land round the city, and stuck to it. Lithania could do nothing about it, since she had no allies and was very weak in comparison with Poland; and a disgraceful council of ambassadors in 1933 assigned Vilna formally to Poland. Lithuania, however, refused to recognise this, and still regarded Vilna as the capital of Lithuania —even the new constitution, promulgated only about a month ago, states that Vilna is the capital, and that Kaunas is only provisional.

The frontier between Poland and Lithuania has been closed to all traffic for 18 years, and there have been no diplomatic relations between the countries. It was impossible even to send a letter direct to Poland: one had to send it to a friend in some foreign country, such as Germany, and get him to readdress it to Poland. This may have been foolish and. fanatical, but it shows what the Lithuanians felt about it. There were often enough incidents between the soldiers on the frontier, hut nothing much came of them until this week, A Frontier Incident

On Friday, March 11, about 5 in the morningi 3 Lithuanian sentry saw a Polish soldier moving among the bushes on the Lithuania side of the border; he told his superior officer, who called on the man to stop. But instead of stopping the Pole fired a shot, and one of the Lithuanians returned the fire and wounded him so badly that he died soon afterwards, It seems clear that the place wag definitely on the Lithuanian appears, so that the Pole must-have been in the wrong. However that may be, Poland, of courge, raised a storm, and Lithuania offered the usual apologies. Normally, this should have closed the incident, but the mlitary dictatorship of Poland had clearly taken a lesson from Hitler, and sent an ultimatum on Thursday demanding the immediate resumption of diplomatic relations and the opening of the frontier The Lithuanians were given 48 hours to agree, and they were allowed to make no qualifications of the conditions. The formula of reply was even subjoined to the Note, and only the signature was required One hundred thousand Pplish troops were moved up to the frontier. There was obviously only one thing for Lithuania to do. If Poland attacked in the south, Germany would certainly come in and talte Memel in the north France could not gfford to help Lithuania, because the friendship of Poland is clearly worth more to her; and Britain would do nothing without France, even if she would have with her. which is unlikely. Russia was thus the only hope, and she has other worries internally at present, so was not a very strong hope.

Ultimatum Accepted

Some of the Lithuanian Ministers were in favour of resisting as a matr ter of principle, though they knew it would be suicide, but finally they gave in, and yesterday about noon it was announced that the ultimatum had been accepted. It is another sorry story of the domination of a small country by a large 1 and bullying neighbour. In itselt, ! the result is not bad Poland wants the frontier opened so that she may have access to the sea at Memel as well as through the corridor, which is inadequate for her increasing export trade, and Lithuania should profit materially from the through traffic But, of course, the recognition of the frontier involves the abandonment of all claim to Vilna, and the campaign for its recovery has been a cardinal point of the policy of the Government, and especially of the President. For sentimental reasons, therefore, the Lithuanians naturally feel pretty bad about it. And they fear, no doubt with justice, that later Poland will adopt the same sort of tactics towards them as Germany has lust got away with in Austria. So it has been a week of great interest and some anxiety, If the Cabinet had refused lo accept the ultimatum. Poland would have attacked at once, and Lithuania could not have resisted longer than a few weeks, if that The behaviour of Poland was, of course, quite indefensible, and out of all proportion to the provocation. In fact, the frontier incident was used simply as an excuse to give some colour of justice to their gangsterism; one more illustration of the high moraj tone of international politics, and one more result of letting the bullies get away with their earlier efforts Situation Well Handled

There was a ,great deal of demonstrating and shouting in Warsaw, but the Liths behaved very well indeed. In fact, my opinion of the nation has risen out of all sight in the last* week. There were no signs of scare, no demonstrations, everything was quiet all the time. The only indication of anxiety was the

long queues at the newspaper booths when each new edition came out A good show, I thought. One of the most interesting things from my point of view was to compare the opinions of pry local acquaintances; one of my pupils, now an old lady, was born a Polish countess, but married a Lith. She still retains a distinct Polish bias, and regards the change with satisfaction; on the other hand my landlady, a pure Lith, says that every real Lithuanian wept at the news, and that she would rather have had a war now than be absorbed in Poland later; she knows something about the Polish treatment of Liths, since she was in Vuna when they took it. It has been an interesting time—: one has seen something of the making of modern history. And the greatest impression left after all the tension has slackened is a feeling of profound sympathy for a, small but proud nation, determined on freedom, and just getting on its feet after hundreds of years of subjection, which is thus brought to realise that its existence depends on the caprice of some arrogant general who might desire some personal prestige or minor economic advantage; and with that is a feeling of even more profound gratitude for one’s good fortune in haying a British passport, Still, even Britain to-day is not so comfortable as New Zealand. New Zealand and Australia, even more than the other dominions, may regard themselves as about the most fortunate people in a pretty unfortunate world.