THE POLISH-GERMAN FRONTIER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 9

THE POLISH-GERMAN FRONTIER

ISSUE PURELY ONE OF STRATEGY POLAND MUST HAVE OUTLET TO SEA By the Rt. Hon; Anthony Eden, P.C., M.P., former Secretary for Foreign Af Fairs. When at the close of the Great War the authors of the peace settlement 'came to determine the Polish-German frontier, they faced a problem which has baffled the centuries. From the earliest years of recorded history Teuton and Slav have tattled and battled to and fro across the eastern marches. Nov/ one ai)d now the other would impose his will, but whichever suffered, the loser never acquiesced. The struggle endured. j From the days of the Knights of the Teutonic Order in the fourteenth century to the Prussianisation vigorously puruued by Bismarck in the nineteenth Germany has sought to establish her rule in these debated lands, part of which to-day forms the Polish province of Pomorze.

THESE efforts, were continued to the very outbreaV of the Great War; they were never wholly ■'successful. Despite partition, despite »Prussianisation, maybe in a large •measure because of it, the strength ; bf the national Polish spirit has never flickered. : t burns unquenched to-day. The long years c'f conflict have inevitably left behind them a legacy of deep racial distrust. This distrust, amounting even to prejudice, "is" the key to many: past events in ■ Eastern Europe which cannot otherwise be understood. Faced with so formidable a historic background, \he Peace Conference, 20 years ago, 'had one important directive to guide it. The thirteenth of President Wilson's Fourteen Points reads as follows: "An independent State should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea and whose political ftnd.; economic independence and territorial integrity be guaranteed by international covenant." . , Since Germany accepted these Fourteen Points as a basis of peace, and successive German governments have called them in aid, and do so to this present day, there.-can he no occasion for disagreement thus far. '• hi "''• '•■' Ift* PolfaH «* Corridor w . if" At this stage it is'important ■ to distinguish between two problems which are often, though wrongly, associated—the so-called Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. When the Peace Conference sought to give effect to the thirteenth point quoted above, they did not in fact agree to grant to Poland all the territory, tb which ttjfcf country laid claim on the basis of population on her .western: bbrdersv,, Thei-GSr-mari. Government, made its protest and gained some important concessions. . The' final' boundary, 'was the outcome of patient and 'exhaustive study. , :."■;-:;£•, The Corridor is and always has been Polish in population; for centuries it has been proliflcally Polish also. The-figures of-'the-German census of 1910 .showed clearly a large majority of Poles ih: the territories later ceded to Poland both in West Prussia ahd. in Poznahia. if* therefore, self-determination has any meanirig, the so-called Corridor:..■ is Polish. Its inclusion in Polish territory is not due to' economic reasons alone,! nor does it form in any sense a part; of the Danzig issue.' This needs to be clearly • emphasised, for these -two. issues > are how publicly linked in German demands, and have probably always been so in German minds. The truth is • that it is East Prussia, which is a German island set in a Slav sea. If, therefore, the,choice lies between insisting that East Prussia remains, an island and thereby causing ' its , inhabitants some economic inconvenience, and depriving 33,000.000 of Poles of the outlet to the Baltic, upon which their national life depends, no cpurt of justice could hesitate for. a moment. All history goes to show that Poland cannot live without.her access to the sea. President Wilson made such "free and secure" access a condition of peace. Germany

1 accepted. That condition cannot be denied now without at the same time denying to the Polish people their right of national existence.' The Danzig Compromise Faced with the problem of ensuring for Poland this "free and secure" access to the sea. the conference in Paris set up a special commission to make proposals for the frontier between' Ger-many and Poland. This commission, which comprised distinguished representatives of the. United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, allocated not only Danzig itself to Poland, but also the railway from ' \ Danzig to Warsaw through Mlawa. After much discussion; the :corif erence revised the commission's findings. The existing solution was that arrived at and Danzig was created a Free City under the protection of the League of Nations. There may be divergent views as to the wisdom of this compromise solution. What cannot be denied is -that it represented a sincere attempt to reach a just and reasonable settlement which would at once respect the rights of the German population of the Free City of Danzig and grant Poland that outlet to the sea which v she must enjoy to live. Moreover it •should be remembered that while the form of the present arrangement is recent, the substance is not. For centuries of its history, Danzig has lived a proud, prosperous, and semiindependent existence while serving Poland as her seaport. There has in the past been criticism :, of the vagueness of the articles of the Treaty of Versailles that define Danzig's status, and there is some substance in this criticism. It • remains none the less true that if there were a will to work the present arrangement, it could be made to work. In frequent negotiations spread over the last 20 years, the Council of the League has in fact settled many difficult problems in connection with Danzig, some of which, the farmers of the Peace Treaty could hardly have been expected to foresee. The most important of these included the relations with the Polish port of Gydhia,. the rights, if any, of .the Polish.:fleet in Danzig and the protection Of the Polish minority in that city.. These issues were all settled in public; by the Council. Many more were agreed in private, in discussions which never reached the Council'table. . Any wise rapporteur preferred to work that wav. ;.■_ The Real Issua ' But it is not these questions Of detail, however important,, which are at stake how. We are faced with no mere problem of machinery which, though delicate, is always capable pf, adjustment. The issue is purely one of strategy. The main conditions of the problem are immutable. Poland must command her "free and secure" access to the sea. If Danzig be once, incorporated in the German Reich, Poland can command that access no longer „'Upon that issue there, can be no. compromise Since the days of the findings of the Special Commission ' in. : 1919; much has been yielded. No more remains to give, i ; , ,y,., '. •■'..•-./ '. " .. (Copyright, .1939, 'by Co-operation) (Reproduction,- even partially, strictly forbidden*