THE ANCIENT POLISH CAPITAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13645, 27 March 1915, Page 3

THE ANCIENT POLISH CAPITAL.

Cracow, against which the Russians are. now operating, is me ancient/ c*p«tal ot the roles. io it turn the thoughts of Poland's sons m all parts of the world with passionate fervor. Something of the xeelirigs it excites m them has been shown iv an appeal piuohstteu by M. U. do Kosco-Bogdanowicz, who is fearful that the Russians, provoked to reprisals by what the Germans nave done m Belgium and France, may xen'o their anger upon tho walls pf Wawel, the Polish cathedral m Cracow. lnu tear is probably without grounds, but the spirit which animates the Poles breathes m <the impassioned reminder of the appeal that "there our great kings, oui' great heroes, our great poets sleep their last sleep. Its atones tell us thehistory of our glorious past, as those of Westminster speak of the history of England. We drape the walls of Wawel, hot with the purple that Westminster wears for the coronation of your kings, but ih black, the only garb that bents the prayer they overhear ascending to Heaven for the repose of /the souls of the kings of Poland. For a century and a-half they have borne no other trappings. " Apart from considerations of sentiment, no little military importance attaches to the possession of Cracow, which has a normal population of about 150,000. Standing on' 'the Vistula, not" far from the point wnere the Russian, German, and Austrian Empires meet, it is an Austrian fortress of the first-class, with a garrison m tymes oi peace of close on 10,000 men.' In some' ways it is the natural centre of the present Eastern theatre of war. Discussing this region m "Some Rough War Notes," which he contributes to <tlie October number of the Geographical Journal, Professor L. W. Lyde says : — "The natural objective here of all traffic, whether from "the Black Sea and the Dniester Valley, or from the Adriatic and the Moravian Gate, or froni the Baltic and the Vistula Valley, is Cracow, m a region of dense Polish population, which overlaps on to tlie great mining area of south-eastern Silesia. Here is a typical group, of frontiersmen and; miners, but overwhelmingly Slav m, both character and sympathy; and the Slav predominance is found all over the poor land 'along the right bank of the Oder to within sight almost 'of Breslau."