GRACOW.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11112, 30 November 1914, Page 2

GRACOW.

A THREATENED CITY

Ods must approach Cracow as the : Russiaus now do, from the vast plain which stretches eastwards, in order to get a proper impression of what constitutes the great interest of the old Polish capital—the melancholy sunset of ita proud and splendid past, wrote a correspondent of the Manchester ouardian recently. It is from the east, and not, as most tourists do, from the Silesian ridges on the north-west, that one sees in their multitude the towers and turrets, the steeples and domes of Cracow, and sees them untarnished by the network of narrow, tortuous, and dirty streets i which characterise the citj T that was the glory of the Polish kingdom i when that kingdom was the rival of Russia, the suzerain of Prussia, the possessor of a mighty sword that counted for a great deal in the fortunes of Europe. For three centuries Cracow was the residence of the Polish kings. Here reigned Ka'imir the Great—great alike in process and in encouragement of peaceful arts, the author—this in the fourteenth century—of the celebrated edict of tolerance to the Jews. Here in 1386 was also celebrated the marriage between Grand Duke Jagello of Lithuania and Queen Jadviga of Poland, which fused the two States into one powerful kingdom. And hers, too, in 1525 the fatal mistake was made by King Sigismund I of granting to Albrecht of Brandenburg the Duchy of Prussia in perpetual fief—that Duchy which in course of time grew to he the Prussia of Frederick tne Great, the gravedigger of Poland. Cracow remained the royal residence of Poland till 1600, when Sigismund 111 took up his abode in Warsaw. But both he and all his successors till 1764 continued to be crowned at Cracow, and all of them were laid to eternal rest at the Cracow Katedra—the Cathedral which still survives.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century Gracow received a mortal blow from the transference of the capital to Warsaw. By that time the mad period of elective kings had already been in full swing, and Cracow repeatedly fell the victim of the rival jealousies of the candidates. In 1655 Charles ■'Gustavus of Sweden, deceived in his hopes for the Polish throne, came and sacked Cracow, disarming its citizens, expelling all its clergy and .professors, destroying its churches and schools, and exacting a heavy contribution from the inhabitants. No sooner had he gone than the Transylvanian prince, the famous Georg Rakoczy, caine and completed the work of devastation. Again, is 1703, Charles XII of Sweden, suffering defeat everywhere, wreaked his vengeance upon Cracow by first plundering and then burning ,it. His Polish protegouist, King August 11, who also was elector of Saxony, found nothing better to do than to carry off the copper roof of the royal palace to Dresden under the pretext of needing it for making cannon—-a fitting symbol of the impending doom. Russia and Prussia were already on Poland’s track, and the socalled Confederation of the Bar, with its chief seat at Cracow, was formeed in order to offer -resistance to the two preying Powers. But Suvaroff took Cracow by storm in 1773, and Poland Underwent her first partition. Twenty years later Poland was partitioned for the second time, and then the great rising under Kosciuszko broke out in 1794 with Cracow as the centre of national defence. This time it was the end of Poland. King Stanislaus resigned his crown and Cracow was taken and pillsged by the Austrians and Prussians, and the latter"carried off to Berlin the contents of the Royal Treasury—five diadema, four sceptres three globes, two golden chains, and the sword of Boleslas the Great, which had girded the loins of the Polish kings at the Coronation ceremony for seven centuries. Cracow now became an Austrian city, but with the restoration of the Duchy of Warsaw by Napoleon it was incorporated with it. By the Treaty of Vienna, which destroyed the duchy and sanctioned the threefold partition of Poland, Cracow, with a small adjacent territory, was constituted a “free, independent, and permanently neutral” republic under the “protection of the three Powers.” The outcome of this “protection” is well known. In 1846 Austria attacked and annexed the republic against the protests of England and France. Since then Cracow has been turned into a firstclass fortress and the royal palaca became a barracks and a military hospital. The University itself was first turned into a German School, but its Polish character was restored in 1870. Now the visitor to Cracow sees only the remnants of its ancient glory. St, Plprias Gate—perhaps the finest monument of Gothic architecture in Poland—still marks the site of the ancient walls. In the old market place—Ryuek Glowuy, now re christened Ringsplatz—still stand St. Marys’ Church of the thirteenth century, with its exquisite high altar, and the old Clothhouse.now containing the national museum. Not far from ic is St. Anne’s Ohurch, with the tomb of Copernicus, who, though born at Thorn, studied and died at Oiacow. Above all, there is the Cathedral, the Polish Westminster, with the tombs of the Sobieskis, the Kasmirs, the Pomatowskis, and of Kosciuszko himself, and with statues from the great chisel of Thorwaldsen. But along with these monuments the visitor will find two belts of forts — one 30, the other 13 miles in circumference, guarding the approaches to the city against a Russian attack, and barracks depots without number.