Duchy of Warsaw

“ In Galicia, Cracow, escaping the general shipwreck, is constituted ‘for all time coming’ (à perpétuité) a free, neutral and independent town. The transformation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw into the kingdom of Poland, under the Russian crown, leaves the name of the country still diplomatically existing, and it leaves it also as the nucleus of reconstruction, the centre of attraction. The Prussian division gets the name of Grand Duchy of Posen, that it may preserve a distinct character in the whole monarchy of Frederick II. ”

“ In 1807, in the grand duchy of Warsaw, after it was retaken from Prussia, the condition of the peasantry was far more clear and protected than even now promised by the Czar Alexander II., and was probably better preserved than it can be under the crowd of employés and magistrates, nominally elected by the peasants, but in fact imported from Saratow, Kazan, Penza, etc., for the purpose of teaching liberty and Siberian civilization in Warsaw and Wilna. ”

“ Napoleon's anxiety to conciliate Russia effectually prevented him from making Poland large and strong enough to be self-supporting. The grand-duchy of Warsaw originally consisted of about 1850 sq. m., to which Western Galicia and Cracow, about 900 sq. m. more, were added in 1809. The grand-duchy was, from first to last, a mere recruiting-ground for the French emperor. Its army was limited, on paper, to 30,000 men ”

“ On which side is justice, prosperity, and peace?"
"On the side of the great man whose gigantic strength has lifted the world out of its hinges, and given it a new aspect," she said, gravely. "Stand faithfully by the alliance with France, unless you wish the crown to fall from the head of your king, and Prussia to be divided into two provinces, one annexed to the kingdom of Westphalia, and the other to the duchy of Warsaw." ”

“ For most of these improvements, however, the preparation had already been made, in the last ten years before the dissolution of the republic. The emancipation of the serfs, who comprised the whole peasantry, one of the fundamental laws of the duchy of Warsaw in 1807, was confirmed at the creation of the kingdom of Poland in 1815. In the diet of the kingdom, not only the nobility and the government, but also the cities and smaller communities, had their own representatives; and all Christian denominations acquired equal political rights. ”

“ To be sure they have contributed much silver from Czenstochowa to the national treasury, for the Fatherland, for Poland, as the Lord God himself bids; his altars are always the treasury of the Fatherland. Why, in the Duchy of Warsaw we have a Polish army of a hundred thousand, perhaps soon there will be more. ”

“ On the 21st of May in Vienna the emperor signed the manifesto calling upon all the powers who observed the laws of truth and piety to take up arms against the usurper of the French throne. In the same manifesto the annexation to Russia of the greater part of the former duchy of Warsaw was announced: “Security is thus given to our frontiers, a firm defence is raised, calumnies and inimical attempts are repulsed, and the ties of brotherhood [493] renewed between races mutually united by a common origin. ”

“ Warsaw has earned the flowers that grace it today. Though battered by the chaos of the second World War and stifled by the strictures of the Cold War, the people of Poland have continued to rebuild their beloved capital. Brick by brick, building by building, the beauty and majesty that defined Warsaw for centuries are being reborn to a generation of Poles who have just recently discovered the blessings of freedom. ”

“ Constantine was charged to change all this; Warsaw must become a great and brilliant capital; therefore theatres, palaces, monuments, barracks, handsome squares, and light well-paved streets arose as if by enchantment. The rude city of the ancient republic vanished from fashionable eyes, and a graceful be-stuccoed imperial creation took its place. The squalid dwellings of the poor disappeared, and the poor were drafted off to build canals or make roads through the forests of the kingdom, and to die by hundreds of hunger and misery. ”

“ I have already told you that on the Vistula, half-way between the German fortress of Thorn and the Galician frontier, stands the great city of Warsaw. [153] It is not only a great place of manufactures, but a powerful fortress and the capital of Russian Poland, which contains twelve million people—Poles, Germans, Russians, and half a score other races. Amongst these mixed peoples Germany had many friends who would spy for her, and otherwise help her to win the city. ”

“ It is a Russian custom, imported among others into the free kingdom of Poland, when the great empire of the north cast the shadow of its protecting wing over the land that is watered by the Vistula. So, no man may come or go in Warsaw without having his movements carefully noted by one who is directly responsible to the authorities for the good name of the house under his care. ”

“ Laid desolate by many wars and subjected to despotic rule, the country around Warsaw bears little evidence of prosperity. Many houses are without tenants, and many farms are either half tilled or wholly without cultivation. The spirit of revolution springs eternal in the Polish breast, and the spirit of suppression must be equally enduring in the breast of the Russian. It is only by the severest measures that the Russians can maintain their control of Poland. ”

“ If you are obstinate enough to go on dreaming of a separate nationality, of an independent Poland and chimeras of that kind the only possible result will be that you will bring disaster on your own heads. I have built a fortress here and I assure you that on the slightest symptom of revolt I will have the town bombarded. I will destroy Warsaw, and most assuredly it will not be I who will rebuild it. ”

“ To murder a man is something palpable, and so obviously damnable. But to blot a nation out of being, to strike down the life of a people and bury it out of sight for ever, this is what has been done for poor Poland, and we have only to drop a tear over her grave, enter a protest in the name of human rights, and pass on. The most extensive portion of ancient Poland is under Russia, the most populous in the grasp of Austria, and the most commercial is held by Prussia. Warsaw is the unwilling serf of Russia. ”

“ This year was fatal to the liberty of Poland. Driven to insurrection by the faithless and tyrannical conduct of Nicholas, betrayed by France, deserted by England, and persecuted in their low estate by Austria and Prussia, the Poles, after heroically struggling with the armies of Eussia, were finally subdued. Warsaw was captured; the Polish armies disbanded; the nobles degraded; and thousands of every rank, age, and sex subjected to the most cruel punishments, and the nationality of the country destroyed, so far as human ingenuity could accomplish so fell a destruction. ”

“ Alone, and abandoned to her own resources, Poland must evidently succumb; she must sink under the weight of arms, still more under the weight of oppression. Then, surely, the last words had been said, the last resistance conquered, and all was really at an end. On the contrary, nothing was finished; and this is the curious point, the great moral, so to speak, of the events which for the last two months agitate Warsaw and all Polish countries. ”

“ But Warsaw, like the Carthage of old, must fall at last; though the excited spirit of patriotism may cover its fall, with a glory which will not fade. But we fear almost to read of partial successes. [Pg 458] The generous enthusiasm of the Poles for political independence, is identified with the best interests, the security and permanent repose of Europe; it has not failed to achieve brilliant actions in its contest against the fearful odds of an immense empire; it may perform yet more honourable deeds upon the great theatre of the contest ”

“ For whereas the capitals of countries elsewhere are generally the object of the rulers' care, almost of their tenderness, and cities elsewhere from mere self-love take heed of beauty and convenience, and strive to provide as great attractions for country folks and for foreigners as possible, Warsaw is the capital of a country whose existence the government does not recognise, and is a city whose pride the government wishes to humble in every way. ”

“ What, however, struck a stranger most, was the throngs of humanity that enlivened the streets and squares of Warsaw, the capital of a nation composed of a medley of Poles, Lithuanians, Red and White Russians, Germans, Muscovites, Jews, and Wallachians, and the residence of a numerous temporary and permanent foreign population. ”

“ She has cities which have been captured and occupied seven separate times since 1914 by the armies of seven separate nations. She is sick of war. She has elected a peasant for her prime minister—a man who belongs to the class which gains nothing but sorrow from bloodshed. All that Poland asks from the New Year is the quiet in which to convalesce from her wounds, so that she may gather strength to construct her nationhood along the lines of states-manly righteousness. As the clocks above Warsaw struck the hour of midnight, the prayer in every heart was, “God give us peace with the New Year.” ”

“ On 8 September 1831, a voice rang through the world similar to that of the angel in the Apocalypse, announcing the fall of towns and empires; that voice, as incoherent as a death-rattle or last expiring sigh, formulated itself in these terrible words on 16 September: "Poland has just fallen! Warsaw is taken!" We know how this news was announced to the Chamber of Deputies by General Sébastiani. "Letters I have received from Poland," he said, in the session of 16 September, "inform me that PEACE reigns in Warsaw." ”

“ No other city in all Europe has so many private palaces and elegant mansions as may be seen in an hour's stroll about Warsaw; but the architecture is often gaudy and in bad taste. Here for centuries there were but two classes or grades of society; namely, the noble, and the peasant. A Polish noble was by law a person who possessed a freehold estate, and who could prove his descent from ancestors formerly possessing a freehold, who followed no trade or commerce, and who was at liberty to choose his own habitation. ”

“ In moving westward, by this route Russia would be moving among a race who, in spite of all they had suffered at the hands of the Czar, still would naturally prefer Slav to Teuton.
We shall soon stand with the invading armies in the center of Russian Poland, and enter the great city of Warsaw. This conquered citadel with more than 400,000 inhabitants, is situated on the Vistula. It was, next to Paris, the most brilliant city of Europe in the early part of last century. But under Russian influence it became a provincial town in spirit, if not in size. ”

“ Not only has Russian Poland more than her share of the industrial unrest, prevalent all over Europe, but that industrial unrest is complicated by constant political and religious troubles, by the conflict between conquerors and conquered, between Greek Orthodox and Uniats and Roman Catholic. Warsaw, once the gayest of cities, is now one of the saddest. Occupied by a Russian army corps, she gives the impression of a beleaguered city. Any autonomous political life, or even any free expression of political opinion, are paralyzed. ”

“ The Russian garrisons in Lithuania were not strong, and might easily have been overpowered by a sudden attack. When once the population of Warsaw had risen in arms against Nicholas, the only possibility of success lay in the extension of the revolt over the whole of the semi-Polish provinces, and in a general call to arms. But beside other considerations which disinclined the higher aristocracy at Warsaw to extreme measures, they were influenced by a belief that the Powers of Europe might intervene on behalf of the constitution of the Polish kingdom as established by the treaty of Vienna ”

“ It was a light to guide and warm a noble people to attempt their national redemption from the hand of a foreign and tyrannical master. A contest took place in the streets of Warsaw, between the people and the Russian troops, and the latter were expelled the city. Subsequently the grand duke was obliged to retire from the frontier, but not till it had been represented to him that it was the universal wish of the nation that the constitution should be carried into complete execution ”

“ The new doctrines gained ground there in spite of severe persecution. Warsaw became the capital in 1569. The power and arrogance of the nobles grew; the necessity for unanimity in the votes of the Diet gave them a weapon to stop all progress and all correction of their own malpractices. Sigismund III. made unsuccessful attempts to seize the crowns of Russia and Sweden. In the middle of the 17th century a terrible struggle against Russia, Sweden, Brandenburg and the Cossacks ended in the complete defeat of Poland, from which she never recovered. ”

“ The Polish generals, though at the head of but 45,000 men, whilst the enemy had 150,000, long discouraged any but regular warfare, and were resolved, since the contest was almost hopeless, that the country should die according to strict scientific rule. They concentrated the whole of their forces around the capital, and fatally induced the belief that the hopes of Poland were bound up with the safety of Warsaw. ”

“ When therefore the nobles of these provinces declared that Poland must be reconstituted with the limits of 1772, and subsequently took up arms in concert with the insurrectionary Government at Warsaw, the Russian people, from the Czar to the peasant, felt the struggle to be nothing less than one for the dismemberment or the preservation of their own country, and the doom of Polish nationality, at least for some generations, was sealed. ”