Poland

“ Poles! with what indignation I endure
Th’ half-pitying servile mouths that call you poor;
Poor! is it England mocks you with her grief,
That hates, but dares not chide, th’ Imperial Thief?
France with her soul beneath a Bourbon’s thrall,
And Germany that has no soul at all,—
States quailing at the giant overgrown,
Whom dauntless Poland grapples with alone?
No, ye are rich in fame e’en whilst ye bleed:
We cannot aid you—we are poor indeed!
In Fate’s defiance—in the world’s great eye,
Poland has won her Immortality! ”

“ Such a tribute as this would of itself be sufficient to turn the heart expectantly towards Poland, to say nothing of the interest her history has for the brain. The history of Poland is one long struggle for home and country. The Pole is a patriot by inheritance. His patriotism, goes deeper than his love.
His country comes first in his soul, and for that reason the Poles have in me an enthusiastic ally, an ardent admirer, and a sympathetic friend. ”

“ In the places of many of the old Polish cities, it is said, that dense forests have now sprung up; that the traveller, as he makes his way through their interminable shades, finds the pavement of streets and the relics of deserted towns in the midst of a lifeless solitude. And now, that the sum of evils may be full, the nation of the Poles seems destined to a fall, from which there will be to them no further resurrection.
Yet the former history of Poland hardly palliates the position which the sovereigns and states of Europe have assumed towards her. ”

“ Poland furnishes just this element in history. Her struggles are so romantic, her follies so charmingly natural to a high-strung nation, her despair so profound, her frequent revolutions so buoyant in hope, that she reminds me of a brilliant woman striving to make dull women understand her, and failing as persistently and completely as the artistic temperament always fails. ”

“ Free and uninfluenced, the population of Poland shall choose its own fate. For my part I attach no great weight to the form of the people's vote in this respect; the more surely it expresses the general wish of the people, the better I shall be pleased. For I desire only the voluntary attachment of Poland; only in the express wish of Poland itself toward that end can I see any guarantee for lasting harmony. It is my unalterable conviction that the Polish question must not be allowed to delay the signing of peace by a single day. ”

“ It is, indeed, a curious thing that the people of Poland have been the ‘last to step down into the arena of to-day at that name of “nationality” which serves as a watchword to all other revolting populations.’ Yet Poland was the first and the only country in whose favour such a word was hinted at by the Congress of Vienna, when it was inscribed in treaties, as if to render a marked homage to heroic misfortune, and, while tempering by guarantees the way in which Poland was abandoned, to maintain the mockery of an ideal ‘nationality,’ in spite of territorial division. ”

“ Then Poland, during the last hundred years, has had a legion of poets, all singularly gifted and inspired, and she still possesses a flourishing and varied literature; for her language has remained, although she has not had the freedom of her schools. Is the love of the past and its traditions required? Then that feeling has been both evident and rampant for the last year. Must there be originality of life and manners? Polish manners have preserved all the savour of their nationality, and, most assuredly, have not been influenced by Russia. ”

“ POLAND A SYMBOL A weighty, and for Poland a decidedly happy, result of the foreign rule has been the welding and uniting of everything Polish. All provincial differences have vanished in this unity; the different parts of Poland, Austrian, Russian, and Prussian Poles feel that they are without exception one people. ”

“ Poland is the geographic heart of Europe, but more importantly, in the Polish people, we see the soul of Europe. Your nation is great because your spirit is great and your spirit is strong. (Applause.) ”

“ There is no doubt whatever but that every little girl and every little boy has heard of the country of Poland, and of its inhabitants the Polacks, or Poles, as you hear them more often spoken of. But there are countless numbers of these same children, I fear, who have not the slightest idea where Poland lies, except in a most vague way; nor how the people live, what they eat, what their pleasures and enjoyments are, and how they dress. ”

“ Home rule for Poland had long been a favorite plan with the Czar. Now he promised, not only to give Russian Poland home rule, but to add to it the Polish peoples in Austria and Germany. This meant that Austria and Germany would have to give up Galicia on the one hand, and Prussian Poland on the other, if they should lose the war. In the old days Poland had been one of the greatest kingdoms in Europe, with a proud nobility and high civilization. ”

“ Will Poland, so long known for its humanity, be cruel only to us; will you permit us the Lord's anointed, the old teachers of the youth of Poland, to go begging our bread on the streets, with our garments in rags, and exposed to insults; will you permit that our tears and our cries which are forced from us by the grief and abandonment to which we are reduced should add to the affliction of our country; will you permit that our country should be accused of inhumanity and insulted because it withholds our pension? ”

“ For over a hundred years Poland had been a dismembered kingdom, part of which belonged to the Tsar, part to the German, part to the Austrian Empire, and yet the course of the war has caused all the allied countries in turn to demand and to reiterate their demand for the independence of Poland. ”

“ The only course that remains to a reconstituted Poland is the elaboration, establishment, and preservation of the most correct method of political relations with neighbours to whom Poland’s existence is bound to be a humiliation and an offence. Calmly considered it is an appalling task, yet one may put one’s trust in that national temperament which is so completely free from aggressiveness and revenge. ”

“ That vast plain, of which no hill relieves the melancholy uniformity, is the once mighty Kingdom of Poland. It is true that neither the name of the country nor that of the people appears on any map of Europe, but then it is often the most important maps that are ignored by the cartographer. ”

“ The last moment of Poland, her supreme cause, salvation or eternal ruin and shame, personal freedom and national independence, or a terrible slavery and the groaning of millions of men ... the destruction of the Polish name, or her glorious place in the ranks of nations: these are the considerations that must take hold of the Polish nation, of you, citizens of Lithuania. ... Poles, now is the moment for the amendment of eternal errors. ”

“ It seems as if the Polish people have a greater love and understanding of the unseen powers of the world than is given to many other nations. If you read the story of Poland's tragic struggles against foes within and without until, finally, the stronger surrounding countries—Germany, Austria, and Russia—divided her territory as spoil among themselves and she ceased to exist as a distinct nation, you will understand why her children have sought refuge in the things of the spirit. ”

“ There is no question that the sufferings of the people of Poland have been very great, and when the history of Poland during the war comes to be written the world will stand aghast at the story of her sufferings. ”

“ All that the Poles have done since then in the glorious Polish legions and all that they will still do in the future to gain their country back, sufficiently proves that albeit we, the devoted soldiers of that country, are mortal, Poland is immortal. ”

“ The future fate of Poland is wholly dependent on that of Europe; for if the idea of the right of the people to independence, and the right of every nation to full political freedom continually gains ground in the world, then the hour is drawing near when the resurrection of Poland shall be something more than a hope. ”

“ Force alone could enchain us, force may also break the fetters which she alone has forged. These fetters shall be broken. Poland, then, shall exist,—what do we say? She exists already, or rather she has never ceased to exist. ”

“ The miracle of the armistice raised Poland from death, and now we have Warsaw as capital of a large new State. The maps of Poland in the streets, Poland as she is plus Poland as she believes she will be, show a country considerably larger than Germany. ”

“ We venture to invite public attention to a review of the history of Poland. The subject excites a deep but melancholy interest; we dread to hear the result of the glorious but unhappy conflict, in which that devoted country is engaged. We know, indeed, that the Poles will be faithful to their cause; we know, that they are encouraged by the sincere prayers of all who desire the permanent and extended welfare of the world ”

“ Such especially is the character of the Poles; they boast in the first instance of being more than they have been, but not more than they are capable of being. Poland in fact is a nation of heroes! pawning their words for exploits beyond the truth, but subsequently redeeming them with honour, in order to verify what at first was neither true nor even probable.
As to the old generals, some of them were no longer the hardy and simple warriors of the republic; honours, hard service, age, and the emperor particularly, had contributed to soften many of them down. ”

“ But the whole spirit of Poland is in these lines. No other race could see divinity in the waving plume.
Nevertheless the love of the tinsel and spangles of glory is necessarily repressed now by a deeper feeling of honour.
When I went to a ball in the town hall on my first evening in Warsaw, where a thousand people, the flower of good society in Warsaw, were assembled in the large saloon, the fact struck me that, with the exception of three Russian officers, there was not a man in the hall who wore a decoration. From his birth almost every Pole renounces decorations as well as uniforms. ”

“ Poland was a country of feudal nobles, whose inability to group under a dynasty for the formation of a modern state, made the disappearance of the kingdom an inexorable necessity in the economic evolution of Europe, and of ignorant peasants, who were indifferent concerning the political status of the land in which they lived. ”

“ While we admire the patriotism, bravery, and other virtues that adorned the characters of some individuals among the heroes of that ill-fated country, the deplorable situation of Poland should forever stand as a memento to all other nations who claim or maintain any degree of freedom. ”

“ But Poland, as a whole, has never been either Germanized or brought under lasting German rule. Holding the most central position of any European state, Poland has had to struggle against enemies from every quarter, against the Swede from the Baltic and the Turk from the Danube. ♦Rivalry of Poland and Russia.♦ But the distinguishing feature of its history has been its abiding rivalry with the Slavonic land to the east of it. The common history of Poland and Russia is a history of conquest and partition, wrought by whichever power was at the time the stronger. ”

“ Now that Poland has regained her Full Independence, it is our most fervent prayer that she may once more take her place in the community of nations and resume her career as a champion of civilisation and Christianity. ”

“ Poland recasts—though rich in heroes old,—
Her men in more and more heroic mould:
Her Eagle-ensign best among mankind
Become, and types her eagle-strength of mind:
Her praise upon my faltering lips expires:
Resume it, younger bards, and nobler lyres!
[88] The fact ought to be universally known, that France was indebted to Poland for not being invaded by Russia. When the Duke Constantine fled from Warsaw, he left papers behind him proving that the Russians, after the Parisian events in July, meant to have marched towards Paris, if the Polish insurrection had not prevented them. ”

“ Poland presents the spectacle of a nation which is not only condemned to death, but which, as Cherbuliez has said, has been buried alive, and yet which continually raises the lid of its coffin, and shows that its vital power is still far from exhausted. ”

“ The name of Poland is not found on the map of Europe. The people of Poland are not reckoned among the peoples of Europe. The freedom and welfare of its sons and daughters are in the power of foreign rulers. ”

“ Those men led Poland through the Napoleonic era, and they ruled her in the Duchy of Warsaw founded by Napoleon, and in the Kingdom of Poland established by the Congress of Vienna—which kingdom, in spite of its difficult conditions, was one of the best governed and most rapidly progressing countries in Europe. The first decades of the nineteenth century are a period of the greatest upheaval, not only as regards Polish political efforts, but also in the intellectual life of the nation. ”

“ Dismembered as she is, every new generation must amalgamate her more and more completely with the three powers who have appropriated her territory and divided the control of her people among them. We continue to speak of Poland as a distinct country, though the name is all that remains of its ancient independence. The map of Europe has long since been reconstructed in this region,—Austria, Germany, and Russia coolly absorbing the six millions of Poles, and Warsaw being the capital of Russian Poland. ”

“ He also said that he wished to speak of Poland—that one ought not to let Poland die—for she gave an example that all peoples ought to imitate; everything ought to be done to succour Poland; she alone threw herself against tyrants, she did not cry for help like other peoples, not for money nor for arms; if she had no sword she took an axe ”