Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/161

Rh amongst the three Empires of Central Europe, and that Poland was deleted from the map of Europe. This is not the place to recall the tragic history of the nation since the Partition. In Austria the Poles rose and failed, they rose again and succeeded, and were granted autonomy. In Prussia the Poles were too weak, and the army of the Hohenzollern too strong to give any chance to the rebels; they had, therefore, to be content with opposing a passive and sullen resistance to unjust laws. But most poignant of all was the national tragedy in Russia. The Poles rose in 1830, they rose again in 1863, and once more they rose in 1905. Each time they were unsuccessful. After each revolution, they have been governed with more ruthless severity. Oppression, rebellion, and repression have been the three recurrent phases in the monotonous drama of Russian Poland. To a superficial observer, the story of the Polish nation may appear to be, on the whole, a history of national failure, but as in Ireland, so in Poland, the people have really triumphed. For their spirit has never been broken. The strength of the three great military powers has not been equal to the indomitable resistance of a poverty-stricken, disarmed, dismembered race.