Page:The History of The Great European War Vol 1.pdf/66

 German theologian, '"Do not be too good; do not be too just.' The Polish Press," proceeded this light of (German) Christianity, "should be simply annihilated. All Polish societies should be suppressed, without the slightest apology being made for such a measure. This summary procedure should be likewise applied to the French and Danish Press, as well as to the societies of Alsace, .Lorraine, and Schleswig-Holstein. Especially should no consideration whatever be shown to anything relating to the Poles. The Poles should be looked upon as Helots. They should be allowed but three privileges: to pay taxes, serve in the army, and shut their jaws."

We are accustomed to reprobate Russia in regard to her treatment of the Poles. We do not appreciate, as we should, the fact that on the whole the Poles are far more satisfied with Russia than with Prussia, or even Austria, as a master. Russia is at least a Slav State. Prussia is more than a merely persecuting power in Poland. What makes her presence and influence so terrible to the Poles is the systematic, methodical, and even hypocritical method, amounting even to political torture, by which she suppresses and represses, or attempts to suppress and repress, the nationality of the Poles. Prussia has attempted to crush out of existence, altogether, the Polish nation and racial ideals. She has attempted to force the Poles out of the Polish provinces of Germany, and to distribute them throughout the rest of German territory, in order that the Poles may be so dispersed and scattered as to lose all sense of solidarity and nationality. But here Prussia has failed. Notwithstanding her unconscionable methods of expropriating the land of the Poles in the Polish provinces, the Poles have yet managed, as a whole, to remain owners and masters of their provinces. And, curiously, as a result of the dispersion of the Poles, Germany, in many areas, has become permeated with Poles and Polish ideas and powerful Polish settlements, rather than become on the whole, as was desired by the Kaiser, a Teutonic ocean in which the Slav has been swallowed up. Prussian oppression and insolence in Alsace-Lorraine are well known. The incident of Zabern, only a year or two since, is yet fresh in the memory of the world.

Having regard to the utter failure of the Kaiser's methods of dealing with his subjugated peoples, it is at least curious to note German criticism of Britain as coloniser and as an Imperial Power. The Pan-Germanist is never happy unless pointing the finger of scorn at Britain, on the ground that she cannot colonise as she should if she wishes to be an Imperial Power in the true sense. Pan-Germanism points to India and says that we are doing nothing