Page:The New Europe - Volume 3.djvu/448

 created. The whole nation entered this struggle In August, 1914, then, an idea was born—the idea of the Polish State, to be realised through Austria-Hungary. This idea enjoyed full publicity for two years. The deeds of the legions shone openly in the sun, and words fail us in their praise. Since 1 May, 1915, the great day of Gorlice, the Kingdom of Poland has been free, and we are the last who would not remember with deepest gratitude to-day the struggles and sacrifices of all those races who have fought and bled to free Poland from the Russian yoke. But everything has been done to set up the backs (schikanieren) of the Poles in the most incredible manner. The legions were put under the command of an espionage bureau, and an attempt was made to pass them off as Austrian Militia. Galicia was treated as a foreign country, contributions were levied, people who knew no Polish were sent to Galicia, and each of them made a policy of his own. This explains the bitterness which set in in 1916, when gallows and murder made their entrance into Galicia. Some speak of 30,000 executions; others say there were twice that number. They hanged people without in the least knowing why. I will content myself with one instance instead of many. A village idiot whom the commune wanted to get rid of was sent as driver to the Kingdom of Poland. He came back with three roubles in.his pocket, was stopped by the German army, and when the three roubles were discovered, was seized and promptly hanged. What has the Railway Minister’s friend and protégé, the Chief-Gallows-Architect (Obergalgenbaurat) Heine, to say to that? If he says that far too few have been hanged [the Pangerman deputy Heine’s interjection to this effect during the previous day’s debate had raised a perfect storm of fury in the House] we can only look down upon him with the cold contempt which one has for a man of his type, and need not take too seriously these German bourgeois idealists, who seem to have gone wild and degenerate owing to the present shortage of beer.”

Mr. Daszynski dealt with later events in Galicia, the appointment of three successive generals to the post of governor, the positive mania of censorship and espionage, and then the historic proclamation of 5 November, 1916 [Galician autonomy], and declared that “for the Polish question no other solution is possible save either the Polish State or a transition to that state.” The claim to access to the sea meant, he explained, access down the Vistula to the port of Danzig, and this was equally in Germany’s interest.

The Czech National Socialist, Mr. Stribmy, protested vigorously against the persecution of the Czechs, against whose will this war has been undertaken. Five deputies belonging to his party were still in prison, and, in the case of their leader, Mr. Klofač, every law had been set at defiance. The suspension of civil rights leads to the conception of certain citizens as politically suspicious and unreliable: and for such a verdict an anonymous denunciation suffices, the victim never finding out who accused him and what he is accused of. He dealt with the treatment of interned victims—among them women, girls, and old men—who were removed in chains, generally in filthy cattle-