The Poland of Piłsudski, 1914-1936

When the World War broke out in 1914 the darkest hour in the long captivity of Poland appeared to be reached. The culmination of the national tragedy seemed to come when more than a million Poles were mobilized on opposite sides by the belligerent Powers. Unfortunate conscripts, they were compelled – the ultimate horror and degradation – to mutilate and kill each other, on what had been their own territory, by command of those who had riven it from them. At the moment upwards of twenty million Poles were subjects of the Russian, Austrian and German Empires: twelve millions in Russian Poland, five millions in Austrian Poland, and the rest in German Poland, as these regions were widely, if not generally, designated. On August 1, Germany, and on August 6, 1914, Austria, declared war on Russia. Henceforth to the close of the gigantic conflict, so far as Russia was concerned, the Russian Poles were arrayed against the Austrian and German Poles on the battlefields of the Eastern Front. It was inevitable that, as the main theatre of their participation in the grim struggle would be on that front, Polish lands would be exposed to devastation and ruinous losses, and Polish people endure suffering and misery...