matters.” Their ultimate aim was to secure additional manpower against Russia. This settlement was not welcomed by Austria. She “had accepted unwillingly the German scheme as to Poland . . . but she hoped by her scheme of Galician autonomy so to embarrass the German settlement as to revive the Austrian solution which Berlin had rejected."[1]
The independence of Poland was acknowledged on Dec. 20 by a joint Allied note and later in 1917 it was acknowledged by the Revolutionary Government in Russia.
The first attempt of the German Government to organize the new state was not successful. General von Beseler (primarily a savant and geographer), who as military governor held the chief power, issued a decree arranging for the election of 70 members of the Diet in the German sphere of occupation; eight members of the Council of State were to be chosen by these 70, whilst four others and the chairman were to be chosen by the governor-general; all resolutions of the Council of State were subject to the assent of the two governors-general. The unpopularity of this proposed organization was so great that certain modifications were introduced, and the following scheme adopted: the two Governments were to nominate immediately a council of 25, 15 from the German sphere and 10 from the Austrian; they were to elect their own chairman; they had power to regulate internal affairs and economic reconstruction and were to cooperate in the formation of a Polish army. The Council was composed eventually of 11 Conservatives, but no National Democrats, 8 of the Central party (pro-Austrians) and 6 of the Left (Socialists). It was liable to be over-ruled by von Beseler.
The powers of the Council were fairly extensive. “Education and justice were handed over to them practically without reserve; and for the first time for many years the native tongue was again heard in the schools and in the courts of law. Local representative bodies were called into being in the towns and in the country; and in Warsaw the municipality received control of all the public services, including police, prisons, posts (municipal), public sanitation and hygiene.”[2] The finances were handed over to the Council “except in so far as the costs of the occupation” were concerned. A Minister of Political Affairs was appointed but he might hold official relations only with the Central Powers.
One of the first problems facing the new Council in 1917 was that of the economic reconstruction of the country. In his History of the War, John Buchan gives the following description of the condition of Poland under the German domination—“The German policy demanded a wholesale destruction and . . . Poland was methodically laid waste. . . . Only blackened ruins marked the site of villages, and since the German army ate up all supplies, famine stalked through the land. . . . The material damage can scarcely be estimated ... all labour and industry have been swept away.” In addition to the devastation, the currency was depreciated and the Customs, which might have provided revenue, were to go to Germany and Austria.
The Council was responsible for the drawing up of a constitution. A committee was formed in which all shades of opinion were represented. It was decided that a Ministry and a Senate should hold office until a genuine National Assembly could be established. As regards political matters the Council demanded that there should be a regent: that they should be given more control over local government: and that existing ordinances should be modified. These demands were not accepted by von Beseler.
The chief question which occupied the Council was that of the army. Pilsudski was attempting to raise a strong national army which would give the Council more chance of enforcing its decisions, but he was not prepared to raise it for German use.
The meeting of Council in which the political demands were formulated took place on May 1. Only unimportant concessions in education and justice were made, therefore on May 17 the Council suspended its functions, though through German intimidation it was forced to resume them on June 9. At the beginning of July three resolutions were passed: proposals for a regency, a Cabinet and a Senate were accepted; a military oath was to be taken exacting loyalty to the Central Powers and to the future king of Poland (thus excluding a republic); and a recruiting appeal was made. These resolutions proved the submission of the Council to Germany, and in protest Pilsudski and five of his supporters resigned.
After the passing of these resolutions on July 3 the Council was discredited. It had failed to cope satisfactorily with the economic crisis and it had failed to produce a practical settlement with regard to the army. As matters stood the army could be used against the Russians but not against the Austrians or the Germans. Finally the Council was discredited by the attitude of the Austrian Poles. The Government had delayed the grant of increased autonomy to Galicia and on May 28 the resentment of the Galician Poles culminated in a conference of Polish members of the Galician Diet and of the Austrian Reichsrat, in which they declared that “the desire of the Polish nation was to have restored an independent and united Poland with access to the sea.” On July 30 Polish discontent was further increased by the arrest of Pilsudski, and a month later the Council resigned.
After the failure of the Council a regency project was introduced. By this scheme there was to be a regency of three, a Cabinet and Premier and a Council of State. The Premier and the Council of State were to be chosen by the Regency Council subject to the approval of the Central Powers. The functions of the Polish authorities were limited to education, justice, public welfare, agriculture, and finance as far as it concerned the departments assigned to their care. They might legislate on matters handed over to them but the German and Austrian governors-general had the right of veto within a fortnight of the completion of the bill. The regency had no control over the army.
Such was the position of the Polish Government at the beginning of 1918. The German domination seemed more complete than it had ever been before. In 1916 the Poles could extract concessions from the Germans in view of the fact that their help was needed against the Russians. That help was no longer necessary, therefore concessions were no longer forthcoming.
When the negotiations opened at Brest Litovsk the Polish Government asked the Central Powers to admit its representatives. In spite of “weighty declarations” made at Berlin the demand was ignored and the Poles were excluded from the conference. On Feb. 9 the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed. As far as Poland was concerned the important clause of the Treaty was that which ceded Chelm to the Ukraine. On Aug. 17 1917 the Provisional Government of Russia had recognized Ukrainian autonomy. The Ukrainian state was composed roughly of the following territory: the western parts of the Governments of Lublin and Grodno, and the whole of the Governments of Kiev, Poltava, Kherson, Volhynia, Kharkov, Podolia, Yekaterinoslav, and Chernigov and excluded the Austrian Ukraine. On Nov. 20 1917 the Ukraine declared itself to be a republic and on Jan. 11 1918 the delegates of the Ukrainian Republic were formally recognized at Brest by the Central Powers. The territory of Chelm, which was ceded to the Ukraine at this Treaty, had been handed over to Poland by Austria only in June 1916, but its ownership had been disputed for many years and it had already before been in the possession of the Poles.
As a protest against the lack of consideration shown them at Brest the Cabinet, under Kuchazewski, resigned and the Poles issued a formal protest against the violation of their rights. This, however, made little difference to the German policy, which demanded that Poland should “completely give over all those greater hopes which might be inconvenient to Germany.” This policy was emphasized later in the year when Adml. von Hintze in a speech to the Reichstag proposed an economic union with Poland on the basis of a Customs union or Zollverein, that is to say on the basis of free trade between Poland and Germany.
In April the Poles made a statement of their programme at the Congress at Rome. They declared their aim to be “Reunion into one independent state of all the Polish lands, including those which the Central Empires are refusing to restore to Poland and those which they are bestowing as largess on their vassals.” It
