The White Eagle of Poland

by E. F. Benson

It is for this reason that the Yugo-Slav combination has been propounded, and for precisely the same reason the policy of the Entente demands a Poland that shall be powerful and united, not leaning for support on Germany, nor easily to be penetrated by her, but joined for all future years in sympathy and interests with the Slav nationalities that will be at her back for her support and buttressing, as she faces the power that tried to enslave her and failed. A small Poland, not uniting the vast majority of its nation, has no part in Polish aims, and it has none in the aims of the powers that will her unity. To be of practical use to them they must enable her to realize her own aspirations. To-day the powers of the Entente are facing a front of Germans and German vassals that stretches from Ypres, solid and unbroken through Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey, as far as Hit on the Euphrates. Behind it, at the disposal of the Central Empires lie the once-free countries they have enslaved or conquered, and, as in a barred room, their diabolical surgery goes on in the bodies of the bound, helpless but alive nations. But presently it shall be otherwise, and instead, a ring of living and vigorous peoples shall confine the power that once thought to enslave the world. From the shores of the Baltic, right across Europe to the shores of the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and from those shores westwards through Italy and France and northwards to England (the fort set on the seas that are free), and so across to the Baltic again shall the circle be formed, of which every part is essential and irreplaceable. And like some inexhaustible regiment in reserve America watches from the west.

But it is not only by land to check the soaking of the corrosive German acid eastwards, “peacefully” distilled by Jews and Turks, or to stay the march of German legions that a free and united Poland shall stand insolubly linked to anti-Teutonic forces, but by sea also that she shall hold in her hand the containing cord. As we have already noticed, the Central Empires have let slip what they really mean by the freedom of the seas, and by their gracious permission they concede to the rest of Europe undisputed passage over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: but they have explicitly told us that the freedom of the high seas does not extend to the narrow seas. The Black Sea therefore and the Adriatic and the Baltic must remain as they are to-day, German lakes, where perhaps ships of other nations may cruise for their own pleasure or for Germany’s profit, so long as Germany has not more serious business on hand. Then up shall go the signal “Closing Time,” and they shall be barred to us until Germany, behind fortified entrances and mined waters shall have made her naval preparations. There is no exaggeration about this: this is precisely what Germany means, and what she has said.

Thus not on land alone Poland shall be significant for the freedom of Europe; she will be, with the coast of the Baltic in her hands, significant as regards the freedom of the narrow seas over which Germany claims the sole control. For not only will the loss of this coast be an open door into the sea which otherwise Germany, in her present domination of the Baltic, might close at will, but in a far larger measure than this Poland will be an essential link in the chain that by sea no less than by land will effectually bar the limitless expansion of Germany’s scheme of slavery for the world. For here will be the northern termination of the line of unbroken anti-German states that will extend in a south-easterly direction across Europe to the ports of the second of the narrow seas that to-day is German, and from Dantzig to Costanza the line of federation will be complete. There on the Black Sea to-day every port is in German control. Through Turkey’s subordination to her she has her finger on Trebizond and Batoum, and the key to the whole of that littoral, Constantinople; by her peace with the Ukraine she is port-master of the South Russian harbours. By her conquest of Rumania, Costanza is controlled from Berlin.

But in order to ensure the freedom of the seas (by which we do not mean a freedom in the sense so clearly laid down by Count Czernin, according to which the control of the three European seas that are of supreme importance to Germany is excepted), it is vital to the interests of the Entente that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles should remain no longer in Turkish hands. Earlier in the war the expulsion of the Turkish government from Constantinople was laid down as among the aims of the Entente in the prosecution of their purpose, but a few months ago that provision was cut out (perhaps with a view to inducing Turkey to desert the Central Empires), and she was told that she might keep Constantinople. This formed the subject of satirical comment on the part of a certain Turco-phil portion of the English press, and we were reminded that it was but reasonable to tell Turkey that she might retain that which we had been unable to take away from her. But whatever was the object of that concession it failed to detach Turkey, and it is most sincerely to be hoped that since Turkey rejected what she certainly understood to be an offer of terms to her, that offer and that concession will now be considered to be withdrawn. They were made, they were rejected, and—there is an end of them. For with Constantinople still in Turkish hands there can be but an insecure freedom of the Black Sea. It is impossible, however firmly, in a territorial sense, we may separate Germany from her present vassal, to prevent her reconstructing her hold over the Ottoman Empire. And with Constantinople and (in consequence) the Straits in Turkish hands, it will be worth Germany’s while to intrigue and permeate again, so that, at her bidding, Turkey can close the Straits, as she has often done before, when convenient to Germany. Our policy here, in fact, ought not only to aim at securing a reliable freedom of the Black Sea, but by the removal of the Turkish power from straits and capital alike, to make Turkey useless to Germany. Unless the Entente abate more of their demands, Turkey will at the conclusion of the war lose Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Arabia, but so long as she holds the straits in her hand she may be of use to Germany. And when a thing is of use to Germany she generally picks it up, and puts it in her pocket. She has already done that to Turkey, and though at the end of the war we must take Turkey out of her pocket again, she will assuredly put her back there some day when we are not looking (which occurs most days) if Turkey still holds the Straits.

It is, then, quite essential to the completion of the chain of seas which form part of the barrier that will prevent the armies of the Central Empires from progressing eastwards in accordance with any new scheme of conquest which they may frame, that the Black Sea shall not have doors that turn it, when closed, into a German lake: and equally essential is it that the Adriatic shall not have ports and harbours and defensive islands linked by interior lines of communication with the Central Empires. Treitschke once declared that Trieste was more important to Germany than Hamburg, and earlier yet Bismarck pronounced—and none of his utterances goes further to prove the genius of his statesmanship—that Trieste was the point of the German sword. That is profoundly true to-day, and since that sword-point is sharper now than ever, and flashes, poised with graver menace, it is the business of the Entente to break that point off and weld it shining and strong on to the sword of Italy. Europe is not to see the Adriatic with its long Italian coast-line on the one side, and the Dalmatian ports and islands on the other, turned into a German lake, according to Count Czernin’s programme. Too long already has the Adriatic constituted the cleavage between the East and West of Europe, with the powers of the Central Empires bridging it at the top, thus enabling them to menace and strike now East, now West. In the new Europe Italy shall join hands with the Yugo-Slav State on the East of that sea, with coast-line for both, and the Adriatic shall be under the guardianship of those to whom its shores belong.

It is not by bombing the holy places and palaces of Venice that Austria will cow the eternal youth of Italy into a senile submission, and though in sheer wantonness at the bidding of German Kultur she wrecks and makes irreplaceable the loveliest things that the hand of man has builded in answer to the instinct of the heart that loves beauty, she destroys not them only, but, irreplaceably also, her claim to be a civilised power, being naught else than the vassal of her mistress whom the world will never forgive. Like the St. George of Donatello, Italy stands there to guard her land, and her feet are beautiful upon the mountains and swift upon the plains where the Huns are gathered to destroy the loveliness of all the ages. By her are Jeanne d’Arc and St. George of England, and when the menace of Attila has been hurled back, Italy will reach out her hand across the narrow sea that Germany designed to be one of her harbours. And what Italy is in the south of Europe, and as regards the Adriatic, that precisely is Poland in the north and as regards the Baltic. Each links together the East to the two quarters of the West, completing the circle of free states that shall form the barrier against enslaving Powers. Each section of that encircling barrier is equally essential, for no security can come to the world till it is welded and complete.

It was in January of this year that a Polish member of the Chamber of Deputies in Vienna called attention to the iron oppression which Germany exercises over his native land, and a fellow-member whose nationality need not be indicated said to him—

“Dear Colleague, you forget that Germany is the power that has saved you.”

“If I fell into a river,” replied the other “and my saviour after pulling me out of the water refused to let me go, but constantly repeated ‘Now I have saved your life, you must be my slave,’ then I would pray God to save me from my saviour.... Stop this rescuing! Enough of this Salvation!”

And there in bleeding drops spoke the heart of Poland.