[15] Yiddish, it may be explained, is not Hebrew at all, as is popularly supposed, though it is printed in Hebrew characters. It is really a Swabian dialect, and 70 per cent. of the words in it are German. Its more scientific name is Judaeo-Germanic.
[16] In certain districts, notably that of Kielce, there was a considerable amount of forced labour, for men were badly wanted to work in the unexploited mines there. Similarly we find that an appeal was made to the Pope in November, 1916, asking whether such compulsion was not an act of “intolerable tyranny.” After a considerable delay His Holiness replied that “as a neutral” he could not interfere in such internal questions. But in spite of such instances we shall probably be right to conclude that Germany did not make forced levies for labour to any considerable extent.
[17] Too much stress, however, must not be laid on the force of religious conviction in Poland, as the following incident shews. General von Beseler made an order not long ago that German should be used as the language of instruction in Protestant schools in Warsaw, since Germany claimed as German, children who were of the German and not of the Polish national creed. A certain Dr. Machlejd, a pastor of Lutheran theology, protested against this, and pointed out that if it was insisted on, it would be perfectly easy for the children to become Roman Catholics.
[18] The Czas, the leading Cracow paper, remarks with regard to this Club, “it ought to be remembered that the Club of the Polish State works with the idea of basing the existence of the Polish State on a connection with Germany, that it conducts an active propaganda in Warsaw in favour of that programme.” It is equally strongly anti-Russian, for in September, 1916, we find it passing a resolution that the Central Empires will permit certain measures which will allow the Poles “to take an active part in the struggle against Russia.”
[19] About this time the National Democrats issued the following proclamation about enlistment in German armies:—“Poles, brothers, you are being forced to enlist. If you do not wish to draw down on your heads the curse of an entire nation, if you wish to preserve the spotless purity of your emblem, the White Eagle, do not play the part of German conspirators.”
[20] This large percentage was due to the fact that it was chiefly able-bodied men who fled into Russia at the time of the retreat of her armies in 1915.
[21] The Inter-party Club represents pro-Entente opinion in Poland.
[22] The subsequent fate of this Polish army in Russia was as follows: The Russian peace and the treaty with the Ukraine completely paralysed its potentialities, for it numbered only about 15,000 men (exaggerated by report to 60,000), and there was no longer any Russian army for them to fight in conjunction with. Their commander, General Musnicki, therefore signed a treaty with Germany, by which the duties assigned to them were to defend certain territories between the Dneiper and Mohileff from Bolshevik lawlessness. Germany, in fact, recognised his army as a neutral army. This was rather a melancholy conclusion, but it is difficult to see what else General Musnicki could have done. In any case, the Bolsheviks were no less a danger to Poland than to Russia or Germany, and the solution was probably the best possible.