After the Russo-Japanese War, Czar Nicholas and his ministers had their great opportunity to profit by the lessons of Manchuria. But the granting of a constitution was a pure farce. Blind to the fact that the enlightened Poles were interested primarily in political reforms, and in securing equity and justice for the kingdom of Poland, instead of for the advancement of a narrow and theoretical nationalistic ideal, the Russians repulsed the proffered loyalty of the Poles to a free and constitutional Russian Empire. In the second Duma, Dmowski and other Polish deputies unanimously voted the supplies for strengthening the Russian army. They stated that the Poles were willing to cast their lot loyally and indissolubly with constitutional Russia. Were they not brethren, and imbued with the same Pan-Slavic idea? Was it not logical to look to Russia as the defender of all the Slavs from Teutonic oppression?
But Poland, like Finland, was to continue to be the victim of Russian bureaucracy and of an intolerant nationalism which the Russians were beginning to feel as keenly and as arrogantly as the Prussians. Is the Kaiser, embodying the evils of militarism, more obnoxious and more dangerous to civilization than the Czar, standing for the horrors of bureaucratic despotism and absolutism? Have not the Armenian massacres, ordered from Constantinople, and the Jewish pogroms, ordered from Petrograd, associated Christian Czar with Mohammedan Sultan at the beginning of the twentieth century?
The first deliberate violation of the integrity of the kingdom of Poland was sanctioned by the Russian Duma in the same session in which it approved violation of Russian obligations to Finland. A law separating Kholm from the kingdom of Poland was voted on July 6, 1912. The test of the law declared that Kholm was still to be regarded as a portion of the kingdom of Poland, but to be directly attached to the Ministry of the Interior without passing by the intermediary of the Governor-General of Warsaw; and to preserve the Polish adaptation of the Code Napoléon for its legal administration, but to have its court of appeal at Kief.
The elections of 1913 from the kingdom of Poland to the Duma gave a decided setback to the party of Dmowski, who had so long and so ably pled for a policy of Pan-Slavism through accommodation with Russia. The law concerning Kholm had been the response of the Duma to Dmowski's olive branch. The moderates were discredited. But the failure of the radical nationalists to conciliate the Jewish element caused their candidates to lose both at Warsaw and Lodz.
The birth of an anti-Semitic movement has been disastrous to Polish solidarity during recent years. The Polish nationalists suspected the Jews of working either for German or Russian interests. They were expecially bitter against the Litvak, or Lithuanian and south Russian Jews, who had been forced by Russia to establish themselves in the cities of Poland. Poland is one of the most important pales in the Empire. The Jewish population is one-fifth of the total, and enjoys both wealth and education in the cities. Their educated youth had been courageous and forceful supporters of Polish nationalism. Before the Russian intrigues of the last decade and the introduction of these non-Polish Jews, there had never been a strong anti-Semitic feeling in Poland. The Polish protests against the encroachment of the Russians upon their national liberties have been greatly weakened by their antagonism to the Jews. The anti-Semitic movement, which has carried away both the moderate party of Dmowski and the radical nationalists, as was expected, has played into the hand of Russia.
The Muscovite statesmen, while endeavouring to use the Balkan Wars for the amalgamation of south Slavic races under the wing of Russia against Austria have treated the Poles as if they were not Slavs. During 1913 and the first part of 1914, the policy of attempting to russianize the Poles has proved disastrous to their feeling of loyalty to the Empire. The government announced definitely that the kingdom of Poland would be "compensated" for the loss of Kholm by a law granting self-government to Polish cities. This promise has not been kept. The municipal self-government project presented to the Duma was as farcical in practical results as all democratic and liberal legislation which that impotent body has been asked to pass upon.
THE POLES SINCE 1867 IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
The disappearance of Austria from Germany after the battle of Sadowa led to the organization of a new state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We must divorce in our mind the Austria before 1867 from the Austria-Hungary of the Dual Monarchy. The political situation changed entirely when Austrians and Hungarians agreed to live together and share the Slavic territories of the Hapsburg Crown. Austria no longer had need of her Galicians to keep the Hungarians in check. But there was equally important work for them to do.
The Austrians have always treated the Poles very well. Galicia, which had been Austria's share in the partition of Poland, was given local self-government, with its own Diet, and proper representation in the Austrian Reichsrath. Poles were admitted in generous numbers to the functions of the Empire.