Prince Sapieha and Marshal Pilsudsky negotiated a secret treaty with France on that occasion—not with the Allies as a whole, but with France. As a seasonal fruit of that treaty came the Silesian adventure supported by France. The disarming of the population in Upper Silesia, conducted under French auspices, had taken the arms away from the Germans but left arms with the Poles. Added to that, guns, machine-guns, rifles, and ammunition, were run over into the plebiscite area, and a mercenary "insurrectionary" army was raised, partly from the local Polish population and partly from Poland proper. An army which the French Government held to be capable of intimidating the League of Nations garrison of ten thousand fully equipped men, was thus improvised. The supposition is that interested parties connived at its improvisation. It could not otherwise have sprung spontaneously into being. After the first week of the rising, many of the insurgents began to desert the leader Korfanty on the ground that their wages were not high enough. Much money had to be spent in the affair. It might be asked what interest has France to support Poland—is it sentiment? Many will attribute it to a French quixoticism, which in truth does not exist. France will be ready to drop Pilsudsky, as she has dropped Wrangel, when it suits her. But the French programme for Europe includes the complete dismantling of the German Empire, and by taking away Upper Silesia from Germany another great victory would be won in the war after the war. Therefore it has been worth while. And to this end France proceeds not openly but in the old-fashioned channels of secret intrigue. The favourite device is the arranging of a coup and then the presentation of the fait accompli, accompanied by a manipulation of the press. It is almost unnecessary to say in English that this sort of procedure has greatly damaged international understanding and good-will.
The Franco-Polish intrigue was only too manifest this May in Warsaw's streets. Ascension and the centenary of the death of Napoleon were on the same day. It was made into Napoleon Day and was a great festival. One of the principal squares had its name changed to Place Napoleon. There was a public Mass for the repose of Napoleon's soul. A statue of Napoleon was unveiled. There were military processions and the fêting of the French military mission, special honours for General du Moriez, who brought "les precieuses reliques de Napoleon" to Poland, and of General Niessel, and of M. de Panalieu, France's Minister Plenipotentiary in Poland. The street crowds stopped the cars and lifted the Frenchman on to their shoulders and carried them to plaudits and joy-shrieks and brass bands. It was amusing to see a diminutive French officer with grey head and beard, sprawling thus on a moving couch of Polish hands whilst he waved his hat and was pelted from all hands with cowslips and lilac. "Vive la France! Vive la France!" Polish Cossacks with white pennants on their lances come trotting through and break the crowds, and then come artillerymen and their guns, and then French diplomatic personalities protected by mounted guards with flashing sabres. The surging populace intervenes, and sways, and gives, and closes again. Here comes a great banner on which is embroidered the ominous white vulture of risen Poland, the ghostly bird that has sojourned a hundred years in the death kingdoms, and on the reverse side of the banner is depicted the Madonna and Child. The crowd becomes instantly bareheaded, and the Germans in it wisely take off their hats, too. Polish patriots follow, dressed in white and bearing aloft notice-boards wreathed in coloured cloths; on the notice-boards are watchwords: "We will not give up our Silesia," on others maps of the integral Poland showing the province of "Szlazk" in red. Specimens of insurrectionaries follow these sign-bearers, and they are dressed-up peasants and miners carrying scythes on poles; more crowds, more cheers! The Polish Press leaps its headlines in jingoism. Street politicians with bells bawl declamations across the many-headed. Windows open on third-floors, and clouds of political leaflets are scattered to the wind.
The same demonstrations with the same banners parade for days. On Sunday there is a review in front of the Russian Cathedral, and a French General pins decorations on Polish heroes. Great throngs in the streets sing the Marseillaise bareheaded. Warsaw breathes in and breathes out—hot air. Not all the Poles, however, share in this excitement. There were many in Warsaw who looked on coldly at the proceedings. "There is a Governmental claque that starts all these demonstrations" said one of them. "You ought not to be deceived by that any more than by the new posters on the walls every day. Bill-stickers are sent out by the Government each night. The people do not paste up these posters themselves. Most of us are in a desperate plight trying to earn an honest living. The only way to get rich is to work in with the administration and share in the spoil."
It is a common opinion that the low value of the mark (over 8,000 to the pound sterling) is due to the Government printing it ad libitum to meet its private ends. It is a gross scandal that the exchange value should have so fallen. With such a currency it is doubtful whether the present constitution of Poland can last. It already isolates Poland economically from the rest of Europe, and she cannot import goods even from Germany at such a rate. There is a vast, poor, seedy, underfed population. Food is comparatively cheap, and the peasant is evidently being quietly robbed, by giving him only a fifth of the money-value of his products, but even so a tiny loaf of bread costs twenty marks. There is butter. There is no sugar (at cafés there is liquid saccharine and you pass the saccharine bottle from one to another). An obligatory seventy-five mark dinner of two courses is served at the restaurants, but the mass of the people live on bread and sausage.
There has been a great exodus from the Ghetto to Russia, and Warsaw can no longer be said to be a predominantly Jewish city. The dignified Semite in his black gaberdine and low-crowned hat is now only an occasional figure on the Jerozolimska and Nowy Swiat. And the poor Jews of the slums are not multitudinous as they were. On the main street various trans-Atlantic shipping companies have opened offices and offer to book emigrants right through to the United States. These offices from morning till evening are crammed with people trying to get away from Poland. Here may be found, in addition to the local population, a certain number of people from Soviet Russia who have bribed the Polish officials and are trying to get to the land of opportunity as Poles. The United States, however, looks very coldly on these would-be citizens, be they Poles or Russians or Ukrainians or Letts or Lithuanians, or any other nationality of these suspected parts of Europe. The number of visas granted is now being cut down to a three per cent of previous emigration basis.
An interesting diversion from politics was provided by a visit to the Polish Theatre, where Shakespeare's "Kuplec Wenecki" was being performed. The main interest was naturally in Shylock. The Polish actors made very attractive Italian signors. Portia was a full-bosomed Polish beauty, who, with a male voice, made a fine effect as Doctor of Law. The Prince of Morocco and Shylock were, however, ethnographical studies. The Moor roared and barked and cut about in the air with his scimitar, and made the ladies scream and the audience laugh. Shylock was deliciously over-studied. The daily life of Warsaw was added to the grandeur of a rich Oriental merchant. Shylock's cleverness and intellectual assurance were obscured by funniosities such as a sing-song Potash-and-Perlmutter speech breaking into gabble, finger-counting, and beard-stroking, lying flat in the street and howling. But the audience appreciated this highly, and clapped only Shylock.
It was otherwise an old-fashioned performance. The Polish stage seems not to have developed very much. Polish literature has, however, increased considerably, and there are many shops well stocked with new Polish books. You seldom see a foreign book in a shop window. Russian books seem almost entirely to have disappeared. Owing to the exchange situation French and English books cost enormous numbers of marks.
A remarkable feature of the city's architecture today is the Russian Cathedral, with its slate-coloured domes divested of gold and divested of crosses, a mighty white stone building in the pride of place in the city. Who is responsible for the damage it would be difficult to say. Probably both Poles and Germans had something to do with it. The Kolokolnaya is blown up. The walls of the cathedral stream externally with pitch. Many of the frescoes inside have been damaged and the gold ornaments taken away. It is a grand Orthodox interior, breathing the spirit of Russia from every wall. It was regarded rather as a calculated affront to Poland in the old days—as the Russian population in Warsaw was not large. Now, however, a Roman Catholic altar has been erected, chairs have been brought in. There is a holy-water basin at the main entrance, an organ sounds forth from the choir's gallery, and a Polish priest drones the Latin liturgy. Multitudes of Poles flock in on Sunday morning, smiling, untroubled, unselfconscious; bowing, kneeling on one knee, piously crossing themselves in Latin style. If there are Russians in the congregation they make no sign. But what they must be feeling!
The appropriation of the cathedral is, no doubt, justified. But there is something in the coolness of it, in the hate of it and lack of tact which breeds the opposite of Christian charity in human hearts. The Slavs have much to learn. By the stealing of trains, the purloining of cathedrals, and false pretensions to their neighbours' lands, the Poles are showing that there is yet national tragedy ahead for them. They will be deceived by some nations and slaughtered by others. What have we raised her from the dead for—but to live again, to live and let live. All have rejoiced in the risen Poland, even the old destroyers of Poland—Germany, Russia, and Austria, all rejoiced until they realized the nature of the phantom. The beautiful white eagle that leapt from the tomb is a more sinister bird to-day, blood-ravenous, and scanning far horizons.