Poland

3771

Poland

accept the same faith. In 1225 Conrad, Duke '
of Masovia and brother of King Leszek v.
(1194-1227), called the Teutonic Knights to
Poland to assist in the conquest of the Prus-
sians, but the knights soon became as formid-
able enemies of Poland as the Prussians had
been. In 1240 the Mongols invaded the coun-
try, and defeated the Poles (1241) at Lieg-
nitz, Silesia. In 1466, after 12 years of war, a
treaty was signed at Thorn between Casimir
and the Teutonic Knights, whereby West
Prussia, including Pomerania and the cities of
Danzig and Thorn belonged to Casimir; while
East Prussia was left to the Teutonic Knights,
who held it as a fief of the crown.

In 1772 the first partition was effected. Rus-
sia took White Russia and all the part beyond
the Dnieper. Prussia took the palatinates of
Marienburg, Pomorska, Warmia, Kulm (ex-
cept Danzig and Thorn) and a part of Great
Poland. Austria had Red Russia or Galicia,
with parts of Podolia and Little Poland. In
1788 a remarkable Diet was opened, which
lasted for four years, and at which the con-
dition of the burghers and peasants was im-
proved, the liberum veto finally suppressed,
and the throne declared hereditary. But the
external enemies of Poland—the Prussians, the
Russians, and the Austrians—had resolved up-
on her destruction, and foreign troops were
poured into the country. The second division
of the country now took place. Prussia ac-
quired the remainder of Great Poland, and
the Russian boundary was advanced to the
center of Lithuania and Volhynia. Kosciuszko,
the Polish general, marched upon Warsaw, and
compelled the Russians to raise (1794) the
siege; the Poles executed many of the chief
traitors of Grodno, but Warsaw was finally
taken by Suvorov (1794) • Stanislaus, on April
25, 1795, resigned the crown at Grodno, and
the final partition of the country took place.
Austria received Cracow, with the country be-
tween the Pilica, the Vistula, and the Bug;
Prussia had the capital, with the territory as
far as the Niemen; and the rest went to Rus-
sia. Stanislaus died at St. Petersburg in 1798.
A fresh settlement was made by the Congress
of Vienna (1815). Austria was to have Galicia
and the salt-mines of Wieliczka; Posen was to
belong to Prussia. Cracow was to form an in-
dependent state under the protection of the
three powers, but was eventually incorporated
with Austria in 1848. The remainder of the
former kingdom of Poland was to constitute
a constitutional monarchy under the Tsar
This constitution was, however, withdrawn
after the great revolt of 1830, and in 1846 an-

other effort to reunite the dismembered Polish
nation was easily suppressed by the three
powers.

Outbreaks occurred in Russian Poland in
1861 and 1862; in 1863 a general insurrection
vas suppressed, and in the ensuing years vari-
ous measures were taken for the Russification
of the country. Immediately after the out-
break of the Great War of Europe the Grand
Duke Nicholas, commander-in-chief of the
Russian Army, issued an appeal for loyalty to
the Polish people (Aug. 15,1914). German and
Austrian troops entered Russian Poland, and
on Nov. 5, 1916, Germany and Austria issued
a manifesto erecting the conquered territory
of Warsaw and Lublin into a new kingdom of
Poland, and declaring its right to an independ-
ent national existence and to government by
ts own chosen representatives. The real con-
rol of affairs, however, was retained by the
Germans. A Council of State was created
(January, 1917), and this was succeeded (Sep-
tember, 1917) by a Regency Council repre-
senting the more conservative Polish element.

Coalition Cabinet headed by Ignace Pader-
ewski was formed in January, 1919; a con-
stituent assembly was convened in Warsaw on
February 10, 1919, and 10 days later General
Pilsudski was confirmed by the Assembly in
tiis powers as chief of the state pending the
adoption of a constitution. The provisional
government received Allied recognition Feb.
21, 1919.

By the terms of the Peace Treaty signed by
Polish delegates and ratified by the Polish diet
(July 31, 1919), Germany ceded to Poland
nearly all of the Province of Posen and nearly
all of West Prussia west of the Vistula, plebis-
cites to determine the disposition of the part
of West Prussia east of the Vistula and south
of its junction with the Nogat, of the southern
two-fifths of East Prussia, and of most of Up-
per Silesia. Danzig was the adjacent territory
west of the Nogat, was made a free city.
Upon the basis of .the plebiscite results in Oc-
tober, 1921, the League of Nations assigned
to Poland the southern part of Upper Silesia,
including the districts of Katowice, Krolewska
Huta, Rybnik and Pszczyna and also parts of
the districts of Tarnowskie Gory and Lub-
liniec. The fixing of the eastern frontiers of
Poland was by far more romantic. These fron-
tiers were not the result of judicial awards
and of round table conferences but of a long
and heroic war.

By the end of 1919 the Bolsheviks finally
crushed their internal enemies, and concentrat-
ed all their force? on the Polish front, with the