R A V AG E D AND BEREAVED! BY COUNTESS JULIE LEDOCHOWSKA ‘WITH A PREFACE BY HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ PUBLISHED FOR THE POLISH INFORMATION COMMITTEE BY THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS, STAMFORD STREET, s.E. POLAND RAVAGED AND BEREAVED! /4 Lecture de/fivered at Cojben/zagen on t/ze 191/2 Nov. 191 5, by Countem JULIE LEDOCHOWSKA 4 wit/2 a Preface éy HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ All profits gained by the sale of this Pamphlet will be devoted to the Work of the General POLISH RELIEF COMMITTEE at Vevey. Pub1ishedf0r tbePo1ish Information Committee 6y THE SAINT CATHERINE PRESS STAMFORD STREET, S-E The Partition of Poland By Lord Eversley London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. Price 75. 6d. This masterly work of real scientific value contains an adequate account of the inequities that led to the partition of Poland. All the profits derived from the sale of the second edition of this work will be devoted by Lord Eversley to the fund for the relief of the Polish Victims in the War. PREFACE HE lecture to which this preface is an I introduction gives a brief sketch of the history of Poland and traces, with only a regard for simple truth, the beneficent role which this ancient country has played in the past as defender of all that is best in the civilisation of Western Christendom. It is not, however, its record of events, necessarily curtailed, which constitutes the value of this lecture, but rather its pathetic and appealing account of the troubles which are happening to-day under our very eyes, these unprecedented calamities which have fallen on the head of Poland, devastated and trampled by the armies of the Great European War. This recital lends to the words of the authoress an eloquence which only such misfortunes could evoke-—and all of them keenly realised in the heart of one who is at once a woman, a Pole, and a patriot. A vast population hunted from its homes, flying distraught from the horrors of war, camping in the midst of forests and in the darkness of the winter, old men, women and children dying in awful agony-— such are the series of sinister pictures which reveal themselves in these pages, all depicted with a tragic power which words are inadequate to express. This is more than an ordinary lecture ; it is a cry of grief which makes the reader shudder and draws from him a sympathising tear. The heart of the woman, generous and merciful, seeks help for the unfortunate ; but the vision of the patriot takes a wider flight. As a true Polish woman, she desires to see, when these times of martyrdom are over, the dawning for the people whom she loves of a. glorious day of Resurrection. HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ. Poland Ravaged and Bereaved ! w V OLAND for eighteen months has been devas- Ptated by the most terrible war which the world has ever seen, and her poverty has touched the heart of the whole civilised world. Committees have been formed everywhere to come to the help of the unfortunate land, laid waste by a fratricidal war. The bitter feelings which war everywhere generates have faded away before the spectacle of the Polish national misfortune. Surely this old historic country is to-day the most unfortunate nation on the face of the whole earth, because on her shoulders have fallen all war’s most horrible burdens. A General Relief Committee has been formed in Switzerland with the sympathetic permission of the Swiss Republican Government. This Committee receives subscrip- tions for the victims throughout the whole of Poland, whether under Russian control or under the control of the Central Empires, and without making any distinction on the ground of religion. The particular Polish Relief Committees in the neutral countries, those in America, Switzerland, Holland and Sweden, have been affiliated to the large General Committee, ‘as they were well aware of the truth of the old adage tha “ union makes strength.” The General Committee is desirous to see such particular Committees established in all the neutral countries, and it is to help in the movement that I wish to enlist your sympathies in this short appeal. I plead with you to form a Committee at once for the -victims of the war in Poland. I ask you to come to 5 the help of this unfortunate land.‘ Believe me, the sufferings of Poland are unparalleled 1 One can quite well apply to her case the words of the Prophet : “ Oh, ye that pass by, is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow ? ” Let me first set forth the reasons why Poland, plunged in such deep distress, has a right to the gratitude of a Europe to which she has many a time served as a shield against the assaults of barbarism. Then let me tell the tale of the sufferings so harsh and agonising of a people comprising altogether about 25 million souls, of whom 13 million are counted Russian subjects, 5 million Austrian, 4 million German, while three million have gone to the United States of America. In these broad outlines I hope to convey to you the great services rendered to Europe by Poland. First of all, how did Poland act as a dyke against the Tartar flood of invasion which came from the Orient to Europe? These Tartars were a savage race, who ravaged with fire and the sword all who interposed themselves on their onward path. Their Khans subjugated one after the other all the principal Slav nations of the East of Europe, and forced them to pay a tribute to their conquerors. Emboldened by success, the Tartars sought a still more con- spicuous triumph. They endeavoured to arrive at the very vital centre of Europe itself. They crossed Ruthenia and Poland; they had already arrived in Silesia,when——-lo and behold ! their army was checked. One of the successors of the great Piast, Henry the Pious, put himself at the head of a Polish army rein- forced by Czechs. In the year 1241, not far from Leignitz, he bravely attacked the redoubtable foe. He was slain in the combat and the Christian forces were overthrown ; but his handful of brave defenders of Europe formed with their bodies an impregnable rampart against the enemy. Weakened as they 6 V were, the Tartars had no other resource but to retire. After this time they frequently engaged in conflict with the Slavs, but, after a time, repulsed and still again repulsed, they rested satisfied with their own steppes and assimilated themselves little by little to the peoples who were superior to them both in civilisation and intelligence. Poland stopped the onset of the Tartars. But that is not all. In the second half of the fourteenth century, after the death of Louis of Hungary, who was at the same time King of Poland, the Polish nobles offered their throne to Jadwiga, the little daughter of Casimir the Great, to whom history has given the glorious title of the Peasant King. Jadwiga, scarcely 14 years old, in all the radiance of her dazzling beauty, made a triumphal entry into the ancient city of Cracow. Henceforth the ancient town, with its commanding and imposing royal castle of Wavel, its cathedral, within whose precincts reposes the dust of the Polish kings, its church of Notre Dame with spires that seek the sky itself and its magnificent altar, which is the master work of the unfortunate artist Wit Stwosz, this town of Cracow drew to its ancient walls the affection and pride of every Polish patriot. The heart of the child queen J adwiga was pure as the lily of the valley. She knew only one great feeling—that of love. Love took up for her the harp of life. And at the very core of her heart was growing the love of the woman for him who was one day to be the helpmate of her life. They had played together—-she and he—as children. They had learned to love each other. They knew they were united together by the closest of bonds. As soon as she passed from the control of her mother the young queen awaited with impatience the arrival of this loved one who would help her in the toils and difficulties of government. Yet this was not the alliance contemplated by the great digni- 7 taries who guided her steps along the path of her royal destiny. In the north of Poland, where at that time there was nothing but forest, and where on the banks of the Vilice, Wilna, the capital of Lithuania, was hidden away in their primeval depths, there lived a people brave and accustomed to war, but still practising the horrid rites of paganism. The smoke of sacrifice ascended from their altars. The holy fire burned day and night in the temples served by their predecessors. The brave J agiello, the Grand Duke of that country, a pagan like all the rest of his people, had heard reports of the beauty and kindness of J adwiga, and his whole soul felt drawn to her in a way that cannot be expressed. He signified to the great Polish nobles that, if he could obtain the hand of the queen, he would be baptised with all his people and unite his country to that of Poland. Such a proposal was far too advan- tageous to be rejected. But how could they broach it to the queen ? How could they compel her to silence the cravings of her heart at an age when the heart has begun to realise its power ? A great anguish could be discerned in the eyes of every Polish noble as he put these questions to himself. He had on his breast the armour of a warrior, but beneath his breast there beat a sympathetic Polish heart. Has my reader ever known a Polish heart ‘? It is a heart above all which knows how to love, and to love ardently, spontaneously and faithfully. They were sincerely attached to their queen, these old warriors. They revived their older hearts by contact with hers so full of tenderness. They would have yielded up their lives on her behalf. Must they, then, compel her to drink up the cup of sacrifice right to the very dregs ‘? No, they could apply nothing in the nature of compulsion. Poland is the land of liberty, and they were content to leave everything in confidence to the free choice of the young queen. 8 They were not deceived. J adwiga acted like a true Polish woman. With her own hands she overthrew the temple of her happiness, and joined herself in matrimony to the heathen stranger! Henceforth, she lived for nothing but the good of her people, and it was a great national misfortune when she died at an early age. A rose, she lived as roses do, She bathed in but one morning’s dew. Jadwiga brightened up for a few brief hours this valley of tears, and then, mourned by all her faithful people, she was taken away from this life. Her policy had been one of love, sympathy, and reconcilia-' tion, and it was thanks to her that Poland has been able to constitute a voluntary and bloodless federation of three peoples, the Poles, the Lithuanians, and the Ruthenians. Through her agency Poland has been guided to the very summit of her glory. Her memory has never died. It still remains, all palpitating with love in the heart of the nation, and this ancient cult is revived to-day with more power and intensity than ever. Our ancient earth has been furrowed by the ploughshare of suffering; but a little more of peace and joy and happiness will be brought to her peoples if we witness again a revival of the policy of this sympathetic queen. Christianity owes a debt of gratitude to Poland. It was many years after the days of Queen Jadwiga-— when Poland, still cooped within the limits of its own borders, had many a time repelled the Tartars and waged war with the Turks——that a portentous danger came to threaten Europe. The Mussulmans invaded Hungary, and set out to take Vienna, and plant the banner of the Crescent on the top of St. Stephen’s Tower in the magnificent Gothic cathedral which dominates the city. The German troops withdrew before the terrible enemy and the affri~ghted inhabi- 9 tants fled from their towns and villages. What would the fate of European civilisation have been had Vienna been taken and Austria submitted to the domination of the Turks ? What power could come to the help of a menaced Christianity ‘? Only the valiant Poles who sprang into the breach with their king, John Sobieski, at their head. On the morning of September 8th, 1683, the king attended divine service in a little improvised chapel on the summit of Kahlenberg. He received the blessing of his Church, he jumped upon his horse and then, his diadem in one hand and his sword in the other, he led his soldiers to the battle. “ There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet,” that was the old war-cry with which the Turks threw themselves on their Polish foes. “ Holy Jesus,” the Poles replied, and then the battle began. At first it seemed as if the Turks would crush the little Polish army by the sheer force of numbers, but the heroic Poles had no intention of being over- powered in this summary fashion. They fought in massed phalanx with such great intrepidity that after several hours of dubious combat the resistance of the Turks was broken and they began slowly to retreat. Then their retreat became a disorderly flight, and seeing that his victory had become complete, the pious Sobieski bid his troops give thanks by chanting the Te Deum and the grand old verses of the Psalm “ Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto Thee be all the glory.” Poland had, in fact, saved Europe from the yoke of the Mussulman. To these days of glory there succeeded days full of sadness and sorrow. The first partition of Poland in 1772 was, at the same time, the first act of a drama of which the final act has not yet been played. In spite of all her misfortunes, Poland has never ceased to produce men whose names have for ever been graven on the memory of the people. The more the nation bowed beneath the yoke, the more the love 10 of liberty grew from more to more in her heart. It was then that Thaddeus Kosciusko made his appear- ance—a hero who from his earliest years was ena- moured of the spirit of liberty. He was still young when with Pulaski and a number of other Poles he sailed to America to fight for the independence of the United States. Promoted to the rank “of general for his bravery in the field, he found in Washington a kindred spirit. The hero of the new world tendered his hand to the friend of liberty from the old world, and, each of them great and wonderful in the spirit of his heroism, they fought side by side as comrades and as friends. No wonder that the United States has not forgotten the heroes who thus brought her help at a decisive hour. She has erected monuments in honour of Kosciusko and Pulaski, and to-day she is distinguishing herself by the ardour with which she organises help for the Poles. After the American War for Independence, Kos- oiusko hoped to be able to win freedom for his own country as well. He made his appearance in Cracow, he announced a Holy War for liberty and the national independence, he proclaimed the dawn of freedom for the peasants, and, clad himself in the white mantle of a Polish tiller of the soil, he led his rebels to battle. At first he was victorious against the united armies of Russia and Prussia, but finally, after heroic efforts, he had to yield to the superiority in numbers of his enemies. His defeat appeared inevitably to lead to the third and complete partition of Poland. Kos- ciusko could not bring himself to submit to this foreign yoke. He departed to seek again a free country in America, but latterly he returned to France and finally to Switzerland, where he spent his life doing good to those who needed his sympathy and his services. To this very day, at Soleure, there is shown the modest cottage in which he used to live, and on his tomb in the neighbouring churchyard there can 1] be read this touching inscription, “ Fratres patri suo ” (Brothers to their father). Poland has poured forth her blood in the cause of liberty. Even after the final partition of her terri- tories, when she had ceased to be numbered among the independent nations, her valiant sons were to be seen all over Europe wherever glory and honour called them. Polish legions were improvised to show that Poland, though dismembered, was living still and that no one should be allowed to forget her name. Napo- leon gained substantial help first from these Polish legionaries and then from a whole Polish army, which lent him their aid in the conquest of Europe and in the defence of France. In this way the Poles hoped to help in the resurrection of their country, but they were also grateful for the little that the Emperor had been able to do for them in creating the tiny princi- pality called the Duchy of Warsaw by the Peace of Tilsit. Wherever danger beckoned, there a Pole might be found. Polish light horsemen with Kozie- tulski and Niegolewski at their head, took the pass of Samo Sierra in Spain, heedless of what it cost them and knowing full well that this passage had been previously deemed impregnable. They went with Napoleon into Russia and shared with his grand army the perils of their retreat. Victor Hugo tells us that then “ for the first time their eagle bent its head,” but notwithstanding all discouragements they still con- tinued faithful to the fallen cause. Remonstrances were addressed to Prince Joseph Poniatowski, and he was invited to leave the service of one whose star was evidently setting: but he only answered proudly, “ A Pole can never lose his honour.” Poland still remained faithful to one from whom she had expected much and obtained very little, and this same Prince Joseph Poniatowski, whilst covering the retreat of Napoleon’s army after the disastrous battle of Leipzig found a premature death in the waters of the Elster. 12 Then came the Congress of Vienna when peace again restored her reign to Europe, and only Poland was humbled and compelled to retain her garment of sorrow. Yet she never tamely submitted to misfor- tune. Hers was no grief that entornbed itself in selfish isolation. Almost blotted as she was from the- map of Europe, her body bleeding from a thousand wounds, Poland continued to manifest her imperish- able vitality. Like those pine trees which when rudely notched by the hand of man exude their pre- cious juices, this country, suffering from cruel wounds, yet inspired her gifted sons to write works of genius which are a joy for ever to the human spirit. A galaxy of poets arose who proclaimed in immortal verse the truth that Poland would never die. First there was the sweet and romantic Slowacki, who revealed the sadness and languor of a heart that always sighed for his country. Then there was Krasinski, gifted with an inspiration like that of some Old Testament prophet as he sustained the courage of his people by continuing to sing of their day of resurrection. Lastly, there was Mickiewicz, the great poet of his nation, who has presented Poland with an epic which alone would have sufficed to immor- talise his memory. And then the artists. Who has not heard of Matejko, who has recalled on canvas the glorious past of his nation ‘? Or of Grottger, who shows us in his moving paintings the cruel martyr- dom of a people ? Or of Stachiewicz, who carries us far away from a sinful world to a land of lilies where love is king and where the sun is always shining. Or if we close our eyes and follow the melodies of Chopin we are now rocked in a spirit of gentle melancholy, and anon transported into a world of pain——the pain of a people weeping for liberty and departed glory, and finding relief in the sigh which closes the slow and sombre music of the Funeral March. Even in our own day the fount of inspiration has never ceased to 13 flow. Poland is still universally known through the great writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, whose Quo Vadis and other works have been translated into all the European languages. Verily Poland has gained renown in literature, art, and science. Has such a country, then, not the right, in her day of present misfortune, to knock at the door of every sympathetic heart and ask for pity for such indes- -cribable suffering ? This is suffering in the fullest acceptation of the term—a suffering that involves the torture of the whole being, as well moral as physical. ‘Our unfortunate country of Poland has been ruined, devastated and sacked! Numberless villages have been levelled to the ground; farm houses and other buildings have been burnt to cinders ; our old castles, the venerated remembrances of Poland’s glorious past, .have been destroyed; and Poland herself is now a land of tombs and crosses. Fugitives wander through the forests or hide themselves in the disused trenches or in the cellars of the many partially burnt country houses that stud the Polish plain. They have only wild roots for food or it may be carrion flesh or the barks of trees. Their numbers are soon reduced by epidemic disorders. There are no doctors to lend their aid to the sick or to soothe the cruel agony of the dying. Especially do the children suffer from this lamentable state of affairs. The Rockefeller American Com- mission, which visited Galicia in the summer of 1915, reported that there you could search in vain for a child less than 10 years old. Any of these little ones who laid themselves to rest in the snow, never woke again. Every British mother, who knows what a house is when it is deprived of its infant, knows also how many Polish mothers are almost overwhelmed under the heavy weight of their suffering. When in the winter the wind whistles in the chimney, the snow dances in the cold air and no star is shining in the sky, we draw ourselves nearer 14 the crackling fire in our own well lighted rooms ; but comfortable though we be, can we not spare a kindly thought for these unfortunate fugitives, these millions of men and women without house and food or even warm clothes who have started forth they know not where, to seek some corner in a strange land, it may be to find there a tomb after months of privation a11d terrible suffering ? Let us look at some pictures which may enable us to some extent to understand the distress of these unfortunates ! It is the month of September. Before our eyes there is unrolled one of these vast Polish plains ordinarily so inviting with its undulating waves of golden grain. To-day it is only a mass of burnt and trampled stubble. The road that runs through it is crowded with the carts of peasants, each simple vehicle- filled with boxes, sacks, and all kinds of household goods. Children are perched on the top—-at any rate those who are unable to take the journey on foot. There they are, frightened and trembling, clinging to the furniture to keep themselves from being thrown out by the motion of the cart. Sometimes one of the vehicles strikes against a stone and then a plaintive- cry is heard as a little one falls to the ground on the- top of some article of furniture. The mother rushes to the help of her crying child, but the right arm of the little one is broken and there is no doctor to be found. All that can be done is to replace the infant on the rocking furniture and start once again on the painful journey. Every convulsive groan of the little sufferer goes through the mother’s heart ; but she knows that there is nothing to be done and she can only weep with her suffering one. One dreary autumn night the wind is sighing in the old trees on the side of the road, the sky is dark with thick, heavy clouds and everything has an aspect at once depressing and inexpressibly sad. There, under the old trees of a little forest, some 15 hundreds of fugitives are seeking shelter. They have tried to light a fire but the wood is damp and refuses to burn. There is only a thick smoke spreading everywhere, and no heat to be found. Children are crying. Dogs are howling. Some of the fugitives are on their knees and chant the Miserere. “ Have pity on us, O Lord, have pity.” Propped up against a tree, a peasant woman lies in her last agony. Five children, the eldest a little girl of 15 years, the youngest a boy of 2 years, are round their sick mother. Her great eyes are filled with tears. She presses to her heart a little wooden cross, and she stretches out her arms as if she would for the last time clasp her infants to her heart. Suddenly she cries out and heaves a heavy sigh ; that loving heart has ceased to beat. How is the dead woman to be buried ‘? Her children with their own hands dig a little trench and, their hearts almost rent with grief, they lay the body on a few wooden planks and scatter some handfuls of earth on the improvised bier. Motherless and fatherless—their father had been slain on the field of battle—without food or shelter, what can happen in the future to these poor innocents ‘? But here, in another crowd of fugitives, a poor woman can be seen with a big linen bag on her shoulders. This bag contains all her earthly goods, and outside of it, held tightly with leather straps, her sole consolation and treasure in the world, her little child ! The tiny mite cries bitterly at first but then drops fast into sleep. The mother is so bent down by the weight she carries that she advances slowly and at last gets so overcome by fatigue that she is scarcely conscious where she is or what she is doing. All at once one of the others takes her by the hand and she hears the question, “ Where is the child? ” As if struck by lightning she quickly starts, mechani- cally puts her hand on the bag and child to be found. She gives a hard, hoarse cry, then there is no 16 an unnatural laugh, and at last takes the bag from her shoulders and nurses it like a child. She has quite lost her reason, but who can say that this sad condition is not a balm of consolation to a heart torn with such agonising pain ‘? Night! sky and plain, all are dark and gloomy. The voices of the dusk speak of terror and sadness. From the East, along the iron track of the railroad, there comes something dark and sinuous, its black head emitting sparks of flame! What can it be? It is only a train of Polish refugees which approaches. They are swarming everywhere on the carriages, inside and outside, on the platforms and on the steps. Some are standing and some sitting, while others again are taking what sleep they can. They are by no means hushed into silence. Cries and weird chants, laughter and even blasphemy literally rend the air. The fire of the engine casts a lurid light on it all, and it is like hell here below. What can be seen if a stranger stands on the step of the nearest carriage and looks at the struggling mass of humanity before him‘? On the roof a woman is groaning and dying with not even a pillow beneath her head ! Beside her a little daughter, ten years of age, lies nearer even to death than her mother. Her light curls are bathed in a cold sweat and her eyes are already filled with that celestial light which often comes to those who are on the point of death. “ Mother! let us go . . . yonder! ” and, raising her arms to the clear blue heaven, her pure spirit takes its flight to a serener world than this. The dying mother heaves a sigh of relief. “ God be praised, my child will suffer no longer ! ” and in a few minutes she too has gone to join her little daughter. Later on in the same evening cries of complaint and expostulation are heard as something long and black is cast from the carriage, but eventually all is forgotten in the silence of the night. . 17 This scene is repeated six orseven times during this night of terror. It only requires a journey along the line when the day begins to dawn to learn the true explanation of all these ghastly happenings. A little distance along lies the corpse of the dead mother. Her head when falling had struck against the trunk of a tree and blood from her poor fractured body drenches the soil. Not far away there can be seen the remains of the little daughter. She has fallen in a clump of juniper trees and the tiny mite seems to slumber peacefully, a kind look on her face, amid all this sombre and melancholy verdure. But peace is not the only characteristic of the sleeping figures. Some distance away from the little girl there is stretched a dead old man, whose glazed and open eyes still retain the expression of terror they assumed when he was thrown out into the night. Even his half-closed mouth appears to hurl awful anathemas against the authors of the evils that had entered into his life. Schiller in a well-known poem has spoken of the joy that comes to the man who counts the number of his dear ones and finds that not one of them is lost. How much trouble can be cheerfully borne when there is the affection of those in the same family to help us to bear it ! In Poland to-day there is no family circle which can say, “We are all here together.” The family ties have been rudely snapped. The mother may be in one place, the father in another, and the children separate from both, and fortunate are they when any communication passes from one to the others. How many of my countrymen who have heard no news of those they love most in the world may be seen wan-~ dering from city to city seeking everywhere and any- where to come on news of parent, brother, or friend ! They are consumed by restlessness and anxiety. Is there anyone who reads this and does not understand how they must suffer ? But there is one other cause of suffering, more 18 galling than all the rest, and that is the fact that the Poles fight in three different armies, and ought, as in duty bound, to wage a pitiless internecine war. Let me give a single example which reveals all the horror -of such a fratricidal combat. It occurred at the very beginning of the war. The Russian and German armies were encamped very near each other. The next day was marked out for an offensive, and there was very little sleep in either of the rows of trenches. The Poles in the front of the Russian lines were sleep- ing side by side. They thought of their native village, of their own little cottages where their wives were pining for their husbands and where, perhaps, the vital necessities of life had begun to fail. With the humble faith of their race, they lifted their eyes to heaven and prayed to that Heavenly Father who watches over the destinies of nations no less than those of individuals. Whilst they were thus engaged voices were heard breaking the silence of the night. At first they could only be faintly heard, but by-and-by they came nearer, and the hearts of the Russian soldiers beat more quickly as they realised that the chanting came from the camp of the enemy. How could the Polish soldiers mistake the measured and melancholy movement of the words they knew so well : “ Przy- badz nam, milosciwa Pani, ku pomocy ” (“ Haste thee to help us, Virgin most kind ”) ? The words come from a canticle which all the Poles have used since so far back as the fourteenth century. In the morning their mothers had sung it as they started forth to work for their bread. In the evening they themselves, little children in the cradle, chanted with childhood’s treble the same old words ere they went to rest. In joy and, above all, in sorrow, this chant has been the solace of the nation’s heart. And there were their brothers in the hostile camp lifting their hearts and voices in the well-remembered words to her who since the unfortunate days of John Casimir 19 has been called the “ Queen of Poland.” Acting with one spontaneous impulse, they joined their voices with those which came from the men whom next day they would have to slay in cold blood. Let us leave these two sides, enemies and brothers, compatriots and executioners, singing together their common song to her who is the Lady of Sorrows ! It is not the least severe of the trials of every true and fervent Polish heart that men often deny to their nation the rights of nationality. Polish soldiers are obliged to give their lives in the service of political animosities which they can scarcely be supposed to share. But to-day, in the very midst of the crisis which enthralls us, there is only one desire, ardent, passionate, and generous, in every Polish spirit, and that is to witness a glorious national resurrection. Animated by this all-inspiring thought, the Poles move bravely without relaxation or despair along that via dolorosa which has opened before their gaze. They are fainting and yet rejoicing, they are weeping and yet smiling, they die in famine and misery and yet they are ever singing, they shed their blood and yet call out with a voice that reverberates from one extremity of the land to another, “ Ieszcze Polska nie zginela ” (“ Poland is still surviving ”) ! Yes, Poland still survives because of the great love for his country which beats in the heart of every Pole. Let this cry of hope be carried from heart to heart until the whole earth knows the sound thereof and the love and the mercy of God are invoked“for a people suffering and oppressed. Let me finish with the last verse of the Polish national hymn :— “ And yet, 0 Lord, with all our martyr wounds, If we have merited this fate from Thee, Grind us to powder, make us as the dust, But let that dust be free.” THE POLISH INFORMATION COMMITTEE 110 ST. MARTIN ‘S LANE. TRAFALGAR SQUARE. LONDON. 'W.C. ‘Don. Oem Sec: iiterarn ant Press Eeoartment : ‘loom Ereasurer :- w. REPPHAN DR. L. LITWINSKI I w. MAI-DEWICZ Hbrisorg (Ionncil: I. r. norm-zn, -mm. w. JOYNSON-HICKS. M.P. 1- man savers. um. I. HOLLAND nose. LI‘1‘T.D. THE LORD EVERSLEY - R. w. snrorr-warson, n.LITT. (lion. Sea) 'EDMUND G. GARDNER F. E. URQUHART HENRY c. Goocr-Ij A. F. WHYTE, M.P. SERIES. A. PS 2 I. THE LANDMARKS OF POLISH HISTORY. By A. ZALESKI. With an Introduction by Dr. R. W. SETON-WATSON. 2. AN OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE. By J. Homwrnsxr. With an Introduction by G. P. 3. PS‘I?Ei