Complete Works

reason it would be unsafe to disregard it if one proposed to build solidly.  The Poles, whom superficial or ill-informed theorists are trying to force into the social and psychological formula of Slavonism, are in truth not Slavonic at all.  In temperament, in feeling, in mind, and even in unreason, they are Western, with an absolute comprehension of all Western modes of thought, even of those which are remote from their historical experience.
    That element of racial unity which may be called Polonism, remained compressed between Prussian Germanism on one side and the Russian Slavonism on the other.  For Germanism it feels nothing but hatred.  But between Polonism and Slavonism there is not so much hatred as a complete and ineradicable incompatibility.
    No political work of reconstructing Poland either as a matter of justice or expediency could be sound which would leave the new creation in dependence to Germanism or to Slavonism.
    The first need not be considered.  The second must be — unless the Powers elect to drop the Polish question either under the cover of vague assurances or without any disguise whatever.
    But if it is considered it will be seen at once that the Slavonic solution of the Polish Question can offer no guarantees of duration or hold the promise of security for the peace of Europe.
    The only basis for it would be the Grand Duke’s Manifesto.  But that Manifesto, signed by a personage now removed from Europe to Asia, and by a man, moreover, who if true to himself, to his conception of patriotism and to his family tradition could not have put his hand to it with any sincerity of purpose, is now divested of all authority.  The forcible vagueness of its promises, its startling inconsistency with the hundred years of ruthlessly denationalising oppression permit one to doubt whether it was ever meant to have any authority.
    But in any case it could have had no effect.  The very nature of things would have brought to nought its professed intentions.
    It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia’s power and antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia, unnational complexion) within the body of the Empire.  All history shows that such an arrangement, however hedged in by the most solemn treaties and declarations, cannot last.  In this case it would lead to a tragic issue.  The absorption of Polonism is unthinkable.  The last hundred years of European History proves it undeniably.  There remains then extirpation, a process of blood and iron; and the last act of the Polish drama would be played then before a Europe too weary to interfere, and to the applause of Germany.
    It would not be just to say that the disappearance of Polonism would add any strength to the Slavonic power of expansion.  It would add no strength, but it would remove a possibly effective barrier against the surprises the future of Europe may hold in store for the Western Powers.
    Thus the question whether Polonism is worth saving presents itself as a problem of politics with a practical bearing on the stability of European peace — as a barrier or perhaps better (in view of its detached position) as an outpost of the Western Powers placed between the great might of Slavonism which has not yet made up its mind to anything, and the organised Germanism which has spoken its mind with no uncertain voice, before the world.
    Looked at in that light alone Polonism seems worth saving.  That it has lived so long on its trust in the moral support of the Western Powers may give it another and even stronger claim, based on a truth of a more profound kind.  Polonism had resisted the utmost efforts of Germanism and Slavonism for more than a hundred years.  Why?  Because of the strength of its ideals conscious of their kinship with the West.  Such a power of resistance creates a moral obligation which it would be unsafe to neglect.  There is always a risk in throwing away a tool of proved temper.
    In this profound conviction of the practical and ideal worth of Polonism one approaches the problem of its preservation with a very vivid sense of the practical difficulties derived from the grouping of the Powers.  The uncertainty of the extent and of the actual form of victory for the Allies will increase the difficulty of formulating a plan of Polish regeneration at the present moment.
    Poland, to strike its roots again into the soil of political Europe, will require a guarantee of security for the healthy