THE POLISH REVOLT IN SILESIA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 284, 27 August 1919, Page 7

THE POLISH REVOLT IN SILESIA

HUN BARBARITIES A DREADFUL RECITAL By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright (Rec. August 26, 9.10 p.m.) London, August 25. The "Morning Post" Cracow correspondent reports that several bands of insurgents are still holding out in Upper Silesia, but wholesale executions, coupled : with the use of artillery, have broken the backbone of tho revolt. Most of the insurgents preferred death to surrender. Tho Germans, thus foiled, arrested old men, women, and joys, collected them in droves, and made them march for hours ' hoUling their hands above their heads. Britches of prisoners were continually beaten with the butts of rifles, wire cabling and belting. The floors of the cells were so covered .with blood from the prisoners' wounds that one's boots stuck ivhile walking. A priest, after confessing , ( a fifteen-year-old boy? was compelled to • hold his hands while he was shot. The Germans found a peasant with a slight bullet wound in the arm. This was regarded as evidence that he had been fighting. They tied a. hand grenade to hi? throat, and removed the pin. There are numerous instances of barbarous cruelty. Old men were beaten brutally, and others wore tied to horfes; The Germans shot 150 prisoners at Kattowitz. A favourite German plan was to string a victim up by the hands lief ore execution. The Germans stood on the river bank' pot-shotting , the fleeing refugees who were wading breast high. Tho refugees appealed for Allied assistance. They'explained that the miners efcrack because the Germans made their conditions intolerable. A widow fell at the correspondent's knees and told how the Germans 6hnt her hueband, despite tho fact that he had crossed tho frontier, and was on Polish territory. The young men pleaded with the Allies to give the Poles arms to defend them, seives. The correspondent listened to stories from a group of four hundred refugees, mostly men, amongst whom was; hardly a dry eye. He was convinced that no assemblage of people could be etirred to such unrestrained emotion if they had not lived through a terrible ordeal. His conclusions are that eince the state of Eiege was declared in Upper Silesia in January, tho Germans have adopted a deliberate policy of provocation and oppression' towards the Polish workers with the object of inciting the outbreak,'thus discrediting the Poies as, a people, giving an . fov further repressive measures, and tempting Poland to undertake unauthor- . ised intervention. • Tho correspondent is ti.lso convinced that all the most influential Pole? were either arrested or forced to flee in order to assist German policy. The Allies' failure to give immediate effect to the Treaty Clause relating to Upper Silesia has helped the German plans. Polish circles in London are of opinion that tho Germans imprisoned aiid deported practically-the whole of the educated Poles in order to rob tho working classes of their guidance and influence during the plebiscite, ])olieving that tho latter could easily be nersuadod to vote as Germany dictated.' When tho workers remained loyal to Poland tho , Germans dealt with them similarly. Many Poles who were unable to flee hid in disused workings of the mines and were fed by' families until they were caught: Tho "Morning Post's" correspondent urges that nu inquiry be held similar to ■■ the Belgian inquiry regarding tho German excesses. He is of opinion that until the mines are removed from German control the output will be negligible. The workers will icturn immediately the Allies occupy Upper Silesia.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. ALLIES MUST OCCUPY SILESIA. (Rec. August 26, 10.15 p.m.) London, August 2G. The "Daily Telegraph's" Paris correspondent states that the 'Paris Conferonco fears that the Allied Mission's moral influence will prove insufficient; and therefore the immediate occupation of Silesia by Allied troops must !>e ex- . pected. Tlioro has hem an unofficial but clear German invitation to the Allies to take this course.—Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.