The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1939. POLAND PROSTRATED.

Evening Star, Issue 23375, 19 September 1939, Page 8

The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1939. POLAND PROSTRATED.

The implications of Russia’s attitude in regard to Poland have in a few hours become sufficiently clarified. The Soviet has marched its armies into and taken possession of the eastern area of Poland which was Russian before the Great War. That is Moscow’s “ quid pro quo,” it will naturally be inferred, for holding the ring for Germany to sandbag the Poles. The two Powers had put their heads together as they did when Poland was originally divided by the crime of the eighteenth century. It seems probable that was done while the Soviet was still discussing, or pretending to discuss, with the Allies’ mission the terms on which the Bolsheviks, in accordance with their professed principles, would make common cause with them against aggression, and while talks were taking place between the military staffs. All that can be said for the betrayal is that self-protection, as much as desire for spoils, may be supposed to have prompted it. If the whole of Poland had fallen into German hands the Nazi Power would have been brought into immediate contact with those “rich lands of the Ukraine,” which, as avowed,by ‘ Mein Kampf,’ were the first object of its covetousness. So Russia has bargained with Germany, and, in return for services rendered, been allowed to impose a barrier of her own troops and administration between those lands and the aggressors of Europe,

The swastika is linked with the hammer and sickle, but between the new Nazi Russia and Communist Germany, as they might seem intent ou showing themselves, the basis of understanding is not one of love, but fear, and its prospects for permanence can be judged from that foundation. Russia impresses that she does not intend to make war on the German side. Her suggestion is that, Poland being now destroyed, as a nation, Britain and France should forget that she ever existed, or that they ever gave pledges to her, Tho magnanimous Soviet will not interfere with them while it is left to enjoy its share of the loot. Quite in the' German style—or the style of the wolf to the lamb—M. Molotov has berated the Poles for bringing their hard fate upon themselves, and offered them Russia’s assistance in escaping the worst penalties in return for the surrender of their soil. It is true that the Polish Government has been driven out of Poland into Rumania, which will now bo trembling for its own safety, and, for the moment, the first victims of attack are beyond the power for help of the Allies. But that France and Britain will be willing, on “that account, to give up the cause of Poland—and all Other States.ithat may he menaced—and leave the Nazi-Communist victors of the first bout in possession of the field which they invaded, is a great deal for the Soviet to expect. Berlin believes that Herr Hitler will now offer peace to the democratic Powers on the basis of a “ fait accompli.” But a ‘‘fait accompli” which is an outrage is something to be reversed.

With more diplomatic complications and uncertainties to confuse it, the war has gone in the field up till this time very much like the Great War before it. The big battalions, now as then, have succeeded almost as quickly as they could have wished in striking down their weakest foe. The last war began on August 1. On August 16 Liege fell, on August 20 tho Germans had occupied Brussels, on the 24th Namur surrendered, on the 24th also began the retreat from Mons, on tho 26th the Germans won their groat victory of Tannenberg over the Russians, and on September 6 began tho battle of the Marne, by which at last tho tide was turned, but not, so far as anyone except military strategists could see, decisively. The conquest of Belgium, except for a small corner of it, part of which was flooded, was as much a “ fait accompli ” as that of Poland is to-day, but it was not accepted, and in due time it was reversed. The material resources of the Poles in this struggle have been far below the magnificence of their spirit, and it is the spiritual forces which control all others in a protracted war. They must be ns nearly non-existent on tho Nazis’ side to-day as in any conflict ever waged. The German Press publishes an inspired statement of a six-point Russo-German agreement entered into between the Powers which a few short weeks ago could not find names bad enough with which to express their opinions of each other. Germany and Russia between them, it is laid down, must reorganise the various nationalities in Poland—on the basis, no doubt, of past oppression —“ by creating corporative bodies of Europe ” —whatever that may mean. Also they must “ settle spheres of influence,” which is completely intelligible. They will settle them—for a time. Meanwhile the blockade of Germany and the war on the Western Frqnt go on.