PILSUDSKI AND POLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1926, Page 3

PILSUDSKI AND POLAND

(.By J. M. N. Jeffries in the London “ Daily Mail.”)

The clue to the position in Warsaw, where Marshal Pilsuclsld lias effected a dramatic coup d’etat, is to be found most likely in the circumstances under which Poland, seven years ago, became a nation again.

Marshal Pilsudski, who was as prominent then as he is now, is certainly a noteworthy man and a patriot, but he is very difficult to depict in British terms. He is a sort of Wolfe Tone who has succeeded and come to power. He passed his whole youth and manhood as an insurgent, having been born in \Vilnn, then under Russian domination.

i Since the abdication of the last King • of Poland in 1795 Poland had been parcelled between Germany, Austria and Russia. Germany had - proved herself a competent military conqueror. Qn her part, Austria treated the Poles immeasurably better than the other occupants. Being herself only a collection of nationalities, she was quite willing that her Poles should be as Polish as they could, provided they served the Emperor faithfully. Poles rose to high rank in the Austrian army, navy and diplomatic service. The Russians, as limy be imagined, ruled the Poles despotically, childishly and chaotically. They obliged Warsaw, for example, to put up with a sort of village railway station. SENT TO SIBERIA. The Russians had never been able to suppress certain student organisations. A'oung Pilsudski became a leader in those secret corps, and in the end was banished to Siberia. The start of the Great War found hi in acknowledged chief of the active Polish movement in the Kingdom, as the Russian section of the country was called. It is important to recall that there was no unified Polish movement at all in being at this time. The only open insurrectionary one was that in the Kingdom. In the Austrian part Poles carried on for the empire in a gentlemanly. not. very enthusiastic way till the first prospects of renewed independence showed. Germany tried to cajole the Poles with a promise of a federated State under a. German prince who would learn Polish. In Russian territory Pilsudski and his student hands, not attempting to penetrate the enigma of the European war, simply started guerrilla warfare against the oppressor they know. They sniped, harrassed trains, sacked the convoys of the cracking colossus. Naturally the Germans, when they overran Poland, thought they would have Pilsudski with them. But lie was no partisan of the proposed German principality. For one thing, as a regular opponent and enemy of Russia he hail naturally been drawn into sympathy with the opposite ideals of governance to hers and had become

very democratic. However, the Germans set up a Council of Regency in Warsaw ol distinguished Conservative Poles, and Pilsudski was interned in the fortress of Magdeburg out of harm’s way. MILITARY GI.EAYAGE. The first scission between Left and Right in newborn Poland, caused by his internment and the Council, was to develop still further when the Polish Republic was created and Pilsudski. who ns the patriot most ill evidence had been provisional " Chief of Slate ” handed over office to a President. He was made a field-marshal ; but tlien the trouble began. He felt himself to be the creator and soul of military Poland. But the regular array came to he staffed with men like General Haller, who bad led tlie Polish volunteers in French service, and the Polish generals who had been in the Austrian army. This was natural, for they were trained soldiers who understood all the complicated m.cchanism of an army. They admired Pilsudski as mail and patriot, but felt that lie- was no professional soldier. To this military cleavage must be added a territorial one, since the elements who liad surrounded Pilsudski in Russian Poland adhered to him, while 'those of the Rneliy of Posnaiiia (German Poland) and Galicia (Austrian Poland) naturally were inclined to back the prominent men of their provinces. The struggle for the domination of the army is probably, therefore, at the back of the present coup d’etat. It will he noted that Marshal PilsuSsU disclaims any desire to play the dictator, but demands the Ministry of War for himself. The lallon \A itos Government—Witos being a picturesque figure who always wears the embroidered white peasant costume—was under the mgis or the domination of the Right. So Pilsudski marched on Warsaw and overthrew it. Tf he maintains power, legislation will be more to the T.eft and to an entente with democratic Germany, perhaps. Tt is so difficult to say in Poland, where-parties join men instead of men joining parties.