ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES IN EUROPE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 311, 8 October 1915, Page 3

ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES IN EUROPE.

Warsaw, the famous Polish capital, the third greatest city in the Russian Empire, is not merely a political prize or strategic position. It is a place "beautiful for situation and full of great historic associations." Standing in broad terraces, like a vast mairble staircase with its foot on the bank of the Vistula, the city is connected with its pcituresque suburb Praga by three magnificent bridges, one of which cost over £600,000 to erect, [having a span of 1,666 feet. With a rapidly growing population, now about equal to that of Liverpool, a third of whom are Jews, the city spreads far along the banks of its noble stream. Owing to the wide navigable rivers which converge above and below it, Warsaw has enjoyed centuries of commercial prosperity. This has been largely developed of late years by means of extensive railway communications, six trunk lines connecting the city with Vienna, Kiev, Moscow, Petronrad, Danzig, and Berlin. Lodz, •which has been called the Manchester of Poland, is in direct communication, while coal and irou are brought in from the mineral regions about Kielee. VEfried and extensive manufacturers have grown up in the neighbciur|hood, including a very large output of boots and shoes, and many artistic furnishings. ........ .....,,, ~ s .. , .

To- the insular Briton' who regards Eastern Europe as a barbaric "foreign part," a closer view of the Polish capital come as a vision from the Arabian Nights.

Gorgeous palaces, grand municipal buildings, and imposing statuary line th e broad streets, and there are several spacious public gardens The university has 1,500 students and half a million volumes, and an extensive museum. One of the most popular buildings in Warsaw is the theatre in the Lazienski gardens, which were laid out on the old bed of the river by a Polish King

The termer Royal castle is now the residenc of the Governor-General of the Polish provinces. It stands in the very heart of the city, in Sigismundsquaro, from which the five main streets open out. In these thoroughfares are some venerable buildings. The great cathedral of the Greek Church in Saxon-square is a modern edifice completed within the last 20 years. It is in th e Byzantine style, with five gilded cupolas and a detached campa.n •■a£ great height One of the most conspicucis churches is the Lutheran. In the Church of the Holy Ghost i s deposited the heart of Chopin, whose musical genius is sufficient, answer to tjhe question: "Can any good thing come out of Poland?" THE SAVIOUR OF EUROPE. Warsaw, now the most tragic city in Europe, was at one time reputed the gayest. It was the capital of a kingdom which ranked as the greatest power—in force of arms, policy and culture —in Central and Northern Europe.

Its kings at iseparte periods and occasions held the savage Prussians in fief and repelled the incursions of the Turks and Tartars. One Kin'2' of Poland—John Sobeiski, of glorious and [heroic memory—annihilated a Turkish army under the very walls of Vienna, and raised a siege whcse success would have threatened the heart of Christendom istelf. Hardly a century later and the empire that the army of Poland had thus saved from destruction was actually to participate in the destruction of Poland itself! This was but one incident, however, in the heritage of perafidy handed down by the rulers of the reigning House of Austria!

The ancient, kingdom of Poland, however, ha c ] other claims to honourable memory. At the zenith of its. military power it could make the proud beast of never havinij raised the sword in aggression nor sheathed it in defence. Notwithstanding the aristocratic lawlessness that led to its decline and downfall as an independent state, Poland enjoyed a degree of political and scc.ia'.l liberty and tolerance that few contemporary nations could claim.

For centurie s the Court at Warsaw was the rallying point of art and science in Central and Eastern Europe. In the years before the kingdom's fall every prince in Europe, with his courtiers and attendants came to the Polish capital as candidate for the vacant throne. The cermonies, the festivals —and, not infrequently, the streetfip;hts—that accompanied the elections of the Kings cf Poland were notorious in al Enrope. For the Polish temperament, was instable, as it was generous, as extravagant as it was cultured, as ineffectually idealistic as it wa s !'ieroically inipii'sive. The Poles could fight battles, and lose them; could sing beautiful songs, and compose them; could be brave scldiiers, elegant courtiers, heroic patriots, impassioned poets, and even glorious martyrs. But they could not —until it was too late —settle down soberly to the business of government. Thus this gai'-lant but unpractical nation fell an easy pirey to the designs of its neighbours. In 1772, and again in 1793 and 1794, the territories of Poland were divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and the Treaty of Vienna, in 1815, confirmed tpie partitions. Subsequently several efforts were made by the Poles to regain their runined nationality. The last, 1563, was suppressed with considerable rigonr. RUSSIA'S GREAT PLEDGE At the outbreak of the present war all three Powers issued proclamations to the Poles, and all three promised to restore Poland as a more or less independent nation. The declaration of Russia, which candidly and courageously recalled the unlhappy events of the past, wap greeted by the Poles of Russian Poland —and by some sections of those in Prussian Poland —with great enthusiasm. Whatever the (results of the military campaign in Poland, the sympathies of the majority of the Polish popula-

tion —even in tjhe provinces under the rule of Germany and Austria—are irrevocably with the Allies. Their experience of Prussian arrogance, brutality and deliberate cruelty—even in the years of ostensible "peace"—has been too bitter and bloodjy to encourage any other feeling.