DECLARATION BY MARSHAL SMIGLY-RYDZ

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1939, Page 6

DECLARATION BY MARSHAL SMIGLY-RYDZ

Will Not Avoid Obligations DANZIG NOT TO BE YIELDED VIOLENCE TO BE REPELLED (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 9.50 a.in.) WARSAW, August 6. “We did not begin the Danzig affair. We will not avoid our obligations but adjust our actions in Danzig to those ol the opposing side,” declared Marshal E. Smigly-Rydz, InspeetoiGeneral of the Polish Army, addressing 100,000 peoplejit Cracow on the occasion of the twenty-fit th anniversary of the march to the front of the first Polish Legion. He added: “We have no aggressive intentions, but shall resist all, without exception, who attempt, directly or indirectly, to infringe upon the rights or dignity of our State. Poland intends to repel violence with all her forces. Today, when the words ‘war or peace’ are on everyone’s lips, we declare oui love of peace as much as anyone but cannot have peace which means to take from one people to give to another. Danzig is the lung of our economic organisation and has been united to Poland for centuries. We have made our viewpoint very clear. * 1 Marshal Smigly-Rydz concluded: “It is my duty to say, with deep emotion, that we have friends among the nations who understand the essential meanings of things and have formulated their attitude to us.’’ s Cheers and cries of: “We will never yield Danzig!’ punctuated the speech. General Sosnkovsky, second in command of the Polish army, declared: “Pilsudski’s Legionnaires are particularly favoured by history, because it seems that they will participate in a second international war, in which Poland will be one of the most important and most exposed actors in the drama. . It seems, after twenty years, that the main act of the stabilisation of Polish independence is beginning.