3. The Poles.— Of all the nations freed by the war Poland can, perhaps, claim the most notable and romantic past. Aside from non Polish elements, it once included Russian Po land, Posen, East and West Prussia, Silesia and Galicia. Little is Icnown of the origins of the Poles — a Slavic people — before the founda tion of the vast Polish kingdom embracing most of central Europe by Boleslaw the Brave (992 '02.5). This abortive domain was divided in 1139 and not reunited until 1320. In the middle of the 13th century the Teutonic Knights began their missionary work and colonization among the Poles and succeeded in converting them to Roman Catholicism. The military success of the Knights was not as marked as their theo logical progress; 24 years after the personal union with Lithuania under Jagello, the Poles and Lithuanians utterly defeated the Knights in the battle of Tannenberg. In 1683 John So bieski, ldng of Poland, relieved Vienna and saved central Europe from the Mohammedans. The complete union with Lithuania at Lublin, in 1569, gave Poland assurance of an ample ter ritory, but the state was so beset with fatal weaknesses that decline was inevitable and ulti mate extinction invited. The kingdom was ex tensive but lacked distinct or defensible bound aries; there were serious religious and racial diversities; gross political, sodal and economic inequalities existed; the constitutional arrange ments invited anarchy; and the control by for eign kings resulted in the exploitation of Polish interests. The first partition between Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772, while unjustified on the part of the partitioning powers, can stir lit tle sympathy, but not so with the second and third partitions in 1793 and 1795. In the 21 years that had intervened the Poles had elimi nated many of the fatal economic and political weaknesses that had previously endangered their national existence and had grven promtsiug evi dence of being on the eve of a far-reaching political renaissance, but the avaricious empress, Catherine II, would tolerate no strong Slavic state obstructing Russian contact with the west and she arranged the outrageous partitions of 1793 and 1795 which terminated the political in dependence of Poland. The national hopes of the Poles were temporarily revived by Napo leon's creation of the grand duchy of Warsaw, in 1807. Still more promising was the establish ment, in November of 1815, of a lcingdom of Poland by the then liberal tsar, Alexander I. This embraced much of the old kingdom of Poland and was favored with the most liberal political constitution then in existence in Eu rope, but the Poles desired complete political independence and could not resist the contagion of the revolutionary movement that swept over Europe in 1830. Their revolt was speedily sup pressed and the short-lived kingdom was tmited with Russia. Encouraged by the growth of na tionalism in Germany and Italy and by the benevolent but treacherous attitude of Napo leon III, the Poles made one last desperate at tempt in 1863 to obtain their freedom. This rebellion was crushed with even greater ease than the revolt of 33 years earlier and a most brutal and thorough-going punishment was meted ont to the gallant rebels. That policy of Russification then began, by means of which the Russians have since tried without avail to crush the national aspirations of their Polish subjects. The one extenuating compensation which the Poles have enjoyed since 1863 has been the fact that the coming of the industrial revolution to Russia made Poland the centre of Russian economic life. That part of the Polish nation which was included within the lcingdom of Prussia — a part of upper Silesia, Posen, West Prussia and the Masurian district of East Prussia — has met with oppression only less severe than that which their kinsmen received from Russia. But the rigorous religious, edu cational and agrarian policy of Bismarck and Billow only served to stir the resentment of the Poles and to reanimate their national spirit Only in Austrian Galicia were the Poles ac corded that degree of autonomy and liberal treatment which has made them partially satis fied to dwell in political subjection to another state. The Poles are a branch of the Slavic di vision of the Alpine race, but are much less broadheaded than their Czech and Slovak neighbors on the south, or even the Russians to the east Their contact with so many differem peoples has caused a considerable prevalence of racial intermixture Their language is a dis tinct western Slavic dialect. In religion over three-fourths of the Poles are Roman Catho lic. The only notable exception is to be found in the 300,M0 Protestants in the Masurian Lakes district of East Prussia. The estimates of the number of Poles in Europe at the out break of the war vary from about 15,000,000 to 20,000,000, of whom some 3,500,000 lived in Ger many, about the same number in Austria and the remainder in Russia.
4. The Ruthenianse—Stretching from south eastern Poland to the sea of Azov is the dis trict of the Ukraine, eastern Galicia, and part of Bukowina, the home of the Little Russians or Ruthenians. Roughly this is the region in cluded between the Dniester and Dnieper riv ers and coincides With the fertile ablack-eartho district of Russia, the most productive cereal growing region in Europe. The Little Russians or Ruthenians of the lAraine have had a most varied history. Settling in southern Russia in one of the most recent waves of Slav immigra tion, they were first welded into something like a southern Russian state, with Kiev as their capital by Yaroslaff in the first half of the llth century. An attempt was made to introduce at
least a veneer of Byzantine civilization. The kingdom lasted little more than a generation and the eastern part of the region was overrun by the Tatar invasion of the 13th century. In the 14th century the majority of the Ulcraine was conquered by the eicpanding Lithuanian princi pality and was later included in the joint king dom of Poland and Lithuania. In the middle of the 17th century an unsuccessftil rebellion of the Ukraine led to the placing of the east ern portion under the suzerainty of Russia, but most of it remained with the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom until the partitions. Austria obtained the Ruthenians of eastern Galicia by die first partition in 1772, and Russia secured the re maining portion by the partitions of 1793 and 1795. Within the last 40 years there has devel oped a determined Ulcrainian movement for in dependence from Russia which has been greatly stimulated by the same Rursification policy that has been applied to the Finns, Letts, Lithuanians and Poles. The ruthless repression of Ruthenian national sentiment and activities by Russia in the early part of the war was prob ably responsible for the immediate growth of the independence movement in the Ukraine after the Russian Revolution of March 1917. Ra cially the Ruthenians are the purest of the Rus sian Slays and the best Russian representatives of the Alpine race. They speak the truest of the Slavic dialects. Most of the inhabitants of the western Ulcraine adhere to the curious Uni ate Church. This was created in 1595 by the union of Brest-Litovsk, according to the terms of which the Ukrainians of the Polish-Lithu anian kingdom were made to accept the suprem acy of the Roman pontiff, while at the same time they were allowed to retain their Greek orthodox liturgy, ritual, ceremonial and organ ization. Farther east the Ruthenians are divided between the Uniate and the Orthodox churches. Liberal estimates place the total number of Riithenians at about 30,000,000, of vrhom some 3,500,000 reside in Galicia, 700,000 in the Carpathian district of Hungary and about 50,M0 in Bulcowina. The others are, of course, found in southern Russia.
5. The Czecho4lovaks.—South and west of the home of the Poles and Ruthenians is found the land of the Czechs of Bohemia and Mora via and of the Slovaks of northwestern Hun gary. Like the Poles, these peoples have had a distinguished past. Their Slavic ancestors caine into this district during the 6th century and were organized into the first Bohemian state during the second quarter of the 7th cen tury. Absorbed by the transitory Great Mora vian empire in the 9th century, Bohesnia re gained its independence in the 10th after the Magyars had overthrown the Moravians and ab sorbed the Slovaks. In 1086 it became an inde pendent kingdom and during most of the 14th century its dynasty headed the Holy Roman empire. The height of its prosperity was prob ably attained under Charles IV (134-78). The Hussite wars of the 15th century were not only of a religious nature, but were also a great na tional movement In 1526, to gain the strength of unity against the Turks, the Bohemian.s ac cepted the personal leadership of the house of Hapsburg. Almost exactly a century later, as a result of the first episode of the Thirty Years' War, Bohemia lost its independence and there began a period of ruthless Germanization and forcible conversion to Catholicism, which for nearly two centuries seemed to have crushed out the national life of the Czechs. In the first half of the 19th century, however, this was re Iiindled by the reaction of the nationalistic aspects of the Napoleonic period upon Bohemia and by the arousing of Czechish interest in their national culture and history by a nurnber of brilliant scholars, among them the linguist and philologist, Dobrovslcy; the philosopher, Kol lar; the archologist, Safarllc, and, above all, the historian, Palacky. The national movement in the spring and early summer of 1848 was brought to a speedy and tragic end, but since 1868 the Czechs have maintained a steady cam paign for the recognition of their national rights and aspirations by Vienna, the old Czech party deinanding that Emperor Franz Joseph be formally crowned king of Boheinia at Prague, and the young Czech party looking forward to the more aggressive and ambitious program of uniting with the Slovaks, Ruthe nians and Jugo-Slavs in the attempt to make the dual-monarchy a Slavic state. Racially the Czechs are, of course, Slays, being much taller and more broadheaded than the Poles and, to a lesser degree, than the Ruthenians. In Bohe mia and Moravia, however, there are large mi norities of Germans which constitute about 36 per cent of the total population in Bohemia and 29 per cent in Moravia. Czechs and Slovalcs use the Slavonic dialect of the Czechs as their national literary language. In religion the great majority of the Czechs are Roman Catholic while the Slovaks are fairly evenly divided be-'. tween Catholics and Protestants, but religion plays little part in the present national com plex of the Czecho-Slovalcs. In 1910 it was es timated that there were about 6,500,000 Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia and slightly more than 2,000,000 Slovaks in the Tatar districts of north western Hungary.