With the outbreak of World War II, among high-ranking Poles, the idea of forming a certain Polish militia was seriously discussed, it was especially popular among emigrants. However, the Russian command did not react to this at first, and the enthusiasm quickly faded away. This is how the director of the diplomatic office at headquarters Kudashev wrote about this already on September 26 (13th century), 1914, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: “We have not heard of the Poles and their proposals to organize a militia lately. Another similar proposal was received from a little-known person, but it was declared unacceptable, since the letter of this person spoke about the organization of a purely Polish army, with banners, etc. As for the Polish question in a broader sense, they do not even talk about it, - it is too far away and too many purely military tasks separate us from the time when it will be subject to resolution”(1).
As you can see, the majority of those in power looked at the Polish problem according to the principle of “everything is ahead”. In fact, at the beginning of the war, only the initiative of Witold Ostoi-Gorczynski received the approval of the Russian authorities. In a telegram dated October 18, 1914, the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Nikolai Yanushkevich, expressed his consent to the formation of Polish units. Gorczynski began operations in Brest and Chelm and continued in Pulawy, where the most famous of the Polish legions, the Pulawski Legion, arose.
It seems, indeed, that with the great-princely "Appeal" Russia has outstripped everyone else. But, obviously, first of all, the desire of the higher bureaucracy and advanced liberals from among the "Duma members" to do something significant at least in this direction with the beginning of the war worked. Nevertheless, many Russian historians today are inclined to regard the "Polish Manifesto" primarily as a rather aggressive claim to annex all Polish lands, albeit in the form of autonomy.
With all the military anti-German hysteria that gripped the Polish provinces, with all the glorification of the Slavic brotherhood, there were also a lot of those who were ready to fight to the death against Russia in the Kingdom. According to Polish sources, which are already considered almost official, on August 3 in Warsaw, without much conspiracy, the "Jond of the People" was formed, which declared the Polish Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Jozef Pilsudski.
"Jond" came out with an anti-Russian appeal to the Polish people, which was spread, however, in the Austrian Krakow. There are many reasons to believe that this appeal and the "Jond" itself are a figment of the imagination or initiative of Pilsudski, together with his closest associates. To give it more weight, the future head of state did not hesitate to "admit" that the "Jond" was financed by the Germans in order to give the uprising in the Kingdom a national Polish character (2).
Pilsudski announced the withdrawal of the "Appeal" at a meeting of the really existing "Provisional Commission for the Association of Independent Organizations". The commission was created back in 1912 to unite rifle squads and has already accumulated three hundred cells and organizations with several thousand members (3). Under the pressure of Piłsudski, the "Provisional Commission" with the outbreak of the world war announced that it was subordinate to the leadership of "Zhonda". And only on August 5, 1915, having entered Warsaw, the Germans did not find any "Zhonda" there.
However, Pilsudski created, in addition to Zhonda, a kind of people's committee - Członkowie Komitetu Ludowego, with an eastern branch in Lviv, which lasted only 10 days - until the capture of the city by General Ruzsky's 3rd army. It is characteristic that the committee, based in Krakow, that is, on the territory of Austria-Hungary, was in direct contact with the German command, bypassing the Austrians.
Returning to the year 1914, we note that Pilsudski did not manage to ignite any uprising in the lands of the Kingdom - the Poles in their mass were completely loyal to the Russian crown. Already on August 13, the Austro-German command requires the commander of the legions to include his combat units in the Austrian Landsturm. The leadership of the Polish colo in the Vienna parliament protested sharply and demanded that the riflemen be reorganized into legions on the model of the Napoleonic ones. As a result, on August 27, the "legions" were nevertheless created, and the 1st regiment of legionnaires was headed by Józef Pilsudski himself, who had neither a military education nor an officer rank. Is it any wonder that in August 1915 the legionnaires were not even allowed to enter Warsaw.
Head of Professor Grabsky
If the Polish population of Galicia, as well as all its inhabitants, except for the Germans and Austrians, was completely loyal to the Russian army, this did not mean at all that it really entered Galicia as a "liberator". It was 1914, not 1945 or even 44. So far, it could only be about correcting the borders, and not about redrawing the entire map of Europe. In addition, those who belonged, albeit formally, the right to decide the fate of the region, have long been divided - into Russophiles and Russophobes. Isn't it all together that explains the first failure of Pilsudski with his legions?
To understand the moods of the “liberated Galicians”, let us turn to a short correspondence between the leader of the Polish National Committee, Professor Stanislav Grabsky, a professor at Lviv University, a staunch Russophile, with the new Russian military governor-general, Count Bobrinsky, and Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Yanushkevich.
Grabsky reminded the Russian generals of Vienna's efforts to incite anti-Russian sentiment among the Poles: Galicia, which, transferred to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, would lead to an uprising of the whole Polish people against Russia."
Noting that such measures did not bring success until 1911, Grabski acknowledged the subsequent clear split in Polish society, after which the formation of "legions" and "rifle unions" became possible. The professor analyzed in sufficient detail the short history of internal struggle among all sorts of Polish national organizations in Galicia, considering it a positive result, neither more nor less, the actual prevention of the Polish uprising in Russia.
From the current point of view, it is obvious that Stanislav Grabsky tried to present objective reality as a result of the efforts of “the best representatives of Polish society,” which is why he did not receive a clear answer to his proposals either from Yanushkevich or from Bobrinsky. We must not forget the not too well-known fact that with the outbreak of the World War on Polish lands, both in Germany and in Austria, sympathy for the Russians remained - and considerable. In relation to Galicia, General A. A. Brusilov, at that time - the commander of the 8th Army of the Russian Southwestern Front.
“By the way, I must say that not only in Eastern Galicia, where the majority of the population is Rusyns, who have been close to us for a long time, but also in Western Galicia, where the entire population is purely Polish, not only peasants, but also the Catholic clergy treated us well and in many In some cases, they helped us as much as they could. This was due to the fact that earlier, by my order, the well-known appeal of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to the Poles was widely distributed among the population. The Poles hoped that with the help of the Russians, an independent Poland would be resurrected, to which Western Galicia would also be annexed. I diligently supported them in this hope. The only thing that worried and annoyed the Poles was that there was no confirmation from the central government of Russia that the promises of the Grand Duke would be fulfilled; Poles were very annoyed that the tsar did not confirm the promises of the supreme commander with a single word. They had the opinion that Nicholas II never fulfilled his promises, and therefore many of them, especially the clergy, feared that when the need to win them over to its side passed, the Russian government would cheat them, not at all standing on ceremony with the promises of the Grand Duke.
In any case, I must say that during my stay in Western Galicia it was easy for me to live with the Poles and they very diligently, without refusals, fulfilled all my requirements. Railways, telegraph and telephone lines were never destroyed, attacks even on our single unarmed soldiers never took place. In turn, I tried with all my might to show courtesy to the Poles and I think that they were more satisfied with us than with the Austrians”(4).
The grand-ducal proclamation hardly made a revolution in the minds of most Poles. The majority was already inclined towards Russia, but it was still more difficult for the Galician Poles to go into direct confrontation with Vienna. It is no coincidence that with the declaration of war, all Polish parties in Galicia, without much coercion from the authorities, made loyal statements that they would fulfill their duty towards the monarch, believing that this was required by neither more nor less, "national honor" (5) …
However, the tough demands from the authorities, which, with the outbreak of hostilities, directly prompted the Poles to raise an uprising on Russian lands, as well as the course of the war itself, changed a lot in the position of Polish society. Doubters, led by Stanislav Grabsky, were clearly inclined to side with Russia, especially since she alone proposed the unification of the three parts of Poland. It is also important that Polish politicians quite correctly assessed the prospects for Austrian expansion in the Balkans. If the Habsburgs really create a third throne there for themselves, the Poles will finally lose all chances of independence in this empire, and even autonomy. Some Polish leaders did not exclude such a paradoxical option as the "exchange" of Galicia and Krakow, which the Romanovs would retreat to Serbia and the complete domination of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans.
It is significant that it was Stanislav Grabsky who, even among the students who received the nickname "bright head", initiated the creation of a pro-Russian "Supreme National Committee" in Galicia, which would put an end to the activities of both the "national jonda" and the "preliminary commission". Grabsky remained in Lvov after the capture of it by the Russians and almost immediately suggested to the Governor-General of Galicia, Count G. A. Bobrinsky, to convene in January 1915 in Lvov a kind of congress of authoritative Polish politicians.
More than 100 representatives of districts and cities of Galicia were to take part in the congress. According to the project of Professor Grabsky, they, together with representatives of Russian Poland, were to discuss the beginnings of the administrative and political structure of the liberated Slavic lands and, in the future, the whole of Poland. Obligatory in such cases, proposals on the right of the Polish population to use the Polish language in administrative activities, in educational institutions and church services, for independent land management were accompanied by a direct demand for administrative autonomy (6).
Is it worth explaining that such "revolutionary" initiatives did not find understanding either with the Governor-General of Galicia, or with the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General NN Yanushkevich, to whom Bobrinsky turned for advice. It is characteristic that Yanushkevich reminded Bobrinsky that the Warsaw Governor-General P. N. Engalychev is expected to take office and his speech with explanations on the Polish issue. In such conditions, according to the general, "the convocation of the congress seems premature", and "the need for appeals from the Russian authorities to the Polish population is excluded" (7).
General Yanushkevich reasonably noted that if we are talking about the structure of the internal government of Poland, the congress of Polish representatives can be convened only in Warsaw. But all this is not in the competence of the military authorities, and in general - such important issues can be resolved only after the end of the war. Victorious, of course. However, the closest associate of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the author of the appeal, did not object to the convocation of the congress of Galician figures proper. It was this approach to solving Polish problems, with indecision and a desire to postpone everything for "after the war", that became characteristic of the Russian leadership, with rare exceptions, until February 1917.
Do not forget Talerhof and Terezin
Recall that since the beginning of the war, the national democrats, continuing to follow the tsarist policy of reunification, tried to come to an agreement with the nationalists of Galicia - the party still claimed political leadership in all three parts of Poland. But these attempts, even after the entry of Russian troops into Galicia, met with little success. And the clumsy measures of the newly appointed "provisional" military administration for the Russification of the region gave rather the opposite effect among the generally loyal Polish and Jewish population.
The already mentioned trip of Nicholas II to "liberated" Galicia made the search for a compromise even more difficult. The desire of the Russian clerks to curry favor with the sovereign turned into an outright farce with a demonstration of the monarchical feelings of the new loyal subjects and the "mass" conversion of Rusyns to Orthodoxy. This only pushed many Poles away from Russia even more - and already, it seems, forever.
Justice requires recalling that in the end, those who had the courage to believe that the Russians came forever suffered more than others. After the Russian army left Galicia, the repressions against the Rusyns, who in fact considered themselves simply Russians, and who returned to Orthodoxy, were simply ruthless. The recently published book dedicated to the tragic fate of the "liberated" Galicians (8) may be considered odious by many, but the abundance of documents cited in it speaks for itself - at the suggestion of a German ally, the Austrians introduced an occupation regime on their own territory much more harsh than in the same Russian Poland. And the concentration camps Talerhof and Terezin, where not only prisoners of war were kept, but also thousands of peaceful inhabitants, including women and children, became the prototype of the future Dachau and Treblinka. However, the Nazis brought the death conveyor there to the absolute and it worked completely industrial.
And yet, turning to the Poles, the highest circles of Russia thought about expansion as almost the last thing. Such a paradoxical assessment is confirmed at least by the point of view of Count S. Yu. Witte, a well-known enemy of the war with the Germans. The retired prime minister, contrary to popular belief, on the eve of World War II had some chances to restore his influence, heading the key finance committee that regulated lending to military orders.
In his criticism of government policies, he was able to find the most vulnerable spots. Having learned about the publication of the great-princely "Appeal", Witte, in a conversation with the St. Petersburg correspondent of "Russkoye Slovo" A. Rumanov, did not hesitate to call the war for the liberation of the Poles "absurd" (9), considering the "complete and final destruction of Poland" to be much more urgent. Apparently, not without the complicity of Austria and Germany. But let us remember that, fortunately for the Poles, it was by no means Witte and his supporters who ruled the ball in Russian foreign policy at that time.
Hence, by the way, a completely different assessment of the goals of the grand ducal appeal suggests itself. As if in response to liberal circles, the authorities, according to their habit, tried to throw a bone at them, and at the same time for the Polish leaders - the most organized and stubborn among all the "nationals" of the vast empire. Who could have thought at the beginning of the world war that a purely propagandistic "Appeal" would not remain a single-use document? We must not forget that the manifesto on behalf of the commander-in-chief also allowed the tsar and his entourage to once again “beautifully” present themselves to democratic allies.
Notes (edit)
1. International relations in the era of imperialism. Documents from the archives of the tsarist and provisional governments 1878-1917 M.1935, series III, volume VI, part 1, p. 319.
2. K. Skorowski, N. K. N, p.102-103.
3. Stanislaw Kutrzeba, Polska odrodzona 1914-1918, str. 17.
4. A. Brusilov. My memoirs, M. 1946, pp. 120-121.
5. Memorandum S. Grabsky to the Governor-General of Galicia gr. Bobrinsky. The case of the Chancellery of the Council of Ministers on the structure of the Polish region, l.55.
6. Russian-Polish relations during the world war. ML, 1926, pp. 35-36.
7. Ibid, p. 37.
8. Russian Galicia and "Mazepa", M., Imperial tradition, 2005, About Talerhof and Terezin, pp. 211-529.
9. Arkady Rumanov. Touches for portraits: Witte, Rasputin and others. Time and us. New York, 1987. No. 95. Page 219.
