M. Vogt: Die Vorgeschichte des Bauernkrieges. Halle, 1886.

F, Meinecke : Die Deutschen Gesellschaften und der Hoffmann- Bund, Stuttgart, 1891.
R. Jung: Der nationale Sozialismus. Munich, 1922.
E. Schlund: Neugermanisches Heidentum im heutigen Deutsch- land. Munich, 1924.
Schott : Das Volksbuch vom Hitler. Munich, 1924.
Lt. Col. Reboul: Articles in the Paris Temps, 5th and 14th November, 21st December, 1923.
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(5) Poland
Hotbed of conspiracy—National Patriotic Society—Modern Knights Templar—Risings against Russia—Defeated at Ostrolenka—Polish Disunion—Society of Young Poland—Alexander II’s concessions— “ National Government ’’—Troubles since the war.
The history and character of Poland made her an ideal hotbed of secret societies. The Holy Alliance against Buonaparte had been regarded as a war to end war, and when peace came it was to herald a golden age. Even dis- tressful Poland was to be made happy with a parliament and a national army and the administration of justice by natives. But Poland continued to conspire, continued to clamour for free speech and a free press and freedom from the Russian yoke.
Major Lukasinski founded the Union of National Free- masons in 1819, with degrees and secret signs, to restore Poland to the status of 1772. Adherence was immediate and universal. Russia denounced and disbanded only to find the same men or their survivors resurging as the National Patriotic Society with precisely the same pro- gramme. There were 5,000 members, chiefly nobles and soldiers, besides 250,000 associates. Their banner displayed a dagger in the form of a crucifix, or a crucifix in the form of a dagger, and a portrait of Kosciuszko, the dramatic insurgent of 1794.
The Modern Knights Templar arose as a kindred society and many other centres of conspiracy were founded by students. But the Russian Government was not mocked, severe repression followed promptly, and many of the leaders were driven to commit suicide. Conspiracy only became sporadic and more secret, with the Philareten of Wilna as
the most active body. ' Poland seemed peaceful on the surface, but the malcon- tents assisted the Russian Decembrists (see page 158) in 1825 with the result that over 200 Polish aristocrats were tried and acquitted by the Polish Courts. K
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This vefdict raised nationalist hopes to the skies and at the same time determined the Czar to crush Polish disaffec- tion once for all. His brother Constantine was installed as Viceroy and displayed great firmness. But in 1830 came news of the French July revolution, and the revolutionary spirit seemed to travel from one land to another like pesti- lence. By the end of the year, the Cornet of Horse and other new secret societies had completed their preparations. The people rose in arms and the troops joined them. Twenty armed rebels broke into the Viceregal palace and would have slain Grand Duke Constantine if he had not fled the country. The frantic enthusiasm of the impressionable Poles can be imagined. After all the blood they had sacri- ficed for generations, after all their devoted labours and ceaseless intrigues, after all their prayers and vows and songs and sorrows, national emancipation was at last within their grasp.
But the old story repeated itself. Their leaders did not know what they wanted. They quarrelled among them- selves. Some settled down to debate new constitutions or passed platonic resolutions against autocracy ; the demo- crats denounced the provisional government ; the soldiers and the chiefs of the secret societies vowed that nothing would content them short of the restored Kingdom of Poland; and even so there would doubtless have been a score of claimants for the crown. The disputes were still in progress when the Emperor Nicholas sent forth an army and routed the Poles at Ostrolenka on the 26th of May, 1831. The democrats proceeded to massacre the national champions at Warsaw, but could do nothing against the invaders, and in the following February the Organic Statute reduced Poland to a Russian province. But even then the hotheads could not realise the futility of their efforts and the canker of their divided councils. Many continued to conspire from abroad, Whites and Reds, even more hostile to one another than to their hated tyrants.
The Society of Young Poland was founded in Switzer- land in 1834 by a man named Kunarski or Cohen with communistic ideas, and conducted a feverish agitation in
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London and Paris. Then Kunarski ventured to visit Poland and was promptly hanged. Torture having failed to extract the names of his accomplices, the Poles came to regard him as a martyr, his clothes and chains were cherished as relics.
Risings at Cracow and Posen were equally futile, and dis- content remained simmering underground until 1855, when Alexander II came to the throne with his precocious theories of universal emancipation. His Liberal concessions to Poland brought all the exiled conspirators home and they displayed their gratitude by continuing to conspire. Taking advantage of the Crimean War, they set up a secret “National Government,” a_ self-appointed body that directed all the departments of State, enacted laws, col- lected taxes, and systematically thwarted Russian authority. Not content with this, they organised guerilla warfare in 1863 and encouraged fearful barbarities, astonishing the world by the power and violence of their secret machinery. At last, however, even the mild and benevolent Czar was moved to react, and, though secret societies could never be suppressed entirely, comparative peace was established until the outbreak of the Serajevo war.
After the war, Poland secured her long-sought liberty, and soon began to sigh, ‘““ How beautiful was liberty .. . under Russian rule!” (Que la République était belle . . . sous VvEmpivre |’). France almost imposed a suzerainty ; the Bol- sheviks came within an ace of taking Warsaw in 1920; there were difficulties about Dantzic and the corridor, grievances in Lithuania about Memel, fears of Germany, unemployment, loss of trade, deficits, inflation that reduced 9,000,000 marks to a dollar, too much bureaucracy. The old German, Russian and Austrian provinces were difficult to assimilate. Cracow teemed with the foulest Jews. There were 8,000,000 illiterates, or one in every four,—in some districts sixty, even seventy-two per cent. Every Pole has always wanted to rule, and full advantage was taken of proportional representation to multiply parties. Offers of the Polish throne were made right and left in vain. Paderewski, even greater as a politician than as a pianist,
_
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could not remain in power. Pilsudski, despite a doubtful war-record, contrived to set up a promising dictatorship. But secret societies, some under military leadership and dis- cipline, abound, possess bomb-factories, and plot assassi- nation. Polish people persist in remaining as distant as the poles.
AUTHORITIES
R. O. Spazier : Geschichte des Aufstandes des polnischen Volkes in dem Jahren 1830-31. Altenburg, 1832. 3 vols.
G. Michailoff: Die geheime Werkstatte der polnischen Erhebung von 1930. Leipzig, 1877.
A. Knorr: Die polnischen Aufstande seit 1830. Berlin, 1880.