, and the
consequence was that they claimed the lion's share of all the
successes gained. This was in reality quite natural, but it greatly
added to all diplomatic and political activities, which were
invariably prejudiced and hindered by military facts. When I entered
upon office, Germany's standpoint was that she had a far superior
right to Poland, and that the simplest solution would be for us to
evacuate the territory we had occupied. It was, of course, obvious
that I could not accept such a proposal, and we held firmly to the
point that under no circumstances would our troops leave Lublin. After
much controversy, the Germans agreed, _tant bien que mal_, to this
solution. The further development of the affair showed that the German
standpoint went through many changes. In general, it fluctuated
between two extremes: either Poland must unite herself to Germany--the
German-Polish solution, or else vast portions of her territory must be
ceded to Germany to be called frontier adjustments, and what remained
would be either for us or for Poland herself. Neither solution could
be accepted by us. The first one for this reason, that the Polish
question being in the foreground made that of Galicia very acute, as
it would have been quite impossible to retain Galicia in the Monarchy
when separated from the rest of Poland. We were obliged to oppose the
German-Polish solution, not from any desire for conquest, but to
prevent the sacrifice of Galicia for no purpose.

The second German suggestion was just as impossible to carry out,
because Poland, crippled beyond recognition by the frontier
readjustment, even though united with Galicia, would have been so
unsatisfactory a factor that there would never have been any prospect
of harmonious dealings with her.

The third difficulty was presented by the Poles themselves, as they
naturally wished to secure the greatest possible profit out of their
release by the Central Powers, even though it did not contribute much
to their future happiness so far as military support was concerned.
There were many different parties among them: first of all, one for
the Entente; a second, Bilinski's party; above all, one for the
Central Powers, especially when we gained military successes.

On the whole, Polish policy was to show their hand as little as
possible to any particular group, and in the end range themselves on
the side of the conquerors. It must be admitted that these tactics
were success