On the 100th anniversary of the Great War

The centennial of the outbreak of World War I this year has provided an opportunity for many commemorative statements. This is understandable, as historical events are a kind of mirror in which successive generations look, trying to draw important lessons for the present. Since the present is changeable and the perspectives of posterity are also different, different aspects of a given historical event are considered important. Therefore, history will always remain a source of inspiration and controversy, and the study of history will be a living science as long as the community, which is its product, does not lose its curiosity about itself. A lack of interest in the past is a sign that the society affected by it has no future.

The current anniversary in our country has allowed us to see how large is the margin of enemies of Poland's independence and the subjectivity of the Polish nation within our intelligentsia (it is its representatives who most often speak about this anniversary) - or at least people who deliberately disregard them. These are all those who, when writing about the 1914 event, emphasize the misfortunes always brought by war or even the destruction of the old good world of the 19th century.

The Great War was, from the point of view of Poles (and a number of other peoples in a similar situation), an event with very positive consequences. This is precisely why the universal war for the freedom of peoples, which was written about in a moment of inspiration by Mickiewicz - it certainly had such effects, not the intentions of those who caused it. This war was good for us first of all because, as it progressed, the Polish cause was activated, which after the fall of the January Uprising until 1916 was only an internal matter of the partitioning powers. And the act of November 5, 1916, once again placed the Polish issue as a question of international policy, a fact that was also due to our efforts - because the stance of the Legions on the Volhynian front (Kostiuchnówka) was a significant argument convincing the Germans that it was worth raising the Polish issue. They had other solutions to the problem being suggested to them. But without war, there would have been no such opportunity. Of course, this act was important not because of what it gave (little), but because it set off the entire bidding process - from then on, anyone wanting to gain the Poles had to offer more than the previous one. This logic also led to President Wilson's famous 13th point. But all of this would not have happened without the war.

But its significance for us also stems from the fact that it destroyed the 19th-century world. This is good for us because, in the realities of that era, there was no place for an independent Poland.

I will not even mention the fact that the principle of the right of nations to self-determination, that principle of nationality whose triumph Romuald Traugutt foresaw at his trial, was still only a postulated doctrine and not an obligatory one.

The more important fact is that two of the three partitioning powers were genuine great powers, (although Russia had a series of weaknesses that became apparent during the war). And both Russia and Germany could not and did not want to agree to an independent Poland, as it would undermine their vital interests. This was widely understood by their allies, i.e., in the international community. Both Germany and Russia continued to strive for the liquidation of the Polish element, not just political domination over it.

The intentions of Germany before 1914 are clear – the official policy is germanization. They had prospects for this, as they were incredibly civilizational attractive and offered almost unlimited opportunities to anyone who wanted to be German. As for Russia, in 1905 it admitted defeat in its Russification policy of the Congress Poland – this was evidenced by its agreement to Polish private schools and the abandonment of Orthodoxy by the Podlasie Unitarians. But ultimately, it did not abandon this goal – evidence is the separation of Chełmszczyzna from Congress Poland (1912) as well as the policy in Galicia during the brief occupation of its part – where Russification was immediately started (affecting both local Poles and Ukrainians). And this despite the emergence of the endecja camp, which advocated for reconciliation with Russia.

There was no better solution than their defeat, and that is exactly what happened during the Great War. This is what we should above all remember when recalling World War I.

Instead, we see historians and publicists lamenting the losses and destruction all the time, and those of the conservative option additionally wailing over the corpse of Nicholas II Romanov.

It is true that without war, there would have been no success of Bolshevism. In the events of 1917, it is clear that it could have lost even with the wartime conjuncture and German (and other) aid. That this did not happen is the fault of the Russian politicians and military of the time, not the war itself. However, the Bolshevik success in the following decades consumed a large part of the vital forces of the Russian nation - which by the end of the 20th century could have numbered as many as 305 million people according to objective projections. Without Bolshevism, these forces could have been much more effectively harnessed to imperial policy, which would have been very dangerous not only for us. The Russian Federation currently has 142 million citizens (20% of whom are minorities), and its western borders, which interest us most, resemble those from the 16th century. This forces a more nuanced view of this particular consequence.

Gavrilo Princip, shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, probably did not foresee all the consequences of his actions. They were not even a direct result of the assassination, which was merely a catalyst. Nevertheless, I believe that a small street named after Gavrilo Princip would be appropriate in Warsaw.

Barnim Regalica