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CHAPTER XLII

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF RUSSIAN POLAND

It is in the southern part of Russian Poland, among the foothills of the Carpathians, that the armies come into possession of its mineral resources, a fact which will have some influence on the German military movements in this region.  Up in the Kielce hills copper has been mined for 400 years, though the value of these mines has decreased on account of the much greater quantity found in America.  A hundred years ago the Kielce mines produced nearly 4,000 tons of copper a year.  Brown iron ore is also found here in deposits 40 per cent pure, while there are also veins of zinc sometimes 50 feet thick, yielding ore of 25 per cent purity.  Sulphur, one of the ingredients for the manufacture of explosives, is found at Czarkowa in the district of Pinczow.  In the southwest, in Bedzin and Olkuz, there are coal deposits about 200 square miles in area.  In the southern districts wheat is also grown in some abundance.

The military value of this country is further enhanced by political conditions.  Like the greater part of Galicia to the southward, it is peopled by the Poles, who form one of the important branches of the great Slavic family.  At one time Poland was a kingdom whose territory and possessions spread from the Carpathians up to the Baltic and far into the center of Russia, ruling its subject peoples with quite as much rigor as the Poles have themselves been ruled by Russia and Germany.

Poland is a seat of conquest in the Great War.  For not much over a hundred years ago what remained of this old kingdom was divided among the three great powers:  Prussia, Austria, and Russia.  Austria, on the whole, has been much the best master.  Germany tried in various ways to Germanize her subjects in German Poland, thereby rousing their bitter hatred.  Russia was no less autocratic in attempting to extinguish the spirit of nationality among the Poles under her rule.  But, naturally, the fact remains that between the Poles and the Russians there are still ties of blood.  In moving westward, by this route Russia would be moving among a race who, in spite of all they had suffered at the hands of the Czar, still would naturally prefer Slav to Teuton.

We shall soon stand with the invading armies in the center of Russian Poland, and enter the great city of Warsaw.  This conquered citadel with more than 400,000 inhabitants, is situated on the Vistula.  It was, next to Paris, the most brilliant city of Europe in the early part of last century.  But under Russian influence it became a provincial town in spirit, if not in size.  It once had the character of prodigal splendor; within late years it became a forlorn, neglected city, not the least effort being made by the Russian authorities to modernize its appearance and improvement.  From a sanitary point of view it became one of the least progressive cities of Europe.  And yet, as the armies march into the capital, there are still signs of the city’s past glory:  over thirty palaces rear their lofty turrets above the tile roofs of the houses, among them the palace of the long-dead Polish kings.