the future.



FIRST NEWS--1918


Four years ago, on the first day of August, in the town of Cracow,
Austrian Poland, nobody would believe that the war was coming. My
apprehensions were met by the words: "We have had these scares before."
This incredulity was so universal amongst people of intelligence and
information, that even I, who had accustomed myself to look at the
inevitable for years past, felt my conviction shaken. At that time, it
must be noted, the Austrian army was already partly mobilised, and as we
came through Austrian Silesia we had noticed all the bridges being
guarded by soldiers.

"Austria will back down," was the opinion of all the well-informed men
with whom I talked on the first of August. The session of the University
was ended and the students were either all gone or going home to
different parts of Poland, but the professors had not all departed yet on
their respective holidays, and amongst them the tone of scepticism
prevailed generally. Upon the whole there was very little inclination to
talk about the possibility of a war. Nationally, the Poles felt that
from their point of view there was nothing to hope from it. "Whatever
happens," said a very distinguished man to me, "we may be certain that
it's our skins which will pay for it as usual." A well-known literary
critic and writer on economical subjects said to me: "War seems a
material impossibility, precisely because it would mean the complete ruin
of all material interests."