something will be seen of the attitude of the troops toward the
civil population. At the outbreak of the war several of the deputies,
sitting in the Reichstag as members from Alsace-Lorraine, crossed
the frontier and joined the French army.

If there is one talent which the Germans superlatively lack, it
is that of ruling over other peoples and inducing other people
to become part of their nation.

It is now a long time since portions of the Kingdom of Poland,
by various partitions of that kingdom, were incorporated with
Prussia, but the Polish question is more alive to-day than at
the time of the last partition.

The Poles are of a livelier race than the Germans, are Roman
Catholics and always retain their dream of a reconstituted and
independent Kingdom of Poland.

It is hard to conceive that Poland was at one time perhaps the
most powerful kingdom of Europe, with a population numbering
twenty millions and extending from the Baltic to the Carpathians
and the Black Sea, including in its territory the basins of the
Warta, Vistula, Dwina, Dnieper and Upper Dniester, and that it
had under its dominion besides Poles proper and the Baltic Slavs,
the Lithuanians, the White Russians and the Little Russians or
Ruthenians.

The Polish aristocracy was absolutely incapable of governing its
own country, which fell an easy prey to the intrigues of Frederick
the Great and the two Empresses, Maria Theresa of Austria and