The Polish delegates laid before the congress a special memorandum of their
own from which we quote the following:

"The Polish question admits of no cut-and-dried solution and of no
compromise. Poland will either be saved by the Allies or she will
become dependent upon Germany, whether the latter is associated with
Austria or not; above all, upon all-powerful Prussia.

"There is only one way of avoiding this latter alternative, and that is
by countering the plans of the Central Powers with regard to Poland by
the proclamation of the Polish programme, which is that of the Allies.
This programme is the restitution to Poland of the mouth of the
Vistula, of Dantzig and of the Polish portion of the Baltic coastline.
This programme will prevent Lithuania and the Ukraine from becoming
instruments of Prusso-German oppression and Austrian intrigue. It is
only such a Poland as this which will be able to fulfil its historic
mission as a rampart against the Germans.

"Its resistance will be still more effectual when united with that of
an independent Czecho-Slovak State, and of a strong Rumania, healed of
all the wounds inflicted by the war, and if, at the same time, the
Yugoslav peoples achieve their unity and independence. The Poles, in
claiming the Polish districts of Austria, declare themselves
categorically for the complete liberation of Bohemia, which would
otherwise be left at the mercy of the German-Austrians. _The
independence of neighbouring Bohemia is as necessary to an independent
Poland as a great independent Poland is necessary to the very existence
of Bohemia._ The united forces of the Polish, Czecho-Slovak and
Rumanian nations, forming a great belt from the Baltic to the Black
Sea, will prove a barrier against the German 'Drang nach Osten.' For,