Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
2
Chapters
256
Words
242.3 K
Comments
0
Reading
20 h, 11 m
It is certainly no secret that some of the Ukrainians have no more love for the Poles than they have for the Russians. Today a committee, representing as they said the “former Crown land of Galicia in Austria,” “an artificially created administrative unit which conflicts with historic and national rights,” filed with us the following protest. It reads: The representatives of the Ukrainian people protest against even the smallest portion of the Ukrainian territories of Cholm, Podlachia, and…- 113.7 K • Completed
- Two more Ukrainian delegations appeared yesterday and frankly deposited their problems on our doorstep. They are a pleasant-looking group garnished with gay Parisian clothes, striped trousers and all that, but Cossack boots are not wholly concealed. Their leader, M. Sydorenko, speaks excellent French and has his indignation under diplomatic control. “How can we sit at a Peace Conference with the Bolsheviki, murderers and bandits who have invaded our country and are still burning our villages and…
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- Yesterday the Colonel demanded a resume of the present situation, and I have submitted it today with, however, the express reservation that I am not prepared to vouch for any of the alleged facts. When the fall of Russia became apparent in April, 1917, delegates representing nearly two million Ukrainian front-line soldiers got together and formed an association to cope with the situation and shape their future. At about the same time a sort of parliament, or Rada, was formed in Kiev, and while there was…
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- If bitter experience had not taught me the danger of sweeping statements, I would say that the Ukrainian problem is the most complicated of the many with which the Conference is confronted. Happily for them, at least, few of the delegates know it. There are probably forty-five million of these vigorous and interesting people, all hitherto held in leash (indeed often under the lash) by half a dozen alien rulers, and today unhappily they are divided in their allegiance to about the same number of ideologies.…
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- Late last evening I was sent to the rue Franklin by my Colonel to show some papers to M. Clemenceau. They did not detain us long, and then as the bullet near his lung was preventing him from sleeping, he asked me to stay and talk. How he loves to talk, and how natural that he should. He talks superbly. Tonight, however, the Tiger’s thoughts were not on the present. He was in a reminiscent, or perhaps I should say in a reflective, mood. At first, he talked about the Poles; then the small farmers in the…
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- This is a black day for the Poles; for France; perhaps for all of us. Most reluctantly, it is true, but all the same the President is about to yield to the demand of Lloyd George that a plebiscite be held to settle the Upper Silesia dispute. Both Clemenceau and Tardieu have frankly admitted to House that as a result of the way in which for the last thirty years the Germans have planted colonists in the disputed region they would not be surprised if the vote revealed a German majority. Clemenceau adds with…
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- In our walk today through the Tuileries gardens Colonel House said the Big Four are as far apart as the poles on the knotty question of what to do with Upper Silesia. Then he added, “I want you to tell me more fully your thought on this question.” I told him that as far as Upper Silesia was concerned I had little personal experience but I had secured a great deal regarding the efforts and the methods of the Berlin government, acting under the instigation of the great territorial lords, to Germanize…
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- Yesterday another problem, long regarded as of but little importance, has raised its ugly head. It concerns Silesia or Upper Silesia and what its sovereignty is to be in the New Europe. Both Clemenceau and Tardieu were in this morning and had a long talk with my Colonel at which I assisted. “Our generals have convinced me,” said the Tiger, “that the German grab of Silesia is the first move in the rearmament of Germany, and that another invasion of France will come in five or ten years, perhaps a…
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- Today, not for the first time, the Colonel turned Dmowski over to me for a talk on the tangled affairs of Poland. He stayed with me over an hour, and I trust the words he poured out and the facts that I extracted from him will prove helpful. He speaks equally well in French or English, as I learned when last year Smulski, the Chicago Polish leader, brought him to see me at the War College (Washington) . Dmowski is regarded by many as in large measure responsible for the anti-Jewish feeling so noticeable…
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- Roman Dmowski came to lunch today and we had an interesting hour talking about our previous meetings in this turbulent world. First in Tokyo (1904), later (1906) in the city of the Tsars, that protean capital that has changed its name so often in the last decade. But Dmowski has sojourned in what we “old Russians” must now learn to call Leningrad through all its evolutions and transformations. He speaks Russian so well that he could easily pass as a simon-pure Russki, but I have much reason to believe…
- 113.7 K • Completed
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