as
an attack on the Polish policy of the Prussian Government in 1848.

"No one then," he wrote, "could doubt that an independent Poland
would be the irreconcilable enemy of Prussia and would remain so
till they had conquered the mouth of the Vistula and every
Polish-speaking village in West and East Prussia, Pomerania, and
Silesia."

Forty years later one of the last of his great speeches in the Reichstag
was devoted to attacking the Polish sympathies of the Catholic party in
Prussia. He was never tired of laughing at the characteristic German
romanticism which was so enthusiastic for the welfare of other nations.
He recalled the memories of his boyhood when, after the rebellion of
1831, Polish refugees were received in every German town with honours
and enthusiasm greater than those paid to the men who had fought for
Germany, when German children would sing Polish national airs as though
they were their own.

Nothing shews the change which he has been able to bring about in German
thought better than the attitude of the nation towards Poland. In the
old days the Germans recollected only that the partition of Poland had
been a great crime; it was their hope and determination that they might
be able to make amends for it. In those days the Poles were to be found
in every country in Europe, foremost in fighting on the barricades; they
helped the Germans to fight for their liberty, and the Germans were to
help them to recover independence. In 1848, Mieroslawski had been
carried like a triumphant hero through the streets of Berlin; the Baden
rebels put themselves under the leadership of a Pole, and it was a Pole
who commanded the Viennese in their resistance to the Austrian army; a
Pole led the Italians to disaster on the field of Novara. At a time when
poets still were political leaders, and the memory and influence of
Byron had not been effaced, there was scarcely a German poet, Platen,
Uhland, Heine, who had not stirred up the enthusiasm for Poland. It was
against this attitude of mind that Bismarck had to struggle and he has
done so successfully. He has taught that it is the duty of Germany to
use all the power of the State for crushing and destroying the Polish
language and nationality; the Poles in Prussia are to become Prussian,
as those in Russia have to become Russian. A hundred years ago the
Polish State was destroyed; now the language and the nation must cease
to exist.

It is a natural result of t