Lloyd George and Churchill sent a British expeditionary force to
Archangel to assist the "White" Russians but when the Bolsheviks
invaded Poland she was not supported. Nor did the Allies send her the
raw material they had promised, to rebuild her commercial life. Again
and again our papers reported pogroms in Poland. Yet close
investigation by writers for the _New Witness_ failed to discover any
pogroms in the cities in which they were reported as occurring.

Powerful are the words in which, in April 1919, Chesterton foretells
the future that will result if power and her historic port are
refused to Poland.

. . . We know that a flood threatens the West from the meeting of
two streams, the revenge of Germany and the anarchy of Russia; and we
know that the West has only one possible dyke against such a flood,
which is not the mere existence, but the might and majesty of Poland.
We know that without some such Christian and chivalric shield on that
side, we shall have half Europe and perhaps half Asia on our backs.

We know exactly what the Germans think about our nationalities in
the West, and exactly what the Bolshevists think about any
nationalities anywhere. We know that if the Poles have a port and a
powerful line of communication with the West, they will be eager to
help the West. We know that if they have no port they will have no
reason to help the West and no power to help anybody. We know that if
they lose their port it will not be by any act of English public
opinion or any public opinion, but by the most secret of all secret
diplomacy; that it will not even be given up by the English to the
Germans, but by German Jews to other German Jews. We know that such
international adventurers would still find themselves floating on the
top of any tide that drowned the nations, and that they do not care
what nations they drown. We know that out of the whole world the
Polish port is the one place that should have been held, and the one
place that is being surrendered.

In short, we know what everybody knows and scarcely anybody says.

There is one word to be added for those detached persons who see no
particular objection to England ceasing to be English, who do not
care about the national names of the West, which have been the
greatest words in the poetry of the world. So far as we know there is
only one ideal they do care about, and