File No. 860c.01/2
The Chargé in Germany (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 7, 6 p. m.]
4563. The following is the text of the manifest of November 5:
The Kingdom of Poland
To the inhabitants of the Warsaw Government General.
His Majesty the German Emperor and His Majesty the Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, imbued with firm confidence in the final victory of their arms and guided by the wish to lead to a happy future the Polish districts taken away from Russian domination by their brave armies at the cost of great sacrifice, have agreed to form out of these districts an independent state with a hereditary monarchy and a constitution. A more exact delimitation of the boundaries of the Kingdom of Poland will be effected later. The new Kingdom will find the guarantees which it requires for the free development of its forces in a junction with the two allied powers. The glorious traditions of the Polish armies of earlier times and the memory of the brave Polish comrades in the great war of the present shall be perpetuated in an army of its own. Its organization, instruction, and command will be regulated by joint understanding. The allied monarchs resign themselves to the confident hope that the wishes in the direction of the development of the Kingdom of Poland as a state and nation will now be fulfilled with due consideration for the general political conditions of Europe and the welfare and security of their own countries and peoples.
[Page 797]The great western neighbor powers of the Kingdom of Poland will see with gladness on their eastern frontier a free and happy state rejoicing in its national life arise and flourish. By order of His Majesty the German Emperor.