Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1916, Supplement, The World War
File No. 861.48/149
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 17.]
Sir: With reference to the previous correspondence regarding the plan for relief in Poland, I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of a note I have received from Sir Edward Grey, under date of July 4, 1916, transmitting a memorandum on various points connected with the present treatment of Poland by the German and Austrian Governments.
Copies of this note and memorandum have been sent to Berlin and to Mr. Hoover.
I have [etc.]
The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Grey) to the American Ambassador (Page)
Your Excellency: With reference to the communications which have passed between us recently regarding the relief of Poland, I have the honour to transmit to your excellency herewith a memorandum on various points connected with the present treatment of Poland by the German and Austrian Governments. To this memorandum must be added the fact just brought to my notice that an agreement has been made between the representatives of the German Government in the occupied districts of Russian Poland and the directors of the Official Trade Bureau of the German Chambers of Commerce for the import of geese into Germany as from July 1 and of eggs as from July 15, the retail price of the eggs being fixed at 19 pfennige each. This statement, reproduced from the German press, appears in the Algemeen Handelsblad of June 22.
The facts contained in the enclosed memorandum are so clear as to afford, in my opinion, full justification for the demands at present put forward by the Allied Governments in regard to the relief of Poland; and in the face of these facts, it is impossible to regard the replies of the German Government as other than disingenuous and evasive.
I have [etc.]
Memorandum
The German Government whilst refusing to accept the few and very moderate conditions on which Great Britain made her agreement to the Polish relief scheme, as proposed through the American Embassy, depend, tried to throw on the British Government the blame for its failure. One of the main accusations raised in the statement published on June 4 through the Wolff Bureau [Page 901] concerns paragraph 1 of the British note. “His Majesty’s Government consider it essential,” says that clause, “that any system of Polish relief should apply to Russian Poland as a whole, and they cannot recognize the existing division into two spheres, occupied respectively by German and Austro-Hungarian troops. There must be a definite undertaking by the two Governments that the export from the whole of Russian Poland of all foodstuffs, native or imported, will be absolutely prohibited, and that any excess over domestic needs which may exist in the southern part under Austrian administration (which is understood to be self-supporting) will be employed exclusively for the provisioning of northern Poland.”
“Even the export of foodstuffs to Galicia is thus to cease altogether,” the German statement points out, and then adds: “It is very questionable whether these agreements would prove at all acceptable to our allies in the form proposed by Great Britain. It is, for instance, a fairly cool demand that Austria-Hungary should forego the importation of any excess of foodstuffs from the part of Poland under her occupation, and even the frontier traffic (i. e., traffic between Russian and Austrian Poland), implying a considerable volume of imports from which she always benefits in peace time.”
There is more significance than is usually realized in the division of Russian Poland into a German and an Austro-Hungarian sphere; high economic and geographic science was at work in drawing their frontiers. The industrial wealth of Russian Poland is concentrated in three districts, namely those of Warsaw, Lodz (textiles) and Sossnowitz (metallurgy and coal). All these three districts have been included in the German sphere, only very small parts of the coal region being left to Austria-Hungary. The partitioning of the Government of Piotrk6w is typical of the manner in which the country as a whole has been divided. The map shows a curious strip of territory retained by Germany running down between German Silesia and the part of Russian Poland (the southern district) assigned to Austria. The significance of this is realized when we discover that this strip includes the rich industrial districts of Sossnowitz and Czestochowa, whilst the part of the Government of Piotrk6w made over to Austria is almost purely agricultural. The Austrian share comprises two fifths of the said Government, but only one fifth of the population. Whilst in the sphere of German occupation no less than 37 per cent of the inhabitants live in towns, in the Austrian part the urban population amounts only to 23 per cent. The situation becomes even more striking if we distinguish between the two parts of the German sphere, namely the smaller west-central industrial district on the left bank of the Vistula and the agricultural region on its right side. We then find that in the industrial part which enters like a wedge between the two big agricultural regions, the inhabitants of towns form 45 per cent of the total population, whilst in the other two sections they amount to 22 to 23 per cent. No wonder, as all three cities of Russian Poland—Warsaw (845,000 inhabitants), Lodz (459,000) and Sossnowitz (114,000) — and four out of its five towns with a population of between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants are situated in that part, whilst only one single town of that size, Lublin (72,000 inhabitants), lies in the Austrian sphere, and none in the German sphere on the right bank of the Vistula. Lastly, one ought to mark the position of the four biggest urban areas of Russian Poland with regard to the boundary drawn between the German and the Austrian spheres of occupation: the distance from the boundary in Warsaw amounts to about 28 miles, to Lodz no less than 20 miles, to Sossnowitz and Czestochowa 5 to 10 miles.
The agricultural districts of Poland under Austrian occupation thus form part of the natural hinterland supplying with food the industrial areas of Warsaw, Lodz, and Sossnowitz. But these two regions are now separated by the boundary arbitrarily drawn across Poland by the Central powers, and the transport of food from the one sphere to the other is forbidden. The German semiofficial statement waxes eloquent over the natural “frontier traffic” to Austrian Poland which is not to be impaired by the war (more about that “frontier traffic” will have to be said hereafter) ; it preserves, however, complete silence concerning the severance of industrial from agricultural districts within Russian Poland itself. Why are the Governments of Kielce, Radom, and Lublin to supply the needs of the distant cities of Vienna and Prague, or even of Lemberg, rather than those of the neighbouring Polish cities of Warsaw, Lodz, and Sossnowitz? If Germany chose to separate some prevalently agricultural districts of Belgium from the industrial regions, and put the first under Bavaria and the latter under Prussia, could any one expect the Allies to allow imports from [Page 902] America to feed the Prussian part, whilst the Bavarians were drawing supplies from their sphere of occupation? Why is a different standard to be applied to Poland? One can, however, understand the reluctance of the Austrians to allow agricultural produce to go to fill up the deficiency created by German robberies in northern Poland.
“The harvest in Russian Poland” (under Austro-Hungarian occupation), declared in May 1916, the chief of the General Staff of the Government in an interview with a correspondent of the Budapest paper Az Est, “belongs to the Monarchy as a whole. . . . We shall send home all that it will be possible to send, naturally, however, only to the extent which will not injure the local population. It is our endeavour that also in these rich regions there should be no surplus; that their population should live, in so far as food is concerned, in the same conditions as the population of Austria-Hungary, that they should have neither more nor less. For certain foodstuffs, tickets will be introduced here just as they are in the Monarchy.” The Austro-Hungarian general seems throughout the interview to have spoken about “the Monarchy,” a term which usually is meant to denote Austria-Hungary. This cannot, however, be its meaning in this case: Hungary has refused to pool its food resources with Austria. The rations in Hungary are higher, the prices of foodstuffs lower than in the western half of the Dual Monarchy. Indeed the Viennese papers are continually harping on the fact that the rich agricultural country of Hungary is now supplying much less food to Austria than it used to in times of peace. It is also known to be selling food to Germany. The districts of Russian Poland, which before the war used to send their agricultural produce to Warsaw and Lodz, have now to send it to Vienna at prices artificially lowered by the Austrian Government; whilst Hungary, which in the past used to supply the Viennese market, is making profits by sending its produce to Germany.
The following extract from the Viennese market report published in the Arbeiter Zeitung of June 4, 1916, illustrates the point: “Unfortunately the price of eggs is still always high . . . . They have been driven up by German buyers in Hungary; Hungarian dealers in eggs now demand 300 (Austrian) crowns for 1,440 eggs, against the price of 140 crowns which still prevailed there months ago; but as the military administration of Poland has fixed the price at 150 crowns for 1,440 eggs, it ought to be possible to obtain Galician eggs much more cheaply.” Similar transactions, more profitable to the Hungarians than to Polish agriculturists, are carried on also in other foodstuffs, as e. g., grain, flour, and poultry. For the export of potatoes from Russian Poland a most elaborate system has been established.
But then what of Galicia and its “frontier traffic” about which the Germans seem to be so particularly concerned? First of all it ought to be remarked that of what passes for “frontier traffic” (i. e., the provision of Galician towns from agricultural districts in Russian Poland) is so in appearance only. The foodstuffs brought to them in peace-time from Russian Poland are not for local consumption, but for reexport mostly to western Austria. No less than seven Galician railway lines terminate on or near the southern frontier of Russian Poland and are not linked on to any railways on the other side; moreover on a stretch of about 80 to 100 miles these railways run parallel to the frontier-similarly without any connection on the opposite side. Therefore foodstuffs exported in peace-time, say from the Government of Lublin to Vienna, could not have been consigned from a railway station in Russian Poland to their ultimate destination, but were carried by horse-carts to the small Galician towns on the Austrian railways.
These are the exports from Russian Poland destined for distant countries or provinces, which make up most of this “frontier traffic,” Thus in the case of eggs, where no duty was paid at the Austrian frontier, and the buyer had no special interest in establishing the transit character of his wares, even goods which were going to London or New York appeared in the guise of Galician “frontier traffic.”
The only big Galician town situated close to the frontier of Russian Poland, and therefore able to claim that it used to draw its food supplies from across the border, is Kraków (even so, however, its claim could hardly be considered equal, and certainly not superior to that of Sossnowitz, Lodz, or Warsaw). But what is the position of Kraków in that respect? We can best illustrate it by the following few quotations from the Nowa Reforma, a rabidly pro-Austrian and even sneakingly pro-German paper, published at Kraków under Austrian censorship:
[Page 903]October 8, 1915
Passport difficulties for Galician merchants. The article complains that “whilst the authorities in other provinces of Austria freely issue passports to merchants . . . the requests of Galician merchants suffer considerable delay, and are only too often refused.” This has most injurious effects on the provisioning of Kraków. “Merchants from Silesia, Moravia, Bohemia, Lower Austria, etc., travel freely and in great numbers to Russian Poland and import from there foodstuffs to the western provinces of Austria, thus depriving the Kraków markets of their regular food supplies.”
February 6, 1916
“Up to the outbreak of the war Kraków drew the greater part of its supplies of eggs, butter, and poultry from the neighbouring districts of Russian Poland . . . In October 1914, the frontier was closed and the imports of foodstuffs to Kraków was prohibited. Since then their prices began to rise continually. Of the produce of the districts of Russian Poland contiguous to Kraków, part was put at the disposal of privileged Viennese organizations of consumers, but the greater part was smuggled to the German frontier districts.” Even after a regular administration had been introduced in the part under Austrian occupation, things did not change much. “At present, to the detriment of the neighbouring town of Kraków . . . the privileged trading company, Miles, buys all food supplies in the occupied territories and sends them to Vienna. . .”
June 13, 1916
Kraków was still expecting to get eggs from Russian Poland. Meantime almost 300 crowns were paid for 1,440 eggs (according to the Arbeiter Zeitung of June 4 the prices for eggs from Russian Poland had been fixed at 150 crowns—but these were meant for Vienna, not for the Galician “frontier traffic”). Such is the solicitude of the Central powers for Galicia which looms so big in the communiqué of the Wolff Bureau.
But does Galicia really require the imports of food from Russian Poland? It would not need them were not its own food resources continually drained by exports to western Austria and especially to Vienna. In March the Galician press published a number of articles strongly protesting against this systematic spoliation of the country. “In spite of a formal prohibition,” wrote the Noma Reforma, “potatoes and eggs are exported in masses from Galicia to western Austria. . . . Unless this is stopped, the population of our towns will be deprived of the most indispensable foodstuffs.” But it was not stopped. About the middle of May Doctor Ehrenberg, an official of the city of Vienna, stated in his report on food supplies that since the end of February no less than 362 waggons of Galician potatoes had been brought to Vienna alone, whilst from Russian Poland the amount of potatoes carried to Vienna reached 515 waggons.