Paris Peace Conf. 184.01102/4
Professor A. C. Coolidge to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
[Received January 23.]
Sirs: I have the honor to report that since my arrival in Vienna I have been able to pick up a few impressions on the situation in Poland. They are not more than impressions, because I have been unable as yet to give much attention to the subject and have seen but few people and have not had a chance to control their reports. I have despatched one member of the party to Poland and am planning at short intervals to send off two more, so that I am hoping soon for more reliable information.
The general feeling here about Poland and among the Poles seems to be pessimistic enough. The abortive conspiracy of Prince Sapieha has probably done grave harm to the conservative cause. The government of General Pilsudski looks weak. It is said that what his army suffers most from is not lack of men but of arms and ammunition and that a supply of these would be invaluable to him. With them he might hope to check the progress of the Bolsheviks. Without them his position is precarious. It has been suggested that Austria could supply him with what he requires, but that she is not willing to do so even in return for a payment in such exports as Poland can furnish and Austria needs. Whether Bohemia would approve of Austrian assistance to Poland is uncertain. Present relations between the Czechs and the Poles are not good. The Czechs are much irritated at the recent seizure by the Poles of disputed territory in Silesia. The Poles on their part accuse the Czechs of imperialism and of a desire to get a corridor to the eastward. The fear of Bolshevism, however, oppresses to greater or less extent all the nations in this part of the world.
A promising suggestion that has been made is that a truce should be concluded between the Poles and the Ukrainians under the terms of which eastern Galicia should be left as an autonomous district in the hands of its present Ukrainian possessors, and Lemberg be ruled by a government half Pole and half Ukrainian, until the Peace Conference shall have determined the final boundaries. In the meanwhile the forces of both can be used against the Bolshevists. I believe that this plan will be submitted to the British Government with the hope it may be supported from that quarter.
I have been told that in Upper Silesia at the present time the great landowners are almost indifferent to their national fate, not knowing in what direction their interests will lie. This attitude is not likely to be permanent. The miners are rather in favor of continued union [Page 228] with Germany, believing that it will be more of their interest to be part of the German economic union than of the Polish one. The agricultural population, on the other hand, are more national in sentiment and desire union with Poland.
I have [etc.]