But for Poles to be Germanophile is unthinkable. To be Russophile or
Austrophile is at best a counsel of despair in view of a European
situation which, because of the grouping of the powers, seems to shut
from them every hope, expressed or unexpressed, of a national future
nursed through more than a hundred years of suffering and oppression.
Through most of these years, and especially since 1830, Poland (I use
this expression since Poland exists as a spiritual entity to-day as
definitely as it ever existed in her past) has put her faith in the
Western Powers. Politically it may have been nothing more than a
consoling illusion, and the nation had a half-consciousness of this. But
what Poland was looking for from the Western Powers without
discouragement and with unbroken confidence was moral support.
This is a fact of the sentimental order. But such facts have their
positive value, for their idealism derives from perhaps the highest kind
of reality. A sentiment asserts its claim by its force, persistence and
universality. In Poland that sentimental attitude towards the Western
Powers is universal.
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