Dantzig & Poland

UC-NRLF $B Mfi fi^Z Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/dantzigpolandOOaskerich DANTZIG AND POLAND DANTZIG & POLAND BY SIMON ASKENAZY TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL POLISH BY WILLIAM J. ROSE GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.I . First published in IQ21 ••• ••: • : • • . {All rights reserved) PREFATORY NOTE This book appeared in Polish at the beginning of 19 19, and later on in French and German. Its reminiscences of Dantzig's past were intended to foreshadow the future of the city in a restored Union with the restored Polish Republic. Only such a solution could have given satis- faction to the interests of Dantzig, Poland and Europe, and, quite certainly, to those of the old friend of both Dantzig and Upland—Great Britain. Things, however, have turned out differently. Instead of being reunited to Poland, Dantzig has been kept apart from her, and even to a certain extent has been put into an attitude of opposition. Such a solution is against the interests of Dantzig, Poland and Europe. It is, in truth, equally at variance with the real interests of Great Britain herself, although Great Britain was not irresponsible for its materialization. An English edition of this work, there- fore, may seem only the more seasonable, as it may foster reflection and help to repair the mistakes which have been committed. ASKENAZY. Geneva, First Assembly of the League of Nations, December, 1920. 54 6.04 7 CONTENTS i THE HEEL OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER 1 n UNDER THE POLISH THRONE . HI THE DECLINE OF THE REPUBLIC IV THE PRUSSIAN OCCUPATION . A FREE CITY VI IN THE HANDS OF PRUSSIA AND GERMANY NOTES DANTZIG AND POLAND THE HEEL OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER During the very first period of its existence and growth, Dantzig passed through widely diverse experiences and severe historical trials. 1 From being at the start a coastal colony, this native old-Slavic fisher-folk developed with an inevitable admixture of Polish blood. Good relations were maintained with Poland under the rule of her first dynasty, the Piasts ; and it is evident that for a time at the end of the tenth century the city was under the direct influence of one of Poland's most illustrious kings, Boleslaw the Great, uncle of Canute of England. 2 In 1148, by a Bull of Eugene III, it was placed under the spiritual guardianship of a Polish bishop, being assigned to the diocese of Wloclawek, where it remained for several centuries.3 Under the rule of the Slav princes of Pomerania, Dantzig grew and was transformed step by step—thanks partly to the introduction of industrious German colonists during the thirteenth century. When at the close of this century the line of these princes died out, the city welcomed the Polish King, Wladislaw Lokietek, as its lawful lord, and that with rapturous homage. Thrice did it entertain him, 1298-99, 1306, when he came to lay his hand on Pomerania and put an end to the dissensions that were tormenting the country.4 From time immemorial this busy and enterprising town, developed from a fishing-village, did business with Poland and gained from the Polish lands its livelihood. And in those far-away savage times it found among the Polish lords and chieftains worthy customers as buyers and sellers, 5 8 DANTZIG AND POLAND men v/hc were at once scrupulous and reliable. It found, too, " just and ready protection, which guarded carefully the interests of foreign merchants." Thus much a modern Prussian historian, who was no friend of Poland, has had to affirm : and that on the evidence of the oldest aldermanic records of the city. Scarcely, however, did the city begin to flourish, when, early in the fourteenth century, the mailed fist of the Teutonic Order fell upon her people. The ravenous brothers of this Order, with the white cross on their black mantles, were hardly settled on the right bank of the Vistula when they prepared to cross to the other and, by doing so, to get hold of the key to river, coast, and country—the city of Dantzig. At the invitation of the credulous inhabitants themselves, the deceitful, merciless, and greedy Knights first settled themselves in the castle, and then at once provoked a deliberate quarrel. The city was taken on a dark November night (1308) by a sudden murderous attack. Part of the people were slain, the survivors driven out. The peaceful habitations were destroyed and levelled to the earth. Nothing but desert and ruins was left. 6 In the whole conception of this assault, an extraordinary one even for those times, and apart from the ostensible plan of execution with its treachery and violence, there are two significant politico-psychic traits which deeply impress us : terrorism and hypocrisy. Chill terrorism, as a conscious means of conquest, made its appearance. The Order intended, as Dlugosz, the ancient chronicler, put it, " that the far-sounding echo of this cruelty should so affright the hearts of men in other towns and fortresses, that no one would dare to oppose it, and so that the task of further occupations would be easier and safer." Again, as a further political instrument, we have here bottomless hypocrisy, and the gratuitous denial of perpetrated crime. The Head of the Order had the courage later, in a letter of self-defence to the Pope, to call the whole villainy committed upon Dantzig an act of summary justice. He mentioned the killing of some dozen or more "robbers" (latrones). What is more, he dared to assure the Pope that " the people of the city, of their own free will (propria voluntate), laid waste their homes, and settled in another place." THE HEEL OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER 9 It is very significant that, right to our own day, this fearful tragedy of Dantzig was either presented as doubtful by the Prussian historians or else only mentioned as of no importance ; it was even set in a specially pro- pitious light. A modern Prussian professor of history, even though he questions the number of victims given as ten thousand by the sources, cannot deny the fact of a cruel slaughter, to which fell victims, as he puts it generally, " a certain number of Polish knights, many citizens, and a host of other people." The latest historian of the fortress of Dantzig, a Prussian General, writing for the jubilee of the possession of the fortress by Prussia, admits freely and with the greatest frankness the work of destruction done by the Order, both explaining it as a military expert and justifying it as a politician.7 " In the action of the Order with regard to Dantzig and Tczew (Dirschau) we have the usual Mongolian method of warfare. Dzhengis Khan did the same sort of thing on a larger scale . when he had not enough troops to allow him to garrison larger cities. In view of the slender armies at its disposal, the Order could not help itself in any other fashion." This sort of reasoning need not, of course, surprise us in the work of a modern learned specialist, who is a Prussian Major-General, especially when we recall the fact that the work was published on the anniversary of the seizure of Dantzig by Prussia, and dedicated on the title-page to Wilhelm II. As a matter of fact, that chivalrous and eloquent monarch is notorious for having openly become the apologist and restorer of the too long neglected tactics of the ancient " Huns," and that for the profit of the modern art of war. The conquest of Dantzig was an event of the first importance for the further development of the Order. In the very next year (1309) the Grand-Master, who had hitherto had his seat in far-away Venice, declared the time to be right for transferring his final residence to Marienburg. Thus, Dantzig found itself involved in permanent slavery to that citadel of the Order. The native Kashubian-Polish population suffered most from the fearful visitation which — 10 DANTZIG AND POLAND harassed it. Driven into the surrounding marshes, forced steadily into an ever lower industrial and social state, it was impoverished, Germanized, trodden down : and yet throughout it refused to be stamped out, but became per- meated with an easily understood hatred of its Crusader oppressors. In the same way, the neighbouring German colonists, although supported by the Order and indispensable for its future success, repaid the selfish favour granted them, united as it was with ruthless exploitation and open disdain, with feelings of hate, a hate that was deep and secret. For nearly a century and a half Dantzig had to hold out under the harsh rule of the Order, under the Teutonic sword. It goes without saying that it was deeply harmed, and was checked in the course of a healthy industrial development this purely commercial town in the midst of the purely military organization of the Crusader State. In the economy of things, the city really remained, through this almost fatal period, thanks to its exceptionally fortunate geographical position, an important centre of commerce in Europe, welcoming at its docks a couple of hundred British merchantmen, reckoning its turnover by millions, and winning its way to the headship of all Prussian cities. Yet this natural growth of the city's well-being was sensibly retarded and checked by the harsh and ex- ceedingly covetous hand of the Order. For the latter was as greedy of riches as of power, and oppressed people for the sake of gain.

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