The National Camp in Lublin at the Beginning of World War I

Abstract

The article analyses the thought and political activities of the National Democrats at the time when Russia was the crucial factor in the Lublin district at the beginning of the war. The national circles with anti-German attitudes were in a very difficult situation looking for a rational way of settling their relations with Russians. The Lublin polititians did not undertake any loyalist actions towards the invader but they tried to find a reasonable way of putting into effect the very favourable for Poland proclamation by the Russian army commander-in-chief, Nikolai Nikolaievitch who promised the Poles great advantages when the war is over (autonomy, unification of all the Polish lands under the czar's rule). The Russians' ambiguous behaviour ending in a whole series of actions against the Polish interests (the issue of the Chełm district and Podlasie, the issue of eastern Galicia) led to a breakdown in the nationalists' policies after the central states' troops marched into Poland in the summer of 1915, giving the Poles tempting promises. The National Democrats had to slowly try to regain their standing, which became fully possible after Germany's true intentions with respect to Central Europe were revealed in the Treaty of Brześć (February 1918).