Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
April 12, 1941 -
HOW WILL HITLER FALL?
FIRST ARTICLE
RESURRECTION
CENERAL SIKORSKI (Polsh leader}
of POLAND
BY GEORGE SLOCOMBE
The famous foreign correspondent, who has just completed a series of frank folks with the leaders of our Alhes and sympathisers.
the Polish high command, when the German armies crossed the frontler in September, 1939.
Other men other parties, bear OW will Hiller fall? By and sang their peasant songs, the responsibility for the errors,
a serica of blows? By a military under the sky filled with stars. by the Poles since General Sikor- defeat defeat on land, at But if there was sadness in ski last held the office of Prime sea, or in the air, Or by the their songs there was no despair Minister. alow, inexorable closing-in of n in their hearts. steal girdle of small revolta?
Remember this: although the Axis claims a population of 120 millions, it is encircled by at least 120 millions of enemics- British, French, Polish, Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian, Danish and
Greek.
Of our immediate Allies, the most numerous and active are the Poles.
But this is no time for re- They were going to fight again, criminations. Individual hero- and they would recapture Po- ism, a nation's martydom, have
wiped out the past.
land.
On his return from France, Sikorski had said to Churchill, "If the Polish Army. fights on with Britain, will Britain stand by Poland ?"
"We are comrades in life and in death," said Churchill. "We shall fight together to the end."
And of all the Allied leaders now fighting with us in Britain, The Polish army is now on one man more than any other British soil, re-clothed, re-armed, represents the confused past, reformed. It stands on guard the dark present, and the on an important stretch of our brighter future of Europe.
Nation's Symbol
Ho is General Sikorski, the leader of the Poles.
coast.
"For many yours now we have al- ready surrendered them in nonpolitical matters like the harmonising of rail- way timetables, postal rates, naviga- tion and harbourage conventions, au- thor's copyrights. "Two Allied Governments in London have already given a lead on this march towards an understanding on these lines, the Poles and the Czechs.
"By an agreement recently concluded between us, we have pledged our mutual collabora- tion, now and in the future, in all matters affecting the welfare of our two nations.
"An agreement on these mat- ters is being discussed in detail. I am convinced that in a short time positive results will be achieved which will herald a New Europe, based on law and
The Government of which the liberal and democratic Sikorski is now the head is composed of members of all the Polish parties justice."
and trade unions, Clericals and Jews.
The New Europe
Sikorski said to me: "Our vic- tory will not come merely by the military defeat of Germany. Peace will not begin when the war ends. Peace can only come, in the real sense of the word, when we have created a new
Other Poles fight with us in Europe. Egypt.
*
"The weakness of the Treaty of Versailles was that although it had overthrown a number of
sovereigns, it had set up a great many more sovereign States.
In The Air Look well upon this grave, Thousands of Polish airmen handsome, indomitable man. He are in training in Britain. has lived through tragic mo-
Polish fighter squadrons have ments.
brought down over 400 German "It had increased the problems He is the symbol of a nation machines in our air battles. of nationalism, by increasing the which the Nazis have vowed to Polish bombers have taken number of artificial barriers be-
the original economic structure
exterminate so long as it refuses part in the great R A F raids tween States. It had destroyed to accept the lot of serfs and over the enemy territory. chattclsiaves in the Fuehrer's
European household.
He is the son of a people The
whose domain was thrice parti-
tioned in what we thought were
the dark
Telegraph
Another Series of War
years of history, and To-day
has no again been rent dsun- der.
His friends, his kinsmen, his neighbours, have been fogged plundered, tortured, done to death or carried off to work in German fields and factories.
Their womenfolk have been outraged or murdered or sold into slavery..
Their bravest spirits, their leading minds, their elected ro- presentatives, trade
Dark Days
This initiative, General Sikor- ski suggests, might be followed by other Allied Governments now in London.
We must not wait until the end of the war to discuss the structure of free Europe.
A beginning may be made now, even when the Battle of Britain is about to enter a.new phase, the most arduous and challenging of all.
Federation?
There has been much talk, both in Britain and in America, of federation. A federated union of English-speaking peo- ples. A world federation of democracies. A Federal Europe.
Introduces and States in Europe whose
Important Articles
The important thing is to be- gin by establishing federation in, instalments, between peoples
common frontiers, common in- dustrial and agricultural in- terests, and kinship in speech, race and political history "make such federation possible.
General Sikorski, believes that if a federation of Eastern Euro-
reasons of
The underground war for the of Europe, without creating a pean States, stretching from resurrection of Poland will be new economic structure to make the Baltic to the Black Sea, and accompanied by war in the skies. life possible within its new poli- incorporating Poland, Czecho-
That underground war is be- tical frontiers,
slovakia, Hungary, Rumanis, ing waged with Inconceivable "After this war, Europe must and, possibly, Jugoslavia, were become an entity, political and to be established, it would erect courage and audacity.
economic. There must be eco- a Men, women and children defy nomic security for all. We must any future Germanic urge to permanent barrier against union the Gestapo, to keep alight the build from the ground upwards, expansion, leaders, even their priests, have flame of revolt and freedom in by securing the well-being, the been clubbed and shot and Poland. burned alive.
. comfort and happiness of the Other attempts at local federa- A million and a half Polish The resistance to the German people.
tion, partly for economic rea-
men and women
"In the past we have all been sons, partly for have been oppressor never ceases, driven like cattle to work nt
The collapse of Hitlerism will too jealous of our private inter- mutual security, might be made starvation wages in Germany.
probably begin in the East, like ests, our interests as individuals, in the Balkans. the collapse of Kaiserism. The our interests as States. We Greece, Turkey and Jugoslavia Poles are A resolute people. have all got to give something, have obvious interests in com- They have produced no Quisl- and the example must be given. mon. Their countries border Poland fell-but scores of ings. They will regain their by the men at the top.
the Adriatic, the Acgean and thousands of her sons escaped liberty; with our aid.
"The State, for example, must the Mediterranean, which are the across
rapidly closing But after victory, what? What begin by relinquishing some of all one inland sca. frontiers.
There is, of course, one great kind of Poland will emerge in its sovereign rights, if this is Sikorski raised a new Army in the new Europe?
necessary, in order to reach unknown in this vision of free France, equivalent to six divi- The fate of the Poland of agreement with a neighbouring Europe; the role of the U.S.S.R. sions, with a new and valiant Versailles was to be the most State on matters of common in-
She is at present in Europe, air force.
exposed bastion of the flimsy terest, especially when the basic but not of it. One day she may It fought gallantly, desperate- fortress of pacts and treaties, problem of security and defence have to decide whether Europe ly, in the last dark days of covenants and concessions de is concerned.
is to stop at the Carpathians or France..
signed to keep the renascent na- "To bring about real political at the Urals. Two divisions fought in front tionalism of Germany in check. friendship between two peoples of the Maginot Line. Another Czechoslovakia was another, there must be no financial or Russia's Part fought a great rearguard action France was the central keep and commercial dispute which Her attitude towards the re- to the Swiss frontier, carrying citadel.
divides them into two hostile construction of Poland was, and its wounded-and the Swiss And we have seen one bastion camps. There must be an econo- remains, enigmatic. But for the were so moved by the spectacle after another encircled, betrayed, mic understanding.
moment General Sikorski pro- that they opened the frontier attacked and conquered, and the
fers not to discuss the Russian and admitted them with their great citadel of France con-
problem. quered at last.
arms.
No Rivalry
J
OF
DX. Now,
"There must be no dis- "I believe," he told me, "that The remains of other divisions fought their way to the Atlantic Post-War Role criminating tariffs and customs once we have liberated Poland, duties, no economic rivalry, from the Germans, and when coust several days after the Fronch had abandoned the war: in the post-Hitler Europe?
What rolo must Poland play There must be agreement to ex- Soviot Russia is no longer chango raw materials, to share menaced by the military power Undefeated
What kind of bastion will it markets.
of Hitler, we shall be able to become? An outpost of the un- "THE PROSPERITY
talk more freely, with Moscow saw them with my own easy nationalism, the vanities, ONE NATION CANNOT BE than now. More freely than oyes; crowded in the fishing and the economic warfare which ACHIEVED AT THE
when the frontlors of boats loaded to the gunwale; marred and finally ended the PENSE OF THE DISTRESS when hundreds of thousands.of Poland aro in jeopardy and bronzed, hungry, weary but still. Eurone of Wilson, Lloyd George OF ANOTHER. undefeated Polish, soldiers, and Clemenceau?
"AND IF THIS ECONOMIC Poles are being exiled to the I saw them trying to beg or Let Sikoraki, answer. He has UNDERSTANDING CANNOT depths of Siberia," buy a passage to England. And himself suffered at the hands of BE REACHED WITHOUT I roturned to England in a great of the jealous nationalists. He, SACRIFICING SOME OF troopship filled with them. who was described by Foch, as THE SOVEREIGN RIGHTS OF On the deck, after nightfall, the greatest strateglat in Europe, STATES, THEN THESE they stood shoulder to shoulder was in exile, and excluded from RIGHTS MUST GO..
MONDAY:
The Second French Revolution.
"This is all wrong!
But- H.B.'s all right!”
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