THE PRUSSIAN PARTITION 93got up by a minority composed of nobles, land-stewards, and labourers... On Danish
and Bohemian battlefields our Polish soldiers have testified their devotion to the King
with their blood, and with the valour peculiar to their race... With all imaginable impar-
tiality, and desire to be just, I can assure you that Polish rule was an infamously bad one,
and that is why it shall never be revived...^5
He returned to his theme on 1 April 1871. In the recent elections, Posen had
returned a block of twenty 'stiff-necked oppositionists', who dared to contest the
impending incorporation of the Grand Duchy together with the rest of Prussia,
into the German Empire. After mocking the demagoguery of Polish priests in the
recent election campaign, the Chancellor reminded the deputies that they had
been elected to represent the interests of the Catholic Church, and that they had
'no mandate to represent the Polish people or nationality in this House'. Then,
with biting irony, he attacked their schemes for collaborating with the Poles in
Russia and for reviving a Polish state within its historic frontiers:
The population of the West Russian provinces consists of ten percent of Poles strewn
about on their surface, either descendants of former conquerors or renegades of other
races, and ninety percent who speak nothing but Russian, pray in Russian, weep in
Russian (especially when under Polish domination), and stand by the Russian
Government in combating the Polish nobility ... It is in the name of these six-
and-a-half million Poles that you claim rule over twenty-four millions, in a tone indicat-
ing that it is a most profound and abominable tyranny and humiliation that you are no
longer allowed to oppress and ride roughshod over those people... Gentlemen, I would
request you, therefore, to unite with the majority of your Polish brethren in Prussia ... in
participating in the benefits of civilisation offered to you by the Prussian state... Take
your share honestly in our common work.^6
The force of Bismarck's comments is undeniable. But his tone was hardly
designed to soothe. In the next two decades, in the era of the Kulturkantpf and
the Colonization Commission, German—Polish relations were destined to dete-
riorate sharply.
Although the Kulturkantpf was not aimed exclusively at the Polish provinces,
its impact was soon felt there to maximum effect. In 1872, a ministerial decree
made the use of German compulsory in all state-schools, except for religious
instruction. Polish was banned even as a foreign language, and could not be used
as previously for teaching German to Polish children. Teachers were forbidden
to join Polish and Catholic societies, and were offered financial inducements,
the so-called Ostmarkenzulagen, for working in non-German districts. All grad-
uates, including priests, were required to pass an exam in German culture. In
1876, German was made compulsory in all courts, and in all government offices
from the Post Office to the ticket office of the railway station.^7 Regulations
regarding immigration and residence permits were strengthened. In 1885, the
Prussian Police expelled 30,000 Poles and Polish Jews who did not posses cor-
rect documents.^8 Although certain concessions were granted by Capnvi after
1890, the campaign was not abandoned. Nothing did more to strengthen Polish
national consciousness.