108 GALICIA
Treasury in Vienna. After 6 millions were spent on the servicing of foreign
loans, and 5 millions on the upkeep of the railways, the Kingdom was well into
the red. The annual deficit was estimated at 2.1 millions. It is not difficult to
imagine how little money was available for investment, for the public services,
or for social and educational purposes.
For many peasant families, emigration offered the sole chance of survival. In
the twenty-five years before the First World War, more than two million people
left Galicia for good. No less than 400,000, or almost 5 per cent of the popula-
tion, departed in 1913 alone. Some went to the adjoining industrial areas in
Silesia, and in particular to the Duchy of Teschen where the Polish element in
the expanding mining community at Karwina grew quickly into a strong major-
ity. Others went to France or Germany. But most took the ship from Hamburg
for America, joining the ceaseless tide of Europe's weary and oppressed who
passed through Ellis Island on their way to the mines of Pennsylvania or to the
frontier lands of the mid-West.
The most sensational event in Galicia's history occurred in 1846. In that year,
the authorities received advance notice of the conspiracy which Mieroslawski
was planning to launch simultaneously in Prussia, Cracow, and Galicia on 21
February. In Posen, the Prussian police arrested the ringleaders without more
ado. But in Austria the local officials seem to have panicked. Faced with small
groups of armed Polish noblemen preparing to make their way to the ren-
dezvous at Cracow, the District Officer of Tarnow, Johann Breindl von
Wallerstein, enlisted the help of the local peasants. In particular, he sought the
assistance of Jakub Szela (1787-1866), an irascible peasant from Smarzowy,
famed for his successful litigations against wealthy landowners. Szela set to
work to organize bands of serfs, who were promised an end to their feudal
obligations if they would turn on their masters. In the ensuing melee, the estates
of the noble conspirators were invaded. Noblemen, landlords, bailiffs, and
protesting officials were butchered in cold blood. The innocent suffered with the
guilty. Before long, the peasant bands were offering the severed heads of their
noble victims to the authorities as proof of their zeal. In some cases, they appear
to have been paid for their wares in salt. The situation was completely out of
hand. A minor noble insurrection had turned into a major peasant jacquerie. In
some districts, nine out often manors were razed to the ground. In the vicinity
of Bochnia, Austrian officials were attacked indiscriminately. In the Tatra
mountains, at Cholochow, a group led by the village curate and his organist
raised the flag of Polish independence. It was nearly three weeks before the
Austrian army, delayed by the Rising in Cracow, could arrive to restore order.
By that time, more than two thousand Polish noblemen had been killed. The
remaining merrymakers were dispersed. Szela was arrested as a matter of form,
but was then rewarded with a large estate in the distant province of Bukovina.
For the Austrian authorities, it was a sobering reminder of the excesses to which
loyalty, no less than rebellion, could lead. For the Poles, it was a rude awaken-
ing to the fact that Polish-speaking peasants could not be relied on to support