14 NAROD
and violence often seemed inseparable from justice. The relief of twenty mil-
lion Poles could only be effected by the discomfort of two hundred million fel-
low-Europeans. As Lord Brougham once remarked, The Polish Cause is
opposed to the wishes of all the other powers. They all want peace, whilst to
take up the cause of Poland means War.' There was the rub. If supporting
Polish claims meant going to war, few responsible people in Europe were ready
to pay the price. Indeed, the mere repetition of Polish claims was enough to
arouse the spectre of war and to evoke from frightened leaders the most hys-
terical denunciations of the Polish 'troublemakers'. For the Poles, this mecha-
nism was incomprehensible. When a British parliamentarian, or a Russian
liberal denounced the iniquities of the reigning establishment; when a German
or an Italian nationalist campaigned against the petty tyrannies of their
oppressors, they were widely acclaimed as reformers, progressives, and men of
vision. They were seen to be ironing out the inconsistencies in the established
order, but not to be threatening it. When a Pole presumed to express exactly
the same opinions, or to demand the same rights for the Poles as other nations
enjoyed, he was regularly treated as a 'rebel', a 'dreamer', an 'extremist', a
'fanatic'. By challenging the authority of the major continental empires, he
provoked much greater hostility, and a very special response. Thus, whereas
the nineteenth century was the Age of Reform and Improvement for Britain, of
Expansion for America, of Might and Empire for Prussia and Russia, and of
national liberation for the Germans and Italians, it was, for the Poles, an era
of defeat, isolation, and humiliation. It was the 'Babylonian Captivity', 'the
Sojourn in the Wilderness', the 'Descent into the Tomb', the 'Journey through
Hell', 'the Time on the Cross'.
In the British Isles, the only comparable experience was that suffered by the
Irish, whose own loss of statehood lasted from 1800 to 1921 and who strove to
preserve their own sense of identity from within another rich, confident, and
expansive empire. But if the Irish were faced with one imperial 'enemy', the
Poles were faced with three. When Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz visited Ireland in
1833, he admitted that there were many similarities, adding 'I would willingly
exchange our condition today for Ireland's.'^12
In the absence of a national state, Polish national consciousness drew on four
fundamental sources of inspiration—Church, Language, History, and Race.
The Roman Catholic Church had never enjoyed a monopoly in the religious
affairs of the old Republic. Yet its influence had gradually increased in response
to the depredations of Swedish and Prussian Protestants, and Orthodox
Muscovites. In the eastern provinces, it had long been known as 'the Polish reli-
gion' to distinguish its adherents from the Uniates and the Orthodox. In these
areas a Catholic peasant would often be called 'a Pole' even though he said his
prayers in Latin and spoke to his family in Byelorussian or Ukrainian. The
Confederates of Bar, who took to the field in 1768 as much in defence of
Catholicism as of their Golden Freedom, put Faith and Fatherland, the service
of the Virgin and that of Poland, into one and the same breath: