56 NAROD
magnanimity, it was a bitter pill indeed. According to Wasilewski, the conquest
of Wilno by the Red Army in July 1920, and its subsequent transfer to the
Lithuanian National Republic, was the only event in his recollection which ever
moved the taciturn Marshal to tears. Thus, in all the border provinces, fear was
the father of extremism and discord, and the harbinger of tragedy.^57
The proliferating profusion of possible political permutations among the
pullulating peoples and parties of the Polish provinces in this period palpably
prevented the propagation of permanent pacts between potential partners. It is
easy to see that Dmowski's advocacy of an alliance with Russia against
Germany was also designed to protect the Poles against Ukrainians,
Lithuanians, Jews, e tutti quanti; and that his hopes were bound to be dashed by
Pilsudski's rival scheme for a federation with the tutti quanti against both
Russia and Germany. But that is only a beginning. It must also be realized that
each of the national movements was itself fragmented not only in terms of polit-
ical attitudes and of political parties, but also by the physical barriers of the state
frontiers; and that each of the fragments had its own interests, traditions, and
aspirations. It was common knowledge among Polish schoolboys that Polonia,
like Caesar's Gallia, est omnis divisa in parties tres. But not everyone was aware
that the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, German, and Jewish communities were
trisected likewise. Apart from the Ukrainians in 'Little Russia' ruled from St.
Petersburg, and the Ukrainians in Galicia ruled from Vienna, there were
Ukrainians in Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia ruled from Budapest. The life of the
Lithuanians in the North-Western Land of Russia and in the Congress Kingdom
was enriched by the existence of the Lithuanians in East Prussia. The confident
German majorities in Prussian Poland professed a very different outlook from
that of the isolated German minorities in Russian Poland or in Galicia. In the
same way, the assimilated Jew from Warsaw or Cracow was effectively alien-
ated not only from the unassimilated, Yiddish-speaking Jews of the Pale, but
also from the Russian-speaking Jews or Litvaks, who emigrated westwards
from the 1880s onwards. Given the existence of the three partitioning powers,
therefore, and of five main national movements each divided into three geo-
graphical sectors, into three main tactical groupings, and into at least three main
parties, one reaches the astonishing conclusion that Polish politics at the turn of
the century were faced with a total number of possible permutations of 38, or of
rather more than nineteen thousand, if everyone was to be accommodated.
Attempts were made at various moments to unite the Poles and the Russians
against the Ukrainians; the Poles and the Ukrainians against the Germans; the
Russians and the Ukrainians against the Poles and the Germans; and so on and
so forth. But in every instance, the interests of a vocal minority were neglected
or offended; a rapproachement in one direction invariably caused a rupture in
another direction; and nothing substantial was ever achieved. (See Diagram B.)
Pressed on so many sides, it was perhaps inevitable that Polish nationalism
should have developed an assertive, exclusive nature. In this, it resembled all its
rivals. Repelled by the prospect of a fixed alliance with his potential allies, the