At the moment of Austria’s spontaneous dissolution, one Ruthenian party hastened to set up a ‘Republic of the Western Ukraine,’ and, with the aid of certain Ruthenian units in the old Austrian army, attempted to seize possession of all Eastern Galicia. This led to a prolonged and unhappy struggle with the Poles, who were not disposed to submit to such a settlement of the question. For many months the fighting centred around the city of Lemberg, which long defended itself almost single-handed and with great heroism against superior Ukrainian forces. When at last the Polish government was in position to send large reënforcements, the issue was quickly decided: in June, 1919, the Ukrainian resistance collapsed, and the Poles occupied the whole country as far as the Zbrucz. The fate of Eastern Galicia was thus more or less settled _vi et armis_, without the Conference and at times to the lively displeasure of the Conference. That the Allied and Associated Powers nevertheless finally sanctioned the Polish occupation of Eastern Galicia and are now apparently intending to place that country, provisionally at least, under the sovereignty of Poland, is a fact which has called forth no little criticism. It has been denounced as a craven surrender in the face of a _fait accompli_, a betrayal of principle, the sacrifice of three and a half million Ukrainians to the ravenous Polish imperialists, and much more to the like effect. The chief justification of the Conference, I think, is to be found in the hard facts of the situation. The Ruthenians are indeed the majority in Eastern Galicia; the majority ought to rule; but it was very difficult to apply this principle in this particular case. The Ruthenian majority was not at all agreed as to what it wanted. The Ukrainophiles among them were for an independent Ukrainian state; but the other party was altogether opposed to such an idea. This second party, however, had no more practicable program to offer than that the Allied governments should occupy and administer Eastern Galicia until such time as Russia was on her feet again and in condition to take over the country. If one might judge from the relative strength of the two Ruthenian parties as they existed before the war, the party which wanted an independent Ukrainian state might be a majority among the Ruthenians, but was only a minority in the total population.