The Csechs and Ruthenes have been specially handicapped in their national struggle by the attitude of the Poles. And the result was an implacable enmity between the Poles and the Ruthenes, which was, if anything, encouraged by the Government. In this struggle the Ruthenes undoubtedly fared the worse. They are in a national minority in Galicia, and unmercifully oppressed by the Poles, who hate them all the more for being the descendants of the hated Russians (Little Russians) and because they refused to conceal their sympathy with Russia. The Ruthenes fought hard for the right to speak their own tongue and have their own school system. But the Poles were ruthlessly opposed to these demands, which were in consequence also denied by the Government. The struggle finally degenerated into wholesale denunciations of the Ruthenes by the Poles, who accused their enemies of high treason and conspiracy with Russia. It must, however, be admitted that even among the Poles there were many who deeply deplored this fratricidal struggle, and did their utmost to induce the Northern Slavs of the Monarchy to combine in the common cause. Time and again the Csech patriots urged the desirability of a union, and, as similar appeals came from other Slav countries also, the realization of a true _Pan-Slav_ and _democratic_ ideal often seemed imminent. The spectre of _Pan-Germanism_, waiting like some ravenous monster to devour the Slav nations limb by limb, appeared even to the Poles, but unscrupulous politicians, bureaucratic upstarts, and slippery diplomats from Vienna conjured up the bogey of _Russification_ to alarm them, and all patriotic efforts were in vain. Still it is psychologically interesting that a Slav race through fear of Russification should have thrown itself into the arms of—Germanism. * * * * * II.