As a military leader Pilsudski shewed marked ability; politically, his inspiration was his whole-hearted hatred of the old Russian regime of Tsarism, and thus owing both to his qualities and their defects he could not analyse the peculiar difficulties of the Polish question generally, or see that Germany was just as strong an opponent of Polish liberty as Russia, and infinitely the more insidious. To this patriotic Pole living in territory grabbed by Russia from the ancient Republic, Russia was the obvious enemy. He had no sympathies for any powers either on the side of the Central Empires or on that of the Entente: his only motive was to fight the enemies of Poland. Poland was encircled by foes, and it really mattered little to Pilsudski what segment of that circle he originally “went for,” provided only that he hurled himself, like a wild cat, at something hostile. He appears to have made up his mind, years before the war, that Russia, anyhow, was a foe to his fatherland, and he rated the proclamation of the Grand Duke Nicholas at precisely its proper value. Indeed it might have been of him, as the incarnation of the Polish national spirit, that a Russian, Professor Bierdiayew, said: “The Poles do not want Russian sympathy and friendship, but their own independence.... The Polish question is not and cannot be a Russian problem for them: it is a matter of their own, and at the same time a matter that should concern the whole world.... It is more than obvious that for a Pole the future arrangements for Poland cannot be part of the future arrangements of Russia or Germany or Austria. For them there is no Russian or Austrian orientation. They do not want their freedom as a reward from anybody ... Poland is not in decadence; it is at the height of its vitality and strength.... Poles have no Russian or Austrian orientation, only a Polish one....” Pilsudski was always ready to take the “best chance” for the independence of Poland (as when in 1904 he went to Japan and offered on behalf of the Socialists to organize an armed rising in Poland against Russia) and thus, since Russia at the outbreak of war was the wrongful holder of Lithuania and Poland, he raised the legions to fight against the most conspicuous opponent of Polish independence. Whatever Power, be it Russian or German, was in possession of Poland, that Power was Pilsudski’s enemy, and he always “went for” his enemy. This undeviating purpose invariably dictated his course.