Briefly then the historical grounds on which these claims rest are as follows; they are matters of fact, not of theory or political expediency, and as far as they go are indisputable. Up to the year 1772 when the first partition of Poland occurred it was a state of great extent with a sea-board on the Baltic, and a united realm, embracing not only what is now known as the Kingdom of Poland in Russia, but stretching eastwards as far as the Dnieper, and including the north-west and south-west provinces of Russia, i.e., the governments of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, Mohileff, Vitebsk, Volhynia, Podolia, Kieff.[3] In Austria-Hungary it included Galicia and originally Austrian Silesia (Teschen); in Germany, so-called Royal Prussia (West Prussia and Ermland) and Posen. The whole course of the Vistula lay within its frontiers from its rise in the Carpathians to its debouchment at Dantzig, which was a Polish port. East Prussia also had been originally a fief of Poland, and the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg vassals of its king. Early in the 17th century, however (1611), when Sigismund III was on the Polish throne, East Prussia ceased to pay its tribute-money and Poland was in too weak a state to enforce it. From that date therefore, until the partitions Eastern Prussia was an island, so to speak, in Poland, severed by the Polish territory on the Vistula from Brandenburg. For some century and a half before the first partition of Poland in 1772, the country had been weakly governed, and, as to-day, was split up by many internal antagonisms, sedulously nourished and fostered by Germany. This no doubt contributed to her incapacity for a vigorous national existence, but what really decided her fate, was the international condition of Europe at the epoch when the partitions were made. England and France to whose interests it was then to prevent the partitions, which as we can see now, were the germ which has since developed into the Mittel-Europa policy, were strongly antagonistic, and Frederick the Great, who was the prime mover in the partition of 1772 was England’s ally. Thus the possible interference of the Western Powers in this partition was removed. On the other side of Poland was Russia, who for the time being made common cause with Prussia, and secured her own share. The two following partitions were contemporaneous with the disorganization caused by the French Revolution, and by them Poland, as a nation, completely disappeared from the map of Europe. Then followed the Napoleonic wars, in which for a time Russia was in extreme peril, and it is highly interesting to note that even as in 1914 when Russia was in peril from German arms, Polish reunion was promised by the Grand Duke Nicholas, so, when the French peril threatened Russia, a hundred years before, Prince Michael Oginski in 1802 issued a proclamation to Poland signed by Alexander I. strangely similar to that of the Grand Duke Nicholas speaking with the authority of Nicholas II. Yet perhaps