Similarly the man-power desired by the Germans for recruits in the armies of the Central Empires was not forthcoming at all. Germany had made a grave miscalculation, for though there were tens of thousands of Poles ready to fight against Russia from patriotic motives, there was not one per cent. of these who were ready to fight for Germany. Germany, according to the official German view, had delivered the country from the Russian yoke, and had zealously proclaimed her liberating rôle. But what she failed to understand was that the national sentiment of Poland had no greater affection for Germany than it had for Russia. There were few, except the Jews in Poland, who looked on Germany as their deliverer, though Germany made the most of the very gratifying remarks which they addressed to the Kaiser about the invincibility of his armies. But as a practical test of the extent and depth of such emotions, the result of recruiting for purely German purposes after the declaration of the Polish state was not encouraging. For the Poles resented the Germanization of Posen and Silesia just as much as they resented the Russification of other parts of the ancient realm. The result, in any case, of the appeal to die, not for Poland but for Germany, as we shall see later, was highly unsatisfactory. The occupied territories made no response whatever. CHAPTER II THE FIRST YEAR OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION Germany seems to have realised from the first that the management of the occupied territory of the Kingdom of Poland would present difficulties, and, apart from its systematic starvation, necessitated by the needs of her armies, and her desire for industrial emigration into Germany, she adopted a wiser policy than she did, for instance, in Belgium. Warsaw was taken on August 5, 1915, and schools were reopened there by August 25th, and both in primary and secondary classes Germany allowed Polish to be taught. German and Polish in fact were compulsory languages in schools, and German was taught by Poles. Russian, however, was completely prohibited, and no books or papers other than those that had passed a German censorship were allowed to be introduced into the territory at all. Similarly as an anti-Russian measure she permitted the Byzantine ritual for Greek Catholics, which Russia had prohibited. Now Germany had barred the teaching of Polish in schools in the Duchy of Posen and Prussian Poland, but then she had definitely annexed them and incorporated them into the German Empire, and any attempt at conciliation there was mere weakness. But she was still doubtful whether this fresh conquest was ripe for a similar coercion, and in the interval she tried with an amazingly small degree of success to establish friendly relations with the inhabitants.