Russia, moreover, in this summer of 1915, was far from disabled, and there might still be severe fighting on the Eastern frontiers of Poland. It was wise therefore, firstly, so long as no sacrifice was entailed, to seem to adopt a more liberal policy of government than Poland had previously enjoyed, in order, if possible, to make the inhabitants of the occupied territories better content with her rule than that of Russia. Just as in 1914 the motive of the Grand Duke’s proclamation was to avoid having a disloyal and discontented population in the rear of the Russian armies, so in 1915 such indulgences as were given to the Poles were granted by Germany for precisely the same reason as they had been dangled in front of them before by the Russians. Secondly, a fresh invasion of the occupied territory from the East was still to be reckoned with, and her armies might be pushed back. In that case she would have secured, once more in the rear of the enemy’s line, a population that found it had fared better under her temporary rule than under that of the power which had laid their country waste. A third alternative was that she would remain permanently in possession of Poland, and so she proceeded apace with her usual penetrative work, on which we will touch presently. But what chiefly occupied her with regard to Poland was the determination of what she wanted to do with it. Given that Poland was not going to be reconquered by Russia, there were the proposals of her Austrian Allies, who were meditating a programme far more attractive to the Poles than was any arrangement which Germany had the slightest intention of proposing, to be digested and disposed of. In brief, this “Austrian solution” was as follows the Kingdom of Poland, hitherto Russian, should be joined to Galicia, ceded by Austria, to form a self-governing state under a Habsburg prince, who, being Catholic, would be acceptable to the nation. This scheme obtained some adherents among the Poles, especially the Poles of Galicia of the class whose interests were bound up with the Austrian government, for during the last fifty years they had received far better treatment at the hands of Austria than either Russia or Germany had granted to the provinces that fell to them through the partions. Hatred of Russia combined with hatred of Germany, who made no corresponding proposal about the cession of the Duchy of Posen, inclined many of the more moderate Polish groups, such as the League of the Polish State, to welcome some such Austrian solution as the best that they were likely to secure, and almost immediately after the German occupation of Warsaw the Austrian government published the manifesto of the Galician Supreme National Council, which set forth the general terms of the proposed arrangement. Germany strongly objected to this as inopportune in its appearance, the inopportunity chiefly consisting in the fact that she had not sanctioned it, and did not mean to.