The White Eagle of Poland by E.F. Benson

Of the various factors with had produced this crisis by far the most important from the German standpoint was the utter failure to induce Poland to furnish Germany with an army. The German authorities had tried to raise it themselves and had succeeded in enlisting 600 fit men, when they had hoped to raise between 700,000 and 800,000. But they believed that one man was able to raise this army for them, and this was Pilsudski, whom they had now imprisoned, despairing of success, on the charge of conspiracy. He had not conspired at all: he had but consistently refused to conspire or to exercise the huge moral force which he had in Poland, in the matter of raising an army, unless (as we have seen) that army was intended to be the defence and shield of a Polish independent State, which the German authorities, up till the present time had refused to call into existence, or to grant it a Constitution that was anything more than a swindle.

A very brief _résumé_ of the history of this remarkable patriot, and of the legions which he had created will help the reader to understand how great was the prestige with which the Germans rightly credited him, and how significant to them were the Polish legions which he had raised at the beginning of the war.