Abstract

I. A European Danger Spot

The eastern front, where the Poles and the Russians are fighting intermittently, is 500 kilometres and more from Warsaw, yet it is curiously easy here to feel that war operations are close at hand. The companies of soldiers passing and repassing; the trains of army wagons, Russian style, and motor lorries; the military police patrolling the main streets and demanding one's pass if one is abroad after midnight; the presence of British, French, Italian, and American officers on the streets and in the hotels and cafés. the eager scrutiny of newspapers or bulletins containing the latest reports from the front; all combine to give the impression that the peace which the defeat of the Central Powers was supposed to have established and insured is still, for Poland at least, a theory rather than a reality.