1919

""Ich gehe Euch jetzt einen Sprung voraus, um Euch einen herrlichen Empfang zu bereiten." – Brief an die Mutter vor seiner Hinrichtung, zitiert in dem Taschenbuch »Die weisse Rose« von Inge Aicher-Scholl, 11. Auflage, Juli 1963, S. 107, S. 86 books.google in der Ausgabe 1975"

""Ich habe nicht gewusst, dass Sterben so leicht ist. Ich sterbe ganz ohne Hassgefühle. Vergiss nie, dass das Leben nichts anderes ist als ein Wachsen in der Liebe und ein Vorbereiten auf die Ewigkeit." – Evangelisches Gesangbuch, Ausgabe für die Evangelische Landeskirche in Württemberg, 1.Auflage 1996, Gesangbuchverlag Stuttgart, Seite 966"

"Man muß das Leben zu Ende leben, um es zu begreifen."

"Schlager sind Texte, die gesungen werden müssen, weil sie zu dumm sind, um gesprochen zu werden."

"As a result of the Soviet hopes of world revolution or, at least, ideological expansion into Central Europe, the Polish victories near Warsaw between 16 and 25 August 1920 were a key incident in the Cold War. The Battle of Warsaw ended the drive west by the Soviets, a drive which had already led them to capture the cities of Minsk and Vilnius the previous month. Had the Soviets succeeded in 1920 and established a sister republic in Poland, on the model of the French Revolutionaries in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands, then Communism would have had an opportunity to become more strongly grounded."

"In this episode, as with the post-1945 conflicts more classically seen as part of the Cold War, the struggle between the Great Powers was indirect: even in the Korean War (1950–3), there was no declaration of war or full-scale conflict. In 1920, the French provided the Poles with useful supplies and military advice, but there was no commitment of troops. Instead, the Poles benefited from their ability to gain the initiative, and then defeat separately the Soviet forces whose coordination was handicapped by mutually-distrustful Communist generals and by lengthy supply lines. Advancing over a very wide front and reliant on long supply lines, the tired Soviet forces lacked depth and nearby reserves. This was a very different situation to their successful fighting advance across this territory against the Germans in 1944. Prior to the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, Soviet strength seemed particularly potent and threatening, and it was unclear whether it would be possible for the Western powers to stop Soviet expansion short of full-scale war. What containment (to employ a later term) could mean in practice was unclear. In the event, after the battle, the Poles, in turn, advanced to within ninety miles of Kiev, before agreeing an armistice. The eventual Treaty of Riga, in March 1921, left Poland with some territory in modern Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, and with a frontier far to the east of modern Poland."

"If Charles Martel had not checked the Saracen conquest at the Battle of Tours, the interpretation of the Koran would be taught at the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. Had Pilsudski failed to arrest the advance of the Soviet Bolshevik Army at the Battle of Warsaw, not only would Christianity have experienced a dangerous reverse, but the very existence of Western civilisation would have been imperilled. The Battle of Warsaw saved Central and most parts of Europe from a more subversive danger – the fanatical tyranny of the Communist Soviet. All of Europe at this time, after World War I, was in ruin, and a strong conqueror could have imposed a tyrannical system from Russia in the East to France, and possible Britain in the west. The army that had marched on Warsaw was over a million strong and was nearing the gates of Warsaw when the Polish Cavalry attacked at the Bolshevik hind-quarter. The Bolsheviks were so surprised by a viable and active military response to their sure victory that the Bolshevik army in shock routed and fled in complete disarray. The Polish western boundary stood until 1939 and World War II. On the essential point, there can be little room for doubt; had the Soviet forces overcome Polish resistance… Bolshevism would have spread throughout Central Europe and might well have penetrated the whole continent."

"General Peter Wràngel's Caucasian Army had captured Tsaritsyn that June, but by January 1920 it was clear that the war was effectively over. The Allies cut off their aid to the Whites. One by one the generals fled or, like Kolchak, were captured and executed. By the summer of 1920 Lenin felt confident enough to export the Revolution westwards, ordering the Red Army to march on Warsaw and confidently talking of the need to 'sovietize Hungary and perhaps Czechia and Romania too'. Only their decisive defeat by the Polish army on the banks of the River Vistula halted the spread of the Bolshevik epidemic."

"(this war) largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more.[...] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution."

"That was the time when everyone in Germany, including the blackest reactionaries and monarchists, declared that the Bolsheviks would be their salvation."

"(this war allows us) ...to probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army."

"We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening the Western Front. A new slogan must be announced: Prepare for war against Poland."

"Lenin’s great disappointment with spreading Communism abroad occurred in the summer of 1920. In April of that year, Poland, eager to forestall the reemergence of a strong and imperialist Russia, had made common cause with Ukrainian nationalists and invaded the Soviet Ukraine with the aim of detaching it from Russia. The invasion failed to ignite an uprising in the Ukraine, and the Polish armies soon found themselves in full retreat. As the Red Army approached the borders of ethnic Poland, the Politburo, the directing organ of the Communist Party, had to decide whether to stop or to continue advancing westward. Opinions were divided but Lenin insisted on offensive operations, and as by now was always the case, he had his way. He felt certain that both Germany and England were ripe for revolution, which the appearance of Communist armed forces on their borders would help ignite. In the summer of 1920, the Red Army, accompanied by Soviet commissars of Polish origin, entered Poland. It broadcast appeals calling on Polish workers and peasants to seize properties of the bourgeois and landlords—slogans that had proven very effective in Russia. But the Poles of all classes rallied to defend newly won Polish sovereignty. In the battle for Warsaw, one of the decisive battles of modern history, they repulsed and scattered the Communist army. Lenin could not conceal his bitterness at this outcome."

"Under the rule of Catherine the Great, Russia reclaimed all of its historical lands, including in the south and west. This all lasted until the Revolution. Before World War I, the Austrian General Staff, relying on the ideas of Ukrainianization, started to actively promote the ideas of Ukraine and the Ukrainianization. Their motive was obvious. Just before World War I, they wanted to weaken the potential enemy and secure themselves favourable conditions in the border area. So this idea which had emerged in Poland that people residing in that territory were allegedly not really Russians, but rather belonged to a special ethnic group, the Ukrainians, started to be promoted by the Austrian General Staff too. As far back as the 19th century, theorists calling for Ukrainian independence appeared. All those, however, claimed that Ukraine should have a very good relationship with Russia. They insisted on that. After the 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks sought to restore the statehood, and the Civil War began, including the hostilities with Poland. In 1921, peace with Poland was proclaimed, and under that treaty, the right bank of the Dnieper River once again was given back to Poland."

"To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!"

"But since the Government is apparently uninformed about the manner in which our Faith colours and is meant to colour all our actions, including those which, for the sake of convenience, are generally characterised as mundane, one thing must be made clear, and it is this: Islam does not permit the believer to pronounce an adverse judgement against another believer without more convincing proof; and we could not, of course, fight against our Muslim brothers without making sure that they were guilty of wanton aggression, and did not take up arms in defence of their faith." (This was in relation to the war that was going on between the British and the Afghans in 1919.) "Now our position is this. Without better proof of the Amir's malice or madness we certainly do not want Indian soldiers, including the Musalmans, and particularly with our own encouragement and assistance, to attack Afghanistan and effectively occupy if first, and then be a prey to more perplexity and perturbation afterwards. "But if on the contrary His Majesty the Amir has no quarrel with India and her people and if his motive must be attributed, as the Secretary of State has publicly said, to the unrest which exists throughout the Mahomedan world, an unrest with which he openly professed to be in cordial sympathy, that is to say, if impelled by the same religious motive that has forced Muslims to contemplate Hijrat, the alternative of the weak, which is all that is within our restricted means. His Majesty has been forced to contemplate Jihad, the alternative of those comparatively stronger which he may have found within his means; if he has taken up the challenge of those who believed in force and yet more force, and he intends to try conclusions with those who require Musalmans to wage war against the Khilafat and those engaged in Jihad; who are in wrongful occupation of the Jazirut-ul-Arab and the holy places; who aim at the weakening of Islam; discriminate against it, and deny to us full freedom to advocate its cause; then the clear law of Islam requires that in the first place, in no case whatever should a Musalman render anyone any assistance against him; and in the next place if the Jihad approaches my region every Musalman in that region must join the Mujahidin and assist them to the best of his or her power. "Such is the clear and undisputed law of Islam; and we had explained this to the Committee investigating our case when it had put to us a question about the religious duty of a Muslim subject of a non-Muslim power when Jihad had been declared against it, long before there was any notion of trouble on the Frontiers, and when the late Amir was still alive."

"I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power."

"I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go, and why I am to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir that if he came, no Indian so long as I can help it, would help the Government to drive him back."

"They did exactly what was feared they might—invite the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India for the pan-Islamic cause. In his misguided enthusiasm, Gandhi went to the extent of even supporting such a move: ‘I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan, if he waged a war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power.’ Even his most ardent supporters were shocked by such statements that had no roots in pragmatism or practicality. .... The government had intercepted a telegram—a wire sent to the Amir of Afghanistan inviting him to invade India and urging him to not make peace with the British—written in Persian, allegedly by Muhammad Ali. Swami Shraddhanand mentions this incident in his memoir. Muhammad Ali had feigned complete ignorance in the matter as he knew neither Persian nor Arabic and he was made a maulana only by virtue of the duties of tabligh (conversion) that he had conducted. On reaching Anand Bhawan, Pandit Motilal Nehru’s Allahabad residence, Muhammad Ali took Shraddhanand aside and taking out a paper from his handbag, gave him a draft of a telegram to read. ‘What was my astonishment,’ noted Shraddhanand, ‘when I saw the draft of the selfsame telegram in the peculiar handwriting of the Father of the non-violent cooperation movement!’ Gandhi reached Anand Bhawan the next day and when asked by Sharaddhanand about this matter, did not remember to have sent any such telegram."

"In the summer of 1919, the Allied armies stood along the Rhine, and their bridgeheads bulged deeply into defeated, disarmed, and hungry Germany. The chiefs of the victor Powers debated and disputed the future in Paris. Before them lay the map of Europe to be redrawn almost as they might resolve. After fifty-two months of agony and hazards the Teutonic Coalition lay at their mercy, and not one of its four members could offer the slightest resistance to their will. Germany, the head and forefront of the offence, regarded by all as the prime cause of the catastrophe which had fallen upon the world, was at the mercy or discretion of conquerors, themselves reeling from the torment they had endured. Moreover, this had been a war, not of governments, but of peoples. The whole life-energy of the greatest nations had been poured out in wrath and slaughter. The war leaders assembled in Paris had been borne thither upon the strongest and most furious tides that have ever flowed in human history. Gone were the days of the Treaties of Utrecht and Vienna, when aristocratic statesmen and diplomats, victor and vanquished alike, met in polite and courtly disputation, and, free from the clatter and babel of democracy, could reshape systems upon the fundamentals of which they were all agreed. The peoples, transported by their sufferings and by the mass teachings with which they had been inspired, stood around in scores of millions to demand that retribution should be exacted to the full. Woe betide the leaders now perched on their dizzy pinnacles of triumph if they cast away at the conference table what the soldiers had won on a hundred blood-soaked battlefields."

"But in November 1918, the fighting momentarily ended, humankind could still for a fleeting season dream the dreams of hope. Much of that hope was invested in the person of the American president, Woodrow Wilson. ‘‘What a place the President held in the hearts and hopes of the world!’’ when he boarded the George Washington for the Paris Peace Conference on December 4, 1918, exclaimed the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Buoyant and eager, Roosevelt followed his chief to Paris aboard the same ship a month later. But there, hovering on the periphery of the peace negotiations, he witnessed the remorseless demolition of the liberal settlement that Wilson had championed. It was the young Keynes who most famously chronicled the hope-smothering defects of the treaty that was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Wilson had envisioned a liberal peace, a peace without victory, a peace that would magnanimously restore Germany to its rightful place in an open world of free trade and democracy. In that world commerce would be unshackled from political constraint, politics would be based on the principle of self-determination, and order would be maintained by a new international body, the League of Nations. But what emerged from the ordeal of the Paris peace negotiations was a document that mocked those ideals."

"When American thinking on foreign policy and European diplomatic traditions encountered each other at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the differences in historical experience became dramatically evident. The European leaders sought to refurbish the existing system according to familiar methods; the American peacemakers believed that the Great War had resulted not from intractable geopolitical conflicts but from flawed European practices. In his famous Fourteen Points, Woodrow Wilson told the Europeans that, henceforth, the international system should be based not on the balance of power but on ethnic self-determination, that their security should depend not on military alliances but on collective security, and that their diplomacy should no longer be conducted secretly by experts but on the basis of “open agreements, openly arrived at.” Clearly, Wilson had come not so much to discuss the terms for ending a war or for restoring the existing international order, as he had to recast a whole system of international relations as it had been practiced for nearly three centuries."

"To provide for the conditions of peace and the reorganization of Europe [at the end of the First World War] the Paris Conference met on January 18th (same day as the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in C.E.1871), in which all the victorious states were represented (thirty-two), but whose direction was assumed by the heads of government of the four largest states (i Big Four, as the Anglo-Saxons used to say), Wilson, LLoyd George, Clemenceau, Orlando. As was inevitable, a welter of contradictory tendencies and appetites was unleashed: nationalisms exasperated against each other and messianic hopes of universal transformation fought and mixed together. (Luigi Salvatorelli)"

"Treaty of Versailles (1919)"

"League of Nations"