Excerpt from The Russian Plot to Seize Galicia (Austrian Ruthenia) To this day they continue their underhand work, in spite of repeated protests on the part of the Ruthenians. How is it that so dangerous a propaganda was allowed to take root? We have already mentioned that the Austrian officials in Galicia were mostly Poles. Now, the Russians sought their protection for their propaganda work. They represented to them the revival of the Ruthenian Nation as dangerous, not only from the Russian, but also from the Polish point of view. Themselves the originators of the final downfall of the Polish Nation, they now did not think it beneath their dignity to appear to be concerned for the Polish national interests! By skilfully parading before their eyes the "glorious future" that might await them should they cast in their forces with Russia, they obtained their support for their intrigue in Galicia. A concession of rights to the Polish language and the promise to grant self-government in Russia, were among the tentatives put forward by the Russians. That they proved effective, was shown on innumerable occasions by the Russian, Austrian, German and French press. The expulsion of Count V. Bobrinski from Austria, far from arresting his dangerous activities, marked the real beginning of the campaign. The Count returned home armed with first-hand information concerning the conditions prevailing in the AustroHungarian Ruthenia, which was much more important than the theoretical knowledge possessed by the Russian politicians hitherto. He at once proceeded to form "The Russo-Galician Society" in St. Petersburg, the aim of which was to establish a Russian base for the operations; until then wanting. In Galicia itself it was decided to proceed with the work cautiously and without noise. While it was left to the two Lemberg journals to discredit systematically in the eyes of the reading public, the foreign policy of Austria, by applying to it the Muscovite "Pan-Slav" yard-measure, the propaganda among the illiterate peasants was concealed under a religious cloak. Nine-tenths of the Ruthenians in Austria-Hungary belong to the Greek-Catholic, or Uniate Church, that was once spread over much larger portion of the native territory than Galicia and Eastern Hungary to which it is confined now, but has since been exterminated in Russia, brutally and replaced by the Russian official Religion. The history of Ruthenian "Unia," this undoubtedly the most striking attempt to bring about the union of the Eastern and Western Christianity, is full of absorbing interest, and it accredits the Ruthenians with one more spiritual achievement of world-wide import, in addition to their splendid work in other directions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This volume focuses on the consequences that the First World War had on the Jews living in the notorious Pale of Settlement within the frontiers of the Tsarist Empire. The research is entirely based on a solid documentary study, consisting of the documents of the Joint Distribution Committee and references to many historiographic works. Rather than dealing with the military aspects of war, the book focuses on the political consequences, and in particular on the economic and social changes that the conflict generated. The Jewish communities experienced a personal tragedy within the general tragedy of war, as they were particularly “damaged”, not only by violence and persecutions – suffering from the pogroms of Cossacks and local populations – but also by the evacuations and expulsions ordered by the military. It meant that a great part of the Jewish population was forced to leave their residence and, in many cases, compelled to wander for several years or even to emigrate. In addition to this, after the outbreak of World War I, the Russian Jews became “hostile elements” who were viewed as potential spies and traitors, and were subsequently targeted by a new wave of discriminatory measures that were based on two myths of contemporary antisemitism: the “stab in the back” and the conspiracy of Jewish Bolshevism. From this perspective, what happened during the Great War could be seen as an anticipation of the tragedy that affected Eastern European Jewry in the following decades.