In Galicia, reactions to the entire treaty were mixed at best. The cessation of major hostilities on the eastern front and the prospect that the Great War was finally coming to an end were welcome relief. The western front was far away, and the decisive impact of the United States on the war in favor of the Allies (the countries opposing the Central powers) was not appreciated as yet. To the contrary, some thought that Germany might now be in a strong position to negotiate a peace settlement in the west. The main reason for lack of jubilation on the streets, if not open hostility toward the treaty, was a sense of AustroHungary’s wavering commitment toward keeping Galicia intact.
An even greater cause of anxiety was Germany, historically anathema to Poles, which was now unchallenged in its control of most Polish territory. A vague statement in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that “Germany and Austro-Hungary have the intention to resolve the future destiny of these lands in consultation with the people who live there” did not elicit much confidence. Speaking with visiting Poles shortly after the peace agreement, the German chancellor boasted about taking Paris in a few weeks, making it clear that they had no choice but to agree to limited autonomy now, before even those modest terms would be further diminished.20 Again, it was a case of predictions never materializing; many now had to accept the unreliability of any talk about the future in their rapidly changing world.
Despite high hopes, there was no major breakthrough on POW exchanges after the agreement. A general declaration of intent deferred the details, which were supposed to be hammered out in separate talks.21 In reality, the domestic wars that erupted in Russia prevented the release and transport of those who were interned somewhere in vast territories that often were not under the control of the central government.
Family portrait taken in Stanislawow. Wanda Regiec, Helena Sobolewska, and Irena Sobolewska.
The fall of 1918 brought a strange feeling in Galicia—that of living in a familiar atmosphere of public bickering but with an intense anticipation that things were about to change. Everyone was coping as best they could with the consequences of the war—and in a somewhat more relaxed atmosphere than had existed a few months before. As always, serious news was mixed with lighter fare. The city magistrate placed several ads in a local newspaper urgently calling for the owner of the stray cow that had been in the care of the city since 1916 to reclaim his property. Someone else wanted to buy six pillows and three quilts in good condition; several stores announced their openings. Indeed, these looked like hopeful signs.22
While visiting her family in Stanislawow, Helena, like many who had just emerged from the bleak war period, wanted to capture the moment in a few photographic images—as if to record that normal life had returned. These precious portraits are quite reassuring when viewed today, showing the resilience that would be typical of Helena in the years ahead. Looking at these pictures of her, always with Irka at her side and on occasion joined by her sister, Wanda, nobody would guess the turmoil they had all gone through at the center of a massive conflict. In Stanislawow, too, life was moving on; slowly, there were the openings of a few plays, concert performances, and movies. There, as in many other places, speculation continued about how much the central government in Vienna would contribute to the rebuilding of the city, despite the much bigger unknown of what would happen to all of Galicia.
The beginning of the end had come earlier in the year, with the announcement by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson of the Fourteen Points declaration. This clear statement, first presented to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, became a precondition for the suspension of hostilities as well as future peace negotiations between the Allies and the Central powers. At first, it was viewed as too idealistic by some “sophisticated” Europeans, yet this was the only comprehensive vision that existed on how to end the intractable Great War. Surprisingly, the censors of Austro-Hungary allowed the publication of the Fourteen Points, despite an unequivocal message they contained that did not bode well for the future of the empire’s government.
Helena Sobolewska with her daughter, Irena. The photograph was taken in Stanislawow, circa 1918.
It seemed that if the American proposal was accepted, that would guarantee the end of the old order. The document referred to the principle of self-determination for the peoples now under Habsburg rule. The intent was clear: The multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire was about to be broken apart. The specific call for the formation of an independent Polish state, encompassing “the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,” raised the hopes of Poles but added a greater sense of the unknown—namely, how people born in three very different countries would become one nation almost overnight.23 Despite many lofty ideas and grand patriotic statements, in reality, no one from the current generation had ever participated in such a grand nation-building experiment. And there were other complications that would affect Galicia: ambiguities over where the borders of one country would end and another would begin. There was much serious talk mixed with recurring political gossip about the Austro-Hungarian government agreeing to split Galicia along the disputed ethnic lines; this meant great hope for some, and was viewed with fear or outrage by others.24
By October 1918, events were moving fast, with every day bringing headlines of almost historical proportions. Galicians immediately dismissed their government’s meek assurances that the foundations of an independent Poland—which would include Galicia—were already in place. Talk of a union of this undefined future country with the Habsburg monarchy was derisively described in the press as a “too-late offer.”25 A few days later, a letter from Vienna to the government of the United States asked for immediate cessation of ground, sea, and aerial hostilities, and confirmed full acceptance by Austro-Hungary of President Wilson’s plan. On October 16, Emperor Charles I, in a public manifesto, agreed that the Austrian territories that were considered historically Polish could join an independent Poland without any precondition or any union with Austria. On the world scene, there was a flurry of diplomatic missives; but in the end, the government of Austro-Hungary accepted all the demands conveyed to Vienna by the United States. By October 29, Austro-Hungary had suspended military activity on all fronts. The end seemed much closer now that Vienna had explicitly asked for peace, even if it was to be negotiated under a separate treaty from its ally Germany.26
On the surface, it looked as though the war in Galicia was finally over. The world would soon celebrate the end of the Great War, marked by the signing of an armistice agreement between the Allies and Germany on November 11, 1918. The official end of the war did not mean, however, that Galicia was to become peaceful. Days before the armistice, Poles and Ukrainians had openly declared competing sovereignty claims over the disputed territories.
Ukrainian politicians saw the imminent transfer of power—from a country that would soon cease to exist to one not yet formed—as a chance to proclaim eastern Galicia their own land. There they would have been a majority, particularly in the countryside. In a race to make this a fait accompli, the Ukrainian National Council was formed in Lvov. The self-proclaimed mandate of the council was to chart a separate Ukrainian state, which would include eastern Galicia, Bukovina, and the northern part of Hungary (the sub-Carpathian region). Surprisingly, this call was buried in the back pages of the leading papers.27
Not to be outdone, Polish politicians gathered in Cracow and formed the Liquidation Commission. Its mandate was to transfer power and state assets in Galicia, still nominally controlled by the crumbling Austro-Hungary, to Polish hands—in anticipation of an independent country to be formed soon. It was only a matter of days before the commission moved to Lvov to undertake similar action there, claiming all the territories of Austrian Galicia as Polish.
With no goodwill on either side, there was not the slightest prospect of compromise.28 Even before the old conflict was completely extinguished, a new one was about to erupt. On November 1, Ukrainian troops from the military units of the Austro-Hungarian army entered Lvov, a
city with a Polish majority. On the same day, the Ukrainian National Council proclaimed the founding of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, in order to preempt claims of Polish sovereignty over eastern Galicia. On November 3, 1918, Austrian general Rudolf Pfeffer formally surrendered military command of the city to the Ukrainians. Local garrisons were vetted for non-Ukrainian soldiers, who were quickly disarmed. Bloody street battles between Ukrainians and Poles, with much carnage inflicted by snipers, ensued. Even teenagers, later affectionately called “Eaglets,” were armed by Poles for urban warfare. Daily heavy bombardments inflicted much damage and loss of life. After three weeks, with the arrival of Polish military reinforcements, a brief cease-fire between the warring sides allowed Ukrainian forces to retreat from the city.
However, there were no celebrations in Lvov, shocked by 200 dead and several hundred wounded. The situation remained tenuous, with snipers hidden on roofs still shooting at civilians. Fresh graves dotted many public squares; ironically, there was no longer any ethnic distinction between those being buried. The city center, including the seat of the former Galician diet, the main post office, and the train station, had been damaged, along with many other landmarks. Lvov remained under siege for weeks, with shelling by Ukrainian forces surrounding the city. For bringing in supplies, heavy armored trains with mounted machine guns were the only way to pierce the ring. The tracks carrying these trains were under frequent attack and became a symbolic lifeline between Lvov and the outside world. When the rail line into the city was temporarily overpowered by Ukrainians, Lvov was cut off from the rest of the world.29
What happened in the immediate aftermath of the Ukrainian withdrawal at the end of November was even more shocking. With senseless anger, a Polish mob went on a rampage against Jews in what would later be called Lvov’s pogrom. For the next three days, Jews were viciously attacked, their synagogues set on fire and many of their shops robbed; later, an official commission would confirm that 150 Jews had been killed and 54 buildings burned. The situation was out of control, and the Polish military gave orders to shoot on the spot anyone armed and resisting arrest. With swift military justice, those found guilty of robbery or rape were summarily executed, and their names published in the next day’s newspapers as a deterrent.30 While the international opinion was shock and dismay, the reaction in Lvov was, sadly, mixed. Some editorials unequivocally condemned these acts of hatred, but others engaged in only qualified repudiation of the incidents.31 Moral relativism was on full display when Ukrainians were blamed for the release of common criminals implicated in the riots; then Jews were accused of supporting the other side during the past weeks and even blamed for being at the helm of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Months later, Henry Morgenthau Sr., President Wilson’s special envoy, arrived on a fact-finding mission. Over the next two months, he took part in hearings held in Lvov and other cities. Although the number of people killed was often in dispute, the American mission confirmed that murders had occurred and that various reprisals against Jews had caused great suffering.32
Stanislawow, like many other cities of eastern Galicia, was also overrun by Ukrainian troops and their paramilitary forces, the Sich Riflemen. The atmosphere was tense in that city, but initially without major armed street battles. The local administration, still led by Mayor Nimhin, tried to run Stanislawow in a way that would avoid conflict. By the end of December 1918, the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, unable to hold onto Lvov, moved its capital to Stanislawow and established its fledgling government in the same building that had housed Joseph Regiec’s offices before the war. “Capital” was the grandiose term given to this city which, besides the confusion of having new masters again, was overwhelmed by thousands of former prisoners of war stranded there. The new hostilities that had engulfed eastern Galicia prevented many of these men from returning home, wherever their home was in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Early in January 1919, the trickle of information from Stanislawow to the outside world described an apparently calm city, although nobody on the outside really knew whom to believe. News brought by travelers able to cross the front lines did not bode well for Joseph Regiec. In a tit-for-tat game, Polish railway employees refused to follow the orders of the Ukrainian administration, which brought an immediate suspension of their pay. At first, a former parliamentary deputy from Stanislawow, Edmund Rauch, was able to secure some financial help for railway employees after pleading with local banks; but this could not last for long. More serious consequences followed, with many of the employees irrevocably fired from their posts. We do not know how Joseph fared in those difficult months.33
But these events pale in comparison with stories of atrocities committed by both sides. Ukrainian paramilitary units were said to have attacked civilians and defenseless former soldiers trapped in Galicia.34 Sadly, Jews again became easy targets of aggression. Stanislawow was spared the violent anti-Semitic outbursts reported in other places, although harassment of Jewish merchants by Ukrainian soldiers was reported in that city. Luckily, the situation there was brought under control by local police without escalating further. Elsewhere, Poles were accused of property confiscation and their share of brutality in the territories with Ukrainian majorities. Both sides engaged in misinformation campaigns to win domestic and foreign support; but over time, international sympathy began to slip away from the less well-known Galician Ukrainians.35
In reality, Helena and many like her were going through another difficult period. The government of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic had demanded that civil employees take an oath of allegiance to the new regime. When that time came for the teachers of Bohorodczany, Helena refused. She paid dearly for this act of defiance, being promptly dismissed from her job at the beginning of 1919. In those harrowing times, there was no consideration of the fact that a mother with a young child was losing her only source of income.36
The fate of eastern Galicia was sealed by the military success of a new Polish army, which arrived in the spring. This new offensive pushed Ukrainian forces further east; Romania, determined to wrest control of Bukovina from the already weakened Ukrainians, was advancing from the south. Soon, a few Romanian infantry units passed Bohorodczany, marching toward Stanislawow. Romanian reconnaissance airplanes flew overhead, speeding the departure of Ukrainian troops. On May 25, 1919, Poles took control of Stanislawow, disarming any remaining Ukrainian soldiers; but the issue of who controlled the city was far from determined. The fear of a counterattack was palpable for days; Polish and Jewish high school students were sent to guard urban train stations, and many of these young people were positioned in surrounding towns to forewarn the city of any impending attack. The danger was real; in some areas, groups of dispirited Ukrainian soldiers and peasants staged ambushes that often turned deadly. Although it was not widely reported, a few Romanian units temporarily entered Stanislawow to stabilize the situation before regular Polish army units could establish firm control.37
Polish paramilitary forces guarding the train station in Stanislawow. One of the first pictures sent out from the tense city in early June 1919. (Nowosci Illustrowane June 14, 1919.)
Regular army units enter Stanislawow. The military situation on the ground and the events in the Soviet Russia determined the fate of eastern Galicia for the next 20 years. (Nowosci Illustrowane June 14, 1919.)
By mid-June, the situation had become sufficiently stable in Stanislawow for a foreign military commission to visit the city. French and English officers taking part in a fact-finding mission were greeted by the new mayor, Antonius Stygar. He was a popular former deputy mayor who, in the previous year, had served with Joseph Regiec on a board overseeing one of the city’s war-damaged schools.38 The same day, the rail link between Stanislawow and Lvov was reestablished; but with the tenuous situation in conflict-ridden eastern Galicia, the press had to give repeated reassurances that the city was safe.
By the end of summer 1919, all of eastern Galicia was solidly in Po
lish hands, at least in the military sense. Debate in diplomatic circles continued for some time about how to resolve the issue of eastern Galicia; this only added to a lingering feeling of uncertainty, despite the fact that armed hostilities were officially over. To those living in and near Stanislawow, reports from the peace conference in Paris brought a string of confusing messages. First, it was reported that Galicia’s fate would be decided in a plebiscite; then its eastern part was supposedly to remain under international oversight. Soon, other plans purportedly stipulated that Poland would hold jurisdiction over eastern Galicia for the next 25 years. It was said that maps were being redrawn, with borders that would split the east from the rest of the country under a so-called provisional solution.
In reality, however, “boots on the ground” and recent changes in Russia determined the future of the region. With the Bolsheviks suddenly gaining the upper hand against their domestic adversaries (the so-called White Russians, ardently supported by the Allies), there was no longer any reason to leave the eastern borders of Poland in an ambiguous state; the possibility of replacing the Bolsheviks with a more acceptable government was gone. By the end of December 1919, the decision was finally made at the peace conference that Galicia was not to be divided.39
For Helena, this marked the end of a long journey, one that is difficult to put into a personal context today. In Stanislawow, the war had lasted off and on for five years, longer than it had in any other part of Europe. Eastern Galicia had had the misfortune of being the first to see invading troops in August 1914, and the last to witness the end of hostilities in July 1919. Although historians would never call the last armed conflict there part of the Great War, for ordinary people in the area, it was simply a continuation of the larger struggle they had been caught up in.
Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family Page 22