Although it is the richest harvest season of the year, the streets of Warsaw, the capital of the Republic of Poland, are still extremely depressed and cold. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The lively scenes of sending off the Polish 6th Army several times have become a thing of the past. There are still signs and flags hanging in the streets. But all faded under the sun. Because a large number of young and middle-aged people were sent to the army, the agricultural production of this pastoral country was greatly affected. As a last resort, the Polish government had no choice but to impose strict rationing. On the streets of Warsaw, only the stations that were allocated supplies had long queues in front of their doors, and they were at their peak. In the once bustling commercial center, all that remains are empty cupboards and memories of the rich and beautiful life before the war.

At the behest of the government and the Polish Socialist Party (Red Party), Warsaw has already launched several requisitions for private precious metals. The Polish government's gold and foreign exchange were almost depleted after the outbreak of the world war, and the source was almost cut off because there was no agricultural product to export. But in order to sustain the war on a huge scale, they had to buy more ammunition, more artillery, more guns, and their foreign exchange and gold reserves were exhausted, and they had to loot the gold and silver ornaments of the Polish women.

Although Poland has been the target of several surrounding powers for the last two hundred years, the patriotic fervor of the Polish people is unquestionable, and they have a bit of a great power - after all, Poland was once a great power in history. Vast territories, including Lithuania, East Prussia, Belarus and Ukraine, were once part of Greater Poland. Every Polish is resentful of the small area of land that now has only 100,000 square kilometers left.

So when the war broke out. How excited they were! Poland stood up again. Chivalrous Polish men will go to battle. Fight for the fate of the motherland in the Big 6! Red Fort Square, Saxon Park, Revolution Square, it was full of people. Students of the Warsaw School of Workers' and Peasants' Cadres marched through the streets of Warsaw in uniform, carrying rifles and singing "Poland is not perishing". Every person in military uniform who passed by aroused the envy of the people. As if overnight, Poland was back to its former glory and heyday, as if once the war began. The Polish army will be able to storm Moscow again, as it did in 161o!

But the brutal war of the next few months poured ice on all Poles - although the newspapers were full of vague news of victory, it seemed that the war was going well. However, it has not been able to wait for the good news of the capture of Minsk or Kyiv, and from the map, it seems that the war is in the middle of a war in western Ukraine and western Belarus. At first, it was the Polish army that approached Minsk, and then there was a "strategic shift", and the land that had just been eaten in the mouth was spit out again.

And with the late autumn of 1875 approaching, the whole of Warsaw knew that the war could not end in 1875, and that no one would advance into the heart of Russia in winter. The next major offensive would not be until the spring of 1876 at the earliest. At the same time, all sorts of gossip. Also flying in the streets and alleys of the city of Warsaw.

"Oh, I heard that the front line is fierce. The resistance of the Russians was very stubborn, and the army suffered a loss in Minsk, with heavy losses! And the Chinese are still supporting Russia, and the French are also **, and recently refused to provide us with loans! ”

"After the death of Napoleon III, France will no longer be the hegemon of Europe, and it will not be willing to help Poland, and now the only one willing to stand with Poland is Germany! I heard that the government is negotiating with the Germans to achieve a union of the monarchs! ”

"Gongjun united? Let William I be king of Poland? How is this different from making the tsar king? Did the people above forget that Prussia also participated in the partition of Poland? ”

"But it is not without precedent for the Assembly of the Republic of Poland to elect foreigners as kings (in fact, the Polish nobility likes to elect foreigners who have no roots in the country), and I heard that Emperor Wilhelm I has promised the Poles a great power, a great Poland, including Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, which almost restored the Republic of Poland to its heyday."

It seemed that this was the only way to regain Poland's strength, and that union with Germany was the only way for Poland to regain its strength...... Have you heard that the Germans have just won a battle in Lithuania, capturing the original capital of Kaunas in Lithuania and exterminating tens of thousands of Russians? ”

"But then, our army has eliminated more Russians in Belarus and Ukraine!"

"But not a single major city has been taken, and now it has been driven above the border by the Russians, and I heard that the losses are very heavy, with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded......"

"Hundreds of thousands? How is this possible! How many people are there in the whole of Poland! Where did you hear that? ”

"I heard from my brother-in-law, who was an officer of the General Staff of the 6th Army, who secretly told us, and now I am very unoptimistic. The Russians made peace with Chinese, bringing in millions of troops from the east, all armed with advanced weapons provided by Chinese...... It was not only Belarus and Ukraine that forced us to shift our strategy, but also won the battle in Constantinople. Moreover, there were uprisings in Austrian-ruled Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and the situation was very bad......"

In Poland, a social-democratic country, there are certainly no impermeable walls. Although the Socialist government was still trying to hide its defeat, the people of Warsaw learned something through this channel - the Polish army had suffered a crushing defeat, which was by no means expected by the whole world, but it was a little difficult for the Poles who felt very good about themselves to accept.

What is worse is not whether or not we can accept the fact of a crushing defeat, but whether we can sustain this war with heavy casualties. After all, the Republic of Poland has a population of just over six million! Even counting the diaspora living on Russian and German soils, there are probably more than 10 million. In several battles in 1875, they had lost 220,000 lives, another 150,000 were seriously wounded, lay dying in the field hospital in Lublin, and tens of thousands were missing—the Russians, a fighting people, might have had some trouble fighting the Germans, the French, and the British, and could not deal with ten times as many Chinese as them, but it was really effortless to fight the Poles, who numbered only one-tenth of them.

It was in the midst of the restlessness of Warsaw that he traveled through the city to attend an emergency meeting of the wartime base camp at the Vilanov Palace. Engels had just returned from Berlin, and his mission was to discuss with Bismarck the possibility of a republican federation between the Republic of Poland and the German Empire.

In addition, he met with some prominent German socialists in Berlin. These were Engels' comrades, because Engels himself was now a member of the German Socialists, and one of the main leaders of the German Socialist Party. As for the German-Polish organization of a republican federation, these German socialists were very much in favor.

Because the Republic of Poland is a country ruled by the Socialists. If Poland and Germany form a federation, the German Socialist Party will certainly gain momentum. If the German Socialist Party can win the future elections and become the ruling party, it will mean a major victory for socialism in Germany! No, not only the victory of socialism in Germany, but also the great success of socialism throughout the world - dynastic socialism is of course socialism! Although this socialist system, which coexisted with monarchy, private ownership, the bourgeoisie and democratic constitutionalism, was undoubtedly a betrayal of the people in the eyes of the Russian Narodnamen. But Engels was still inclined to make Poland and his German homeland a true community.

In his words: "This is an attempt to join within imperialism and to transform it into socialism." ”

“……？” Engels sat in the back seat of the carriage and whispered to himself, with a yearning expression on his face. (To be continued!)