Poland. By C. E. Slocombe. (T. C. and E. C.
Jack. es..6d. uet.)— This is a very workmanlike history, of Poland from the earliest times to the present. The first authentic records of Poland show her at war with the Germans in 963. Her greatest victories were the rescue of Vienna from the Turk in 1683 and the overthrow of the Teutonic Order in 1410 at Grunwald, near Tannenberg—a victory which the Tsar recalled in his manifesto of August, 1914, to the Poles. John Sobieski, the saviour of Vienna for an ungrateful Emperor, was unfortunately not painted by Rembrandt, as is suggested by the title appended to a repro- duction of the well-known study of a middle-aged man in a PoliSh cap in the Hermitage at Petrograd; the picture is dated 1637, when Sobieski was a youth, and merely represents an Amsterdam model. The tradi- tional title, however, shows that Sobieski was commonly regarded in Europe as the greatest of a race which has produced many great men,
it failed to establish a great and enduring State.
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