The struggle for Lviv in the "Diaries from the years 1916-1918" by Ludomił German

This edition covers the final section of the diary of Ludomił German (1851-1920), a Galician teacher and school inspector, playwright, translator, politician, and activist in the National-Democratic Party and the Polish Democratic Party. He served as a member of the Imperial Council in Vienna (1907-1918) and the Regional Sejm in Lviv (1912-1914), vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Deputies, and vice president of the Polish Circle. In his diary, kept from July 1914 to January 1919, German documented his activities in the Supreme National Committee, the Polish Circle, and the Imperial Council. He also chronicled the history of the Polish Legions, the struggle for their leadership, and the aspirations of politicians from Galicia and the Kingdom of Poland aiming to establish a more or less independent Polish state. The diary, now divided into two parts, is preserved in the Jagiellonian Library in the manuscript collection under the signature 8537 I (‘Notes from Great Times,' the original written by Ludomił German) and in the Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine named after V. Stefanyk (fond 5, signature 6415, vol. 1-3, "Diaries from the Years 1916-1918," a copy made in 1935-1936 by Ludomił's son, Juliusz German). The presented fragment covers almost three months (from November 1, 1918 to January 24, 1919), during which the author was in Lviv during the Polish-Ukrainian battles for the city, initially occupied and later besieged by Ukrainian forces. The author describes, based on his own experiences and information from other sources, the course of military actions, the difficulties of daily life associated with them, attempts by both sides to end the fighting, and the establishment of new municipal authorities and their initial political decisions. As much as possible, he tries to track events in other parts of the re-emerging Poland (critically evaluating the actions of the new state authorities) and throughout Europe, especially within the former Austro-Hungarian borders.