secret with the Western Powers, assuring them that his men would never fight against them, only against the Russians." The encroaching German forces were met with hostility and distrust. Unlike the Napoleonic forces a century earlier, Poles didn't see them as liberators. The Russians were bid farewell, often with sadness, grief and uncertainty. There was no harassment of retreating Russian soldiers, nor attacks on wounded. For many Poles, Russians at that time were seen as "ours," due to the process of liberalization that occurred in the Russian Empire after the 1905 Revolution. This was in contrast to Germany which, through its actions of relentless Germanization of Poles within its borders, the Września school strike, persecution of Polish education in Pomerania and Poznań, and in 1914 the Destruction of Kalisz increased pro-Russian and anti-German feelings. This attitude distressed Austrian-orientated Piłsudski. Only in late summer of 1915 after harsh policy of Russian plunder of Polish lands did the sympathy of Poles for Russia wane. According to Prit Buttar, following the first year of fighting in 1914, "The people who suffered the most were those who had no national army serving their cause: the Poles. Most of Poland west of Warsaw had been turned into a battlefield, and large areas were deliberately devastated by the Germans during their retreat from the Vistula. Treated with disdain by Germans, Russians, and the Austro-Hungarians alike, the Poles could only endure through a cold winter in their shattered towns and villages, and hope for a better future." Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918) In 1916, attempting to increase Polish support for the Central Powers and to raise a Polish army, the German and Austrian emperors declared that a new state called the Kingdom of Poland would be created. The new Kingdom in reality was to be a puppet regime under military, economical and political control by the German Reich. Its territory was to be created after the war of only a small part of the old Commonwealth, i.e. the territory of Kingdom of Poland (Privislinsky Krai), with around 30,000 square kilometers of its western areas to be annexed by Germany. Polish and Jewish population in those areas was to be expelled and replaced by German colonists. A Regency Council was established in preparation for this, forming a proto-Government, and issuing currency, called the Polish mark. German efforts to create an army serving the Central Powers however met with failure,