CHAPTER IX.
POLAND 1 By letters patent November 5, 1916, both the Emperors declared Poland's existence as a Kingdom.
When I came into office, I found the situation to be that the Poles were annoyed with my predecessor because, they declared, Germany had wanted to cede the newly created kingdom of Poland to us, and Count Burian had rejected the offer.

Apparently there is some misunderstanding in this version of the case, as Burian says it is not correctly rendered.
There were three reasons that made the handling of the Polish question one of the greatest difficulty.

The first was the totally different views of the case held by competent individuals of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

While the Austrian Ministry was in favour of the so-called Austro-Polish solution, Count Tisza was strongly opposed to it.

His standpoint was that the political structure of the Monarchy ought not to undergo any change through the annexation of Poland, and that Poland eventually might be joined to the Monarchy as an Austrian province, but never as a partner in a tripartite Monarchy.
A letter that he wrote to me from Budapest on February 22, 1917, was characteristic of his train of thought.