Evening star., 1939-09-29
The Epic of Warsaw

w dl SAW takes lLS place IN Une nOnOr
roll of heroism adorned by such
indelible names as Thermopylae,
Sebastopol, the Alamo and Verdun.
After twenty days of as gallant a
defense as the history of war records,
the Polish capital, reduced to a
shambles by German gunfire and
air-bomb attack, succumbed to the
inevitable and capitulated. 1t is
surrender which adds another epic
chapter to the proud legend of the
sons of Kosciuszko and Pulaski. AS
was said when the first-named of
General Washington's two Polish
lieutenants fell in action during an
other war for Polish liberation:
Hope for season, bade the world
farewell,
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciuszko
fell"
Freedom utters cry of anguish as
one reads of .Warsaw's devastation
at the end of three weeks of Trojan
resistance and Spartan suffering.
From the air, the city is horrible
sight," the Associated Press quotes
Lieutenant Colonel Mateus Izycki,
who flew out of Poland last Monday,
as saying at Budapest. Hardly a
building is intact. The cityis ringed
by six divisions of German troops,
whose artillery is pouring in shells
increasingly, aided by an average of
two hundred raiding planes a day.
Forty to fifty new fires start daily
from incendiary bombs. Priests say
mass in wrecked churches. 1t is
city of never-ending bedlam, where
heavy bombs 60 crashing through
four or five floors and topple an en-
tire building. A no-man's land is
streWn with dead men, women and
horses. All hospitals have been hit
or destroyed. Practically all med
ical aid is administered on the spot.
In many cases there was nothing to
do but watch the seriously wounded
die. At times these had to be thrown
from burning houses to the street
below, even though it meant addi-
tional broken bones"
War is stripped of its false glamour
and glory by the horrors which War
saw endured during its days and
nights of agony. Characteristic of
the capitals spirit was the last mes
sage broadcast by the city's one radio
station that functioned throughout
the siege: 1--WE will never give in
while one of us is alive"
This is the soul of Warsaw that the
world will remember and revere long
after Hitlers conquest of Poland
temporary or permanent-has passed
into history. At Danzig last week
Hitler thundered that Poland will
never rise again." Never was proph-
ecy rasher. 1t was the progenitors Of
Pilsudski, Moscicki, Beck and Smigly-
Rydz who repelled the Mongols who
overran half of Europe in the Dark
Ages. A Polish king, Jan Sobieski,
routed the Turks at the portals of
Vienna. No fewer than three Euro
pean monarchs once joined to destroy
Poland, as Hitler and Stain have just
done. Three times she underwent
partition, yet she never gave up the
ghost. Confronted by the invincible
soul of Polish nationalism, tyranny
failed to prevail. That soul goes
marching on.
Once again the Polish nation finds
itself ground beneath the con-
queror's heel, but he who believes it
will eternally accept subjugation is
woefully ignorant of European his
tory. Britain and France are solemn
ly pledged before the world never to
sheathe their swords until Poland is
restored. They will be fortified in
that high resolve by the fall of War
saw under circumstances that adorn
with a new luster the courage and
capacity of men and women to fight
and endure when giving their all for
country and principle.
Cricket matches between teams Of
ladies are said to be getting increas-