The End

Monday, Oct. 02, 1939
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POLAND The End

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Night. A railway station at Cernauti, Rumania, onetime outpost of German culture in the East, now a hurtling trade centre at the base of the Carpathian Mountains. Rolling hills in the background, overshadowed by the black mass of a 3,000-ft. peak; the Prut River flowing nearby. Enter Colonel Josef Beck, Foreign Minister of Poland. No longer the same man as in Act I and II, the Colonel is haggard, sleepless; the sardonic elegance that marked his appearance has vanished. With him is Marshal Smigly-Rydz, Commander in Chief of the Polish Armies, equally haggard, desperate. The two men approach, talking angrily. Beck suddenly stops, faces the General, Smigly-Rydz draws back; onlookers crowd nearer. Beck speaks. . . .

Last week as the curtain came down on the Republic of Poland, the quarrel of Colonel Beck and Marshal Smigly-Rydz on a railway platform in Rumania might well have opened its final scene. Three weeks before, they had been the responsible rulers of one of Europe's major powers— its sixth in population and area. Proud men, independent and successful, they had reason to be proud. Philosophical Smigly-Rydz, shy and softspoken, had built Poland's Army until it included 1,500,000 trained reserves; deft Josef Beck, untroubled by accusations of lack of scruples, had maneuvered Poland successfully for years despite her precarious international position; had seen Poland grow from a small Baltic State to a power that had to be reckoned with in every ministry in Europe. Then one dawn over the Polish village of Puck a German aviator pulled his bomb release, and slanting downward through the greying light went the first missile of the war that meant the end of Poland.

Eighteen days, 432 hours later, the General and the Foreign Minister stood on the railway station of a provincial city in a foreign country, quarreling so bitterly that newspaper correspondents watching feared blows might bring their tragedy to an ignoble climax. Abruptly Smigly-Rydz turned, walked away. The Foreign Minister stood irresolute for a moment, walked to the other end of the platform, to be interned a few days later, like Smigly-Rydz, by the Rumanian Government. Despairingly Warsaw fought on; the ghost of Poland would haunt Europe for many a season; but their Poland was dead.