September 27th 1939

Wednesday  September 27th

Warsaw has fallen as it was doomed to do from the very beginning.

Almost, I am glad that this is the end of such wonderful wasteful heroism for no one, however brave, however eager to help, could have reached them. They have held out for nearly 3 weeks against attacks of unprecedented violence and brutality, such as will blot the name of Germany for generations - nay, forever - because no history of the Poles could ever be written without mentioning it.

If poetry, which is the faith of good men - not as things as they are but as they ought to be - can soften and alleviate in any measure a horror and sorrow which must endure, then Masefield has summed up all suffering that seems vain because it does not end material success: “The conqueror’s prize is dust and lost endeavour, [and] the beaten man remains a story forever”*.

As dear old Sir Thomas Browne would say, “Who had not rather be the unjust thief than Pilate?”**

*The tragedy of Pompey the Great
*'*And who had not rather been the good thief, than Pilate?' from Golden Thoughts by Thomas Browne