The Foreign Service Journal, September 2019

48 SEPTEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL many women, sheltering in the embassy. Lifting morale, urging forbearance and countering negative thoughts are priorities. Ten- sions mount among a staff reduced to sleeping on blankets on a cement floor. “An effort,” Davis later writes, “was made to discour- age officers from dwelling on the possibility of their being killed.” There are, according to CG Davis, frequent near-misses for embassy members who venture out into the streets in search of food or to gather informa- tion regarding the assault on Warsaw. All communications with the outside world are also severed. Yet when a newsman asks Vice Consul WilliamM. Cramp how long he is prepared to stay, he responds, “Until 136 American citizens are able to leave Warsaw.” Like Davis, Cramp is familiar with tense situations. In May 1936 in Addis Ababa, he helped organize the armed defense of the legation that beat off a mob of marauders and earned him a citation for bravery. / Relief for the trapped Americans comes on Sept. 21. Davis and other neutrals succeed in negotiating a truce allowing diplomats, American citizens and others (about 1,200 in total) to leave the besieged city. Once into German lines, smiling, courteous Ger- mans and news cameras greet the weary, hungry Americans— good propaganda for Berlin. By the following afternoon, Davis and his party reach safety at Königsberg, East Prussia. Electing to remain behind is 41-year-oldThaddeus Henry Chy- linski—an American-born Polish American, veteran of the Polish army and a long-serving clerk, later vice consul in Warsaw—and a handful of American citizens. From Berlin, Chargé Alexander Kirk cables the good news to the department. “In spite of the terrific ordeal through which they have passed they are in excellent health. …I feel that any expression of admiration for the magnificent courage, tenacity and resourcefulness which they have displayed during the past weeks would be feeble and inadequate.” Under threat of invasion fromHitler, the Romanians deny safe haven to the fleeing Polish government of President Ignacy Mo ś cicki and Foreign Minister Józef Beck. The Poles are not permitted to conduct offi- cial business and are essentially neutralized and interned by the fearful Romanians. / Meanwhile, on Sept. 17, Russian troops move to occupy roughly the eastern third of Poland. Returning to Moscow in late September, Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop joins Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to sign a new agree- ment arising from “the disintegration of the Polish state” and cynically promising “a safe foundation for lasting peace in Eastern Europe.” Proud, independent Poland is for the fourth time in its history partitioned by predator nations. As Warsaw falls to the Nazis, defiant Polish patriots in Paris pass national leadership to President Władysław Raczkiewicz and General Władysław Sikorski, who was serving as premier and war minister. The new government is immediately recognized by Embassy Warsaw staff watch German planes fly overhead. U.S.HOLOCAUSTMEMORIALMUSEUM/JULIENBRYANARCHIVE Immune to panic, throughout the September crisis, Ambassador Biddle would demonstrate a readiness for action, a will to serve and enormous sangfroid.