The Scotsman's editorial from VE Day 1945: 'We have earned the right to celebrate'

And so this will be VE Day.

Within recent weeks, a cataract of military victories has swept aside the last remaining obstacles, and the floodwaters of freedom are pouring over parched and stricken lands which have gasped so long for liberty. The archenemy of mankind, who for almost six years has strutted and postured over a Continent and who hoped to bind the world in chains, has succumbed in overwhelming and abject defeat.

Total war has brought Germany total disaster. Britain, fortunately, was spared the full catalogue of horrors which her Continental and Russian Allies suffered, but it was her sublime defiance and her unflinching endurance that saved Europe in the days of darkness.

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‘Still an infamous enemy to defeat’

We are not an emotional people, but in this momentous hour we can mingle a profound thankfulness with a deep pride, for never before has our moral and our physical strength been so grievously tested. It is proper that we should express our relief in joyous celebrations, for we have earned the right to celebrate.

But we remember at this time that there is still an infamous enemy to defeat, and that our rejoicings cannot be shared by our young men in the battle zones of the Pacific.

Nor can we forget the sufferings and bereavements which the hour of victory makes all the more poignant. A cessation of hostilities, if not perhaps of strife, has come to Europe, but it will take a long time to assuage and bind up the wounds of war.

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For five years the Prime Minister has borne on his own shoulders the heaviest burden that a statesman could carry. Neither Pitt nor Lloyd George carried a heavier. For in May 1940, we were at the most perilous pass in our national existence.

‘Mr Churchill’s leadership’

It is true that we had every reason to be grateful for the English Channel and the Navy, which placed a formidable obstacle in Hitler’s way. He had concentrated on the development of land armies, believing that if he could master Europe and expand in the East he could snap his fingers at sea power.

[German Field Marshal Gerd von] Rundstedt said the other day that Hitler did not attempt invasion because he was too weak at sea, and had therefore to turn against Russia. But in 1940, when France had fallen, Germany failed to secure the mastery of the air which was the essential preliminary to invasion.

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Britain had lost the equipment of an Army, though she saved some 225,000 British and 113,000 Allied troops at Dunkirk.

This island, with the British Empire, stood alone although she did not lack among the occupied countries the support of brave spirits who were determined not to admit defeat. Mr Churchill himself has paid unforgettable tribute to the pilots of the Battle of Britain.

The time has come to record the nation’s pride in his own leadership. Oratory had a great part In it. He gave to the common will for resistance imperishable expressions which inspired men with confidence, not only in this country, where they were subjected to ordeal by bombing, but also in America, on whose moral, economic, and finally military support so much depended. Mr Churchill’s leadership, however, did not consist in oratory alone.

The part he may have played in the higher strategy of the war has still to be revealed. It is noteworthy that in this struggle there have not been those open controversies between the generals on the one side and the politicians on the other that were a conspicuous feature of the last war.

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‘A war of movement’

Not till the memoirs and the records appear will it be possible to say whether that has been due to the dominant position held by Mr Churchill or to his ability to keep his team together. But loyalty within the supreme directorate has been a conspicuous feature of this war. The plans for the invasion of Europe were long-term plans concerted together with Mr Roosevelt, and put into operation only when the time was ripe, in spite of impatient demands from Russia for a Second Front in Europe.

It has been a war of movement in complete contrast to the war of 1914-18. Its two outstanding features have been the extent of mechanisation and the use of air power. The lessons which the Germans taught in Poland, in Norway and in Holland were not quickly learned.

It took time to secure the mastery of the air and to produce an answer to the German Mark IV tank. And in its latest stage the enemy produced V weapons which, although still in their infancy, are clearly a potential menace to the future security of mankind. It has been a war in which Generals were almost as liable to be captured as lesser men, and in which Press correspondents lost their lives. It has been the most co-operative war in history.

At the outset there might have been doubt about the position that South Africa would take up, but in the event all the Dominions, with the miserable exception of Eire, took their stand for the cause of justice against the aggressor on whose demise Mr de Valera recently condoled with Germany.

‘International co-operation’

The contribution of the Empire to this war, America’s aid, Russia’s part [in the] tasks of peace and to that with Japan cannot be forgotten. Indians have fought with great courage on distant battlefields – while Mr Gandhi concocted or approved rebellion at home. In this country, the presence of Dominion and foreign contingents during the period of waiting for the invasion of Europe has been not without its educational value.

The mixing of men of different nationalities in air crews has been a remarkable experiment – an example in miniature of the international co-operation which it is hoped will yet be sealed at San Francisco [where the United Nations Conference on International Organisation was held]. Here it seems appropriate to recall what this country owes to the late President Roosevelt in bringing his people to realise the implications of the conflict.

When Britain ran short of dollars with which to buy arms from America on the "cash and carry" basis, it was he who devised the system of Lend-Lease which, in Mr Churchill’s words, “will stand forth as the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history”.

It is to the good relations which Mr Churchill established with Mr Roosevelt, and to the latter’s clear perception of the meaning of the war that Britain owes the help that came so readily first through the destroyers-for-bases agreement, then by Lend-Lease, and latterly by full participation in the war.

There was not, in this conflict, the difficulty encountered in 1914-18 over the problem of unity of command. In 1939 Britain accepted a French generalissimo. In the latest phase General Eisenhower has been the Commander-in-Chief in Europe. Contingents of one nation have served with the forces of another. There has been true fellowship in arms.

‘The might of Germany waned’

That Hitler should have underestimated the military power of Russia is not surprising in view of her showing in the war against Finland. His miscalculation proved fatal. It is true that his forces were able to reach Stalingrad and the fringe of the Caucasian oilfields, but they never reached Moscow.

The German defeat in Stalingrad, which was contemporaneous with the victory of El Alamein, was the climax of the war. After it, the might of Germany waned, while the power of the Allies grew into an irresistible force. Russia swept the Germans back with the force of a tidal wave.

In any reckoning, the steadfast endurance of the Russian people, the courage and valour of her soldiers, must be accounted among the more important factors making for victory. Russia has demonstrated to the world that she is the chief military Power in Europe. Though the war in Europe is over, the problems that gave rise to it remain – with one great difference.

There is no longer a Hitler with the might of Germany behind him to keep alive at every danger point in Europe – in Memel, in Danzig, in Austria, and on the Czech frontier – the animosities and hatreds, the fears and the hopes, which kindle wars.

‘The sufferings of war’

Germany has been more completely beaten than in 1918. War has been carried into her territory, and her people sit among the ruins of their cities. But the German people remain, and they are one of the problems of Europe, of which the future of Poland holds the greatest menace to future peace and international understanding.

The relations between France and Germany have still to be settled. Perhaps the only thing that the war has really decided is that the solution of the problems of Europe will not be a German solution.

Will the victors be equal to the demands of this great hour? Hitler and Mussolini have perished, but they have left behind them a shattered world. The United Nations, and more particularly the Great Powers among them, have to lay the foundations of a new European and world settlement, and it is hoped that the United States will not only help to frame the peace, but remain to enforce it.

There is no illusion, as there was after the last war, that an era of universal peace will automatically be ushered in. Indeed, the sufferings of war and the bitter hatreds to which they have given rise may complicate the task of the statesmen.

The war has been decisively won. Can they win the peace?