South Yorkshire Times, October 23rd 1943
Looking Beyond Victory
It is unwise to build hopes too high on speeches, even on those of such a reputable elder statesman as General Smuts. On the one hand the speech gave encouragement to those who see victory as imminent, but on the other it foreshadowed a continuance of conditions akin to those of war well beyond the actual cessation of hostilities. As a considered survey of what has been done and what will have to be done it was a masterpiece.
Russia’s extraordinary efforts were impartially appraised by the side of our own achievements in the Mediterranean, and the function of the United States, first as the arsenal of democracy and in the future as the great reserve of fighting power which will complete Germany’s defeat, was assessed with keen perception. Things have gone better for the Allied cause than was hoped and, seeing us ahead of schedule, General Smuts felt able to indicate that further important developments would accrue before the end of the year. His references were naturally only in the most general terms, but they foretell an accentuation of the very delicate position in which the Nazis find themselves in southern and south-eastern Europe. Mention of the “grand assault by all arms next year” was couched in deliberately ambiguous terms. We shall, it appears, be in the thick of our final reckoning with the Germans by then, but Hitler knows full well that there is no guarantee that the initial blow which will set in motion the process of his liquidation may not fall at any hour. The Fuehrer can only be sure that the sands are running out, and that the forces of retribution are gathering for the last lethal spring which will set them at his throat.
At this time, with so much at stake in the Moscow Conference, it was a heartening sign that throughout General Smuts’s speech the fullest appreciation of the urgency of winning the war quickly was revealed. This has been Russia’s theme ever since the Red Army recaptured the initiative, It is well that such an eminent speaker representative of the English-speaking allies of the Soviet should have placed on record the fact that Russia does not hold this view alone. Deteriorating conditions in the occupied countries make it imperative that not a moment should be wasted in ridding their soil of the invader, whose very presence is like a pestilence, defiling as well as destroying. These same conditions make it incumbent on the United Nations not to fumble the job by any impetuous or premature move. To do so would but delay the day of liberation; might even imperil its ultimate attainment. But after General Smuts has so unmistakably stressed the priority of this task and the determination of the Western democracies to make an end, it cannot be for long that the painful patience of the conquered countries must be upheld. Whatever else the Moscow talks embrace they must be concerned with blows that will shake the world. Let us hope that as they promise to be the heaviest history has known, they will also be the last history must record. If that comes to pass the finest ideal of the South African visionary will be realised.