CONCLAVE ON VICTORY
ON the day when one Anglo-American meeting—in Sicily, between General Montgomery's Eighth Army and General Patton's Seventh—was announced, the announcement was also made -of another Anglo-American meeting—between Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt and their respective staffs. That the Prime Minister and President should again be in personal contact is satisfactory, for the juncture is one at which a new survey, and possibly new decisions, are necessary. The Allied leaders, unlike the Axis leaders of late, are meeting not because things are going ill but because they are going well almost beyond expectation, in Sicily, in Russia, in the South-West Pacific, in the Atlantic, in the air over Germany—everywhere where the opposing forces are at grips. There is every reason to believe that in the Mediterranean the Allied time-table is arkad of schedule, and it is highly desirable to keep it so. For any com- fortable feeling that we have a little in hand must be substituted the conviction that time, today more than ever, is of the essence of victory. The very fact that the enemy propaganda is laying stress on the advantages of time gained by the defence of north-east Sicily and by the apparent resolve of the Badoglio Government to continue 'the war indicates Hider's fear of a maintenance of the Allied momentum. Whether it is true that important measures, such as extensive building of bombers in the relatively safe factories of Austria and Bohemia, are in hand, it is certain that what Germany needs most is time to adapt herself to the exigencies of the situation, and that what will bring an Allied victory soonest is an intensification of the scale and vigour of attack on every existing front and some new ones.. It is that, it may be hoped, which will primarily engage the atten- tion of Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt at Quebec.
But the President and the Premier are clearly looking past victory to reconstruction, and it is very necessary that they should. Each of them has great tasks to face in the domestic field, and both together, in common with the major and the lesser Allies, have the ground-plan of a pew world, and in particular of a new Europe, to delineate. So far as the internal structure of this country is concerned there can be small ground .for misgiving or complaint. In that matter outsiders can perhaps see us more clearly than we see ourselves, and those American commentators may be justified who excess astonishment and admiration at a nation which can in the fourth year of war deliberately organise a revolution in its social security system and another in its educational and plan the rebuilding of half its cities. For that we can claim credit, if any credit is deserved, when we have . reached the goal, and not before. If we succeed it will be by a combination of qualities essential in our national life—vision, goodwill, co-operation, intellectual effort and resolve.
It is on qualities little different that we must rely for success in the work of reconstruction on the international scale, and of them all in that field the most indispensable is co-operation, intelligent, sustained and proof against the divisive effects of suspicion or self-seeking. In theory that relationship exists between the four Great Powers on whom the alliance of the United Nations rests. Each ally, great and small, while fighting for its own existence is at the same time fighting for every other, to establish permanent security for all. Actually there are various deficiencies to be made good with- as little delay as may be. Most im- perative of all is the establishment of complete and unquestioned understanding between Great Britain, the United States and Russia. To say that does not mean putting China in a different category. Ultimately world-peace must rest on four major pillars, not three. But there is every prospect that the war in Europe will end before the war in Asia, and with the structure of post- war Europe China has little concern. Her immediate task is to win her war, with increasing help from her Western Allies.
Meanwhile unreserved co-operation between Britain, the United States and Russia is the capital necessity. Some doubts on that head are being voiced. Again Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt, it can be pointed out, are meeting without Marshal Stalin. They are, but by no means by their own desire. Every- thing possible has been done at all times to maintain the closest touch with Moscow. Mr. Eden has been there to see the Russian leader. So has Mr. Churchill. President Roosevelt, for obvious reasons, cannot go. If Marshal Stalin could have left home at the time of the Casablanca Conference that meeting would have been held at Cairo for his convenience. His conviction that his place is in Moscow, or at headquarters in the field, can be well understood, but there is no place for the suggestion that his British and American colleagues are underrating for a moment the supreme value of his co-operation. Russia could not but be painfully conscious of the magnitude of the sacrifices she is making in the common cause, and she is still frankly dissatisfied with the absence of a major Anglo-American offensive on the continent of Europe. That attitude is not only intelligible but reasonable. Even an Allied landing in Italy would not, in all likelihood, divert enough Germans from the eastern front to lighten Russia's burden materially and enable her to mass her force behind a decisive blow which might, in conjunction with assaults elsewhere, end the war before this year is out. All that is needed here, no doubt, is a little more patience still. It has always been assumed, and authoritatively stated, that more than one Allied invasion of Europe was in prospect. But the summer is wearing to a close. What is done must be done quickly. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt are not likely to be blind to that, and one of the certain objects of their discussion is general a cceleration.
Up to a point it is inevitable that a special relationship should exist between the two great Atlantic Powers. The influence of a common origin and a common tongue must not be exaggerated ; but neither can it be dismissed as negligible. Geography is a factor of which full account must be taken. Traffic, by air and sea, between Washington and London is far simpler and safer than between London and Moscow, much more than between Washington and Moscow. Hence a frequency and volume of contact between Britain and America which cannot exist between either of them and Russia. The two Anglo-Saxon countries, moreover, happen through the force of geography to be every- where in active co-operation, on land, on sea, in the air. 'Together they drove the Axis Powers out of Tunisia ; together they are driving them out of Sicily ; together they will occupy Italy. Russia meanwhile is fighting her own battles on her own soil, helped to an extent which has never been fully realised in this country by British and American aircraft and tanks and guns and food. Reinforcements of men could not easily be sent her, nor does shr need them for victory, for her own resources in man-power are equal to every call. None the less the sacrifice of her young manhood is tragic, and Russians cannot be blamed if at times they compare their losses with some bitterness with their Allies.
It would be unfair to Russia to ignore such facts,. but it would be dangerous and perverse to argue from them any divergence in Allied aims or any fundamental discontent on Russia's part. .To suggest that in Britain or America is to foment the very suspicion. it is most necessary to exorcise. So far as aims have been defined—and it would be a profound mistake to regard the Atlantic Charter as a mere nebulous formulation of abstract ideals—they have been expressly endorsed by the Soviet Union. Their detailed application may give rise to discussion here and there, but certainly to no deep disagreement. On fundamentals like unconditional surrender and the complete disarmament of the defeated Powers there is no difference of opinion at all, and a speech of Marshal Stalin's, in which he drew some dis- tinction between the guilt of the Nazi Party and of Germans as a whole, gives no ground whatever for contrasting his view with the British and American. Everyone recognises that Ger- many after defeat must continue to exist, and it will be astonish- ing indeed if M. Stalin, or any other Russian, is found pleading for more indulgent treatment of her than Englishmen and Americans are prepared to accord. Great Britain is admirably represented at Moscow. Russia, down to M. M.aisky's departure last month, was admirably represented in London, and no doubt will be again. There is no reason for any misunderstanding by any one of the major Allies of any other, and no grounds for believing that any misunderstanding worth speaking of exists. But the duty Of continuously increasing knowledge and under- standing and- sympathy at all times and all fields is imperative and incontestable.
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