The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1944. DAYS OF TRIUMPH

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 282, 25 August 1944, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1944. DAYS OF TRIUMPH

On that fateful day in June, 1940, when the men of Vichy signed away the liberty of France, General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Movement that sprang into existence overnight, uttered these words: “The war is not lost. The country is not dead. Hope is not extinct. Vive la France!” From the British House of Commons the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, in Britain’s darkest hour following Dunkirk, made this stirring appeal to the Empire: “Hitler knows that he has to break us on this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands.” These confident, hopeful utterances, voiced during a period of appalling difficulties and the gravest dangers, have been justified by the tremendous events the people of New Zealand have been invited to celebrate today. The Allied victories in France, the liberation of Paris,. the fall of Marseilles, the relentless pressure that is slowly and steadily forcing the enemy out of the country —quite apart from what is happening in Eastern and Southern Europe—are signal developments on the Western Front of the war in Europe of immense military and psychological significance. At the moment, attention and sentiment no doubt will be centred upon Paris itself. Of the German entry into the city on June 14, 1940, it was written: “The Germans entered a silent city in which all shops were closed and shuttered.” It was a day of mourning of deep and bitter resentment at the betrayal of France and French liberties. From that hour the traditionally gay city, and the French nation as a whole, passed into a bondage which was to last for over four years. While nominally at peace with the enemy in terms,, of the degrading armistice signed by the meh of Vichy, their lives and activities were throttled by a system of typically German tyrannical regimentation, and the whole of their industrial energies and national economy made subject to extortionate demands upon them by the Nazi Government. Contrasted with their temperamental attitude toward life, their love of liberty, the existence to which the French were condemned was that of a vassal State.. They were, in Scriptural metaphor, as “a people that walked in darkness.” And. to complete the quotation, they have now “seen a great light,” the light of liberation from bondage, of freedom, and of a return to the broad sunlit uplands” of Mr. Churchill’s prophecy uttered in June, 1940. The ardour of the rejoicings in Paris and throughout France may be imagined, a moving contrast to the scene presented when the Germans entered as conquering tyrants four years ago. To the world at large the liberation of Paris means something much more than the restoration of their capital city to the French people. It is the symbol of a great victory, and of still greater triumphs to come. The liberation of Paris therefore is a fitting event for world-wide celebration, and to none more gratifying than the Anglo-American peoples through whose heroic efforts it has been brought to pass.