Foreign News: Without Precedent

In the vastness of the Allied victory and Germany’s tremendous defeat, one curious fact was likely to be overlooked. Never before in history have western Europe and eastern Europe faced each other except across a buffer of German or Austrian power. For some 500 years most of the history of Europe has been a series of variations, mostly tragic, on this geographic and political fact. Victory in Europe had finally destroyed this historic pattern. Henceforth western Europe and eastern Europe must live face to face.