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The Victory. Many statesmen had played their parts in Belgrade's coup d'etat. Winston Churchill had done much by risking an expeditionary force in Greece while Yugoslavia wavered. "Early this morning Yugoslavia found her soul," said Winston Churchill fervently. The U. S. had also played a part, by passing the Lend-Lease Act and promising aid to Britain's allies, and President Roosevelt made this promise stick in a message of congratulation to King Peter. Russia had helped, by pledging neutrality to Turkey if Turkey should be attacked, thereby suggesting to Turkey the advisability of a treaty with Yugoslavia. But those who had done most were the people, and the people appropriately rejoiced.
In Greece they sang and danced in the streets. In London they cheered and punned ("So far and no Vardar" and, of Hitler, "Serbs 'im right"). In cellars from Warsaw to Amsterdam they shook one another's hands, for at last the "free" Governments of German-conquered nations had meaning. But the most impressive demonstration outside of Yugoslavia itself was staged in Marseille, where in 1934 a Croatian terrorist assassinated King Alexander. Almost as if by magic, men & women bearing flowers appeared at the spot where the King was shot. Soon the street was covered with flowers piled high. When the police tried to break up this tribute, the people of Marseille bought tramcar tickets, dropped their flowers out of the cars. When the police closed the flower stores, the people dropped paper flowers.
It was important that the Allies' Eastern Front, which Britain and France gave away at Munich in 1938, which was mowed down in Poland in 1939, which in 1940 was pushed steadily back in the Balkans, had been established again. But the victory was more moral than military. Courage and leadership in one small Balkan nation without Kultur had brought courage, leadership and hope to free people everywhere. In streets, passers-by smiled at one another, feeling that they had been given something in common. It was as if a bell struck on a starry night in Belgrade had left its clear, sweet note ringing in the ears of the Western World.