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On the principle of if-you-can't-lick-'em-join-'em, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry announced that V stood for Nazi victory—Viktoria—thereby impairing the purity of the German vocabulary by importing a foreign word, for the native German word for victory is Sieg. Germans were urged to use the symbol. In rendering this decision Dr. Goebbels made a mistake: since the V-sign was no longer verboten, the Germans could not suppress it.
This week Britain's Britton brought his campaign to a climax, proclaimed "the week for mobilization" of "Europe's invisible V army." Winston Churchill blessed the campaign with these words: "So long as the peoples of Europe continue to refuse all collaboration with the invader, it is sure that his cause will perish and that Europe will be liberated."
Colonel Britton promised more, hinted that at the proper time the V army would be called into action against the invaders. Until then its members were asked only to fight for independence as best they could, to "splash the V from one end of Europe to the other." In the polished, conspiratorial tones to which thousands of Europeans have lately become familiar, Colonel Britton concluded: "You are asked to join a disciplined army. It is a strange army, but one to which it is an honor to belong. It is an army which the Germans fear. . . . The Germans will not drown out the knocking of fate, however loud they beat. For when they tap out the V they are merely signaling their own impending doom. We shall hurry it as much as we can. . . .
"I advise you to read from the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Daniel, Chapter 5, Verse 5, that is Chapter V, Verse V, and read to the end of the chapter.* Good luck to you."
Colonel Britton's campaign was ingenious. It was more. It was the first antidote prescribed for the apathy of Europe. It was the first organized attempt to unite the spirit and forces of resistance. Symbols are strangely powerful in politics, and a symbol had been found for a future revolution against Fascism. If kept alive, V might come to stand, in Germany and all conquered countries, for a great underground movement against Naziism, for democracy's vast Column V.
* ". . . God hath numbered thy kingdom and hath finished it. Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and is given to the Medes and Persians."