INTERNATIONAL: Frivolous V

A Belgian refugee named Victor de Laveleye first had the idea. In a shortwave broadcast from London to his countrymen he asked them to chalk the letter V (for victoire) in public places as a sign of confidence in their deliverance.

That was six months ago. Nobody took the idea very seriously then—except in Belgium, then in The Netherlands and France. But last week, as news leaked out of Europe, the world awoke to the fact that something almost as frivolous as a parlor game might play an important part in international politics.

On British Broadcasting Corp.’s shortwave program one night last month was heard the voice of a Colonel Britton. There is a Colonel Reginald Brittan in England, a 76-year-old retired Colonel of the Sherwood Foresters, but BBC made its Colonel Britton a mystery man. He spoke polished English, French, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Norwegian.

Colonel Britton, shyly at first, then with growing confidence, plugged the V campaign. He urged the people of the occupied countries to mark the letter everywhere, even on the backs of German officers. According to reports that leaked out in a few places, they actually did. “He told people how to tap it out in Morse Code, three dots and a dash, recommended it as a signal for calling waiters, knocking on doors, blowing auto horns, bugles and train whistles. Soon that tat-tat-tat-too was heard all over Europe. He told them to call for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, whose opening “fate-knocks-at-the-door” motif is three short bars and one long one. Beethoven V became a peculiarly popular concert piece.

The Colonel told Europeans to sit in cafés with their legs stretched out V-wise. He told them to wave to one another with the first two fingers of the hand spread V-wise. He told them to make the letter V with their knives and forks in restaurants, to set stopped clocks at five after eleven. The Moscow radio jammed German broadcasts with the Morse V. The R.A.F. flew over Europe in V-formation—and it was so noted in official communiqués. In Belgium the Flemish composer R. A. F. Verhulst became a national celebrity when posters advertising the performance of one of his operas featured his four initials. (The Germans caught on and tore the posters down.)

Like a fresh wind blowing in from the sea, the campaign spread over Europe. V, which stood for victory in English and victoire in French, became vryheid (freedom) in Dutch, vitezstvi (victory) in Czech, vitestvo (heroism) in Serbian, and in Norwegian ve vil vinne, which means just what it sounds like in pidgin English.

To Nazis all Europe’s eternal tat-tat-tat-tooing was foolish and exasperating. First the Nazis tried to suppress or ignore it. Growled Norway’s Quisling Propaganda Minister Gudbrand Lunde: “Don’t think you will win the war by making silly noises in restaurants.” In France 6,000 people were arrested for distributing paper Vs. Then Germany’s Propaganda Chief Paul Joseph Goebbels had what he thought was a bright idea, or perhaps it was given to him by a visiting friend. Italy’s Popular Culture Minister Alessandro Pavolini, who was also on the receiving end of the campaign.

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.”