VICTORY ASSURED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1941, Page 4

VICTORY ASSURED

HOWEVER HARD THE FIGHT MR CHURCHILL'S MESSAGE TO YUGOSLAVS. GREAT TRADITIONS UPHELD. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. April 13. The Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, today broadcast the following message: “To the people of Yugoslavia, to the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes: I send you my greetings. You have been wantonly attacked by a ruthless, barbarous aggressor. Your capital has been bombed, your women and children brutally murdered.

“Our cities in England, too, have been bombed by the same insane foe. Our women and children have been murdered. Our sympathy for you. therefore, is heartfelt, for we are sharing the same sufferings. But as we have faith in our victory, so we have faith in yours. “Do not regret the staunch courage which brought on you this ferocious onslaught. Your courage will shine out in the pages of history and will, too, reap a more immediate reward. Whatever you may lose in the present you have saved for the future. “You are making heroic resistance against formidable odds, and in doing so you are proving true to your great traditions.

“Serbs, we know you. You were our Allies in the last war. and your armies were covered with glory. “Croats and Slovenes, we know your military history. For centuries you were the bulwark of Christianity, and your fame as warriors spread far and wide on the Continent. One of the finest incidents in the history of Croatia is one when in the Sixteenth Century—long before the French Revolution—the peasants rose to defend the rights of man and fought for those principles which .centuries later gave the world democracy. “Yugoslavs, you are fighting for those principles today. The British Empire is fighting with you, and behind us is the great democracy of the United States, with its vast and ever-in-creasing resources.

“However hard the fight, our victory is assured."