On This Day, 21 September 1918

Evening Despatch 

Saturday 21 September 1918

The Win-the-War Day

After this, no one can apply the term Brummagem with approbium. Brummagem has reason to be clamorously proud of Itself. It has really done an enormous lot towards winning the war, and in spite the censorship it has been able to-day to see something of the extent of the effort. It cannot see the thousands of its sons who have gone to fight, but it is acutely aware all the while of the ache caused by their absence, and the fervour of its greeting when they return might be guessed by their welcome to their proxies in the procession, the wounded, the discharged, the oversea Britons and the Yanks. Birmingham on the battlefields is something to be proud of.

We are all of us conscious of the frenzy of the war effort that encompasses us in this city, but few of us have visioned its extent. Our own little corner fills our mind. The publication of figures is wisely prohibited. The streets give very little clue to the colossal traffic between Birmingham and the battlefields, and where everyone is engaged the same task, the making of war material, it is natural that talk turns all the while on detail and not on the large whole. Strangely-enough, it was the military authorities who gave Birmingham a sight of the immensity of its war effort. Exactly which of the military chiefs it was that labelled the affair the Win-the-War Day we do not know, but he had a genius tor terms; Win-the-War Day hits home.

There cannot the slightest doubt that winning the war is a thing dependent on moral. Mere military dominance will not bring victory, and the military authorities know that better than the civilians. They know that after the victory it is possible for the victory to be given away, and there is a peculiar peril in a war against Germany that Germany will try to filch the victory she cannot win. That was how she became Germany—by imposing a political dominance on her enemy when she found she could not impose a military dominance, and then the military dominance followed as a matter of course. With Germany it is matter of indifference which comes first, the military dominance is always last. That is the reason why Birmingham had a Win-the-War Day. There is something in a name after all, and the autosuggestion of the mere label for the pageantry was worth all the effort of organising it. Birmingham is one of the large factors in the war. It is not merely one of the large factories; it is a factor morally, politically.

Most of us will be glad when the war is over; as a city we have the power do more than vaguely wish. It is within our power to help to end the war by winning it. Having won the war, we may reconstruct to our heart’s desire, but until then there is nothing to do but to go on as we are, helping to win the war.