Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David.

Well, 80 years ago, the victory in Europe celebrations were just about over.

The hangovers had abated, and everyone was now looking around to see what happened to them.

Next, for Britons, it was the moment when the work began to start making a reality of the dreams that had sustained soldiers

and civilians alike through the conflict and begin to set about building a better society

than the one, an unhappy memory for many that they had left behind before the war. It was a monumental

task, and even more so for the French. Britain had been

united during the war by and large. France bitterly divided. It now remained to be seen how far

and how fast the healing process could go, and whether the coalition forged by the nation's

saviour Charles de Gaulle could hold together.

For Germany, of course, the outlook was very different. Defeat had been total and the enormity

of the nation's crimes on full display. The population waited nervously to see what sort of

price they would be expected to pay and who would pay it. All had to contend with a new global order. When the smoke of battle cleared,

there were two giants standing, the USA on one side, and Soviet Russia on the other. The pragmatic

alliance that forged victory was already fraying, and the two newly emerged superpowers seemed

set on a collision course. The imponderables were endless,

but one thing was sure the end of the war would not usher in a period of peace,

stability and mutual understanding. So let's start with Britain, shall we, Patrick.

Britain had had a good war, hadn't it, in the sense that there were few moral ambiguities,

to poison the post-war political environment

and an ambience of national solidarity, the creation of which was one of the great achievements

of Winston Spencer Churchill, wasn't it?

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