Our own folly may yet lead us to a second dishonourable Yalta

‘He was back after less than two years’ pilgrimage in a Holy Land of illusion in the old ambiguous world, where priests were spies and gallant friends proved traitors and his country was led blundering into dishonour.’

Those words are taken from Officers and Gentlemen, the second volume in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour, his trilogy about the second world war. The words describe the disillusion of the protagonist, Guy Crouchback, as Britain sides with Soviet Russia to defeat Hitler: an alliance with an atheist tyranny to defeat an atheist tyranny, an alliance that led to the betrayal – perhaps necessary – of Eastern Europe at Yalta.

The words resonate as the Ukrainian crisis prompts a moral question of the peoples and governments of Western Europe: should we answer the call of those Ukrainians who want to join modern Europe? Daniel Finkelstein wrote a heartfelt article (£) on the subject yesterday. His headline was clear: ‘After Yalta, we can’t betray Ukraine yet again’, and his argument was rooted in personal history:

‘Yalta meant that my family could only ever see the end of the Second World War as a partial victory.