The Grand Alliance

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>The "Grand Alliance," as Churchill phrased it, was a shaky expedient held together by the common desire to defeat the Axis Powers. The principal goal of the "Big Three" Allied leaders—President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet premier Josef Stalin—was winning the war, and most of their early diplomacy focused on military issues. Wartime unity was difficult to maintain, however. There were, for example, heated disagreements over a second military front in Europe. The Soviets complained that the Americans and British were prepared to fight until the last Russian fell. For their part, the western allies were painfully aware that Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939 and brutally occupied the Baltic States and part of Finland after the war began. </P> </p> <p> <P>A second important diplomatic objective, especially toward the end of the conflict, was winning the peace. There were fundamental ideological and cultural differences between the western democracies and the Soviet Union, and the Allied leaders had disparate visions for the post-war world. Stalin, recognizing that Russia was invaded by Germany twice during the twentieth century, was primarily concerned with securing his western borders. Churchill was opposed to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, but he also was concerned with maintaining the far-flung British Empire and his nation's declining status as a world power. </P> </p> <p> <P>During the war, President Roosevelt was deeply concerned with keeping China and the Soviet Union fighting in order to tie up the bulk of the Japanese and German forces. Later in the conflict, he referred to the "Four Policemen"—the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and Nationalist China—when discussing the post-war world. He was also uneasy about the long-term goals of both Churchill and Stalin. A certain degree of distrust was inevitable under the circumstances, and effective diplomacy was needed to maintain the Grand Alliance until Germany and Japan were defeated.</P> </p> <p> <P>Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill crossed the Atlantic to meet with Roosevelt at the Arcadia Conference and discuss military strategy. They emphasized the "Germany First" plan, to the relief of Stalin, and laid the groundwork for the Combined Chiefs of Staff. On January 1, 1942, the Roosevelt administration drafted a "Declaration by United Nations," which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and called for a post-war peace organization. Ultimately, nearly 50 nations signed the Declaration, establishing a wartime coalition against the Axis.</P> </p> <p> <P>The chief point of contention between the Allied leaders during 1942 was the question of a second military front against the Germans. Stalin, whose forces were engaged in a titanic struggle on the Eastern Front, demanded a cross-channel invasion of Western Europe. American military strategists, led by General George Marshall, favored such an invasion because they feared the Soviets might be forced to conclude a separate peace. Churchill, however, won President Roosevelt's support for an invasion of Southern Europe through North Africa and the Mediterranean. "Operation Torch," the invasion of French North Africa, was launched in November. The Germans subsequently occupied Vichy France, and the Allies recognized Charles de Gaulle as the leader of "Free France."</P> </p> <p> <P>In mid-January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca, in Morocco. Stalin declined to attend because of the battles raging in the Soviet Union, although FDR interpreted his actions as signaling concern over the lack of a second front in Western Europe. Churchill and Roosevelt pledged there would be no separate peace negotiations with Hitler, and that the war would be fought until the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. This was to reassure Stalin, but it strengthened the resolve of the hardliners in Germany and Japan and possibly prolonged the fighting. Agreement was also reached in principle on a second front, although its location was not determined. Stalin was pleased on both counts, and the Casablanca Conference cemented the Grand Alliance.</P> </p> <p> <P>The first meeting between the Allied foreign ministers was held in Moscow in October 1943. By that time, the military tide in Europe had turned, with Italy abandoning the Axis and joining the Allies. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, and Soviet foreign commissar Vyacheslav Molotov discussed plans for a second front, and agreed on an independent Austria and the partition of Germany following the war. Stalin pledged that the Soviets would join the war against Japan after the defeat of Hitler. The Chinese ambassador in Moscow joined in the Declaration of Four Nations on General Security, calling upon "all peace-loving states" to establish an international organization to maintain "peace and security" in the post-war world. The Allied ministers also agreed to prosecute Nazis for war crimes.</P> </p> <p> <P>A series of diplomatic conferences took place in the Middle East before the end of 1943. Late in November, President Roosevelt traveled to Egypt to join Churchill and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) in signing the Cairo Declaration. The Allied leaders reiterated their pledge to continue the war in the Pacific until the "unconditional surrender" of Japan, vowed to strip Japan of all its League of Nations mandates and military conquests since 1914, and added that "Korea shall become free and independent." Congress responded by repealing laws prohibiting Chinese immigration and naturalized citizenship. The Cairo Declaration raised Chinese and Korean morale, and assured the Soviets that there would be no separate peace with the Japanese. Roosevelt and Churchill then flew to Tehran, the Iranian capital, to meet for the first time with Stalin.</P> </p> <p> <P>The Tehran Conference gave the Allied leaders a chance to size each other up in person. Roosevelt was impressed with Stalin's "very confident" personality and announced that they "got along fine" with one another. The two met privately on several occasions, but FDR deliberately did not meet alone with Churchill during this summit, in an effort to assure Stalin that no private deals were being brokered between the western Allied leaders. Both military and political issues were discussed by the Big Three, including "Operation Overlord," the codename for the cross-channel invasion to be launched in the spring. The long-awaited second front in Western Europe would be coordinated with another Allied landing in southern France and a Soviet offensive from the east. A pleased Stalin renewed his pledge to join the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. Shortly after the conference, Roosevelt appointed General Dwight David Eisenhower to command Overlord. </P> </p> <p> <P>Political agreements were more difficult to achieve. When Roosevelt complained that Americans were concerned with the fate of the Baltic States, Stalin replied that he better get busy on some "propaganda work," because the citizens of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia had voted to join the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Stalin pushed for the western boundary of Poland to include portions of Germany, while the Soviet Union would absorb an eastern region of Poland. FDR acceded to this, although he acknowledged that he could not do so publicly before next year's presidential election. The Allied leaders also appeared to be united in relegating France to minor-power status in the post-war world. <br></P> <P>The final major issue under discussion at Tehran was post-war Germany. Stalin wanted Germany to be completely dismembered, Roosevelt favored dividing the country into five autonomous districts, and Churchill envisioned incorporating part of Germany with Austria and Hungary into a Danubian confederation. Unable to reach a settlement on the fate of Germany, the Big Three decided to postpone that question. </P> </p> <p> <P>His first face-to-face negotiations with Stalin gave Roosevelt the impression that he was able to influence the Soviet leader. The president returned home to tell the American people that he "got along fine" with Stalin. For his part, the discussions with Roosevelt and Churchill probably strengthened Stalin's determination to seek territorial concessions in the latter stages of the war. This was the last summit meeting that focused primarily on military strategy and winning the war. The apparent Allied solidarity at Tehran, particularly on military matters, belied the fundamental differences between the western democracies and the Soviet Union that increased as Germany was being conquered.</P> </p> <p> <P>In late August 1944, after the cross-channel invasion at Normandy put the Germans on the defensive in Western Europe, Allied diplomats began a six-week conference at Dumbarton Oaks, an estate near Washington, D.C. The negotiations included representatives from the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, and resulted in a working draft for the United Nations. The post-war peace organization would consist of a Security Council, General Assembly, Secretariat, and an International Court of Justice. It was agreed that the Four Policemen and France would have permanent seats on the Security Council, and each have a veto power. A decision on membership of the General Assembly was postponed after Stalin insisted that all sixteen Soviet Republics receive equal representation. The Big Three would work that out at a future meeting. </P> </p> <p> <P>Roosevelt and Churchill met again in mid-September at Quebec, Canada, to discuss post-war plans for Germany. The partition of Germany had been agreed upon, although the occupation zones had not been delineated. The chief question at Quebec was whether Germany should become an agricultural nation or be reintegrated into the European industrial community. Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish secretary of the treasury, favored turning Germany into "a goat pasture," forever eliminating it as a military threat. Secretary of State Hull, supported by Henry Stimson in the War Department, warned that a revitalized Germany was essential to the economic well being of Europe. Roosevelt and Churchill nonetheless initially supported the Morgenthau Plan, and Stalin was already on record as supporting the dismemberment of Germany.</P> </p> <p> <P>With the post-war fate of Germany and Eastern Europe unsettled, Churchill urged another summit meeting with the Big Three before the end of the year. President Roosevelt, however, was preoccupied with the election campaign, and Stalin refused to leave the Soviet Union. So, Churchill flew to Moscow in October to confer with Stalin. The American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averill Harriman, attended the negotiations as an observer. During their deliberations, Churchill and Stalin agreed to shift the boundaries of Poland to the west, giving the Soviet Union the territory it coveted in the east. </P> </p> <p> <P>Churchill and Stalin also reached a more controversial deal known as the "Percentages Agreement." In a classic example of <i>realpolitik</i>, the two Allied leaders carved the Balkans into spheres of influence. The Soviets, for example, received 90 percent control in Rumania; Britain, the same percentage in Greece. Roosevelt, who was willing to accept a temporary division of authority until the Germans were defeated, opposed permanent spheres of influence. He stated that the United States would not be bound by the agreement, but with the Red Army sweeping into Eastern Europe, he had little political leverage. As the war was being won in Europe, the Allied leaders began focusing on winning the peace. </P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>