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ALLIED WAR AIMS AND POLICIES FOR PEACE: 1943-1945
The cross-Channel invasion of June 6, 1944, was followed by a rapid Anglo-American movement through France in late July and August. The Allied armies were often aided by local uprisings of the French resistance. These events altered the relations between de Gaulle and Roosevelt, who had remained unwilling to recognize the Committee of National Liberation as a French government even when the invasion was launched. That had not prevented de Gaulle from proclaiming it the provisional government of the French Republic on June 2. Roosevelt's anger at this fait accompli was calmed when de Gaulle visited Washington in July. The United States then gave de facto recognition to the provisional government. French units participated after August 1 in the liberation of France, and de Gaulle staged a triumphant parade in Paris on August 26, the day after the city was jointly liberated by French and American forces. De jure recognition of de Gaulle's regime was granted formally by Britain, the USSR, and the United States on October 23. At this time and in the months to come, de Gaulle made plain his determination that France should be treated in all respects as an equal of the great Allies.
The military successes in France, like others since 1943, gave promise that the East-West Allies would be able to write their own terms at the end of the war if they could agree on them. Problems mounted as the cement holding the Allied coalition together-German and Japanese military might-began to crumble.
Basic Problems
Knowledge of Soviet demands in December 1941 had caused Churchill and Roosevelt to avoid agreements on peace terms. At that time the Soviet leaders wanted the British to agree immediately to the reincorporation in the USSR of all the territory that Stalin had taken while in partnership with Hitler: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Finland, Poland, and Bessarabia (they also wished additional Finnish territory and air bases in Rumania). Other Soviet aims seemed to be approximately in harmony with those of the West: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia were to be restored as independent states with as much territory as they had held before being seized by the Axis powers; Poland would gain territory at the expense of Germany; and Germany would be dismembered and curbed in other ways. No suggestion was made that any of these states should be Soviet satellites after the war, and Stalin promised his support for any arrangement Britain might wish to make for the future of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway.
The war aims announced to Eden in December 1941 did not make it appear that Stalin's ambition in the world at large was insatiable. In addition to dissolving the Communist International (Comintern) in May 1943 and stressing patriotism over Communist ideology within the USSR, the Soviet leaders joined those of Britain, China, and the United States in declaring on Oct. 30, 1943, that they would not use their military forces in the territories of other states for selfish political purposes after the war. For their part, Roosevelt and Churchill wished to satisfy the Soviet desire for security, while placing limits on Soviet expansion.
The conflict between Soviet pressures for early agreement on peace terms and Western attempts to limit and delay them can be followed in all the great conferences in which postwar policies were discussed: the foreign ministers' conference, held in Moscow (Oct. 19-30, 1943); the Teheran Conference (Nov. 28-Dec. 1, 1943) ; the Yalta Conference (Feb. 4-11, 1945) ; and the Potsdam Conference ( July 17-Aug. 2, 1945). Roosevelt died on April 12,. 1945, and President Harry S. Truman represented the United States at Potsdam; Clement R. Attlee, who became the new British prime minister during the conference, replaced Churchill.
Creation of the United Nations
Stalin's participation in wartime planning of the future United Nations organization offered hope for friendly East-West relations after the war. Soviet willingness to cooperate was announced in the four-power declaration of Oct. 30, 1943. At Teheran, Roosevelt and Stalin found themselves in general if tentative accord on the broad principles of operation of the new organization. Fleshing out the bare bones of these principles proved to be more difficult at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington (Aug. 21-Oct. 7, 1944). Here it was decided to call the new organization the United Nations. It was to have a large legislative body, the General Assembly, and a small executive committee, the Security Council. In the Council, Great Britain, the USSR, China, and the United States would be permanently represented; they would be aided by rotating members chosen by the Assembly. The right of veto in the Council by the great powers on basic matters affecting their security and sovereignty (a major American provision) won approval, but there was disagreement over the limits to be placed on the use of this right by these powers. This dispute could not be reconciled at once, and a stalemate also was reached on the Soviet demand for 16 seats in the General Assembly.
The search for a suitable compromise was one of the major problems before the Big Three when they met at Yalta in February 1945. At first, Stalin vigorously and stubbornly insisted on the full veto power in all issues before the Security Council. On February 7, however, Soviet approval of the American voting formula was given: no member of the Council, when a party to a dispute, was to vote on resolutions for its pacific settlement; in decisions on procedural matters the great-power members also would lack the veto power. Moreover, the Soviet Union agreed to reduce its demand for seats in the General Assembly from 16 to 3. Churchill, who was sensitive about the then-projected 6-seat representation of the Commonwealth of Nations, favored the revised Soviet proposal, and Roosevelt agreed to it. The decision was reached that a conference to found the United Nations should meet in the United States on April 25, and that France as well as China should have permanent seats with the Big Three in the Security Council.
When the San Francisco Conference convened on April 25, 1945, to organize the United Nations, President Truman learned that Stalin had retreated from the Yalta agreement to limit use of the veto. The question at San Francisco was again whether permanent members of the Security Council could prevent discussion of disputes. Stalin finally agreed to adopt the American position. The USSR also sought to restrict freedom of discussion in the General Assembly, but in the end it agreed that the Assembly could discuss any matters "within the scope of the present Charter." Over Soviet protests, Argentina was admitted to the United Nations. Soviet attempts to secure the seating of Poland failed, for Poland was now governed by a Soviet puppet regime, and the United States refused at San Francisco to allow it membership. The United Nations Charter was adopted unanimously at San Francisco on June 26, but the dispute over the seating of Poland was typical of other problems on which no agreement had been found.
Poland and Central-Eastern Europe
Churchill later described the Polish problem as the "first of the great causes which led to the breakdown of the Grand Alliance." Two major questions disturbed Big Three harmony: What frontiers should postwar Poland have, especially with the Soviet Union? What should be the character of its government?
The question of the Polish-Soviet frontier was rooted in historical antagonism, the ethnic mixture of the disputed area, the structure of the Polish state between the two world wars, and the growth of Soviet power and ambition. Weak in 1921, Soviet Russia had been forced to agree to a frontier that left 5 million White Russians and Ukrainians inside Poland. In 1939, however, Stalin had gained more than the ethnic Curzon Line by cooperating with Hitler. After 1941 he insisted that the Ribbentrop-Molotov line of 1939-1941 should become the postwar frontier. When the Polish government in exile refused to agree and called for an investigation of the Katyn massacre (see section 3. Early Campaigns), Stalin, in April 1943, broke off diplomatic relations with it and groomed proSoviet emigres in the USSR to serve as a future government of Poland. Thus, insofar as the Polish issue was concerned, Churchill was ready even in 1943 to abandon the Western policy of postponement; seeking to forestall the creation of a Soviet satellite regime, both Churchill and Roosevelt in 1944 urged the London Poles to accept the Curzon Line as a frontier. Their refusal helps to explain why the Soviet Army failed to aid pro-Western Polish patriots who rose against the Germans in Warsaw on August 1. On Jan. 5, 1945, despite Roosevelt's protest, the USSR recognized the pro-Soviet Poles as the government of Poland.
By this time the Soviet Army controlled almost all of the country, and the Yalta Conference was virtually confronted by a fait accompli. Stalin argued that his Warsaw regime was as representative as the de Gaulle government in France and the government of Italy, which were backed by the West, but he finally conceded that a few of the London Poles could be associated with the Warsaw regime and agreed that free elections should be held in Poland "as soon as possible." The Big Three also decided that the Polish-Soviet frontier should follow the Curzon Line with minor digressions in favor of Poland. Poland was to receive German territory in the west, although agreement could not be reached on an exact Polish-German frontier. In a Declaration on Liberated Europe, the Big Three promised to support interim governments that were pledged to early free elections in areas taken from Nazi Germany. Thanks to continued Western pressure, in the months after Yalta a few proWestern Poles were admitted to the pro-Soviet Warsaw regime to form a slightly broader government that the West recognized, but the USSR adhered to its demand that the line of the Oder and Western Neisse (Lusatian Neisse) rivers become the Polish-German frontier. After much discussion the Western leaders at Potsdam agreed that, pending a peace treaty, German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line (except for East Prussia) should be "under the administration of the Polish state."
Meanwhile, on Dec. 12, 1943, the USSR had signed a treaty of alliance with the government in exile of Czechoslovakia amid promises by Stalin that he would not interfere in Czech internal affairs. On Sept. 19, 1944, an Allied-Finnish armistice was signed, restoring the status quo of March 12, 1940, with slight revisions, and leaving Finland free of Soviet occupation. Then, on October 9, Churchill and Stalin privately decided on a division of at least temporary influence in the Balkans as the area was liberated from Germany. The USSR would be predominant in Rumania and Bulgaria; influence would be shared equally in Yugoslavia, where the British had backed Marshal Tito's Partisans since 1943, and in Hungary; and Britain would be predominant in Greece. It was already understood that the Soviet Union was to regain Bessarabia and northern Bucovina. The presence of the Soviet Army after August 1944 in central-eastern Europe ultimately enabled the USSR to control more than the Stalin-Churchill agreement had promised, but Western control in Greece was safeguarded by the British occupation of that country after October.
Dilemma over Germany
While the East-West dispute over the reorganization of the Polish government continued, the Third Reich crumbled under the weight of the Allied advance. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Germany surrendered to the Western Allies on May 7 and to the Russians in Berlin on May 9. The capitulation found the Allies lacking in agreement on a postwar German policy. During the period 1941-1944 the Big Three had seemed to be basically in accord, but by early 1945 fundamental differences had begun to appear. For Stalin the crippling of Germany seemed essential to the attainment of either security for the USSR and or the spread of communism. For Roosevelt and Churchill the German problem was a dilemma that they could not fully solve: How could Germany's domination of Europe be broken without leaving the Continent under the sway of the USSR?
On some policies agreement in principle was easily achieved: Germany must be denazified, disarmed, and demilitarized, and she must surrender war criminals for punishment ( all of which required military occupation by the victors); she must pay reparations and have her war industries eliminated or controlled; and she must be reduced in size and either decentralized or dismembered. Formal agreement on these principles was reached unanimously at Yalta; tacit approval had been given much earlier. But behind the agreement on general principles there were massive problems of interpretation. Essential problems remained without clear-cut solutions even after the Big Three parted at Potsdam in August 1945.
Plans for the occupation of Germany were outlined by the British in 1943, negotiated in 1944, and formally approved at Yalta in 1945. As shown in Map 15, the final agreement provided that Britain was to occupy northwestern Germany, the United States the south, and France the southwest; the eastern third of pre1938 Germany was to be occupied by the USSR. Joint occupation policy was to be defined by a four-power Allied Control Council in Berlin, which would thus be occupied jointly by the Allies. Since it was thought that common occupation policies were to be imposed on Germany, no concern was expressed over the fact that jointly occupied Berlin would be surrounded by the Soviet zone of occupation, though Roosevelt in 1943 had favored United States occupation of northwestern Germany up to and including Berlin.
Full agreement on reparations and deindustrialization could never be achieved. In AugustSeptember 1944, the United States secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., had proposed a program for sweeping deindustrialization and the transfer of plants and equipment to Allied nations as reparations. Roosevelt and Churchill tentatively approved this plan but then retreated from it. At Yalta, Stalin made its principles his own. He proposed that Germany furnish $20 billion worth of reparations, of which the USSR would receive half; this would be collected by removing 80 percent of Germany's heavy industry in the name of eliminating her war capacity. Since they could not agree, the Big Three decided to create a reparations commission, which would adopt the Soviet demand for $10 billion in kind as a "basis for discussion." The commission also failed to reach an agreement, as did the Big Three at Potsdam. There they decided that the USSR might receive up to 25 percent of the industry removed from the Western zones of occupation, where most German industry was located, but they could not decide on how much should be removed altogether. The problem was to remain troublesome throughout the period of occupation, during which the USSR ravaged its own zone and obtained considerable equipment from the Western zones.
Since 1943 the Allies had generally agreed that Germany must cede territory. The restoration of Austrian independence and of pre-1938 Czechoslovakia was undisputed, and no one argued against giving German territory to Poland, but even at Yalta the Big Three could not decide on the amount. In the spring of 1945 the Russians took matters into their own hands and at Potsdam insisted on recognition of the OderNeisse line as the German-Polish frontier. The Western leaders reluctantly agreed to recognize Polish "administration" of territory as far west as the "Oder-Neisse Line," pending the formulation of a peace treaty for Germany. Truman and Attlee also agreed "in principle" to the absorption of Konigsberg (renamed Kaliningrad) and surrounding territory in East Prussia by the USSR, the definitive frontier to be determined by a future peace conference.
As early as December 1941, Stalin had called for the permanent partition of Germany into separate states. At Teheran both Roosevelt and Churchill indicated their general approval of this suggestion, but they disagreed about the extent of the dismemberment and reserved any final decision. At Yalta, Stalin again pressed vigorously for dismemberment, but again Roosevelt and Churchill thought it too early to make a definitive decision; the Big Three agreed only to "take such steps, including . . . the dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security." In March and April 1945, Roosevelt continued to favor postponement of a decision in this matter, and on May 9, Stalin proclaimed that the Soviet Union did not intend "either to dismember or to destroy Germany." Asked later that month why he had changed his mind, Stalin told Harry Hopkins that "his recommendation had been turned down at Yalta." Yet, ironically, de facto partition was to be accomplished after 1945 by Stalin's refusal to merge his zone of occupation with the Western zones to form a free and united German state. The postwar disagreements over Germany had been clearly foreshadowed at Yalta and Potsdam, but they were not allowed to disrupt the wartime coalition; the defeat of Japan was yet to be accomplished.
Soviet Aid Against Japan and Far Eastern Policy
The likelihood of Soviet participation in the war against Japan and the general character of Soviet aims were foreshadowed by earlier Far Eastern history. In 1875, Russia had surrendered to Japan her claim to the Kuril Islands, and her defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 had left Japan in control of Port Arthur (Liishun), Dairen (Talien), and the railroads of Manchuria (held by Russia before 1905), as well as of Korea ( see Map 54). Russia retained control over the northern half of Sakhalin, and in the 1920's established its influence over Outer Mongolia. War against Japan after 1941, if successful, would enable Stalin to win back what the czars had lost and even more unless the West could build a strong China.
The creation of a strong China was to be a frustrating task. In the period 1941-1943 only token American military support could be given to Nationalist China. Chiang Kai-shek, caught up in a civil war with Chinese Communist armies while fighting Japan, could be dissuaded only with difficulty in 1943 from directing his war effort against the Communists. The latter were as eager to expand the territory under their control as Chiang was to extend his. To chart greater Allied aid to China and to concert political policies, Roosevelt arranged to have Chiang meet with him and Churchill at Cairo on Nov. 22-26, 1943, before the Western leaders went to Teheran. The supply of war materials to Chiang by air across the Himalaya from India was to be increased, and Chiang was treated as an equal of the great Allies. By the Cairo Declaration of Dec. 1, 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang announced their determination to strip Japan of her conquests.
But international political understanding did not solve China's internal weaknesses. In the summer and fall of 1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, and Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell urged Chiang to seek cooperation with the Communists so that the war against Japan could be waged most effectively. Their success was negligible, and Stilwell was recalled in October at Chiang's request. Meanwhile, although American aid was increased, the Nationalist forces yielded more territory to the Japanese. The military failures of China strengthened the desire in Washington for Soviet aid in the war against Japan.
As early as 1941, Roosevelt and Chiang had suggested that the USSR enter the Far Eastern war, but the idea had not been pressed. On Dec. 1, 1943, Stalin informed Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran that the USSR would declare war on Japan after Germany had been defeated. At the same time he expressed an interest in gaining southern Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and use of the Manchurian railroads and Dairen. In December 1944, Stalin again outlined these goals to United States Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and added Port Arthur to the list. Roosevelt and Churchill could not prevent Stalin from obtaining what he requested, and an agreement on these gains might forestall more sweeping annexations. Thus a secret Yalta agreement of Feb. 11, 1945, provided that the USSR should obtain southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; Soviet interests should be preeminent in an internationalized Dairen; Port Arthur should be leased to the USSR; the Manchurian railways were to be operated by a Soviet-Chinese company that would make Soviet interests in the railways preeminent but respect full Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria; and the status quo of Soviet influence in Outer Mongolia was to be preserved. It appeared that Stalin was repudiating the Chinese Communists, for the Yalta agreement stipulated that he was prepared to conclude a "pact of friendship and alliance" with the Nationalist Chinese government. Finally, Stalin agreed to make war against Japan "in two or three months" after Germany surrendered.
At the time of the Yalta agreements, American military leaders desired the entry of the USSR in the war against Japan. The atomic bomb had not yet been tested. Although by July 24, 1945, it was ready for use, the Combined Chiefs of Staff then recommended to Truman and Churchill that they encourage Soviet entry. Meanwhile, fear of Soviet entry and the hope of playing the Soviet Union against the West had prompted Japanese peace efforts through Moscow. In Tokyo, Japanese leaders were willing to concede the Soviet territorial demands of Yalta and more. At Potsdam, Stalin reported the overtures to Truman and Churchill, who separately agreed to give Japan a last warning to surrender.
In the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, the Americans, British, and Chinese threatened heavier attacks if Japan held out. On July 28, Japan announced that it would ignore this warning. Hoping for a change in the Japanese attitude, Truman delayed the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima until August 6. On August 8, the USSR declared war (effective August 9). Influenced by this development and by the dropping of a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, civilian leaders in Tokyo sought a settlement that would leave the emperor on his throne. The Allied powers quickly agreed, and on August 14, Japan accepted the Allied terms. Meanwhile, Soviet forces had overrun most of the areas promised them at Yalta. On Sept. 2, 1945 (September 1, United States time), the formal Japanese surrender was made to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur on board the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. World War II was over.