Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin
Analyse critically the relationship between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin during the final years of the Second World War.
Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt were very experienced and powerful politicians. The three had formed an uneasy alliance with a common cause of defeating Germany and its allies yet their larger war and post-war aims diverged. Churchill knew he could not assume leadership given the heavy economic and military reliance on the US (Lease Lend Act 1941) but hoped to play a more decisive role in shaping the US-British war alliance. He had some successes earlier in the War. He persuaded Roosevelt to accept De-Gaule as the de-facto leader of the French liberation progressed and Roosevelt supported Operation Torch (1942) rather than an Operation Overlord-type of invasion of occupied Europe favored by Stalin. However, they disagreed about whether Italy should be invaded after the fall of Mussolini in 1943 (Jenkins p713) and given the buildup of US forces in Europe Churchill failed to get Brooke installed as the Supreme Allied Commander for Overlord. To Roosevelt the war in the Pacific was as important as Europe and he and Churchill had little in common and in fact conflicting aims(Best 226-227).Nonetheless they managed to project a united front. Nonetheless Churchill’s leverage over Roosevelt was weakening. Having narrowly vetoed a bi-lateral meeting between Roosevelt and Stalin, a tripartite relationship between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill was emerging, culminating in the meeting in Tehran in 1943 and Churchill was becoming the junior partner at that.
Roosevelt was thinking beyond the conclusion of the European war and saw improved relations with Stalin vital in securing cooperation with the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. He was willing to overlook Russia’s annexation of Poland up to the Curzon Line and support Russia’s insistence of a West Wall assault over a Mediterranean strategy (P721) Roosevelt at this stage was also becoming physically frail and Stalin fresh from victories on the Eastern Front skillfully came out the political winner.
At Yalta (1945), Churchill pinned his political credibility on securing a post war free Poland. Churchill could not persuade Stalin without Roosevelt’s support. Churchill was outraged that the Russians did not support the Warsaw Rising (1944) but Roosevelt was not going to be sucked into a row with Stalin when the Pacific was increasingly more important to the USA than Europe. Roosevelt was naïve about Stalin’s European aims and a now very ill Roosevelt did not give the support Churchill that he hoped. However Churchill was also unprepared at Yalta and was out-manoeuvred by Stalin and Molotov who were always well briefed (Best 260). Roosevelt left Yalta believing he succeeded in his aims. "The Russians have given us so much at this conference that I don't think we should let them down” . Yet Stalin knew that in a post-war Europe he would not have to keep to these promises.
Conclusion – Despite becoming the junior partner Churchill’s considerable personal charm succeeded in maintaining considerable influence over Roosevelt. Roosevelt underestimated Stalin’s intentions and negotiated away far too much for vague promises of support in the Pacific. With each military victory Stalin became more confident and was willing to enter an alliance with Churchill and Roosevelt only insofar as it met Russia’s self interest.
Commentary
The relationship which both the western powers had with the Soviet Union could has been described as ‘uneasy’. It was in many ways an admirable exercise in pragmatism that Churchill was prepared to forget his ideological misgivings over Russian communism, in order to enter a strategic alliance with Stalin, because the emergency of the war situation demanded it. Examples of how Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to accept De Gaulle as the preferred French leader, and the priority of first invading North Africa, do demonstrate that Churchill did have a strong influence over some vital decision-making in the war. It is absolutely correct to say that in many ways Churchill’s relationship with Roosevelt was not a particularly easy one - it was full of tension and conflicting priorities. It’s true to say that Tehran in 1943 was an important turning point in the relationships within the alliance. After 1943 it became increasingly clear that Churchill was the least powerful leader of the three, as the relatively great military strength of the Soviet Union and the United States became apparent in the later years of the war. One of Roosevelt’s greatest strategic mistakes was to fail to recognise the threat of Stalin’s ambitions in central and eastern Europe. By allowing the Russians to have such a commanding military position in Europe when the war ended in 1945 the seeds were sown for the ‘Cold War’ of the coming decades. The greatest failure of the alliance from Churchill’s perspective was the situation of Poland after the end of the war - it remained within the political orbit of the Soviet Union for many years as a result of the post-war settlement. It seems, however, that even the United States could not have forced Stalin to change his mind without starting a new war. The Russians were determined to ensure that in eastern Europe governments would be closely controlled by Moscow, as much for defensive reasons as ideological ones. There is no doubt that the alliance was very much a marriage of convenience, a necessity in a wartime emergency. It did, however, succeed in its primary aim - the total defeat of Nazi Germany. Churchill can justly be credited with contributing greatly to the construction of this alliance, which eventually brought the war to an end.
