“Churchill spoke of leading Europe’s
people to ‘sunlit plains of peace’ ”
O
f the three leaders at
Yalta, Churchill most
energetically promoted
a ‘Big Three’ meeting.
They had met only once
before, in Tehran in late 1943, since
when the military and political situation
had changed dramatically. “We can
settle ever ything, we three, if we come
together,” exhorted Churchill. His
expectations were high, and he spoke
lyrically of the “broad sunlit plains of
peace and happiness” to which the Allies
could lead Europe’s stricken peoples.
Churchill hoped to agree a common
position with Roosevelt before
confronting Stalin at Yalta. However,
though the president conceded that
their military and political chiefs should
consult in Malta, where the delegations
gathered before flying on to Yalta, he
himself avoided any substantive pre-
conference discussion with Churchill.
He planned to woo Stalin by avoiding
any impression that the Americans and
British were ganging up against him.
Roosevelt’s new coolness wounded
Churchill. The prime minister’s daughter
Sarah Oliver, who accompanied him to
Yalta, recalled that “my father and all
the British party felt a withdrawing of
the former easy understanding” with
the president. Churchill experienced
Roosevelt’s detachment even more
acutely when, only towards the end of
the conference, Roosevelt told him about
his accord with Stalin to secure Soviet
entry into the war with Japan, and asked
Churchill to sign it. He did so against
foreign secretary Anthony Eden’s urging,
arguing that he had no choice if he
wanted to preserve Britain’s status.
Indeed, Churchill’s pre-eminent
objective at Yalta was to protect not onlythe UK’s position as a great power but
also the British empire – a subject about
which he was often more emotional
than logical. Before the conference he
wrote to his wife Clementine of his
“resolve to go fighting on as long as
possible and to make sure the Flag is not
let down while I am at the wheel”.Battling for democracy
Churchill found no support from
Roosevelt, who taunted him about his
imperialist views, suggesting – rightly- that they were anachronistic. Eden
suspected Roosevelt’s motive, remarking
that the president’s desire for decoloni-
sation “was a principle with him, not the
less cherished for its possible advantag-
es... He hoped that former territories
once free of their masters would become
politically and economically dependant
on the United States”. Stalin was amused
by the sparring between Churchill and
Roosevelt, who found it useful as a way
of demonstrating that he and Churchill
were not united. But Churchill would
not be deflected, and secured assurances
that any agreement about trusteeships
for newly liberated colonies would not
apply to British possessions such as Hong
Kong, Malaya and Singapore.
Churchill’s other key objective, for
which he battled hard, was a democratic
future for the countries of eastern
Europe, especially Poland. Stalin was
determined to retain the territories
in eastern Poland occupied by the
Soviet Union following the August
1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. This
required a new eastern border for Poland
that, as Stalin reminded Churchill and
Roosevelt, broadly followed the so-called
‘Curzon Line’ that had been proposed
by Britain’s then foreign secretary Lord
Curzon after the First World War in
a failed attempt to arbitrate in a conflict
between the newly independent Poland
and the Soviets. Stalin proposed that
Poland be compensated with territory
in the west at Germany’s expense,
arguing that the new western border
should be along the Oder and Western
Neisse rivers. Churchill, like Roosevelt,
acquiesced over the Curzon Line. In the
west, where he worried about the effect
of the resulting huge displacement of
people, he accepted the principle but left
details for further discussion.
Winning Stalin’s support for a new,
fully democratic government for Poland
proved even more dif ficult. Churchill
spent hours arguing for a solution that
would not be regarded as a betrayal by
the Polish government in exile in London
and the thousands of Poles fighting on
the Allied side. He and Roosevelt finally
accepted a compromise that they hoped
would deliver a new government and fair
elections. Churchill knew he was taking
much on trust and that the key issue
would be “informing ourselves properly
about what is going on in Poland. All the
reality in this business depends on this”.
Travelling home, Churchill had
some grounds for optimism. The leaders
had signed a Declaration on Liberated
Europe that, if honoured, would
guarantee democratic freedoms in newly
liberated countries. But it was obvious to
him that Britain was no longer the power
it had been when the war began. At the
Te h r a n C on f e r e n c e i n 19 4 3 , C hu r c h i l l
had wryly described himself as “a poor
little English donkey” in between “the
great Russian bear” on one side and “the
great American buffalo” on the other.
At Yalta, the little donkey found
himself even more overshadowed. 5