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Yalta Conference: Roosevelt, Churchill & Stalin Create a New World Order

The Yalta Conference of 4-11 February 1945 was a meeting of the 'Big Three' Allied leaders: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Russian Premier Joseph Stalin. The conference, held in the Livadia Palace in Yalta in Crimea, decided the fate of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after the expected and imminent Allied victory in the Second World War (1939-45). The decisions taken at the Yalta Conference, although not all enforced, redrew the political map of Europe and Northeast Asia. Western powers thought that Stalin later broke some of the Yalta agreements, particularly regarding free elections in states like Poland, and this perception coloured US-Soviet relations for decades to come as the two states entered the Cold War.

Livadia Palace

Yalta was a fashionable seaside resort and included the 50-room Livadia Palace, one-time residence of Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917). The palace was selected to host the conference and impressed President Roosevelt with its lavish comforts. The purpose of the eight days of meetings, code-named Argonaut, was to thrash out an Allied agreement on what to do with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (and the respective territories these powers had occupied) at the conclusion of WWII. The fighting was not yet over, but Allied victory was no longer a question of if but when.

The three Allied leaders – Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin – considered themselves the legitimate decision-makers for the fate of other nations largely because of the size of the armies they commanded and their successes on the battlefield, at sea, and in the air. Churchill and Roosevelt had already met twice in Malta a few weeks earlier, no doubt to get at least some of their strategy clear before coming face-to-face with Stalin. The three leaders at Yalta were accompanied by a small army of military and diplomatic advisers, around 700 officials in total. Stalin communicated with Roosevelt and Churchill using an interpreter, Vladimir Pavlov, but despite this obvious barrier, relations between the three leaders were friendly, and much champagne and vodka was drunk through several lavish banquets. Despite the disagreements over foreign policy and their inherent ideological differences, the official photographs showed a convivial atmosphere, where the three statesmen were clearly relieved and delighted to be in a position where they were about to achieve victory in the greatest challenge their countries had ever faced. There was one shadow that could not be hidden: Roosevelt was ill at the conference and, according to statements by secretaries and Churchill himself, seemingly distracted and even unprepared. The president died two months after the Yalta Conference.

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