Teheran Conference

Teheran conference, 28 November-1December 1943. The first of the ‘Big Three’ wartime meetings. It was here that Churchill became uncomfortably aware of the extent to which British power was declining in relation to his allies. He had to agree to the earliest possible second front in northern France June 1944). Churchill did what he could to protect the future of the Polish government in exile, while broadly accepting the drastic post-war movement westward of Poland's frontiers.

From 28 November to 1 December 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Marshal Joseph Stalin met at Teheran, the capital of Iran, to coordinate Western military plans with those of the Soviet Union. Most important of all, the "big three" drew up the essential victory strategy in Europe, one based on a cross-channel invasion called Operation Overlord and scheduled for May 1944. The plan included a partition of Germany, but left all details to a three-power European Advisory Commission. It granted Stalin's request that Poland's new western border should be at the Oder River and that the eastern one follow the lines drafted by British diplomat Lord Curzon in 1919. The conference tacitly concurred in Stalin's conquests of 1939 and 1940, these being Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and a slice of Finland. Stalin reiterated his promise, made in October 1943 at Moscow, to enter the war against Japan upon the defeat of Germany, but he expected compensation in the form of tsarist territories taken by Japan in 1905. On 1 December 1943, the three powers issued a declaration that welcomed potential allies into "a world family of democratic nations" and signed a separate protocol recognizing the "independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity" of Iran.

Bibliography

Eubank, Keith. Summit at Teheran. New York: Morrow, 1985.

Mayle, Paul D. Eureka Summit: Agreement in Principle and the Big Three at Teheran, 1943. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987.

Sainsbury, Keith. The Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and Chiang-Kai-Shek, 1943: The Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

The Teheran Conference was the first summit meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. It met from November 28 through December l, 1943, in Teheran, Iran. The general purpose of the conference was to strengthen the cooperation between the Big Three allies in the conduct of the Second World War and to determine the outlines of a postwar global order. Though the Western allies - particularly Roosevelt - sought to conciliate the Soviet dictator, the conference was marked by underlying tension over differences among the allied leaders. The major agreement reached was the decision to launch the long-awaited invasion of Europe (Operation Overlord) as a cross-channel invasion of France in May 1944 (later changed to June). For Stalin, this promise of relief for the Red Army was a major victory. Considerable discussion of the question of Poland's postwar boundaries produced no definitive solution, though there was a consensus that Poland's eastern boundary would be the Curzon line and that Poland would be compensated in the West with territories to be taken from Germany. Stalin successfully pressed for confirmation of Soviet gains as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939. In turn Stalin agreed to engage Japanese forces in the Pacific theater after the defeat of Germany. There was also agreement to cooperate in a postwar United Nations organization to maintain peace. In a separate protocol the Big Three agreed to maintain the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran.

Bibliography

Mayle, Paul D. (1987). Eureka Summit: Agreement in Principle and the Big Three at Teheran, 1943. Newark: University of Delaware Press.

Sainsbury, Keith. (1985). The Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and Chiang-Kai-Shek: the Moscow, Cairo and Teheran Conferences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—JOSEPH L. NOGEE