Chapter 30 (The Division of Europe) Flashcards
When were the Nazis and their allies defeated? (What year did WW2 end?)
1945
The hostility between the Eastern and Western superpowers was the sad but logical outgrowth of what?
Military developments, wartime agreements, and long-standing political and ideological differences.
As the Americans and the British made military victory their highest priority, what did they consistently avoid discussing?
Stalin’s war aims and the shape of the eventual peace settlement.
Why did the US and Britain not try to take advantage of the Soviet Union’s precarious position in 1942?
Because they feared that hard bargaining would encourage Stalin to consider making a separate peace with Hitler.
Who were the “Big Three”?
Winston Churchill (Britain), Franklin Roosevelt (US), and Joseph Stalin (Russia).
What happened at the conference held in the Iranian capital of Teheran in November 1943?
The Big Three met to determine the appropriate military strategy to crush Germany.
What did Churchill argue at the conference in Teheran?
Churchill, fearful of the military dangers of a direct attack, argued that American and British forces should follow up their Italian campaign with an indirect attack on Germany through the Balkans.
Who and what did Roosevelt agree to at the conference in Teheran? Why?
Roosevelt agreed with Stalin that an American-British frontal assault through France would be better. This agreement was part of Roosevelt’s general effort to meet Stalin’s wartime demands whenever possible.
What were the momentous political implications behind Roosevelt’s agreement with Stalin at the Teheran conference?
It meant that the Soviet and the American-British armies would come together in defeated Germany along a north-south line and that only Soviet troops would liberate eastern Europe. Thus the basic shape of postwar Europe was emerging even as the fighting continued.
What was the situation of the war during the Yalta conference in Febuary 1945?
Advancing Soviet armies were within a hundred miles of Berlin. The Red Army had occupied Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, part of Yugoslavia, and much of Czechoslovakia. The temporarily stalled American-British forces had yet to cross the Rhine into Germany.
What was agreed at Yalta?
Germany would be divided into zones of occupation and would pay heavy reparations to the Soviet Union. At American insistence, Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan after Germany was defeated.
What was considered “that Pandora’s Box of infinite troubles”?
Poland and eastern Europe.
The Big Three struggled to reach an ambiguous compromise at Yalta which was?
Eastern European governments were to be freely elected but pro-Russian
After Roosevelt’s death who succeeded him?
Harry Truman
What did Truman demand at the postwar Potsdam Conference of July 1945?
Immediate free elections throughout eastern Europe.
