Churchill and international diplomacy 1939-1951

Question 1

How did Churchill view Britain’s international role in WW2?

Answer 1

Churchill saw Britain as a major world power that had entered WW2 to maintain peace and to honour its obligations

• the balance of power had been threatened by German expansion, and after the guarantee to Poland in March 1939 Britain had, as a leading power, a moral obligation to go to war whatever the cost.
• for Churchill, Britain was a great power because of its extensive empire
• Churchill believed that the ‘English-speaking peoples’, the Anglo-Saxon world community including the USA and the dominions in the Empire, had natural bonds and would stand together to defend democracy and freedom

Question 2

Churchill’s view of the Empire

Answer 2

• Churchill believed in the common interests of Britain and the white dominions, and he relied on their wartime support.
  He consulted with statesmen from the dominions and appointed high-ranking military leaders from the dominions. These played a major role in Britain’s military success
• Churchill’s view of the colonies was very different. Though he had agreed to the Atlantic Charter, there were no plans to actually extend its democratic principles to the non-white parts of the Empire.
• The British colonies were expected to provide troops, food and raw materials for the war effort without getting any concessions towards greater self-government
• British rule in India was enforced through the war

Question 3

Churchill and Britain’s role after 1945

Answer 3

The pivotal role that Britain played in standing alone against Hitler in 1940 gave Britain huge prestige. Churchill used this to ensure that Britain played a part in world affairs which was greater than her resources or her contribution to the war effort was really justified.

• Churchill saw the defeat of Japan as bringing about a return to Britain’s major imperial role in south-east Asia. There was no suggestion in his mind that Britain would change its role in Asia or grant independence either to India or to the rich colonies of Malaya and Singapore
• Britain was a leader in establishing the United Nations, and the first meetings of the Security Council and General Assembly were held in London.
• he saw Britain as having a unique position because of its history of involvement in European affairs, its special relationship with the USA and its worldwide Empire.
• Iron Curtain speech - the continuing need of Churchill to dramatise conflict

Question 4

Atlantic Conference

Answer 4

August 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt

Discussed = Atlantic Charter

Question 5

First Washington Conference

Answer 5

December 1941 - January 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt

Discussed = ‘Europe first’ policy for fighting war; establishing a United Nations organisation after the war

Question 6

Quebec Conference

Answer 6

August 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt and Marshall (the leading US general)

Discussed = D-Day set for 1944; war in Far East

Question 7

Tehran Conference

Answer 7

November-December 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin

The first meeting of the Big Three

Discussed = the final strategy for the war against Nazi Germany and its allies; date for the invasion of Northern France

Question 8

Yalta Conference

Answer 8

February 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

Discussed = final plans for the defeat of Germany; post-war Europe; date for United Nations Conference; Soviet Union’s entry in war against Japan

Question 9

Potsdam Conference

Answer 9

July-August 1945, Churchill, Stalin, Truman then Attlee (after Churchill lost the election in Britain)

Discussed = unconditional surrender of Japan; policy for Germany

Question 10

How important a contribution did Churchill make?

Answer 10

• Churchill managed to influence Stalin into agreeing to spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and not to occupy Greece
• The USA shared its major weapon development - the atomic bomb - with Britain

As Britain’s contribution to the war effort was significantly less than either that of the USA or the USSR, these could be seen as major achievements

Churchill attended 16 meetings, Roosevelt 12, Stalin 7

Question 11

Churchill being put in his PLACE during the conferences

Answer 11

• it was made clear to him at the Tehran Conference of 1943 that the USA regarded Britain as a junior partner
• Churchill had not wanted to sign the Atlantic Charter, given Britain’s continuing desire to rule over subject people in its Empire, but had been compelled to do so in order to get US support
• he had also been compelled to accept territorial changes in Poland that went against Britain’s moral obligations. The war was supposed to be in support of its Polish ally but Churchill had to accept Stalin’s annexation of Western Poland
• At Yalta, Churchill had to accept the return of Russian prisoners of war back to the USSR, where it was clear that they would be killed or imprisoned on their return

The sheer amount of travel involved in the conferences and the strain of maintaining unity would have weakened a much younger man. Churchill overestimated his influence with the USA and was forced into appeasing the USSR, but he did achieve a lot given that Britain was ‘punching above its weight’

Question 12

Evidence of a positive relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill

Answer 12

Relations between Britain and the USA in 1939-41 were mixed. On the one hand, Roosevelt would not commit the USA to giving direct aid for Britain but
- Britain was allowed to buy arms and it gained 50 US destroyers

• from March 1941, the Lease-Lend programme gave Britain war materials and credit.
• When Churchill met Roosevelt at Placentia Bay in August 1941 and agreed common principles in the Atlantic Charter, he established apparently warm relations with him.
• Churchill was successful in getting the USA to adopt a ‘Europe First’ policy of defeating Germany before Japan and to accept his Mediterranean Strategy
• the USA contributed enormously to the invasion of northern France in 1944.
• Churchill and Roosevelt corresponded frequently and met together to discuss the war and the post-war settlement

Question 13

Evidence of a tricky relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill

Answer 13

• The 50 US destroyers given to Britain were too old to be of much help
• The USA drove a hard bargain in the Lease-Lend programme, and Britain had to use its gold reserves as a guarantee for Lease-Lend assistance
• Roosevelt was unhappy about delaying the invasion of France and wanted to commit more resources to Japan
• he did not agree to opening another front in the Balkans
• Roosevelt did not share Churchill’s distrust of Stalin
• By 1943, the sheer scale of the Russian war effort convinced the US that Stalin, rather than Churchill, was the key figure in the alliance

Despite the apparent close ties between the two, Roosevelt never visited Britain during the war

Question 14

Stalin and Churchill

Answer 14

• Churchill put aside his dislike of communism to welcome Stalin as an ally in 1941, but he never entirely trusted him
  In June 1941, as soon as Hitler invaded the USSR, Churchill said ‘If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons’
• From 1943, Churchill was resentful when Roosevelt and Stalin appeared to be on closer terms with each other than with him
• Churchill was worried about Russian desires for expansion and made a deal with Stalin in 1944 to divide Eastern Europe - the so-called Percentages Agreement
• Churchill, by 1944, feared that in defeating Hitler, a dictator who threatened to dominate Europe, Britain had opened the way for another
• Churchill found his relations with Stalin better than expected, they were both anxious to maintain their empires and had limited sympathy for the view that the people they ruled outside their homelands should be allowed to govern themselves

Stalin did not try to take over Greece but in practice, the USSR dominated Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, so Churchill had to accept Russian domination of Eastern Europe

Question 15

Tehran - where it was clear that relations between Roosevelt and Churchill had changed

Answer 15

• Roosevelt refused to meet Churchill privately to decide on a joint policy before the conference
• The USA had now abandoned ‘Europe First’ and were working for the defeat of Japan
• Churchill’s plan of bringing Turkey into the war and setting up a Balkan front was rejected

Question 16

De Gaulle and Churchill

Answer 16

Despite being totally dependent on British goodwill, De Gaulle felt no obligation and relations between him and Churchill were stormy throughout the war.

• Churchill admired De Gaulle but found him very difficult to deal with. He was uncompromising and often uncooperative, and was also disliked by the Americans
• De Gaulle was not a political leader or a high-ranking officer; as well as being the self-proclaimed champion of France, he also saw himself as the natural leader of post-war France, something that Churchill and Roosevelt did not accept
• De Gaulle would not work closely with former Vichy leaders in North Africa which annoyed Roosevelt and embarrassed Churchill

Question 17

Attack on Mers-El-Kebir

Answer 17

1940 - almost 1300 French servicemen were killed when 5 ships were sunk

Question 18

Where was Churchill’s focus after the war?

Answer 18

It remained where it had been in the war:

• a special relationship with the USA (strongest element in British foreign policy and the key to maintaining peace)
• A defence of the Empire
• Greater interest in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean as spheres of influence than in relations with Western Europe - he thought it possible that Britain could maintain a considerable influence in the Mediterranean which would be close to Egypt and the Suez Canal and the links to Britain’s Asian empire and its Australian allies

Question 19

Post-war Germany

Answer 19

• Initially, Churchill was in favour of harsh measures against Germany. However, old fears of building up resentment were also present. Churchill expressed concern at the loss of former German lands to Russia as likely to create resentments which might lead to another war

Question 20

Changing circumstances of 1945-6

Answer 20

• it was not clear that the USA would continue involvement in Europe or that the relationship between Britain and the USA was so strong
• the hopes that Stalin might stick to his agreement made at Yalta for free elections in Europe were fading as the Soviet hold on occupied territories strengthened
• The large votes for the communists in Italy and France were a cause for concern.

Churchill offered a rather different policy from that pursued in the war.

Question 21

Churchill’s attitude to post-war Europe

Answer 21

Churchill saw Britain having a major role in a more united and peaceful Europe

• He spoke in favour of greater European unity at Zurich in 1946. He believed in the concept of ‘the European family’ and urged a ‘United States of Europe’
• He agreed with the establishment of the Council of Europe in 1949, with 800 influential Europeans meeting to establish a forum for co-operation

Question 22

Problems with Britain being part of the Anglo-American group, the Commonwealth and Empire group and Western Europe

Answer 22

• in all 3 groups there were those who did not want Britain to dominate
• Post-war Britain was struggling economically and the defence costs of being such a key player in the world were very high
• Churchill himself did not really favour much more than a loose association of European nations affirming shared values
• In any case, Churchill did much to establish the view that Europe was divided by an ‘iron curtain’. European unity was very much in the context of Britain’s world role and was confined to Western Europe
• within the Commonwealth, there was resentment about British dominance and a desire for independence
• Britain resented the French surrender in 1940 and France remembered the sinking of the French fleet by Britain. Many French people had supported the Vichy regime and de Gaulle and his supporters had not been on good terms with Churchill
• Thus, Churchill saw the limitations of relying too much on Europe. He did not advocate joining post-war European organisations such as the European Coal and Steel community.

Question 23

The Iron Curtain speech

Answer 23

March 1946 - Fulton, Missouri

Question 24

What was the significance and concept of the speech?

Answer 24

• it helped to foster the idea of an impossible barrier between the USSR and the West
• thus, it worsened relations between Russia and the west and encouraged the view that negotiations with the USSR would achieve little because of the ‘curtain’ between Communist dictatorship and Western democracy
• the speech also reinforced Stalin’s belief in Western hostility towards the USSR
• Stalin’s response shows that he thought the West still did not understand the need for Soviet security, despite the massive losses that the USSR had endured in the war

Question 25

The nature of the speech

Answer 25

• the speech also referred to Churchill’s admiration for the valiant people of Russia
• it said that Stalin did not desire war

The speech did not reflect the true situation at the time:

• Berlin was divided between four powers and was not completely under Soviet control. It was run by a joint commission
• Yugoslavia was not totally dominated by the USSR
• Czechoslovakia was not under total Communist control in 1946
• though the Red Army was a powerful influence, the total domination of eastern Europe was not complete in 1946
• There was, as Stalin said, no acknowledgement that the USSR might have had real defence concerns in its desire to put a barrier between itself and the West

This is not to say, however, that it was untrue that Russian policy was intent on creating a bloc of satellite states and that it had little respect for democratic elections that might threaten this

Question 26

Reactions to the speech

Answer 26

• In the USA, opinion at the time was not universally favourable to the speech and some newspapers were critical (the Chicago sun newspaper called it ‘poisonous’)
• US policy was not transformed by the speech
• it was delivered at a time when there was considerable approval for a return to peace and gratitude for the sacrifices of the USSR
• the speech did not in itself bring about the Cold War. Anti-communist pressures in the USA had been building up beforehand