February 4, 1945: the Yalta conference or the memory of the absent

Text by: Olivier Favier

"The fact that we were not invited invited me undoubtedly offended, but did not surprise me at all." The narcissistic wound of General de Gaulle, a great absent from the Yalta conference, which he expresses here in his War Memories, is undoubtedly for a lot in the memory of this event in France. Paradoxically, it is much less known in the three countries that participated.

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At the beginning of 1943, in the second winter of the German offensive in the East, it seemed not only to trample, but experienced a major setback in Stalingrad . Consequently, the initiative changes sides, and if a doubt remains on the outcome of the war, the question begins to relate to the modalities of victory. When will it happen? What will be the material and human cost? Who will benefit the most? What will the world free from Nazism and its allies look like?

For the first time in its history, the destiny of Europe is mainly in the hands of powers which are totally or partly foreign to it and see it as a territory in which to exercise their influence. "The Big Three" forms what is called "The Grand Alliance" which some would prefer to describe as strange.

“The Big Three”: British, American and Soviet decide the future of the world

The Grand Alliance brings together the first capitalist power in the world, the United States, the first communist power, the USSR, and the first colonial power, the United Kingdom, the only enemy of Nazi Germany at the start of the war to have fought it until the end of the conflict. Insular, faithful to its principle of international policy aimed at avoiding any hegemony on the continent - France yesterday, or Germany today -, London is working to bring Paris back to the negotiating table, also aware of not weighing very heavily in what will become the bipolarization of the world.

This is being prepared in three stages: during the Tehran Conference, from November 28 to December 1, 1943, a principle of dismemberment of Germany, of the division of Europe into zones of influence, of the displacement of Poland from east to west and the organization of a landing in Normandy for May 1944. Churchill represents the United Kingdom there, Stalin the Soviet Union and Roosevelt the United States.

At the Postdam Conference, a year and a half later, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, the war has been over in Europe for more than two months, the Japanese capitulation is only a matter of weeks away. Roosevelt died and was replaced by Truman, Churchill leaves his hand to Labor leader and new Prime Minister Attlee during a conference on July 26.

France is no longer a "great Nation"

Between the two, from February 4 to 11, 1945, the Yalta Conference was held, by far the most famous in France, where it became the symbol of national humiliation. From Tehran, the creation of a provisional government, three days before the Normandy landings, the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 and the end of the French state of Vichy in the same month, restored France to sovereignty and a place official among the Allies.

However, the collaboration and its secondary role in the offensive on the Western front made it a minor and long ambiguous partner, which was sanctioned by its absence in Yalta. General de Gaulle comes out deeply wounded and the same scenario is repeated in Postdam, for fear of France reopening the discussion on all the decisions taken in his absence.

The black legend of Yalta was largely built around the book of the historian and Gaullist politician Arthur Conte, under the programmatic title: Yalta or the sharing of the world: February 11, 1945 , published in 1965. And everyone remembers the color photograph of the three smiling leaders, in front of the Livadia Palace, in the Crimea.

What really happened in Yalta

This melodramatic vision is largely wrong. In addition to the three mentioned, other bipartite conferences took place, and just before Yalta again between the British and the Americans in Malta, or in October 1944 between the British and the Soviets in Moscow. If the sharing of the world is played out over these meetings, it is the fruit of a long process from which the French are excluded, in fact, since the catastrophe meeting of the Allied Supreme Council in Tours in June 1940.

Does this mean that this conference basically plays only a small role in the settlement of the conflict? No, of course. But a good part of the decisions on the future of Europe were already taken in October in the absence of Roosevelt, when Stalin deceived Churchill while pretending to accept a joint control of Yugoslavia or Hungary, brought to join, as we know, the future Eastern bloc.

In Yalta, Roosevelt is sick - he dies two months later - and his main objective is to ensure the entry into war of the Soviets against Japan. Stalin promises that the USSR will go to war against Japan 90 days after the defeat of Germany. He keeps his promise, invading Manchuria two days after the Hiroshima bomb.

The victory of " Uncle Joe "

It is still in Yalta that the division of Germany into three zones is confirmed - Churchill succeeding thereafter in imposing a fourth for France - and the displacement of the Polish borders towards the East, as well as its cutting ruled by a puppet communist government. Stalin claimed that his military objectives were primarily Czechoslovakia and Hungary when he actually marched on Berlin.

If Churchill succeeds in slowing down the Soviet ambitions on the reparations due by Germany - it is not a question of repeating the errors of 1919 -, Stalin emerges great winner of a conference where few things are defined with precision. Roosevelt, who still believes he can maintain the Soviet-American alliance beyond the conflict, has failed to appreciate the extent of the cynicism of the man he calls "Uncle Joe".

During all the negotiations, Stalin, who insisted this time on playing at home, lived in a palace which, symbolically, was between those of his two allies. It was also, until the Revolution of 1917, the property of Prince Yusupov, master builder of the assassination of Rasputin.

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