246. Shaping the Post-War Wold at The Yalta Conference
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Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Patrick Bishop. Well, 40 years ago, the big three who had fought the war against Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, sat down to finalize the shape of a peace that was getting closer with every passing day.

The meeting, in the first week of February 1945, took place in the Crimean resort of Yalta. According to one historian, never before in history had the spoils of war been subject to such scrutiny nor laced with such brooding drama.

Well, those words were spoken by our guest today, Charles Milton, the author of many books, but among them the best account you're likely to read of this momentous gathering. That book is Checkmate in Berlin, a fantastic read which you should all go out and buy immediately. Yelta was truly one of the most ruthless applications of realpolitik the world has ever seen. Yet at the same time, it was a fantastically theatrical occasion,

In that theatre was a great deal of symbolism that would illustrate the realities of the post-war world, one in which the principles that Britain and America had fought to defend were in many cases notably absent.

Well, first of all, welcome to the podcast, Charles. You're an old hand here. We've been lucky enough to have you on before. Well, thanks for having me back on. I'm delighted to be here. Well, no, sorry. We're the ones who are grateful in this case, I think. But I want to concentrate really today on

on what I think our listeners will find most fascinating, which is the event, that theatricality that I talked about, but theatricality that has real content and real symbolism in it. And you describe it so beautifully. But there's much for a writer, particularly one of your talents, to get their teeth into, isn't there, in those seven days by the Black Sea? Now, the book opens with a really enthralling cinematic description of

of the arrival of two of the big three, Roosevelt and Churchill, in the Crimea and their journey in a motorcade in two Packard limos down the mountains through the dusk to Yalta.

Tell us about that and why you set the scene so beautifully there. Can you do a ghetto for us here on air? Well, this really was a piece of major international theatre. The big three are meeting. They met the previous year in Tehran, November 1943. But now it's February 1945. The Allies know they're going to win the war. It's just a question of time before Nazi Germany is defeated. And so they decide to meet again. And this meeting...

Their goal is little short of spectacular. They are going to plan the architecture of the post-war world. Everything's up for grabs. This is the spoils of war being divvied out between the three of them.

And for observers sort of watching on the sidelines, this is going to be the most wonderful occasion to see these three all-powerful men together in the same room, dividing up the world between them. So really a really fascinating moment. And the observers, many of them wrote letters and diaries describing the experience.

extraordinary both clashes, but also just the debates really between the three of them and the difference in tone, the difference in language, and the mastery of that each one would try and be scoring points off the other one between the big three, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt.

In the way that Stalin arranges his guests to be accommodated and in various other ways as well, there's quite a lot of subtle signaling going on, isn't there? I mean, in the interim, since the three got together, the balance of power, certainly on the Allied side, has shifted quite considerably, hasn't it? So...

in the beginning, Churchill still, because it's Britain's war at that point, the Americans are coming into it, you know, they need a certain amount of direction, but the balance of power of status, et cetera, has shifted quite dramatically by now, hasn't it? So just tell us a bit first about how that's reflected. First, the accommodations. I mean, they put Churchill's

Churchill, perfectly nice, but it's not perhaps the prime location, is it, given that he thinks he's the top man? I mean, you know his reality, but he still acts and behaves like it's sort of, you know, he's in charge. Well, Stalin's dictating everything, really, because, you know, Roosevelt and Churchill, they didn't particularly want to go to Yalta, which was, you know, at the

back end of the Caucasus. You know, they wanted to meet in the Mediterranean, but Stalin was actually terrified of flying and simply refused to meet anywhere else. You know, Malta was suggested, Cyprus was suggested. Stalin said, no, it's Yalta. So they arrive here and you're right. The British delegation gets put into this villa, the Villa Vorontsov,

You've got to remember that Yalta is in ruins at this point. It's been completely despoiled by the German army. It's a terrible place to be. The weather's filthy in winter as well. And so the British find themselves in this sort of decaying palace,

really unsuitable. It's sort of one working lavatory for every 150 people there. The Americans fare rather better. Stalin is wary and respectful of Roosevelt and gives him a rather nice palace, the Livagia Palace.

which is also going to be when most of the meetings are held. Of course, Roosevelt is in a wheelchair. He can't get around very easily. So this is also another reason why the Americans are in this big palace where the meetings will be. And Stalin himself is in this villa, the Koretz Villa, which was actually owned by Yusupov. Now, Yusupov was the aristocrat who many of your listeners will remember was the one that actually did in Rasputin. Why Stalin chosen this for himself? Well, it's got an underground bunker with about

three meters of concrete above it. So he knows that he's going to be safe there. You know, the others might get bumped off, but he's not going to be. So they're in their three villas, but they're going to meet every day in the Lavardia Palace. And they're going to sit around this round table in this rather drafty room. As I said, it's freezing in Yalta in winter. And they are there going to discuss...

as I say, who gets what. So this is the sort of set piece theater. If you like this, everything is going to take place inside this room. And Stalin is the perfect host, isn't he? I love that story you told about how he drops in on Roosevelt. He does a sort of round of the, of the big men starting with Churchill. And he moves on to Roosevelt. And,

And Roosevelt goes through one of his little rituals, which is to mix some martinis for his guests, which he does himself. And then he sort of says, this is my martini recipe. One thing that's missing, of course, is a lemon. You really need a lemon to make a perfect martini.

And the next thing that happens, on the following day, there's a bang on his door, knock on his door, and a man arrives with an entire lemon tree covered in lemons. Stalin has ordered a lemon tree to be uprooted and brought to Yalta so that Roosevelt can mix his perfect martinis. And then there's another telling little story in that encounter, isn't there, which sort of signals that the...

old alliance or not so old alliance between Roosevelt and Churchill is by no means unbreakable or unnegotiable. Tell us that story about how FDR lets Stalin know that he's not necessarily going to automatically side with the Brits. This is a story, of course, about the 50,000, the joke, a supposed joke made at Tehran by Stalin that when the war was over,

how they would deal with the Germans. This is something that's absolutely fascinating, is that one senses that Roosevelt is always trying to get one up on Churchill and sort of become best mates with Stalin. And yeah, you're right that Stalin at Tehran had made this quip that he says, once the war's over, we should get 50,000 German officers and shoot them in cold blood.

And Churchill is absolutely appalled by this. He's horrified. He storms out of the room and says, you know, the British will never sign up to something like this. It's a appalling atrocity. And Roosevelt now at Yalta revisits that joke and says, you know, you know, Joseph Stalin, that joke about the 50,000. Maybe we shouldn't shoot 50,000, but let's go for 49,000.

And again, this horrifies Churchill. And as you say, it's one way of Roosevelt showing that actually he's very happy to go along with Stalin and buddy up to Stalin often at Churchill's expense. And it should be said that Churchill...

feels already at Tehran. He felt a sense of despair. There's rather a wonderful quote that he says. He says, there I sat with a great Russian bear on one side of me, paws outstretched, and on the other side, the great American buffalo. And between the two sat the poor little English donkey.

And that really, I think he, Churchill, by the time he gets to the Yalta conference, he realizes that the power of the British Empire and the power of Great Britain is slipping through his fingers. And there's very little he can do. The two coming powers in the world are going to be America and the Soviet Union. And so, you know, Roosevelt and Churchill are the big boys at Yalta.

That's right, because his agenda is very much at odds, isn't it, with the Americans by this point, or very much at odds, but there's certainly significant divergences in it. And perhaps the most notable would be the first one, which is, as always, he's looking out for Britain, and not just Britain, but Britain and its empire. So number one on his agenda is to preserve the empire, but that's not something that sits easily with Reinhardt.

Roosevelt or indeed any of the Americans, is it? Absolutely not. I mean, Roosevelt was no fan of the British Empire. And again, there's another extraordinary aside that he makes to Stalin at one point. He suggests that him and Stalin decide the future of India without Churchill being involved. So, you know, this is

constantly going on. He's trying to create this little alliance between him and Stalin at the cost of his friendship with Winston Churchill. So we'll get onto the meat of the conference. It goes on basically for a week, doesn't it? And by day, they're sitting down and trying to thrash things out. And by night, they're feasting endlessly

with these extraordinary Russian bankers. We're going to come on to that later, because I think that's fascinating. It's worth just setting the scene, because I don't want people to think there are just three people in the room. This conference is on an absolutely monumental scale. So when Roosevelt and Churchill fly into Yalta, they fly in with 750 advisors, bureaucrats, generals, you name it,

they bring them with them. But not only that, they're really worried that there'll be nothing in Yalta when they get there, that they're going to get into these palaces and there's nothing there. So they bring absolutely everything with them. They bring their own crockery, their own cutlery, their own, they bring pepper pots and sugar bowls. Churchill arrives with a huge,

huge cases of 1928 Verve Clico champagne, just in case there's no champagne there. And he also brings a huge quantity of whiskey as well, because as he says, he's worried about disease in the Altona. He said, whiskey, of course, is good for typhus and deadly on lice.

So this is, to give some idea of the theatre, it's not just the big three. This is all the big advisors in America, in London, they've flown in for this massive conference. And as you say, in that wonderful quote, it was about the scrutiny. I mean,

This is done under the eyes of some of the great professional diplomatists on the Western side, and hence you get these wonderful accounts of it. I'm thinking particularly of Chips Bowler, the great American diplomat, and Sir Alexander Cadogan, head of the Foreign Service on our side, and both of whom were brilliant observers. And in the case of Cadogan...

you know, very waspish and came up with some wonderful lines about... Let me just give a one-liner because it's very good. He says that he feels that Churchill is often under par and he says this might be on account of the bucketfuls of Caucasian champagne he keeps drinking. So once he got through that 1928 Verve Clicquot, he moved on to the Caucasian stuff. LAUGHTER

Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, we all know he had a massive consumption, but I think even he must have been daunted by what was on offer. Just on the champagne front, I always...

think of Churchill as being a Paul Roger rather than a Verve Clicquot man. Maybe he didn't mind what I asked. It is true that, but the official records show that it was Verve Clicquot 1928, a fine year for champagne, as of course you all know. And so yeah, they had plenty to drink all the way through the conference. Now let's get down to what was actually on the table here. So I've said what, you know, Churchill's number one priority, I suppose, is the preservation of the empire.

He's begun to understand that's a lost cause, but perhaps number two would be what we went into the war over, us and France. That was to recreate pre-war democratic Poland. That's why we declared war on Germany. Now, what chance is there of that happening in these circumstances?

So the issue of Poland, as you say, was a very, very important one. And it dominated many of the sessions at Yalta. And there was a huge wrangling over what was going to happen to Poland. As you say, Churchill wanted a free and democratic Poland at the end of the war. You know, Britain, as you say, had gone into war over Poland, and of course, had hosted the Polish government in exile in London throughout the course of the war. You know, in 43 or 44, Stalin had

set up his own alternative government in exile of communist Poles. And he wanted them to run Poland at the end of the war. And Stalin also wanted the borders of Poland to shift dramatically because he wanted to basically do a land grab. He wanted to take a great chunk of eastern Poland and then move the borders west so that Germany was going to lose a whole load of territory, which would become the new Poland.

And one thing I found fascinating over the whole debate over Poland is it gives you some idea of how brilliant Stalin was at turning Churchill's wonderful turns of phrase to his own advantage. So Winston Churchill at one point turns to Stalin and says, for me, Poland, the future of Poland is a matter of honour.

And Stalin looks at him and says, well, it may be a matter of honor for you, Mr. Churchill, but for the Soviet Union, for me, it's a matter of life or death. And so he was very, very good at constantly undercutting Churchill and rather deflating these rather lofty phrases that Churchill liked to come out with. And this is why I think many of those watching on the sidelines, as you say, all these experienced diplomats and bureaucrats,

suddenly realized that Stalin, who had for too long had been treated in the West as some sort of ignorant peasant, was actually a shrewd and brilliant negotiator and manipulator. Yeah, I think Cadogan made that observation, didn't he? I mean, both Cadogan and Boland, and I think many in the respective American and British teams, were quite appalled at the performance of their chiefs.

So Churchill was rambled on as he was prone to, but even more extensively than normal on this occasion.

going off the point, going into sort of long-winded and sort of high-flown rhetoric. Ditto FDR. He's, of course, very ill at this point. But at various times, he sort of goes off down memory lane to the exasperation of his officials. The one man who stands out as being really on the ball, really knowing what he's after, saying little, but what he does say is to the point, is Stalin. So he's

Wouldn't you say the hands down victor in terms of not just how things play out, but just performatively? I think that's absolutely right. And there's one really fascinating moment. In fact, it's in the memoirs of Charles Bolan, who you mentioned, the American diplomat,

who said that the manner in which Stalin spoke was absolutely fascinating because when he spoke with his own team, he was utterly blunt, completely ruthless and completely to the point. It was like, I want this, this will be done. But when he spoke with his Western allies, he moderated his language. He completely changed his way of speaking. So he'd say things like, I wonder if this might not be possible to do it like this. He was very sort of emollient and anxious to please.

And Bonin saw this as all part of his theatrical mastery of manipulation, that he really knew how to talk to people in different camps and how to get what he wanted. And the other thing, it should be said about Stalin, by the time we get to the Yalta Conference, of course, Stalin is in a position of immense strength because the Red Army is already in control of much of Eastern Europe and Central Europe and Poland. It's on the threshold of entering Nazi Germany.

So Stalin, if you like, is already in control of most of the territories that he really covets for the post-war period. Okay. Well, how fascinating all that was. Do join us after the break and hear what Giles had to tell us next. Welcome back.

So it really does come down to boots on the ground, doesn't it, Giles? You know, you've got the Red Army basically swarming over Eastern Europe. And if you are in control of that territory, when the war ends, it's pretty obvious that you're going to have a commanding voice in what happens there.

And thereafter, now in the case of Germany, this has all pretty much been decided. The fate of Germany, or rather who controls Germany, was sorted out more or less at Tehran. And the division of the spoils there is that the country is going to be divided into four zones of occupation.

USSR, obviously, Britain, obviously, USA, obviously, France, not so obviously, given that France has contributed virtually nothing in military terms to Allied victory. But this is another example of de Gaulle's astonishing chutzpah. Somehow, he's not actually at the Yalta Conference himself, but somehow, he's able to get a deal where France will get its

its own zone of occupation in Germany proper, but also in the capital in Berlin. So tell us something about that, Giles. That's a fascinating aspect, isn't it? It is because Stalin himself did not want France to have any role in really in post-war Europe. He actually said at one point, he said, well, why should France get anything? They opened the gates to the enemy was actually a quote from him. But actually, maybe surprisingly, it was Churchill who became the great champion of France.

partly because he was so worried about a Soviet-dominated Europe that he felt he needed another big country to sort of offset the balance, if you like. And so Churchill insisted that when Germany was divided post-war into, you know, originally three constituent parts and then four, that France should be the fourth member. So France is going to get a slice of

of occupied Germany, and it's also going to get a slice of occupied Berlin. So the city, the capital, like the country, is going to be divided into four parts, as you say, the Soviet Union, Britain, America, and France.

And it's not just the country that's going to be divided. They decide a whole load of stuff about Germany. You know, it's going to be denazified. It's going to be demilitarized. There's going to be war reparations paid. There's going to be the trial of all the senior Nazi criminals. So a lot is decided at both.

both Tehran and at Yalta. And then they sort of, they then place it into the hands of bureaucrats to get down to the nitty gritty of actually dividing up the country. And Patrick, I was in the National Archives and I actually found the map of Berlin that they used to divide up the city. It's fascinating. They were literally there with felt pens and

saying, I want this street. No, I want that street. And of course, the Soviets did very well. They got the entire center of the German capital. So all the main ministries, all the big buildings end up in the Soviet sector. Surprise, surprise. And equally unsurprising is the conditions that the Soviets are insisting on for what happens in the areas they now occupy, i.e. East

Eastern Europe. So there's a sort of rather pious undertaking that all countries freed from Nazi control are going to be guaranteed the right to hold their own free and democratic elections, choose their own governments, etc., etc. But underneath that rather nice sounding formula, there's a sort of

acceptance that Stalin is going to have a sphere of influence over all those countries that the Red Army has just rolled through, where obviously communist ideas and ideals are going to dominate. So that's pretty much bye-bye Poland, isn't it? Tell us how that plays out. Yeah, it is. But I think, again, there's a great example of the sheer naivety of Roosevelt. Because when we look at the Baltic states, which of course the Red Army is now occupying,

that Roosevelt says to Stalin, well, so what about the Baltic states? And Stalin says, well, what we'll do is we'll have a plebiscite and the people will decide, you know, what sort of government they wanted. And Roosevelt says, well, that's a jolly good idea. And as all his advisors are looking at him saying,

does he not realize that any plebiscite run by Joseph Stalin is quite likely to go the way that Stalin wants? So Baltic States, so Poland is another one. The government in exile that Churchill has so loyally supported throughout the war in London doesn't get a look in. It's Stalin's

Soviet-dominated, communist-dominated government that is going to rule Poland and, of course, become effectively a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of influence. And this is going to be repeated right the way through Eastern and Central Europe. Stalin is going to get pretty much everything he wants.

And Stalin has further leverage, doesn't he, in this whole question of Japan. Will Russia go in, or rather will the Soviet Union go in on the American side against Japan? Now, this is something the Americans are very keen on because they're taking very heavy losses in the Pacific region.

And he does make an undertaking there, which is a big prize, isn't it, for the Americans and something they're obviously going to be very accommodating towards him in other departments if he comes across with this undertaking. This is really important because although the war in Europe, you know, it is inevitable that Nazi Germany is going to be defeated. The war in the Pacific theater is incredible.

incredibly brutal in its cost in American lives is tremendous. And so, like we said at the beginning, you know, each of the three come with a sort of shopping list of what they hope to get out of Yalta. And for Roosevelt, yes, the getting Soviet support for the war against Japan and the potential invasion of Japan, you know, Operation August Storm, this idea that they're going to pour troops into the Japanese mainland. Well, Roosevelt really wants Soviet help.

And you're right that Stalin agrees. Of course, his agreement comes with a pretty heavy price. He wants huge territorial gains out of this. So he wants lots of the islands that have been grabbed by Japan, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands and everything. They're going to fall into the Soviet pot.

at the end of the war. But Roosevelt does get what he wants on paper, at least from Stalin. And he also has another thing on his shopping list, which is he wants the Soviets to become full members of the United Nations, this body that is going to be formed in 1945 as to be sort of the world's policeman to ensure that a conflict like the Second World War can never happen again. And happily for Roosevelt...

Stalin also signs up to that. So Roosevelt thinks he's doing pretty well. He's got two of the big things he wants. He's got Stalin's tick next to both of those. Yeah. What a return to the actual event itself. And I was particularly struck by the banqueting, which I think...

Our listeners will be fascinated to hear. It is absolutely staggering to see, read the lavishness of the menus, the oceans of booze that irrigated the proceedings. And just to share the amount of time these things took. It must have been...

probably more exhausting to when you were supposed to be relaxing at the end of the evening than it was to negotiate during the day. I don't know how they did it. I mean, each of the leaders decided they were going to host a banquet. And of course, this was a great moment for one-upmanship. You know, Stalin holds his banquet and Churchill thinks, right, he had, you know, 15 courses at his banquet. I'm going to have 20 courses at mine. They were

astonishing for their lavishness, for their luxurious foods that were flown in, caviar, turkeys, God knows what. They really were 20 courses, 30 courses with one of the banquets were 45 vodka toasts. I mean, how on earth do you do business after drinking 45 shots of vodka? There's some wonderful moments at these banquets. There's one that

at Roosevelt's banquet, in fact, that Stalin had brought along a few of his team. And there's one repulsive looking individual sitting at the end of the table. He was fat. He was florid faced. And he had these little, tiny little round spectacles.

And Roosevelt turns to Stalin and says, who's that one down at the end of the table? And of course, it transpires that this is Lavrentiy Beria, the grotesque head of the NKVD, which will become the KGB, who's a serial murderer and rapist, thoroughly repulsive individual. But you know what Stalin's answer is? It's absolutely rather brilliant. When Roosevelt says, who's that one down there? He says, oh, that one. That's our Himmler. Ha ha.

You said he did have a black sense of humor, Stalin, didn't you? Yeah, he did. Anyway, there's some wonderful moments in these dinners. I mean, there's one moment where Stalin offers a toast to the interpreters, because, of course, everything is hinging on these rather nervous interpreters. And Churchill's interpreter, Arthur Burr, who's

incredibly nervous at having to translate Churchill's lofty phrases into Russian instantaneously, which is not easy. And at one moment, Stalin says, I think we should all drink yet another vodka toast, but this time to the interpreters who've performed so well. And at which point Churchill stands up and roars out, interpreters of the world unite, you've nothing to lose but your audience, you know, which Stalin thinks is absolutely wonderful, chalkers for about five minutes after that.

So yeah, they're great moments, but they take their toll. They're punishing these banquets. And of course, I think we should mention, you did mention at the beginning that Roosevelt was ill, but Roosevelt was not just ill, Roosevelt was dying. He had a terrible congestive heart condition. And of course, he would be dead within a few months of the Yalta Conference. And at one point, he was so ill

after one of the banquets that he had to have his meetings in bed. So the others filed into his bedroom and sort of sat on the edge of his duvet and conducted their meeting there. So, you know, this was a punishing for everyone, especially for Rizal, who's flown in all the way from America to come to this conference. That is a lot,

for someone who's dying of heart failure, you know, to take on board. It ends on a pretty high note of optimism, doesn't it, Giles? Churchill says, I think at some point, there was a time when the marshal, i.e. Stalin, was not so friendly towards us. And he finishes with a typical rhetorical flourish. He says, the fire of war has burned up the misunderstandings of the past. We feel we have a friend whom we can trust. And

And I think that was not a kind of moment of sentimentality. It seems to be shared by even the professionals who were there. Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's great advisor, confidant, who really was a shrewd observer, not someone to get carried away. By the moment, he agreed with that. Yet...

Another way of looking at it is that it's the start of the Cold War, isn't it? You're right. And actually, that Harry Hopkins, I've got his quote, and it is an interesting one, because like you say, he was incredibly close to Roosevelt, so close that he lived in the White House with Roosevelt. And he said on the last day of the Yalta Conference, we really believed in our heart

that this was the dawn of the new day we'd all been praying for and talking about for so many years. We were absolutely certain that we'd won the first great victory of the peace. And by we, I mean all of us, the whole civilized human race. So most of the players at the outer conference believed that this was the dawn of a new era, that the Second World War was coming to an end and a new and more hopeful world was going to be coming into being, sort of like the phoenix

rising from the ashes that a new democratic world was going to be built.

And it was only a very few of the senior people there who realized that this was not the case. This was not to be celebrated at the outer conference. And there are two notable examples. One is Avril Harriman, who was Roosevelt's ambassador to Joseph Stalin. And the other one was Archibald Clarke Kerr, who was Churchill's ambassador to Joseph Stalin. Both of them knew Stalin very well, intimately. They'd been there for several years in Moscow.

They'd been seeing Stalin on an almost daily basis, and they did not trust him. And they believed that both Churchill and Roosevelt had been totally duped by the masterful performance of Stalin at Yalta. Giles, fast forwarding to the present day, we've got the prospect soon of a meeting between newly elected President Trump,

Vladimir Putin. Do you have any misgivings about that? Do you feel any sense that might be a mini Yalta with another display of real politic in which Ukraine might find itself in the rule of Poland?

Yeah, I think it's absolutely terrifying, the prospect of a one-to-one Putin-Trump meeting, partly because the people we're talking about in 1945 at Yalta, these were many of the diplomats and bureaucrats working there. They were giants on the world stage. They knew what they were doing. They were brilliant at foreign policy and politics.

you know, Trump is just a pygmy in comparison to them. It's deadly. The banquets won't be quite so good. He'll probably bring his McDonald's along. There certainly won't be any alcohol because he doesn't drink. But I do fear that Putin will walk all over him and come away with exactly what he wants. I don't think Trump properly cares at the end of the day that much about Ukraine. If it doesn't serve American interests, then why should he care? Yes, well, we could talk all day about that. But, uh,

I think we should end it there on what a fabulous description you've given us of that event, not just the theatricality of it that we've spoken about, but also its incredible import which we live with today. So thanks once again, Giles. Listeners, go out and buy not just Checkmate in Berlin, but if you buy any of Giles' books, you're in for a treat.

Thank you very much indeed. Thanks for having me on again. Okay, that's it from me. Now, do keep an ear out for some of our special episodes which we produce while we're in Ukraine. They'll be coming out every couple of days over the next couple of weeks. So well worth a listen. Stay tuned. Goodbye. Goodbye.