Churchill placed in a difficult position

Under these circumstances it is not hard to see that the British delegation had no easy task, faced with the vacillations of American policy and Stalin’s firm resolve to make the maximum possible advances in all parts of the world. Thus the British did not receive the immediate support of their natural allies when they proposed the immediate and simultaneous evacuation of Persia by the British and Soviet forces that had occupied the country

< The three delegations get down to work. Stalin is seated second from left at the top, Roosevelt at the right, and Churchill at bottom left, with a cigar.

A Death comments "But why argue about future supplies of cannon fodder, my dear sirs?

I’m quite content with your present ones. ”

V < Eden comments on his Russian opposite number: "Molotov clearly isn’t a devious character. His territorial ambitions aren’t difficult to see.’’

Since August 1941. Similarly-, the Soviet Union succeeded in imposing its attitude about a revision, once peace came, of the Montreux Convention. This had, since July 20, 1936, laid down the law concerning the control of the Turkish narrows.

Therefore Churchill left the Crimea full of forebodings, quite the reverse of his happy mood of the previous October 9, when he landed at Moscow airport. But to the last day of his life he did his best to deny any responsibility for the inexorable process which led to the enslavement ofl 20 million Europeans behind the Iron Curtain. According to Churchill, everything was decided at Yalta during the conference when he was, if one can put it like that, "sandwiched” between Stalin and Roosevelt. In this way he was able to divest himself of his responsibility

In this most unjust settlement of World War II, making Roosevelt shoulder it all. But in view of the documents just quoted, it is impossible to confirm this black and white judgement, and Alfred Fabre-Luce's judgement in L’Histoirc demaquillee.

A Stalin and Roosevelt. The latter, now a very sick man, unwittingly allowed himself to he used as Stalin’s pawn in destroying the strength of the Western alliance.

"Churchill changed tack too late”, seems more correct. All the same, he changed tack a year before Truman.