At four o’clock that afternoon the final plenary session ratified the recommendations agreed after exhaustive argument by the military committee in the morning:
"(a) That we should continue to advance in Italy to the Pisa-Rimini line. (This means that the 68 LST’s which are due to be sent from-the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom for 'Overlord’ must be kept in the Mediterranean until 15th January.)
"(b) That an operation shall be mounted against the South of France on as big a scale as landing-craft will permit. For planning purposes D-day to be the same as 'Overlord’ D-day.
"(c)... that we will launch 'Overlord’ in May, in conjunction with a supporting operation against the South of France..
The military committee reported, however, that they were unable to reach agreement about operations in the Aegean until they received fresh instructions from the President and Prime Minister.
Thus, thanks to Stalin, the Western
Allies had finally agreed on their strategy against Germany in 1944. In military terms Teheran had been Stalin’s conference all the way. Sir Alan Brooke, by now a connoisseur of politicians at war, later recorded his appreciation of Stalin’s qualities:
"During this meeting and the subsequent ones we had with Stalin, I rapidly grew to appreciate the fact that he had a military brain of the. highest calibre. Never once in any of his statements did he make any strategic error, nor did he ever fail to appreciate all the implications of a situation with a quick and unerring eye. In this respect he stood out compared with his two colleagues. Roosevelt never made any great pretence of being a strategist
> i - ajiet published by the United States Information Office gives a condensed version of the Teheran talks. Few countries realised that their frontiers had been realigned and their postwar fates decided.
And left either Marshall or Leahy to talk for him. Winston, on the other hand, was more erratic, brilliant at times, hut too impulsive and inclined to favour unsuitable plans without giving them the preliminary deep thought they required.” It may be that Stalin so strongly urged concentration on "Overlord” at the expense of Italy and the eastern Mediterranean because Russia as a great land power had a natural affinity with America in preferring a massive offensive proceeding along one major axis, in contrast to the British preference for opportunistic, peripheral and relatively small-scale operations. Nevertheless, the decisions taken at Teheran at Stalin’s instigation, by shepherding the Western Allies away from the Balkans and making it less likely than ever that the Anglo-American army in Italy would eventually advance northeastward towards the Danube, also paved the way for the unhindered extension of Russian dominion over Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
World History
