Yalta

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• February 1945, Big Three met at an 8 day conference at the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea

• A frail Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of USA and would die 4 months later), a suspicious and sidelined Churchill (Ran UK), and a self-assured Stalin were to form the postwar world order in a secret agreement

• De Gaulle was not invited, on the advice of France's provisional foreign minister George Bidault

• This suited De Gaulle as he distrusted the "Anglo-Saxon" members of the Big Three, and was able to later absolve himself of any unpopular decisions that came out of the meeting

• De Gaulle was considered a difficult ally anyway. Roosevelt referred to him as a 'well nigh intolerable' and Churchill said he was 'vain and even malignant'. This meant that De Gaulle's absence suited 2/3 of the Big Three

• Gist of the Yalta meeting - The former Nazi state was to be weakened by splitting it between the USSR and the West, the German people were to be provided with a subsistence living, what was left of German industry was to be destroyed or confiscated, war criminals were to be prosecuted, and central and eastern European nations were to be given the opportunity to elect representative governments.

• Stalin supported this latter move although he clearly had plans to dominate eastern and central European nations after their liberation

• Yalta agreement was finally published in 1946

• Its terms provoked an outburst of anger in Britain and in the US. It was alleged that eastern Europe (especially Poland) had been betrayed and handed over to communism

• In Britain it was alleged that an unwell and therefore pliable Roosevelt had colluded with a forceful Stalin at Churchill's expense

• This would weaken the negotiating power of the Western allies and Britain's imperial status