Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

Originally, American strategy against Japan had, under General Mac-Arthur’s influence, given a major role to the army with supporting roles for the navy and air force. This earlier strategy had taken a form known as “island-hopping” and had envisaged a major role for China and the Chinese Army. This strategy intended to approach Japan from Australia, island by island, landing on each and wiping out the Japanese garrisons on each before going on to the next. Eventually this method would have brought the American Army into contact with China, both across Burma into the southwestern provinces and also along the southeastern coast at the traditional points of entry to China, at Hong Kong and Canton. Once contact with China had been made in this way, the final assault on Japan would be made by using Chinese forces and Chinese bases as major elements in this final assault.

Just as the Teheran Conference was meeting, this Far East strategy was being modified as a result of three factors. In the first place, the success of the United States Navy with carrier-based planes and with amphibious landing operations was showing that an attack on Japan could be made directly from the open Pacific without any need to recapture many of Japan’s island bases beyond those which were needed as bases for our own air-force attacks on Japan and that this could be done without any preliminary contact with the Chinese mainland. At the same time, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese regime of Chiang Kai-shek was hopelessly corrupt and noncombative and could contribute little or nothing to the final assault on Japan’s home islands or even to the elimination of the large Japanese forces on the Asiastic mainland. It was just at this moment that Stalin indicated his willingness to intervene in the war on Japan and to provide Soviet forces for the elimination of the Japanese troops in Asia as soon as the war with Germany was finished. As American faith in China’s ability to overcome the Japanese forces on the Asiastic mainland steadily dwindled and their faith in America’s ability to strike a fatal blow at Japan itself from the open Pacific grew, it became increasingly a part of America’s aims to obtain a Soviet commitment to enter the war against Japan in order to overcome the Japanese troops in Asia. This desire, forced on Roosevelt by his military leaders, greatly weakened the President in his negotiations with Stalin, since Roosevelt could not be adamant on Russia’s position in eastern Europe, or even in eastern Asia, if he was seeking to obtain a Soviet commitment to go to war with Japan.

At Teheran, Stalin was chiefly motivated by an intense fear of Germany and a desire to strengthen the Soviet Union along its western border as protection against Germany. Apparently, this fear was so great that Stalin did not want Germany to go Communist after the war, possibly from fear that such a change would strengthen it. Instead, he demanded, and obtained, Polish frontiers on the Curzon Line and the Oder-Neisse Line and won acquiescence for his rather moderate plans for Finland. The latter included the 1940 frontier, a Soviet naval base at Hangö or Petsamo, reparations to Russia, and a complete break with Germany.

The British were generally unsuccessful in obtaining their desires at Teheran. They hoped to postpone Overlord and the projected campaign to reopen the Burma Road, shifting the Burma equipment instead to the Aegean, but were forced to accept a May 1944 target date for Overlord , while Stalin emphatically vetoed any Turkish, Aegean, or Balkan projects. Stalin and Roosevelt did authorize Churchill to negotiate with Turkey in an effort to persuade that country to go to war on Germany, but no one had much hope that these efforts would be successful, and Roosevelt and Stalin generally opposed them for fear they might delay Overlord .

Roosevelt was mostly concerned with military questions at Teheran. Having fixed a date for Overlord , he announced his decision to give the supreme command of that operation to Eisenhower. On the same day, as a result of Stalin’s announcement that the Soviet Union would go to war with Japan as soon as Germany was beaten, he made the decisive shift in Far East strategy from the Chinese approach to the Pacific approach to Japan, leaving the Japanese Asiastic forces to Russia rather than to the Chinese, and decided to allow the Burma campaign to languish. At the same time, he asked Stalin for the use of heavy-bomber bases in European Russia and in the Siberian Maritime Provinces. The Siberian bases were to be used against Japan, but never came into action because Stalin was reluctant and because the rapid American advance across the Pacific gave the United States substitute bases, especially on Okinawa. The bases in European Russia were to have been used for a “shuttle-bombing” technique by which American heavy bombers would fly from England to Russia, and return, bombing Germany on both trips. The technique was used several times but could not be continued because the Russians did not provide sufficient antiaircraft protection for the eastern bases, with the result that the German Air Force bombed American planes on the ground with relative impunity and heavy losses.

The Teheran Conference reached important conclusions regarding Iran and Yugoslavia. A joint declaration was signed and issued by which the three Powers agreed to maintain the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran. This was regarded as a victory for the Anglo-American cause, since Russian intrigues in Persia had been threatening its independence and integrity since the days of the czars and had been particularly objectionable since the Anglo-Soviet military occupation of the country in August 1941. This occupation had been undertaken to force the expulsion of about seven hundred German agents and technicians, and was justified under the Soviet-Persian Treaty of 1921. That treaty permitted Russia to send troops into Persia if it were ever threatened by other forces. As the Russians occupied the northern portion of the country, the British occupied the south. Iranian public opinion was sullenly submissive. The assembly accepted an Allied demand that the German, Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian legations be expelled, and a week later the shah abdicated in favor of his son, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi. On January 29, 1942, Britain, the Soviet Union, and Iran signed an alliance by which the first two promised to respect and protect Iran’s integrity, sovereignty, and independence, while Iran gave the two Powers military control over the trans-Iranian trade route until six months after the war ended, and promised as well to sever diplomatic relations with all countries which had broken with the other two signers.

Reorganization and reequipment of the trans-Iranian route under American guidance made it possible to ship to the Soviet Union over this route 5.5 million tons of supplies during the war. These efforts carried a considerable disruption of Iranian life, especially by price inflation and acute food shortages, but the chief disturbance arose from Soviet political actions in northern Iran. The Russians excluded most Iranian officials, and encouraged local separatist and revolutionary forces. On several occasions the United States secretary of state sent inquiries to Moscow about these activities, but never received a satisfactory reply. Thus, the Declaration of Teheran of .December 1, 1943 was a diplomatic victory for the West, for in it Stalin joined with Roosevelt and Churchill in guaranteeing Iran’s independence and integrity.

The Teheran agreement about Yugoslavia was even more significant than the one about Iran, and could not, in any honesty, be called a victory for the West. The South Slav state had been suffering under a brutal Axis occupation since the spring of 1941 and was also split by a civil war between two underground movements which spent more energy fighting each other than they used to fight the Axis. The earlier of these undergrounds, that of the Chetniks, supported the Yugoslav legitimate government now in exile in London; it was led by General Draža Mihajlović, minister of war in the exiled government. The second underground movement, known as the Partisans, was Leftish and republican in its sympathies and was dominated by the Communists led by Moscow-trained Josip Broz, known as Tito.