Yalta Agreement Signed: Allies Divide Post-War Europe

Three men who controlled the fate of half the world’s population sat around a table in a Crimean palace and carved up the postwar order in eight days. The Yalta Conference, concluded on February 11, 1945, produced agreements that would define international relations for the next half-century — and plant the seeds of the Cold War before the current one had ended. Franklin Roosevelt arrived at Yalta gravely ill. He had less than two months to live, though nobody at the conference knew it. Winston Churchill came determined to preserve the British Empire. Joseph Stalin held the strongest hand: the Red Army already occupied most of Eastern Europe, and no amount of diplomatic language could dislodge it. Geography was destiny. The three leaders agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones, demand unconditional surrender, establish the United Nations with a Security Council veto for major powers, and hold "free elections" in liberated Eastern Europe. Stalin also secretly committed to entering the war against Japan within three months of Germany’s defeat, in exchange for territorial concessions in Asia. The agreements were signed on February 11, with all three men smiling for the cameras. The promises about free elections proved worthless almost immediately. Stalin installed communist governments across Eastern Europe within two years, and the "temporary" division of Germany lasted until 1989. Churchill later called Yalta his greatest regret, while American critics accused Roosevelt of giving away Eastern Europe from his deathbed. Yalta didn’t cause the Cold War, but it drew the map that the Cold War would be fought over for the next forty-five years.