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The UK-US relations in World War II comprised an extensive and highly complex relationships, in terms of diplomacy, military action, financing, and supplies. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt formed close personal ties, that operated apart from their respective diplomatic and military organizations.
While Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill have thoroughly dominated the popular and scholarly writings, each stood atop a complex decision-making system that guaranteed inputs from military, diplomatic, business and public opinion.
In terms of foreign-policy, Roosevelt for years had developed a system whereby he made all the major decisions. [1] Secretary of State, Cordell Hull was relegated to ceremonial roles. [2] Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. had the loudest voice in financial matters, and was deeply engaged in foreign policy, especially regarding Lend Lease, China, Jews and Germany. Although Roosevelt himself was quite pragmatic about moral issues, the image he presented to outsiders, especially the British, grated on their sensibilities. British foreign minister Anthony Eden told his war cabinet, "Soviet policy is amoral; United States policy is exaggeratedly moral, at least where non-American interests are concerned." [3]
In military affairs, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was headed by Admiral William D. Leahy, a close personal friend of the president for decades. It dealt directly with their British counterparts in a new organization, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, which was based in Washington. Military decisions were made through the joint Chiefs and the combined chiefs, and they issued the orders to the theatre chiefs. The chiefs were in command of all Allied forces in their geographical zone. This was a new concept in military history, one promoted by General Marshall and accepted reluctantly at first by the British. [4] In terms of British-American military teamwork, the key theaters were the Mediterranean and the West European – SHAEF. US general Dwight D. Eisenhower Headed the Mediterranean Theater 1943–44, then moved to SHAEF. [5]
Historians have always paid special attention to the Roosevelt-Churchill friendship. They also have explored how the two men dealt with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator. [6] [7] Roosevelt and Churchill met in person 11 times. They exchanged 1700 cables and letters and they even made some international phone calls. Roosevelt also sent top aides, especially Harry Hopkins and to a lesser extent W. Averell Harriman. [8] Harriman accompanied Churchill to the Moscow Conference in 1942 to explain to Stalin why the western allies were carrying out operations in North Africa instead of opening the promised second front in France. Harriman was appointed as Ambassador to the USSR in 1943. [9]
Churchill ran a coalition government, with all parties represented. He dominated his War Cabinet. Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour party, was Deputy Prime Minister and handled practically all domestic affairs. He did so very quietly, usually backstage. Churchill, like Roosevelt, relied on charisma and a very strong public image, to rally public opinion. Churchill handled all the top foreign policy decisions himself, with his Foreign Minister Anthony Eden taking charge only of lower visibility issues. [10] Churchill made himself Minister of Defence and repeatedly interfered and reshaped and argued with his chiefs of staff. Historians generally agree with the quality of Churchill's wartime leadership, often emphasizing his remarkable success in obtaining American support. Richard Wilkinson, who is more critical than most historians, nevertheless argues:
The British sent two ambassadors to Washington; each achieved very positive reputations for handling American leaders and influencing American public opinion. [12] Lord Lothian served in 1930–40. On his death Lord Halifax took charge, 1940–46. Halifax as Foreign Minister (1938–40) had been a leader of the appeasement movement before 1939, but then reversed himself and took an aggressive anti-Hitler position. The US Ambassador 1938–40 Joseph P. Kennedy was a defeatist who in 1940 warned Roosevelt that Britain was doomed. Roosevelt could not remove Kennedy because he needed Irish support in the major cities in the 1940 election, Kennedy endorsed Roosevelt then retired, to be replaced by low-key Republican John Winant, who did well in London, 1941–46. [13] [14]
After the declarations of war, foreign-policy issues were no longer high on the political agenda. Appeasement was dead in Britain; isolationism was dead in the United States. After the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, foreign-policy was rarely discussed by Congress, and there was very little demand to cut Lend Lease spending. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1. [15]
Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly at Placentia Bay in Newfoundland in August 1941, and issued a policy statement that became the foundation document for the Allies who later joined the war against Germany. A country had to join to gain admission to the United Nations. The Atlantic Charter defined the Allied goals for the post world war. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war—no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people, self-determination; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. Adherents of the Atlantic Charter signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which became the basis for the modern United Nations. The Charter was a powerful propaganda weapon, but Churchill, profoundly committed to maintaining British Empire, claimed it did not apply to British possessions. [16] Churchill's insistence on full control was signaled when he did not bring along his foreign minister Anthony Eden. [17]
The Arcadia Conference was held in Washington, from December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942, bringing together the top British and American military leaders. Churchill and Roosevelt and their aides had very candid conversations that led to a series of major decisions that shaped the war effort in 1942–1943. [18] The decision was made to invade North Africa in 1942, to send American bombers to bases in England, and for the British to strengthen their forces in the Pacific. The Conference established the Combined Chiefs of Staff, headquartered in Washington, which approved and finalized all military decisions. It also created a unified American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) in the Far East; it fared poorly. Finally the conference drafted the Declaration by United Nations, which committed the Allies to make no separate peace with the enemy, and to employ full resources until victory. [19]
At the Quebec Conference, 1943 held in Canada in August 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt and the Combined Chiefs plotted strategy against Germany. They began planning the invasion of France, codenamed Overlord using a report by the Combined Chiefs. They also discussed an increase of the bombing offensive against facilities Germany was using in France and the Low Countries. They decided to continue the buildup of American forces in Britain prior to an invasion of France. Churchill kept drawing attention to the advantages of operations in the Mediterranean theatre. They agreed to use more force to force Italy out of the war, and to occupy it along with Corsica. Military cooperation was close and successful. The Prime Minister of Canada was the host, but no Canadians attended the secret meetings. [20]
From January 14–24, 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill and the Combined Staff met in Casablanca, Morocco. They decided on the major Allied strategy for 1943 in Europe, especially the invasion of Italy and planning for the invasion of France. They blended British and American offensive concepts. [21] At Roosevelt's demand, they agreed on a policy of "unconditional surrender." This policy uplifted Allied morale, but it also made the Nazis resolve to fight to the bitter end. [22] A major problem was to establish a working relationship between the two main French allies, Henri Giraud, the French high commissioner in North Africa, and General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French. Roosevelt strongly disliked de Gaulle, while Churchill championed him. The final decision was to split control of liberated French areas between the two Frenchmen. By 1944, de Gaulle prevailed, but he never forgave Roosevelt and always distrusted Anglo-American collaboration as hostile to French interests. [23]
The Americans spent about $50 billion on Lend Lease aid to the British Empire, the Soviet Union, France, China, and some smaller countries. That amounted to about 11% of the cost of the war to the U.S.. It received back about $7.8 billion in goods and services provided by the recipients to the United States, especially the cost of rent for American installations abroad. Lend Lease aid was usually not dollars that the recipient could use for any purpose. [24] Instead it was supplies and services counted by the dollar value of military and naval munitions as well as civilian supplies such as freighters, oil, food, chemicals, metals, machinery, rent and shipping services. The total given to the British Empire, 1940-45 was $30.0 billion. This includes supplies to India, Australia, and the other dominions and colonies. Russia received $10.7 billion, and all other countries $2.9 billion. [25] The question of repayment came up, and Roosevelt repeatedly insisted the United States did not want a postwar debt problem of the sort that had troubled relations after the first world war. A small fraction of goods that were still useful – such as merchant ships – were returned to the United States. The recipients provided bases and supplies to American forces on their own soil. The cost, including rents, was called "Reverse Lend Lease", that is, aid given to the United States. It came to $7.8 billion overall, of which 86% came from the British Empire. [26] Canada operated a similar program on behalf of Great Britain, and Britain itself operated a similar one for the Soviet Union. In terms of repaying Washington after the war ended, the policy became one of fair shares. In the end, no one paid for the goods it received, although they did pay for goods in transit that were received after the program ended . Roosevelt told Congress in June 1942: [27]
The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the supreme military staff for the United States and Great Britain during World War II. It set all the major policy decisions for the two nations, subject to the approvals of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D Roosevelt. It controlled forces from all the Allied nations in all theaters, including the Pacific, India and North Africa. Representatives of allied nations were not members of the CCS. Instead the usual procedure included consultation with "Military Representatives of Associated Powers" on strategic issues. [28] [29]
Technical collaboration was close. Catalyzed by the Tizard Mission, the two nations shared secrets and weapons regarding the proximity fuze and radar, as well as airplane engines, Nazi codes, and the atomic bomb. [30] [31] [32]
Serious tension erupted over American support for independence for India, a proposition Churchill vehemently rejected. [33] For years Roosevelt had encouraged Britain's disengagement from India. The American position was based on principled opposition to colonialism despite its own colonies in The Philippines, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. [34] The politically active Indian population was deeply divided. [35] One element was so insistent on the expulsion of the British, that it sided with Germany and Japan, and formed the Indian National Army (INA) from Indian prisoners of war. It fought as part of the Japanese invasion of Burma and eastern India. There was a large pacifist element, which rallied to Gandhi's call for abstention from the war; he said that violence in every form was evil. [36] There was a high level of religious tension between the Hindu majority and the Muslims minority. For the first time the Muslim community became politically active, giving strong support for the British war effort. Over 2 million Indians volunteered for military service, including a large Muslim contingent. The British were sensitive to demands of the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, since it needed Muslim soldiers in India and Muslim support all across the Middle East. London used the religious tensions in India as a justification to continue its rule, saying it was needed to prevent religious massacres of the sort that would happen in 1947. The imperialist element in Britain was strongly represented in the Conservative party; Churchill himself had long been its leading spokesman.
On the other hand, Attlee and the Labour Party favoured independence and had close ties to the Congress Party. The British cabinet sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India with a specific peace plan offering India the promise of dominion status after the war. Congress demanded independence immediately and the Cripps mission failed. Roosevelt gave support to Congress, sending his representative Louis Johnson to help negotiate some sort of independence. Churchill was outraged, refused to cooperate with Roosevelt on the issue, and threatened to resign as prime minister if Roosevelt pushed too hard. Roosevelt pulled back. In 1942 when the Congress Party launched a Quit India Movement of nonviolent civil disobedience, the Raj police immediately arrested tens of thousands of activists (including Gandhi), holding them for the duration. Meanwhile, wartime disruptions caused severe food shortages in eastern India; hundreds of thousands died of starvation. To this day a large Indian element blames Churchill for the Bengal famine of 1943. [37] In terms of the war effort, India became a major base for American supplies sent to India, and Lend Lease operations boosted the local economy. The 2 million Indian soldiers were a major factor in British success in the Middle East. Muslim support for the British war effort proved decisive in the British decision to partition the Raj, forming of the new state of Pakistan. [38]
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The Potsdam Conference was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, Republic of China, and other Allied nations of the Second World War with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. The aid was given free of charge on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States.
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held at the Soviet Union's embassy at Tehran in Iran. It was the first of the World War II conferences of the "Big Three" Allied leaders and closely followed the Cairo Conference, which had taken place on 22–26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Although the three leaders arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the Western Allies' commitment to open a second front against Nazi Germany. The conference also addressed the Big Three Allies' relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan, and the envisaged postwar settlement. A separate contract signed at the conference pledged the Big Three to recognize Iranian independence.
The Yalta Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces.
The Atlantic Charter was a statement issued on 14 August 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II, months before the US officially entered the war. The joint statement, later dubbed the Atlantic Charter, outlined the aims of the United States and the United Kingdom for the postwar world as follows: no territorial aggrandizement, no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people (self-determination), restoration of self-government to those deprived of it, reduction of trade restrictions, global co-operation to secure better economic and social conditions for all, freedom from fear and want, freedom of the seas, abandonment of the use of force, and disarmament of aggressor nations. The charter's adherents signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which was the basis for the modern United Nations.
The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949.
William Averell Harriman, better known as Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman, and diplomat. He founded Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, and was the 48th governor of New York, as well as a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1952 and 1956. Throughout his career, he was a key foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidents.
Harold Lloyd "Harry" Hopkins was an American statesman, public administrator, and presidential advisor. A trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before serving as the eighth United States secretary of commerce from 1938 to 1940 and as Roosevelt's chief foreign policy advisor and liaison to Allied leaders during World War II. During his career, Hopkins supervised the New York Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration, which he built into the largest employer in the United States. He later oversaw the $50 billion Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies and, as Roosevelt's personal envoy, played a pivotal role in shaping the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Casablanca Conference or Anfa Conference was held in Casablanca, French Morocco, from January 14 to 24, 1943, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next phase of World War II. The main discussions were between US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Stalin could not attend. Key decisions included a commitment to demand Axis powers' unconditional surrender; plans for an invasion of Sicily and Italy before the main invasion of France; an intensified strategic bombing campaign against Germany; and approval of a US Navy plan to advance on Japan through the central Pacific and the Philippines. The last item authorized the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, which shortened the war. Of all the decisions made, the most important was the invasion of Sicily, which Churchill pushed for in part to divert American attention from opening a second front in France in 1943, a move that he feared would result in very high Allied casualties and not be possible until 1944.
The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945. On 1 January 1942, during the Arcadia Conference in Washington D.C., the Allied "Big Four"—the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China—signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration, and the next day the representatives of 22 other nations added their signatures.
The Persian Corridor was a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Of the 17.5 million long tons of US Lend-Lease aid provided to the Soviet Union, 7.9 million long tons (45%) were sent through Iran.
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers. Its principal members by the end of 1941 were the "Big Four" – the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
The First Moscow Conference of World War II took place from September 29, 1941 to October 1, 1941.
The Second Moscow Conference between the major Allies of World War II took place from August 12, 1942, to August 17, 1942.
The Fourth Moscow Conference, also known as the Tolstoy Conference for its code name Tolstoy, was a meeting in Moscow between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin from 9 October to 19 October 1944.
The percentages agreement was a secret informal agreement between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin during the Fourth Moscow Conference in October 1944. It gave the percentage division of control over Eastern European countries, dividing them into spheres of influence. It is also known as the naughty document, a nickname coined by Churchill himself due to his concerns regarding American reaction to any deal with such strong imperialist undertones, although in reality U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt was consulted tentatively and conceded to the agreement. The content of the agreement was first made public by Churchill in 1953 in the final volume of his memoir. The US ambassador Averell Harriman, who was supposed to represent Roosevelt in these meetings, was excluded from this discussion.
The diplomatic history of World War II includes the major foreign policies and interactions inside the opposing coalitions, the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers, between 1939 and 1945.
The Combined Munitions Assignments Board was a major government agency for the U.S. and Britain in World War II. With Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's top advisor in charge, it took control of the allocation of war supplies and Lend lease aid to the Allies, especially Britain and the Soviet Union.
The third presidential term of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on January 20, 1941, when he was once again inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the fourth term of his presidency ended with his death on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt won a third term by defeating Republican nominee Wendell Willkie in the 1940 United States presidential election. He remains the only president to serve for more than two terms. Unlike his first two terms, Roosevelt's third and fourth terms were dominated by foreign policy concerns, as the United States became involved in World War II in December 1941.
The foreign policy of the United States was controlled personally by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first and second and third and fourth terms as the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He depended heavily on Henry Morgenthau Jr., Sumner Welles, and Harry Hopkins. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Cordell Hull handled routine matters. Roosevelt was an internationalist, while powerful members of Congress favored more isolationist solutions in order to keep the U.S. out of European wars. There was considerable tension before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The attack converted the isolationists or made them irrelevant. The US began aid to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded it in June 1941. After the US declared war in December 1941, key decisions were made at the highest level by Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, along with their top aides. After 1938 Washington's policy was to help China in its war against Japan, including cutting off money and oil to Japan. While isolationism was powerful regarding Europe, American public and elite opinion strongly opposed Japan.
