Tehran Conference - Prelude

Prelude

As soon as the German-Soviet war broke out, Churchill offered assistance to Stalin and an agreement to this effect was signed on 12 July 1941. Delegations had traveled between London and Moscow to arrange the implementation of this support and when the United States joined the war, the delegations included Washington in their meeting venues. A Combined Chiefs of Staff committee was created to coordinate British and American operations as well as their support to Soviet Russia. The advent of a global war, the absence of a unified Allied strategy and the complexity of allocating resources between Europe and Asia had not yet been agreed – and soon gave rise to mutual suspicions between the Western Allies and Soviet Russia. There was the question of opening a second front to alleviate the German pressure on the Red Army, the question of mutual assistance – where both Britain and Russia were looking towards the United States for credit and material support and there was ceaseless tension between the United States and Britain since Washington had no desire to prop-up the British Empire in the event of an Allied Victory. Also, neither the United States nor the British were prepared to give Stalin a free hand in his dealings with Eastern Europe and lastly, there was no common policy on how to deal with Germany after Hitler. Communications regarding these matters between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin took place by telegrams and via emissaries – but it was evident that direct negotiations were urgently needed.

Stalin, obsessively wished to control everything in Moscow and was unwilling to risk journeys by air while Roosevelt was physically disabled and found travel grueling. Churchill was an avid traveler and had met with Roosevelt on two previous occasions in the United States and had also held two prior meetings with Stalin in Moscow. In order to engineer this urgently needed meeting, Roosevelt tried to persuade Stalin to travel to Cairo to attend such a meeting. Stalin turned down the offer to meet in Cairo, also an offer to meet in Baghdad and also in Basra – finally agreeing to meet in Tehran in November 1943.