Empire: World History - 259. Eastern Europe & “The Great Betrayal” (Ep 4)

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Who created the United Nations? How did The Big Three divide Germany between themselves? Why did Poland see the Yalta conference as “The Great Betrayal”? Anita and William explore the origins of the United Nations and how the compromises made by world leaders in 1945 continue to affect geopolitics today… Love History? Get our exclusive History Today deal! You can get started with a 3-month trial for only £5 at https://historytoday.com/empire  ----------------- Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, our exclusive newsletter, and access to our members’ chatroom on Discord! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com.  ----------------- Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk  Blue Sky: @empirepoduk  X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan. And me, William Durimple. So day one of the Yalta conference, it's tetchy, it's tense. they've all sort of stated their positions of what they want to get out of it. Day two, they're going to have to start negotiating how it's all going to work. It starts the day,

grimly in the American space at the Lovadia Palace, because Anna's really worried about her father's health. So right from the get-go, everybody's smoking like a chimney around the table, and he's already got a weak chest and is not feeling well, and his coughing is kind of out of control. And his cardiologist has told Anna that he is an... a really precarious situation. You know, there's talk of hypertension, which leaves him tired and tetchy, makes it difficult for him to concentrate. And when he's being pushed around in his wheelchair, every jostle and jolt on the sort of war torn tarmac from the landing strip to the actual venue is just making him feel worse and worse. Anna writes to her husband about her dad saying his

ticker situation is far more serious than I ever knew and it's truly worrisome. There's not a hell of a lot anyone can do. And knowing how sensitive the information could be if it gets out to the American public, she says, better tear off and destroy this paragraph. Obviously, he didn't. No. So Roosevelt's, though, determined to carry on. It's going to be this day that he is going to start making his proposals for the United Nations and how it would work. And, you know, they've discussed it already in Tehran. They just, he just needs to get them over the line. The Soviets over the line. And then that will be his huge legacy. Also, actually, now, people are looking back saying he was not the man to be at Yalta. He was not the man to handle

these negotiations. He shouldn't have been doing it at all. He had a duty to tell his people how ill he was. There's a historian called Robert Hugh Ferrell, who's written a book called The Dying President. And he accuses Roosevelt going to enormous lengths to hide his health situation, not just from the big two, but also from his own people and enlisting the FBI director J Edgar Hoover to cover up as well. Truman, when he does replace him eventually, will have to play catch-up with very few briefings from Roosevelt in his head of where he was

and what the conversations were. Did Roosevelt dislike Truman, or was he not telling him because he didn't like him, or didn't trust him, or we just wanted to sort of pretend he was fine? I mean, I'm no expert on their dynamics, but he, you know, if you care about your position, It behoves you whether you hate his guts or not to inform him. You have to tell him.

But by doing that, he would have given away more than he wanted to. The Sphinx doesn't give away how ill he is. There's a really odd story about his medical records going missing from the official record. No one's able to find them. They're missing. How interesting. They're missing. All those documents have gone.

Anyway, so Roosevelt's struggling to get on with business as usual. Churchill starts the day in bed, which he sort of stays in bed as usual. Yeah, but he's in a really dark mood. So, you know, there's a dark mood at the American base camp, and there is a terrible dark mood because Churchill, who is not allowed to receive top, top secret documents. They've already said, you know, actually, anything that's very sensitive should not be sent to Yalta.

There must be a better way of getting him information because the Soviets were all over everything. They're bugging everything. They're reading everything. But he does get news of a worrying development in Greece, which is another place that he's really very worried that the communist sphere of influence is going to press in and shrink, sort of in his mind, free-thinking Europe even further. And this isn't actually Russian direct intervention. There's been a civil war going on in Greece, you know, two sides fighting to stop a communist, one, a communist side and the other. And there are British troops in this war, aren't there?

Absolutely. She was a wonderful old English teacher at school, her husband fought in this war. And I think, as did the young Paddy Lee Fermo? Is that right? Patrick Lee Fermo took part in this famous cavalry charge, which there's a number of cavalry charges. There's always said to be the last cavalry charge in history. One of them is in the Greek Civil War, Elas, the Greek people's liberation army. That's it.

That's it, exactly right. And just a few weeks before Yalta happens, Elas, the Greek People's Liberation Army, had taken the north and the west of Greece. The British had launched an offensive against them and had taken Athens previously, but now it was all looking decidedly shaky. I remember on the naughty list, Churchill had tried to keep Greece

within the Western and British sphere of influence and not have it go over to the communists. But the communists have got their own momentum now. They've got their momentum. And also Churchill is reading in this, this dispatch that has got to him, that, elas, that the communists are interning over a thousand British civilians and 15,000 well-to-do Greeks, and thousands of these prisoners will eventually die from beatings, forced to marches and exposure. So he is going to go into this negotiation

in a hideous mood, because even though it's not the Russians, you know, the communist supporters for communists, and so he does not trust them, and he's losing Greece. So look, let's talk in a bit more detail about day two, because it's the real hard work is going to begin and day two. And I mentioned sort of maps had been produced on the first day where they'd look, now they were going to go through the nitty, gritty of these maps. And they had these enormous things that were produced and, you know, rolled out over vast tables. And they literally took sharpies to these things. So what the Soviets want is they want a dismantling of Germany. So that Germany will almost be sort of divided out of existence, and that they will never, ever, ever be able to rise again.

And actually, Roosevelt's like, you know, can we talk less about the destruction? Because he sees how much this annoys Churchill. Churchill's really worried about destabilizing Central Europe. He's much more in favor of denazification of Germany, not destroying it or whipping it into the dust, because that will cause an enormous amount of resentment. They may rise up again. You give them a grievance. they will fight, you give them a way out, they will turn on their leaders. You know, the war is not

one yet. So he's saying, you know, look, why are you talking like this? Stalin's very keen to sort of even put it out there that we're going to destroy and dismantle Germany. And Churchill's sort of saying to him, that's a stupid strategy. It's just going to make them fight harder. Basically, William, they get their sharpies out, they divide Germany into three. And although Berlin is in the Soviet controlled zone and it is the capital, they also decide. that they're going to divide that city into three. So basically what you've got is a pie within a pie with slices out of it. And while they're drawing the map, there is a problem with the Soviet bit.

They want to have this line drawn through the capital. And it sort of takes in all the heritage building city hall parliament, you know, the most imposing bits of Berlin. And everyone's fine if you want that, take it. But there's this bulge in their quadrant because it's only three at the time, which will sort of lead to the... the Red Army being almost sort of surrounding another quarter. And Churchill's dead against this.

And so, you know, you've got already a lack of agreement. And then Churchill throws in. And by the way, what about the French? You can't not have the French. I mentioned this yesterday. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Can we talk about it today? We really need to have the French here.

And Roosevelt, again, you know, in his position as chair of this meeting, is trying to calm things down. He throws into the conversation. This is a really weird thing that he does on day two. He says, okay, look, we can talk about the French in a moment, but can I just also say that we probably won't stay in Europe much more than two years. And Churchill is dumbfounded.

Like, what? You're not going to stay beyond two years. Hang on a minute. How is this a permanent solution to keeping peace in Europe? And if you're not going to stay, then what happens to your bit? Stalin is pricking up his ears at this point. Right. Okay, this is music to his ears.

So then it becomes even more imperative for Churchill to get the French involved. They must be given a zone of occupation. They must be a full member of this Allied control commission that will administer a defeated Germany, says Churchill. I'm just not having this. And Stalin is completely contemptuous of the French. This is why should France, which in his words, open the gates to the elements. enemy deserve a place in Berlin. Yeah, and Roosevelt lets Churchill down again.

He sort of arms and arts. He doesn't back him up. He still leads his United Nations and his war against Japan. It's worth sort of saying what's happened to General de Gaulle, because he's not invited to Yalta, or later he won't be invited to the Potsdam Conference either. And that is a diplomatic slight which the French feel to this day. They won't forget.

he had fled to London after the fall of France and famously three days after the Nazis marched in on June the 17th. He has borrowed a friend's apartment at number three, Curzon Square and drafted a passionate call to arms to the French to rise up and fight, rise up. You sent me a wonderful picture, Anita, of him with his sort of wonderful 1930s, 1940s microphone, making the great address to the French people from Curzon Street, Cousin Square. I, General de Gaulle now in London, call on all French officers and men who are not present on British soil or maybe in the future with or without arms.

I call on all engineers, skilled workmen from the armaments factories who are at present on British soil or maybe in the future. Get in touch with me. I guess he's going to, the rebellion starts now from Curzon Square. And Stalin just says, you know, just I don't care. I do not care about the French. The French are not important. They are cowards. They deserve nothing. And Churchill is completely furious.

He says... Absolutely livid. Stalin talks of France as a country without a past. Does he not know her history? Just like anyone that knows the Middle East, just every time they hear Trump just talk about creating a Riviera and Gaza or something. Have they no idea of the history of this place? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, Stalin doesn't care. He doesn't care. And Stalin also sees a potential to make a deal. here because there's something that he wants as well. He wants maximum reparations from Germany. You talked about how many lives had been lost, Soviet lives had been lost during the war. But they've also, you know, they're almost bankrupted by the war effort as well. So they have this kind of weird thing that Molotov and he have decided to do this kind of Laurel and Hardy show at the conference where one will be good cop and one will be bad cop.

And it's always Molotov is going to be the bad cop and Stalin is going to say, relax. Molotov. Be reasonable. Stone arse is his nickname. Yeah. So they do this thing where he says, okay, look, just everyone relax about France. Churchill's still digesting this announcement from Roosevelt that they're only going to stay for two years. And that's completely wrong-footed everybody in the British contingent.

Just stop letting us down. You're meant to be our allies, America. And so instead, Stano says, let's talk about reparations. And he turns to Molotov and says, very pointedly, let's talk about reparations. And Molotov's kind of mutters to him, five or ten. And Stalin just says, ten. And it's ten billion dollars that he wants. He doesn't think it's realistic. It's a game. You'll get towards what you want. And at this point, when they say, that's ridiculous, Chajal says, 10 billion, they don't even have 10 billion. Where are you even getting these numbers? These

numbers don't make any sense. Stalin does something that's very un-Sarling, because he's always the one he sort of pushes Molotov to do the unpopular positions. He gets up on his feet and he starts gesticulating wildly saying, do you think that we don't deserve reparations for all that we have done? And Churchill says, look, you're bleeding Germany dry. Don't you remember after the First World War? And if you do bleed Germany dry, who's going to pay for food? A phantom starving Germany, he calls it. That's what you want to. And it starts getting really very bad tempered. He says, if you want a horse to pull your wagon, you have to give him some hay. Right. And that's right. But care should be taken that the horse does not turn around and kick you,

says Stalin. So it's turning into like a real sort of mess. I love this detail here that Soviet ambassador to the US, André Gromiko, realizes that he can tell how tense Churchill is by counting the number of cigar stuffs in his ashtray. And that Churchill's cigar. per hour is the kind of the heartbeat of Churchill's anxiety. So Churchill, in between smoking numerous, very frustrated, and he's quite alone here, remember. It says, okay, look, we'll get a commission on this. Ten billion is just nuts. We'll have a US-Uk Soviet commission and we'll look at reparations. And then Stalin says, yes, okay, but the three powers who have made the most sacrifices must have the first claim. And Churchill says, what about the smaller countries? They've also

suffered? What about, you know, reparations for them? You know, they've lost people, they've fought, and he quotes Marx, Churchill does at this point. And he says, each according to his needs, remember, Chairman Stalin and Stalin snaps, I prefer another principle, each according to his deserts. Well, wonders what it was that Churchill actually read marks when... Oh, I'm sure he had. He's a very, well, I'm sure he had. I mean, you know, I'm sure he had. I sort of like there's a given. So Roosevelt is like now it's sort of turning into a bit of a bun fight across the table. And he says, okay, look, we must have somewhere we can compromise here.

And so Stalin in this act of largesse, which is not largesse at all, says, you know what, I'm not willing to compromise on reparations. That's what we are going to get. 10 billion is what we're going to get. That's it, my final word. But if you want the French to have a bit of Berlin, I'm willing to do that, but they take it out of your bits to the Americans. He's but to best negotiator of the three, isn't it?

You can't read about Yelta without coming out thinking with increased respect for at least Stalin's caniness and shrewdness of the negotiating table. So Roosevelt says that sounds really reasonable. Okay, we'll do that. Wait, what? And they all begin to worry even on the American side, Harry Hopkins, who's the chief foreign policy advisor at this point, is aware. Like Churchill is, that Roosevelt's caving in to all of Stalin's demands. Again, not what you'd expect. This is not what I was reading about this.

Special relationship. My shoe. Yeah. And he argues that it's a political impossibility to endeavor to administer Germany without the participation in France, hereditary enemy and neighbor and our oldest friends. So Hopkins is pushing alongside Churchill. What are you doing, Roosevelt? What are you doing?

And it's a bad day as well, because the timing of this is just. Perfect. Time magazine on that very day has run a front page cover of Stalin being the man of the moment. And speaking to his daughter, Churchill, who knows about this Time magazine cover and everything that's just been caved into and suddenly France is getting something but out of their quarters and it looks like the Red Army might actually surround other quadrants. This is kind of not what we wanted. This is not right. He says to his daughter, I do not suppose. that at any moment in history has the agony of the world been so great or so widespread. Tonight, the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before.

It's a very gloomy of Churchill. It's not at all the Churchill with the bottle of Bollinger that we sometimes imagine. He's a very gloomy man at this point. Yeah, so I mean, the talks are really hard. And as you say, Stalin seems to have the upper hand all the time. And certainly in the American dispatches, they are admiring of Stalin's negotiating style. They also know when they're being played. They know this sort of Molotov-Stylain double act is a double act.

They know who's really calling the shots, but they're impressed by all of it. The next day, this is just kind of a cute little aside, okay. So you've got lots of descriptions from everybody about how ridiculous and over the top the food is given to each of the camps. So, you know, there's caviar for breakfast every morning, and this is actually getting completely on everyone's nerves. The rights are a problem to have too much caviar. There's a helping source of caviar for each person in the first course of breakfast every day, followed by herring, bread, fruit, and tea. And the menu never varies.

And it's so bad because there's a very senior American military man who's a very aptly named General Marshall, nominative disderminism. To test fish and he's allergic to shellfish. Yeah, can't eat shark fish. And so all he can eat during altar, which just adds to his tetchiness, a stack of jumbo-sized Hershey bars that he's brought with him because he can't eat anything. But they do decide on this day,

before they go and convene for the evening session of talks and maybe just to change the scene and maybe just to be able to have a chat without the pressures of the conference looming that they're going to go and have a look at Sebastopol. And, you know, Sarah Churchill says Churchill's really keen to see, you know, the location of the famous Charger the Light Brigade. But as they're searching for it,

they come across a human skeleton on the ground and it's just a complete sort of shock into reality that they are in the middle of a war, they have got to get this agreed, they have only got four more days to agree to some really important things because then the Russians are going to take Berlin, and there's no point talking anything at all, the Russians can just dictate whatever they like. And they look around and they sort of see, you know,

around this area where the charge of the light brigade took place, and they see this hulk of a downed aircraft and burned out tanks and row upon row of shells and bomb crate, is. And Sarah says it's so very strange how history can repeat itself under a different guy. So it is gloomy. The British camp is gloomy. Not so far from where shell holes are still peppering bits of Ukraine, a short distance over the causeway. And you know, good time to remind people, Crimea since 2014 is in Russian control. Putin has it. So anyway, do you want to take us to the fourth plenary session, with Roosevelt actually raising the issue of Poland, someone who doesn't

want to annoy Stalin, he has to go straight in and talk about Poland, and it's not a comfortable conversation. So the item in the agenda that everyone knows is going to be the worst ticking point is Poland, because the Soviets now have total control. The British have sitting in London, an entire Polish government in exile, and the Soviets have a Soviet-backed government government that they've already set up, which is in power. And so there's no room for General Sikorsky, the leader of the Polish government in exile, the Polish equivalent of General de Gaulle, also in London, to come in and have his slice of the cake. And they've got, somehow on this day, to hammer out some sort of compromise that will allow both the

Soviets and the Western Americans and British to feel that they've reached some sort of compromise on Poland. But it's not going to be easy. Anita, what happens? First of all, they say, look, can we just get some people from your Soviet Lublin administration to be here to talk about this and how we can carry this forward? And the Soviets say, well, we can't reach them. We can't find them to get them into these talks. So we can't agree to anything. Clearly improbable.

Absolute bullshit. But, you know, we can't have them. So we can't really agree on their behalf because we need to talk to them and we haven't been able to talk to them. And Roosevelt, after much haggling, says, okay, look, we're willing to just, just. put that we need a broadly democratic government, which will include representatives from both the exiled, London government and the Soviet back, Lublin government. Would that be okay? Stalin going, sure, sure. Yeah, that's like a meaningless statement. It'll be broadly democratic. That's fine. But I want to talk about something else. Broadly democratic. We can do that. No problem.

You can put my little blue tick next to that. That's absolutely fine. But since we're talking about Poland, I quite like to talk about where Poland is. To move the borders a little, yeah. Just move it just across. You can see where they're coming from as well. You can see where everyone's coming from.

He does not want to be invaded again by anybody. And so he needs a buffer zone, a sphere of influence that surrounds his interests. And because he's got total control now, the Red Army all over Poland, there's not a huge amount of leverage that either America or Britain can bring to bear. So he wants a territory of Poland in the East to increase this buffer zone and stop any kind of European invaders in the future. And airily, he kind of says, you know, well, I mean, do you think the polls might mind? Having not as much of their country as before, he says, well, no, it's okay. You can compensate them with the stuff that the Nazis took with a bit of Germany that the Germans took.

You know, the Oda-Nisa line will become the western border of Poland. The Curzon line can be used as the eastern border with the Soviet Union. Essentially, we'll just shift it over to the West. And Churchill knows he's just, I mean, Roosevelt doesn't care about Poland. He doesn't really even care very much about what happens in Europe. But this is the charge against him. Roosevelt just isn't prepared to make this. this are sticking point in any way. That's not important to him. He's got existential crisis facing

him with Japan. And this is why so many in Europe, to this day, regard Yelta as the great betrayal by their Western allies. Yeah. And so Churchill tries to put this brave face on it, trying to turn it into a bit of a joke. And he says, you know, okay, the Westwood shift. Okay, the Westwood shift. Okay. But no more than the Poles can handle, he says, because, you know, let's ask the Poles what they want to do with their Poland. And he says, It would be a great pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food, it dies of indigestion. There are some great lines that come out of the altar. But you know what?

They do this kind of weird, eventually, broadly democratic thing and then move on and it will shift. So that is the kind of agreement. But he doesn't want to sign off on it. He says, look, we'll sleep on this problem. And Stalin says, fine. thinking you sleep on whatever you like mate it's fine because he knows he's what Roosevelt is broadly democratic yeah it's broadly democratic at some point in the future but you know what we'll just all sleep on it and we'll talk about the thing that Roosevelt who's been very

quiet until this point on Poland because next up is his big passion project the United Nations join us after the break and find out how that conversation goes welcome back so yes the United Nations, as we've said, is one of those things that are very ailing, very weak. Roosevelt wants us his legacy, and that's the next thing up on the table, which probably is why he's just not giving support to Churchill or Poland and is accepting all sorts of nebulous promises of the future. So, Molotov says, look, you know what? We've looked at your proposals for this United Nations thing, but we'd just like to tweak it a bit. Because As things stand, we're a little bit outnumbered in this United Nations.

And so we think permanent seats should be given to three of the 16 Soviet republics, to the General Assembly of the United Nations, I should say, rather than the Security Council. The General Assembly of the United Nations, we think that, fine, we'll have a seat, that's nice. But Ukraine, Belarusia and Lithuania should also have seats. You know, the implication is very clear because then we have four votes and you're not going to outvoters. And, you know, they have a point. They do have a point. You know, they don't want to be dominated.

And the British dominions, you know, Australia, Canada, says Molotov, they've got votes. Why not our satellite states having votes? What is your argument against that? Now, Roosevelt's had a bit of a bind about this because he's told Congress he's going to oppose any extra seats for the Soviet Union. So he says, okay, let's just push that. He does what Roosevelt does. We'll just park that. Well, look, the foreign ministers. Sort that out later. Sort it out later. But Churchill is not going to let that happen. He's like had enough with the Polish thing has just really wound him up. Everything's been winding him up. It's not, it's just, you know, he's being outnumbered and outvoted around the table. Churchill says, actually no, Britain's got self-governing dominions, and they have a right to have a seat at the table.

We should say that Churchill has been pepped up by his daughter, Sarah, realizing that Churchill gets a bit peckish in these sessions. Yeah. Because he hasn't had enough to eat. So they managed to slip him some chicken soup in a thermos flask. So he's pepped. He's pepped up. Yeah. It's at this point that we get to Stalin's Trump card.

and Stalin proposes something that he wants at this stage. He wants the power of veto. Now, this obviously matters a lot still, and we see that veto being exercised by the UN Security Council members and still changing the way that the war in Ukraine or Gaza or wherever the latest crisis is, how that plays out because of this power of veto. And this is Stalin's introduction at this point in the ALTA conference. I mean, this has been a really action-packed day. They go back to their respective palaces. And at the Vransov Palace, Churchill telegraphs his war cabinet, saying today has been a much better day. All the American proposals for the United Nations constitution were accepted by the Russians. Britain is asking a great deal and having

places in the General Assembly for her dominions as well as herself. It would shield Britain from criticisms if two or three Soviet republics also had seats. So he kind of gives in to Stalin, saying, you know, it would mean that, well, we get more because, you know, British Empire bigger, got more dominions. It'll be fine. Furthermore, he says a friendly gesture to the Soviets might be expedient to secure concessions on Poland, for which he perceives a glimmer of hope. This wasn't actually the first time that the United Nations had been discussed. So it had already been discussed, in fact, at a place called Dunbarton Oaks. It's an estate in Washington.

And it had been discussed the year before. Not just an estate in Washington. Dunbarton Oaks is the place where any of us who interested in Byzantium go and study. and our mutual friend Frankamanca, Peter Franka, I think had a long stint at Dunbarton Oaks. And it still has the best sort of classical and Byzantine museum collections in Washington. So if you're interested in that, you next time we're in Washington, go and see the Dunbart and Oaks Museum. But this is the place where the ideas, the seed of the United Nations was laid. And in, I think it's in, yes, August, 1944, there had been a.

conference already to sort of set up the beginnings of the idea. And that had laid the grand work for this discussion that's now happening in Yalta. And at Dumbarton, Oaks, they talked about the voting rights on the Security Council. And it was a real battleground even back then. You know, it was going to always be difficult. Stalin insisted that if the UN had to work, the major powers had to have the ability to veto discussions and that power of the veto, as William has said, is that completely central to foreign policy even today. But it's very interesting that the four policemen envisaged by Dunbarton Oaks, were United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China.

And China at Yalta is completely absent. But even then at Dunbarton Oaks, where Anthony Eden was, he says, you know, Stalin's got them twisted around his finger, even sort of back at Dunbarton Oaks. He says, of course, the man was ruthless, and of course he knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed. He was seldom even irritated.

Hooded, calm, never raising his voice. He avoided the repeated negatives of Molotov. By more subtle methods, he got what he wanted without having to seem obdurate. Yeah, this is what's so brilliant about Stalin. Stalin outplays the others. And it's Churchill that makes, you know, if you look at the quotes in the books about Yelta, all the beautiful quotes come from Churchill, who's very eloquent, but he talks on and on and on. And Stalin's method is completely different. He says little, gets much done. And Churchill's own team is getting really fed up.

They're complaining that he's drinking too much and he's talking too much. And honestly, he's not getting as much as he needs. And Roosevelt, every time that Churchill starts talking, leans over to Harry Hopkins. So here we go. That's it for half an hour now. And so Churchill is making a lot of noise, but not getting what he wants. Stalin's the opposite. And Anthony Eden, of all people, the Foreman, is deeply impressed.

He never wastes a word. He says, by subtle methods, he gets what he wants. Isn't it interesting that he's actually, for all that moustache and all that sort of hair oil, he's actually quiet and a cat? Menace is always more menacing when it's quiet. Yeah. I mean, people who shout and scream, I was sort of cartoonish, but, you know, I mean, just look at Mussolini. Just, you know, he shouted quite a lot and he was sort of quite boorish and clownish. But, yeah, Stalin quiet.

Silent but violent. So, look, the United Nations is also going to be the thing on everybody. mind's minds on day six of the conference as well. And the Soviet requests for extra seats. It's going to be considered. They're going to have more talks about this in April, but it's pretty much a done deal as far as the Soviets are concerned. It's going to happen. Although Roosevelt is a little bit reticent on it because he hasn't discussed it with Congress and he hasn't discussed it. And this is not the plan that he wanted to. But Molotov senses that there's a discomfort. He can turn the screws a bit on this. He said, look, if we can't agree here and

now. I know Roosevelt, you want to talk about it further down the line, you're not willing to commit, but then let's just tell the world we can't agree on it. And Roosevelt's horrified. It's like, no, no, no, we're not going to do that because basically you're killing the idea of United Nations, even before it's born if you say we can't agree on it here and now. And the Soviets are laughing into their sleeves because they know it. They know he's got, they've got him over a barrel. Not least because they've read it. in the intelligence documents that they've got, that this is the red line for him. So they know that they can squeeze at this point.

That is the pressure point. And it works. So Stalin asks, would you be prepared now to include the admission of the additional Soviet republics in the gender? And Roosevelt replies, yes. So he wins another point. But you know what? They have that conversation in private behind Churchill's back.

That wasn't even done in front of, again, they're having a meeting. So Stalin has basically gone off to have a meeting. meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill is not present. And they're making all of these agreements. And Churchill sort of gets to hear about this pre-meeting meeting and with, you know, sort of almost Hollywood kind of timing. He's not allowed in. No. He comes to the door and he goes, what's going on? What's going on in there? Craning his neck over the security guards. And they're like, oh, nothing to see here, sir. Move along. He's no, wait a minute. And then the security guard send a note in to Roosevelt. Yeah. And Roosevelt says,

let him wait. It's interesting. You know, we are so set with this idea of a special relationship and everything. It's so much part of the world we're brought up in that when Trump flirts with Putin, we think it's something completely new. But here is Roosevelt doing exactly the same thing at Yalta. Different motives, different time, but same play. So, you know, knowing now Stalin has got what he wants, you know, his Soviet republics,

the additional Soviet republics will be allowed. Roosevelt has agreed to this behind Churchill's back. Roosevelt says, okay, actually, that's not why I invited you around to talk about this. I wanted to talk to you about the war in Japan. And again, Stalin's just got in his request before Roosevelt can get his. And Starlin says, well, yeah, about the Japan thing, we might be willing to come and help you. But what we'd like is the southern half of Sackland Island, north of Japan. It belonged to the Japanese.

but he also wanted other areas too, the Currilles, chain of 32 islands, extending from beyond the northmost Japanese home of Hokkaido, northwards to the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. So he's got this whole matter. If I'm not wrong, a lot of this area had been Russian up to the Russo-Japanese War. Do you remember we did it with Pankaj Mishra last year? And this is some of the territory. 1905, yes, that they was taken. Yeah, 100%. So they're getting back their lost territory.

But Stalin isn't done, okay? That's not all he wants. So he wants to get that bag. And Bruce Fudge has yes, sure. You can have that back. That makes sense. But Stalin wants something more. He says, and also, since you're in such a generous mood,

we'd quite like territory from, you know, your Chinese allies, Changa Shek. We've got some of their land on our list as well. and we'd like that. And Roosevelt's, geez, no, he's our ally. Hang on a minute. Chang, Shek, we've had taken two years to get an agreement with him. And China, you know, we have a reciprocal agreement.

They support us, they help us. I can't just give you their territory. And Stalin is like, well, you know, this United Nations thing then, this help with Japan thing, not sure we can really accommodate. it, Churchill is outside this room while these conversations are going on. Not being allowed in. Not being allowed in. He'd been told to wait outside.

So she'd start as like, well, see, the thing is, if you don't do this for me, Roosevelt, my old friend and possessor of the lemon tree that I flew in, especially from Georgia, just because you like your martinis with a twist, just if you don't do this, I can't go back to the Supreme Soviet and say we're going to war with Japan, because why? are we? What do we get out of it? I cannot sell this to my people, Razabout. You've got to help me. Help me to help you. The irony being that if this conversation had taken place, even a month or two later, the Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb would have been further advanced. But this conference takes place at a point when the Soviets have more cards in their hands than they've ever had before or ever will again. And so when people look on Yalta as this betrayal of Eastern Europe and this moment of surrender of so much of territory to Stalin, this is why it is.

It's the sheer bad luck, the Ardenne, the Arnhem held up, the incredible speed and efficiency of the... And a very sick president who may not be firing on all cylinders, you know, and who's giving... And Churchill irritating all the others and not being close enough to his American. an ally. So Stalin's come up with that masterstroke of, I can't, I can't sell this. Rosalveld, I'd love to help you. I can't sell this to my people unless they know they're going to get something out of it. And Rosa Walt's saying, I cannot turn on an ally. Congress will not let me do that. So Stalin says, I've got a brilliant idea. Just don't tell them. Don't tell them. Don't tell Changa Shek. Let's just shake on it here and now. That'll be fine, but we just don't

tell them. And Roosevelt says, okay. And it's just, it is such a mad thing. Roosevelt says there's no need to speak to the Chinese until he makes a move against Japan. He needs the help. So we'll just not tell them. And it's going to be

a real problem. And Nita, you know this era of history much more than I do. Is there a version of the altar history in which Roosevelt doesn't come across as quite so hopeless? I mean, is there any is other, yeah, there are there who say, and yeah, I think Dana Preston's one of them, actually who says it in her book,

that either you can see him as this weak vacillating creature or you can see him as the man who brought an end to the war quickly. And you couldn't have done, he brought peace. How many millions had died, how many more would have died if the war would have dragged on and on? But because the three of them were in a room working in concert to end the war, the war had to end. We're all talking about what this meant to the post-war period, but first you have to end the war, and you can't end the war unless you're working with each other. And so there are great defences put up for Roosevelt. Without him, can you imagine Stalin and Britain coming to any kind of agreement? Without him, without the butter in the sandwich, that would not have happened.

And the war may have dragged on and on and countless lives lost. He did his best with the cards he was dealt. That's all we have time for this time, but we are going to come back with the end of the Alta Conference and bring it to its conclusion in the next episode. So if you want to hear that now, you can join the Empire Club and get all the extraordinary benefits that joining our wonderful club can bring it. William keeps promising more and more things. More of all.

And William will come. And presents at Christmas. Yeah. And William's going to come and read bedtime stories to you. If you join the club, Empireprodukk.com, he's going to come. He's going to come and tuck you in every night. Anything else you want to promise? Just without discussing it with anybody else,

William is going to give you all a kidney. You join our club, Empirepodukuk.com, Empirepodukuk.com. Until the next time we meet. With a free kidney. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. Good-bye from William Durimple with fewer and fewer kidneys. Every second goes by.

kidneys for everyone. Yay.