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The Yalta Summit ratified a divided postwar Europe. American President Franklin
Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premiere Josef
Stalin met from February 4-11 at Livadia Palace near Yalta in the Soviet Union.
The "Big Three" met to decide the fate of the soon to be defeated Germany and
its acquisitions.
The Big Three agreed that, among other things:
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Germany would be divided.
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Part of Poland would go to the Soviet Union. (Russia had been attacked twice
this century by troops pouring through Poland.)
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The provisional Communist government of Poland, set up by the Soviets, would be
broadened to include free elections.
The Soviet Union would declare war on Japan two to three months after defeating
Germany.
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin reached consensus on many points not only
because of their willingness to work out any differences but also because of
the military realities of the moment. American and British troops had been
bogged down on the western front in Belgium until the Soviets stepped up their
offensive on the eastern front. By the time of the Yalta Summit, Soviet troops
were sweeping through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania. Their
military exploits gave them a formidable bargaining position at Yalta. In the
war with Japan, Americans were suffering heavy losses in the Pacific. As close
as victory seemed, the United States and Great Britain still needed the Soviet
Union to win the war.
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