All language subtitles for Yalta, The Twilight Of The Giants (inglês)

February 1945.

For six years, Europe has been a gigantic battlefield.

Millions of men died.

But this time, the certainty of defeating nazi germany is finally here

and the Allies are already thinking about the future.

'Cause it's now, while that the fighting is still raging,

that we must prepare for peace.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill will therefore decide to meet.

This meeting will take place in a small seaside resort

of the southern Soviet Union.

It is there, in the Crimea,

that the three giants will imagine together

the post-war world

during one of the biggest conferences of all time,

the Yalta conference.

From Yalta, history remembered this photo.

But what way traveled to get there?

Why these strained faces at Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin?

United in war, the Allies will turn out to be divided and rivals in peace.

For eight days, from February 4 to 11, 1945,

the big three go engage in a merciless struggle,

both their interests and their ideologies oppose them.

In Yalta is the last time that they will all see each other.

Each of them is then at a crucial moment in his own destiny,

while with this conference,

the world will soon sink into new darkness.

February 3, 1945.

After seven hours of flight, American and British planes,

left in the night,

land on the frozen ground from Saki Airport, Crimea.

When he got off the plane, Winston Churchill is stiff.

He has a fever of 39.

But the prime minister British gives the change.

Even sick, he is ready to write a new page of history.

Franklin Roosevelt, President American, too, is ready,

despite extreme fatigue.

On the trail, diplomats and soldiers greet each other.

In Yalta, many of them will keep logs.

Thanks to their secrets,

we know what really happened passed during this conference.

Their writings tell all that the official history does not mention.

Stalin did not bother come and welcome his guests to Saki.

His absence is already a way to play the balance of power.

Negotiations have indeed begun.

It is therefore Molotov, the faithful right arm of the Soviet leader,

who awaits Roosevelt and Churchill at the foot of the plane.

Plagued by poliomyelitis, Roosevelt can no longer walk.

Walking by his side, Churchill seems in a position of inferiority.

The strangeness of this scene does not escape Lord Moran,

Churchill's personal physician, who takes offense in his diary.

“The Prime Minister followed on foot, alongside the President,

like when, in his last years,

an Indian steward accompanied Queen Victoria's Stagecoach. »

And it's not the last time in Crimea

Churchill will appear as Roosevelt's steward.

Because already, while the war is still not over,

the British Empire has lost its luster.

The United States and the Soviet Union are the two new giants of the century.

In Yalta, Churchill goes have to fight to exist.

Yalta is 150 kilometers from Saki.

It takes no less five hours to get there,

the road is so bad and winding.

For Roosevelt, a new ordeal begins.

He was paralyzed.

To travel by car, he had to sit in the back

with two cushions behind him to corset his back

and support his legs which had become totally useless.

It was truly a very difficult journey.

As the war continues on the European continent,

the course has been placed under close surveillance.

160 fighter planes criss-cross the sky.

Anna Boettiger, Roosevelt's daughter who accompanies him on this journey,

is amazed to see the means deployed by the Soviets.

In her diary she writes:

" All along of the road between Saki and Yalta,

soldiers had been posted every 300 meters.

Everytime a car was passing in front of them,

those who didn't have a gun greeted us.

All those Russian soldiers, women included, were smart and straight. »

Through the window, Roosevelt and Churchill discover a spectacle of desolation.

Crimea was taken over to the Germans barely a year ago.

nearly 20 million Russians lost their lives.

70,000 towns and villages Soviets were annihilated.

The USSR was deeply scarred by the war.

And Stalin himself supervised the itinerary of its hosts

so that no destruction do not escape them.

This will allow Stalin, and that, of course, is his skill,

somehow, to make the two interlocutors feel guilty,

Roosevelt first.

We got a lot of dead, implied because you did not come to save us.

after five o'clock of an endless journey,

Roosevelt and Churchill arrive finally in Yalta in the early evening.

Roosevelt is exhausted.

For him the journey has begun 12 days ago,

when he crossed the Atlantic in boat before flying to Malta.

In total, the American president traveled 8,500 kilometers,

Churchill 3,200,

and Stalin, came by train, only 1,500.

As if the number of kilometers made sense

and that Roosevelt was the one who was willing to put in the most effort,

Stalin the least.

Yalta bay has lost none of its charm.

In the 19th century, it was a sort of Soviet Riviera

where tsars and aristocrats came on holiday.

The participants at the conference will be welcomed

in palaces remained intact today.

Before the negotiations did not open in February 1945,

they had been fully restored.

In preparation for the conference, there was a very rapid refurnishing

things that came from Moscow in full convoys

to make a look hospitable to all these palaces

who had suffered a terrible lack of maintenance for a very long time.

Stalin imposed the choice of Yalta.

He therefore wants his hosts don't have to regret it.

He will receive them with magnificence.

He reserved for them the two most beautiful villas.

Livadia Palace for Roosevelt.

This is where they took place the negotiations.

And the Vorontsov Villa for Churchill.

That night, the night is clear over Yalta.

Each of the big three takes strength for the upcoming marathon.

February 4, 1945.

First day of negotiations.

Before the debates begin,

Stalin pays a visit courtesy to his guests.

To Churchill first.

The two men have not seen each other since. four months during a meeting in Moscow.

They are happy to meet again and take stock of the military situation.

Reunion with Roosevelt are also warm.

The Russian and the American share a Martini, Roosevelt's indulgence.

And the lemon is missing.

Stalin takes note of this, and the next time, indeed,

he had a gigantic lemon tree brought.

It impresses them

because for the English as for the Americans,

a whole lemon tree, in full war, and in the month of February,

it is something fabulous.

They are therefore literally dazzled.

And, at the same time, it serves to show the power of Stalin.

Because on the ground, Stalin is in a strong position.

Since the spring, the roller soviet compressor is running

and the Red Army resumes territories to the Germans.

For Stalin, the time to monetize his war effort came.

At 5 p.m., negotiations finally begin.

In the Livadia ballroom, arranged for the conference,

everything is ready.

Ministers and diplomats discuss between them while waiting for the big three.

Churchill is the first to arrive at Livadia with his daughter Sarah.

The Prime Minister is in a good mood

and wearing a Russian hat to do honor to his host.

He's getting better.

After a good night's sleep sleep, the fever has gone.

Stalin follows him.

in front of the cameras, the two men display their complicity.

Roosevelt has already settled in discreet negotiation table.

The same ride will repeat itself the next days.

He forbade the filming of his arrivals, deemed too humiliating.

He had to be carried from his chair wheelie to another chair.

What is not easy when you are paralyzed from the waist down.

The private advisers of the three large take place around them.

Because they are not going to negotiate alone.

Churchill is accompanied by Anthony Eden, his Minister of Foreign Affairs,

as well as the diplomat Alexander Cadogan, Poland specialist.

Roosevelt, he will rely on Harry Hopkins, his right arm and friend,

the man he trusts the most,

but also on Edward Statinius, his Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Stalin has two main advisors:

Vyacheslav Molotov, his Minister of Foreign Affairs,

and diplomat Ivan Maisky.

Four big files are on the table:

the fate of defeated Germany,

that of Poland,

the UN and the war against Japan.

On all these files, the position of the various allied armies

will play a decisive role.

Since December, the Red Army liberated Romania,

Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland.

The Russians are no more only 80 kilometers from Berlin.

slowed down by a German counter-offensive,

the Anglo-American troops, they have still not crossed the Rhine.

We can say that from a military point of view,

the Soviets are clearly ahead of Westerners

and, from this point of view, hold the upper hand,

which can have consequences from a diplomatic point of view.

In addition to this asymmetry on the ground,

there is another, ideological.

Churchill and Roosevelt are two capitalists against a communist.

Yet they do not necessarily go unite against Stalin.

On the contrary.

Because in fact, the two men are quite ideologically distant from each other.

Roosevelt appreciates Churchill, because it is the old war horse,

because he stood alone in Europe in 1940,

and that he admires this guy who is still capable of extraordinary performance,

and, at the same time, a certain contempt,

because he considers it an old antediluvian colonialist,

while he considers that he has modern ideas,

especially the decolonization of the world.

Roosevelt needs of Stalin more than of Churchill.

Because at the same time in the Pacific,

Americans are at war with Japan.

The fights are incredibly violent

and the Japanese do not hesitate to send kamikaze planes on the enemy

rather than surrender.

Without the help of the Soviets, the war is in danger of dragging on.

Roosevelt also counts on Stalin

to participate in the future United Nations,

he wants to implement.

Without the USSR, the UN will be an empty shell.

To advance his project, Roosevelt is ready to sacrifice Churchill.

He's an acquired ally who has nothing to give him.

Churchill saw it very badly.

He knows very well that Stalin will exploit to death

any discrepancies between the English and the Americans.

So for him, it is absolutely disastrous.

Because the British Prime Minister suspects Stalin of wanting to install

communist regimes in all countries liberated by the Red Army.

Without Roosevelt's help,

Churchill knows he will not have ways to prevent it.

During this first day, only military issues are discussed.

Everyone is watching.

In the tactical game which begins, Stalin immediately takes over.

He proposes that Roosevelt chairs the plenary sessions.

By putting him as president,

somewhere, we flatter him,

but also, we reduce it a little helpless,

because he will have to to serve as a bit of master of ceremonies.

And during that time, we can observe, we can reflect,

we can negotiate a bit behind his back.

It's very clever from Stalin.

This first session negotiations was a warm-up.

Nothing important is decided there, but Westerners have understood

that would not be easy to do hear their voice against Stalin.

So, in the evening, each sharpens his strategy for the next day.

Churchill thinks alone and calmly,

admiring the paintings of British aristocrats

that Stalin was careful to hang on the walls to please him.

Roosevelt, he elaborates his plan of battle with Harry Hopkins.

Second day.

Churchill again arrives first,

while Stalin is getting once again desire.

This time things serious will begin.

The question of Germany is under debate.

What fate to reserve for Germany once she loses the war?

How to administer it?

What repairs to require?

On all these issues, the Allies have different positions.

Discussions begin on the problem of its future occupation.

Since 1944, it was intended that once defeated,

the country would be divided and administered in three zones:

American, British and Soviet.

But now Churchill calls for a fourth zone...

for France.

He doesn't want to be alone anymore against these two giants

who want some to colonial empires.

So he wants to have this complicity with another colonial power.

Stalin finally, good prince, will say:

the French did not really beaten in the war.

We don't see why.

They collaborated.

They gave way very quickly in 1940.

They don't deserve it.

But finally, okay,

but then you take it on your occupation zones.

The concession costs him nothing.

Stalin gives in quickly.

But he takes the opportunity to ask an effort to its allies, in return.

He wants to get the maximum reparations from Germany.

The USSR is ruined.

The Boches must pay.

This revengeful perspective frightens Roosevelt and Churchill.

And this time, the two Westerners stick together.

If we loot Germany and starve Germany to please Stalin,

how do you pick it up afterwards?

It will necessarily be on our own funds,

and we are the ones who will pay for Stalin's reparations.

So it's bad, it's not good.

Faced with this refusal, Stalin braces himself.

Annoyed, he becomes suspicious.

The Soviet takes it on to his allies and is aggressive.

Frankly, look me in the eyes.

Why don't you want the reconstruction of the USSR?

Are there no ulterior motives on your side, you Westerners,

to not want the reconstruction legitimacy of our country?

Why do you want weaken our country?

So much for the threat.

Now the bluff.

Stalin will pull out all the stops.

And for that, he will rely on his accomplice Molotov

with whom he forms an unparalleled duo.

Both men are masters in the art of diplomacy.

Molotov is the hard version,

it's mister "niet".

He is the one who is not funny,

who will usually stay on the hardest positions.

And, in general, the moment where Stalin intervenes,

it's going to be to soften the angles,

to say, "Finally, you exaggerate ! Why be so tough? »

In the German file, now you have to advance a number

for the amount of repairs.

Nothing has been decided by the Soviet delegation.

Only a minimum and a maximum were considered.

In his diary, the diplomat Russian Ivan Maisky recounts the scene.

"Molotov, who was sitting to Stalin's right,

lean towards him and asks him, worried:

Do I have to give an amount?

-Yes, give the amount, Stalin retorts.

-Which ? Five or ten?

-Ten, Stalin slices. »

It's a way to show that we are in discussion,

that nothing is completely decided, and so all this seems more reassuring

for the interlocutors who are opposite.

10 billion for the Soviet Union.

It goes.

Nobody says anything.

Stalin then considers that the amount is accepted.

Westerners did not dare to react.

But this decision will have serious consequences later.

Because facing a Germany unable to pay such a sum,

the Soviets will compensate themselves in kind and dismantle German industry.

After this first round of negotiations,

each of the Big Three retires in his palace to breathe.

Like he usually does, Stalin delves into the files

and prepares for the next day's debates.

At his desk, even today, everything remained as it was.

At the Livadia Palace, Roosevelt, him,

find some rest and serenity with his daughter Anna.

For some years, she became his confidante,

and Roosevelt takes it everywhere with him.

She didn't just offer companionship pleasant of a daughter for her father.

She was very familiar with the cases.

We live in the White House at that time

and I would say that she was rather a kind of personal assistant

who was not paid.

It was kind of his right arm.

15 kilometers away, in the Vorontsov, Churchill is with his daughter Sarah.

The young woman is an actress and since the war

she is a voluntary helper in the Royal Air Force.

Churchill likes this joyful presence at his side.

The girls are happy to participate.

At the same time, they are very happy to show their daughters in uniform

to show that the whole family participates,

and at the same time, it is very well seen by the entourage.

We can make them do things that you dare not do yourself.

For example, Churchill has tendency to get up very late

because he works in his bed.

He is always in his bath and we can't send an aide-de-camp

to get him out of bed or his bath. It's impossible.

On the other hand, you can send your daughter.

In the evening, as during almost all week

the three big ones are going to invite each other to dinner.

The opportunity to continue the negotiations in a less formal way.

The first of these dinners takes place at Livadia.

The Americans provide the service, but the Russians provided the food.

And Stalin made a point of honor everything is grand.

You have 15, 20 or 30 course dinners,

with caviar, sturgeon, cream...

Cream is rationed in England, we don't even know what it is anymore.

We forgot.

Meanwhile, the people soviet is starving,

but it has no importance to Stalin.

The whole thing is to show them his power.

It is Georgian and Russian munificence.

It is: I can do anything.

As a host, ask what you want.

Psychologically, it gives a huge boost.

I am your master, but, at the same time, I am your servant.

It's beautiful and threatening at the same time.

So that makes us entirely dependent of Stalin's good will.

That's Yalta, among other things.

To make its guests feel comfortable and in good spirits towards him,

Stalin planned it all.

At the table, alcohol flows freely.

We know very well that if we want a negotiation to succeed,

the interlocutor must be confident.

And the drink is part of it, always,

means that are made available inviting power.

And there, there is a whole game, to know who will drink the most.

Alcohol played a role in Yalta, that's clear.

This first dinner brought the Allies closer together.

Confidence has settled.

Negotiations begin under new auspices.

So that everyone can recover from these drunken evenings,

plenary sessions take place at the end of the afternoon.

But in the morning, the collaborators of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill

are they at work to prepare for the debates.

They imagine compromises possible on the different files.

The three big ones, then, to decide.

On the third day of negotiations,

February 6,

the Polish file arrives on the table.

It's the trickiest part of the conference.

It is also the most symbolic, because it is in Poland that the war started.

The Allies must put set up a new government.

But they don't agree on anything.

Since always, Stalin considers that Poland

represents a danger to his country.

Because throughout history, it's always by Poland

that Russia was invaded.

Stalin wants Poland to become a friendly country.

In fact, he wants create a protective glaze

all around the soviet union so that she will never be attacked again.

The Soviets wanted buffer states.

Everyone knew that, for the Russians,

it was a focal point of their foreign policy.

And when you think about it,

if you were a big country as the USSR was,

you wouldn't want to have hostile states at your borders.

You would like friendly states.

But what is a friendly country?

Is it a friendly country

who simply has a foreign policy friendly to the Soviet Union

and who, in domestic politics, is completely free?

Or is a friendly country, from one thing to another,

is a country that is going to be communised?

This is the big question.

For the British,

no question of having declared war on Hitler because of Poland

to become a communist.

After the conflict,

Churchill wants Poland become free and independent.

Britain was traditionally friends with Poland.

The English did a lot trade with the Poles.

They did not want a country as important as Poland,

in terms of trade and human potential,

come under communist rule if they could avoid it.

For Roosevelt, far from Europe, the Polish question is more incidental.

But she still has its importance, for other reasons.

There are 6 million American citizens who are of Polish origin.

And these American citizens are voting mostly Democrats

that is, for Roosevelt's party.

It is therefore very sensitive to what may be happening in Poland.

These Polish citizens refugees in the United States

are fiercely anti-Communist.

Most of them arrived in America

before the First World War, but they have not forgotten that in 1939

Stalin had agreed with Hitler to invade Poland.

These Poles of America, just like the British,

support the Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz,

in exile in London since 1940.

The problem is that in front of him, there is another government,

communist this time.

This government under influence Soviet Union is led by Boleslav Bierut.

It is located in the middle from Poland, to Lublin,

and calls itself the Lublin Committee.

The Government of London and that of Lublin hate each other.

Because six months ago the irreparable between them has happened.

August 1944.

At that time, the Red Army was at the gates of Warsaw.

Raczkiewicz, in London, decides to trigger the insurrection.

He wants the resisters liberate the Polish capital themselves

before the communists, in order to keep control over the future government.

But the German response is fierce.

For 63 days, the resistants are decimated.

Knowingly, Stalin let it happen and orders the Red Army not to move.

200,000 Poles are massacred by the Nazis.

The Polish capital is more than 90% destroyed.

2 months later, Stalin comes to pick the ripe fruit

and set up a government communist in Warsaw.

In Yalta, the behavior of Stalin weighs in the negotiations.

Churchill never digested that the Soviet allowed to perish

Warsaw resistance fighters without helping them.

There, he understood that he did not have Dealing with a benevolent uncle,

and therefore we could not give him only a very limited confidence,

that he was dealing with a dangerous bandit,

and that, finally, even if it were necessary get rid of Hitler first,

we were going to have very problems comparable with Stalin after the war.

But now, in Yalta, despite suspicion and resentment,

the Allies must form together the government of the future Poland.

The challenge is to know which entity policy must be taken as a basis.

Of course, from the point from the point of view of Anglo-Americans,

you have to build a government of national unity

from the different components policies of anti-fascist Poland.

From the point of view of the Soviets and Stalin,

it's just about leaving from the grassroots of government

as it exists in Warsaw and add some members.

A showdown ensues.

Stalin does not want to hear talk about the government in London.

On the other hand, every time than Churchill or Roosevelt

take a step towards him by proposing personalities

to get into the government of Lublin, he refuses.

Why would he agree?

Stalin knows he is in a strong position.

Soviet troops were in those countries.

They occupied these countries,

even if we didn't dare use the word occupation.

At any rate, they were there.

In a way, the influence of the Soviet Union was inevitable.

The Allies fail not to get along.

Gradually, the tone rises.

Stalin is more and more agitated.

By his side, Ivan Maisky is petrified.

In his diary, he recounts the scene.

“Suddenly Stalin stood up and made big gestures with his right arm.

Such behavior when of a conference with the big three

wasn't really appropriate.

He started talking with unusual nervousness. »

Stalin is very taciturn and someone very calm too,

except a few times where he will get angry.

So those times seem all the more important.

The act of getting up

and to have all of a sudden a very emotional tirade on a subject,

it's a way to show very clearly to his interlocutors

the things on which there is nothing to negotiate.

The Soviet tirade leaves his allies knocked out.

Hopkins, who witnesses the disaster, then slips a note to Roosevelt,

who chairs the discussions.

"Why not end with this today?

Say we'll talk about it tomorrow. It's 7:15 p.m. »

Better stop the fees

and try to leave on new bases the next day.

The mastery with which Stalin leads the negotiations

is obvious to everyone.

Uncle Joe, as the Westerners call it,

wields power fascination with delegations.

In the evening, in his room, diplomat Alexander Cadogan writes:

“Uncle Joe is the most impressive of the three.

He is very calm and reserved.

When he intervenes, he never uses a superfluous word

and goes straight to the point. »

The British Secretary of State Anthony Eden is no less admiring.

“By subtle methods, he gets what he wants

without seeming to persist. ".

However, all the merit of Stalin cannot be attributed

solely to his talent as a negotiator.

Because what Eden and Cadogan ignore,

that's what uncle joe does spy on his allies.

Even before the Yalta conference does not open,

he knew everything.

Preparing for the conference from Yalta lasted several months.

At the time, the services Russian intelligence

were very well established in England and the United States.

Our agents gave us complete information

on how Churchill and Roosevelt were preparing for the conference.

We knew what and how they wanted to discuss

and what position they were going defend during all negotiations.

To not miss anything,

the Russian secret service also stuffed the palates with microphones.

That, Churchill and Roosevelt know.

What they don't know and where they are naive,

is that, obviously, for the things confidential, they go out in the park.

But in the park, we posed omnidirectional microphones

which are everywhere.

There are some in the trees, in the foliage, in the bushes...

and they pick up conversations several meters around.

Stalin does not take these plays lightly.

He doesn't want to miss a beat.

It even demands that his spies come in person

tell him everything that was said.

Stalin asked how things had been said.

He even asked that we repeat the dialogues to him

with the intonation that Churchill or that Roosevelt had taken.

In the game of poker which is played in Yalta,

the cards are rigged.

Stalin knows the game of his adversaries.

He knows exactly where he's going

where its partners are in the dark and grope their way.

On the fourth day of negotiations, the Polish file must be finalized.

Thanks to the listenings of the day before,

Stalin knows that his allies are ready to sacrifice Poland

to achieve other more essential files for them.

For Roosevelt, what matters, it's the UN and Japan.

For Churchill, this is an issue that will never be approached directly in Yalta,

but which is underlying,

that of Greece.

The country is an ancient British protectorate.

It's an issue strategic for the English,

because Greece is opening the way to the suez canal

which allows them access to their colonies.

But for two years, Greece has been plagued by a violent civil war.

Communists try to overthrow the king.

They run the campaigns and are at the gates of power.

If Greece switches to communism,

it's the whole empire British which will be threatened.

Churchill dreads this disaster scenario.

To avoid it, he therefore took the lead and engaged in a perilous bargain.

In October 1944, four months before Yalta,

the British Prime Minister has met Stalin in Moscow,

face to face.

Roosevelt was then in the midst of an election campaign

for his re-election.

taking advantage of the absence of the American President,

Churchill then proposed a secret agreement on Europe to Stalin.

When we talk about sharing the world, it was not in Yalta that it took place,

it was in Moscow, when Churchill and Stalin met.

The document, scribbled on a corner of the table,

is written by hand by Churchill and annotated by Stalin.

Like two grocers, the leaders have each assigned

percentages influence in Eastern Europe.

90% for Russia in Romania, 75% for the Soviets in Bulgaria,

90% for Great Britain in Greece.

In Yalta, Churchill hopes that Stalin will take this agreement into account.

And so that the Soviet hands free in Greece,

the British Prime Minister is ready to drop ballast on Poland.

This agreement of percentages contrasts

obviously with the idea of an intransigent Churchill

and who absolutely would not have never wanted compromise

on the question of zones or spheres of influence in Europe.

So as not to offend Stalin, so Westerners end

by showing off conciliatory on Poland.

On the fourth day of negotiations,

the American and the British let go Raczkiewicz's government-in-exile

and recognize the government communist from Bierut to Lublin.

In return, Churchill and Roosevelt get

that non-Communist ministers enter the government of Lublin.

Stalin also undertakes to organize

free elections in Poland after the war,

as well as in all countries liberated by the Red Army.

This word "free election" rings as a victory for Westerners,

even if they didn't get no guarantees from Stalin.

All they could get from Stalin,

it was statements good intentions and formulas

face-saving before their respective parliaments.

They almost got there.

What do they could do more?

But how to imagine free elections

when the territory is completely occupied by the Soviet armies?

That's where there's an illusion from Westerners.

Because in exchange for these promises,

Westerners grant a huge favor to Stalin.

They allow him to constitute its protective glaze

by attaching a part from Poland to the USSR.

In compensation, Poland will recover later German territories.

The country will thus carry out a westward translation.

In the Polish file, it's full board for Stalin.

The Soviet got anything he wanted.

His allies now hope that Stalin will know how to remember.

This February 8, it's sunny bursting in the sky of Crimea.

Roosevelt is nervous because the talks on Japan must begin.

The American president has absolutely need Soviet support.

To put all the odds on his side,

Roosevelt then invites Stalin to share a Martini just before the plenary session.

Churchill was not warned.

The meeting between the two allies takes place behind his back.

Roosevelt fears than the impetuous Briton

does not prevent him from negotiating freely and don't ruin everything.

Then the American president believes also to the virtues of the tête-à-tête.

He believed he could develop a personal relationship with Joseph Stalin.

And I believe Roosevelt felt that he could influence Stalin

thanks to this relationship privileged he maintained.

But that doesn't work with people like Stalin.

He did not imagine how cruel stalin was

and free from all human feeling.

At the same time, in the Pacific,

Americans know major setbacks

facing a fanatical Japanese army.

Without the help of the Russians, the American general staff calculated

that the war could last another year and cost the lives of over 500,000 GI's.

Roosevelt is determined to avoid this bloodbath.

Stalin knows it and he ups the ante.

In exchange for cannon fodder Soviet, he wants territories.

And the marshal is greedy.

He claims Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands.

But also the occupation of Port Arthur, Dairen,

and a path of iron in Manchuria.

Negotiations do not bear on Sakhalin, nor on the Kuriles,

because it belongs to japan and the Americans are quite ready

to give Japanese territory to the Soviets.

Dairen and Port-Arthur, it's more annoying because it belongs to China.

China is Chiang Kai-shek.

Chiang Kai-shek, it is the ally of the United States,

and he was not invited to Yalta.

Roosevelt can therefore be done reproach, in particular by its Senate,

to make concessions to Stalin at the expense of an ally.

That is very annoying.

But Stalin tries in turn to coax Roosevelt.

With his charm, he will manage good to find a solution

and to be accepted things in Chiang Kai-shek.

Charles Bohlen, interpreter of Roosevelt, reports in his memoirs:

"Stalin said it was clear that if its conditions were not met,

it would be difficult for him, as well as Molotov,

to explain why the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan.

It is clear that Roosevelt was annoyed by this situation. »

Roosevelt hesitates.

But in the face of intransigence of the Soviet,

the American swallows his scruples.

What matters to him is to end this war.

Go for Dairen and Port-Arthur.

Roosevelt sacrifices the Chinese.

He'll figure it out later with Chiang Kai-shek,

once the war is over.

The American President can be satisfied.

He fulfilled his objectives.

On Japan, but also on the UN.

This new organization wanted by Roosevelt

has the ambition to ensure peace in the world.

Stalin agreed of principle to take part.

Effective participation of the USSR is far from certain,

but it is already a first step.

It's a big concession

to make him admit that he is going send Molotov to Dumbarton Oaks

for preliminary negotiations.

Even that is a big concession from Stalin.

Stalin keeps saying:

“If it happens, your thing of the UN, I wouldn't want it.

Do I go send Molotov or not?

He knows how to play it very well.

It is an artist.

Sixth day of negotiations.

This February 9, 1945,

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin can display

their good humor in front of the cameras.

UN, Japan, Germany, Poland: on all these files,

the big three have found compromises

and everyone got what mattered most to him.

Churchill won as an equal against the big two.

He raised France in the winning camp.

He assigned him an occupation zone in Germany.

The American President, he got the green light from Stalin

on the UN and on Japan.

With Churchill, he also snatched to Stalin the promise to organize

free elections in Poland and in Eastern Europe after the war.

But it's the Marshal Soviet who wins the bet.

Unquestionably, it's the soviet union and stalin

who emerge victorious of this Yalta conference.

Stalin got what he wanted about Poland

and he got more or less this that he wanted concerning Germany,

in any case, the principle of reparations.

The image of a perfect harmony between the big three will go around the world.

It is, however, misleading.

In Yalta, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill managed to get along.

They wanted to preserve the Alliance,

while the war was still not finished.

But deep down, each of them defended his vision of the world

and its own interests.

The Yalta Accords are precarious.

They are the result of compromise and rest only on the fragile agreement

between three exceptional personalities.

On the last day of negotiations, yet everyone wants to believe it.

In the evening, delegations toast

friendship between peoples and the peace of mankind.

But this hope won't last only a short time.

The agreement that the big three celebrate will soon be shattered.

Just three weeks after the end of the conference,

Stalin violates the Yalta Accords.

In Romania, while the Army red still occupies the country,

he organizes the catch of power by the Communists.

Poland,

each time his allies propose a name of a non-communist minister

to enter the government,

Stalin refuses it.

Roosevelt, so far so confident, gets scared.

After Yalta, Roosevelt started to cringe.

He noticed than the Stalin he imagined

did not match quite like the real Stalin.

On April 1, the american president sends

a long telegram to his dear Stalin

in order to obtain explanations.

"I can't hide from you the anxiety I feel

in front of the way in which unfold,

since our successful Yalta meeting,

events where our common interests are at stake.

Honestly I can't understand

why recent events in Romania should be considered

like not falling under the terms of our agreement.

But Roosevelt's warnings do not move Stalin at all.

Without the slightest scruple, the Soviet unfolds his plan

and keep installing communist regimes in the east.

Roosevelt dies for 11 days after sending his telegram.

He will never see the extent of the betrayal.

Churchill, who, to everyone's surprise, will lose the elections in England,

should attend, helpless and alone, to their failure.

In Yalta, the big three will not have given birth

to this long-awaited world of peace.

The dream of brotherhood was only a decoy.

Soon, yesterday's allies will become enemies,

clashing in a conflict of a new kind:

the Cold War.