I contend that the territorial outcomes in Europe were foregone conclusions as early as June 22, 1941 when Hitler invaded the USSR. At that point it was inevitable that the United States and United Kingdom were going to defeat Nazi Germany at the cost of copious amounts of Russian blood, and that meant the Red Army was going to occupy all of Eastern Europe behind the “Iron Curtain” from Rostock to Trieste.
Gator might argue it was a foregone conclusion as early as August 1939 when Stalin and Hitler signed the Non-Aggression Pact. If he were to do so, I could see his point even if I might not go that far.
Despite what Patton said, the political reality was that the American public, with an as of yet unfinished war with Japan, were not going to turn on their erstwhile Soviet allies. And there was no way you could convince them to do so.
The fate of Eastern Europe was a foregone conclusion from that moment. The fate of Western Europe would have been very different if Hitler had not invaded Russia.
Despite what Patton said, the political reality was that the American public, with an as of yet unfinished war with Japan, were not going to turn on their erstwhile Soviet allies. And there was no way you could convince them to do so.
Until we knew that the A-Bomb would work (and we didn't know for sure at the time of the Yalta conference), we very much needed Stalin to invade Manchuria to have any hope of defeating Japan in a short time.
Absolutely correct. There was zero appetite to fight another European war after defeating the Germans.
And I hate to sound like a broken record, but almost no one in America was aware of the atomic bombs and a large majority expected the Pacific War to extend at least into 1946. The conventional military wisdom was that we would need at least one field army from Europe to defeat Japan.
I question how much the American People really opposed another 60 miles to get to Berlin after taking hundreds and thousands of miles in the Atlantic and in Europe. I think it was a very costly error at Yalta by FDR who was himself a socialist and didn’t seem as vigilant about Stalin’s threat as Churchill seemed. I don’t know how much of a fight Churchill put up leading up to and including Yalta, but regardless, it looks like his input was secondary to FDR’s.
Winning the war takes arms, grit, and determination. But winning the peace takes the added element of far-sighted vision and vigilance. An irony of this present world is the peace and prosperity that inevitably comes to a free society also has a tendency to dull the far-sighted vigilance needed to keep freedom, while the tyrants and demagogues, discontented with their lack of power, work tirelessly, determinedly, and patiently to achieve their goals.