Tehran Conference (1943): The First Meeting of the Big Three

The Tehran Conference was the first meeting of the “Big Three” Allied leaders of the Second World War: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Held in the Iranian capital from 28 November to 1 December 1943, it fixed the date of the Anglo-American invasion of France and drew a first sketch of the post-war world.

The conference, code-named Eureka, turned the wartime alliance from a series of letters and envoys into a face-to-face partnership. Its decisions shaped the final eighteen months of the war in Europe and foreshadowed the later settlements at Yalta and Potsdam.

Background

By late 1943 the war had turned against Germany. The Red Army had won at Stalingrad and at the Battle of Kursk, and was pushing west across Ukraine. In the Mediterranean, the Western Allies had cleared North Africa, landed in Sicily and knocked Italy out of the war.

Yet Stalin had long complained that the Soviet Union was carrying most of the burden. Since 1942 he had demanded a “second front” in western Europe to draw German divisions away from the east. Roosevelt and Churchill had promised one, but the date had slipped repeatedly, and at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 they had prioritised the Mediterranean instead.

Roosevelt in particular wanted to meet Stalin in person, believing he could build trust that letters could not. Stalin insisted on a location close to the Soviet Union. Iran, occupied jointly by British and Soviet troops since August 1941 to secure oil fields and a supply route known as the Persian Corridor, was an acceptable compromise.

The meeting in Tehran

Roosevelt and Churchill came to Tehran directly from the Cairo Conference (22–26 November 1943), where they had met China’s Chiang Kai-shek. Stalin arrived from Moscow. The Soviet and British missions stood next to each other in the city centre, while the American legation was some distance away.

After Soviet security officials warned of a German plot against the leaders, Roosevelt moved into a villa in the Soviet embassy compound. Historians still debate how serious the threat was, and it is widely assumed that Soviet intelligence listened in on the American quarters. The arrangement nevertheless gave Roosevelt several private conversations with Stalin, from which Churchill was excluded.

The plenary sessions took place in the Soviet embassy. Discussion quickly centred on strategy. Churchill argued for further operations in the Mediterranean and the eastern Mediterranean, including efforts to bring Turkey into the war. Stalin, backed by Roosevelt, pressed hard for a firm commitment to a cross-Channel invasion and asked who would command it, signalling that he would doubt the operation until a commander was named.

On 29 November Churchill presented Stalin with the Sword of Stalingrad, a ceremonial sword commissioned by King George VI to honour the city’s defenders. On 30 November, Churchill’s 69th birthday, the British hosted a dinner at their legation.

What was agreed

The military conclusions, approved on 1 December, were the core of the conference:

• Operation Overlord, the invasion of northern France, would be launched during May 1944.
• A supporting landing in southern France would accompany it.
• The Red Army would launch an offensive at about the same time to stop Germany moving troops west.
• The Allies would increase aid to Josip Broz Tito’s Partisans in Yugoslavia.

Stalin also repeated a promise he had made privately to Roosevelt’s envoys: the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. This was of great importance to American planners facing a long war in the Pacific.

The leaders issued a public Declaration of the Three Powers on Iran, thanking the country for its help and pledging to respect its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. A general declaration spoke of their determination to work together in war and in the peace that followed.

Poland and the post-war world

The most consequential political talks concerned Poland. Churchill, using matches on a table to illustrate his point, suggested that Poland’s borders could move westward. The leaders broadly accepted that the Soviet Union would keep eastern Polish territories roughly up to the Curzon Line, while Poland would be compensated with German land up to the Oder River. No formal agreement was signed, and the Polish government-in-exile in London was not consulted.

Roosevelt outlined his idea of a post-war international organisation, with the major powers acting as “four policemen” to keep the peace. The partition of Germany into several states was discussed but not decided. These conversations laid groundwork for the Yalta Conference of February 1945.

Key people

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), US president, who acted as a mediator between Churchill and Stalin and sided with Stalin on the priority of Overlord.
• Winston Churchill (1874–1965), British prime minister, who supported Overlord but sought to keep the Mediterranean campaign going and grew uneasy at his reduced influence.
• Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), Soviet leader, who achieved his chief aim of a fixed date for the second front.
• Advisers: Harry Hopkins and General George Marshall for the US; Anthony Eden and General Alan Brooke for Britain; Vyacheslav Molotov and Marshal Kliment Voroshilov for the USSR.

Consequences

Tehran settled the central strategic argument of the Western alliance. After the conference Roosevelt chose General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander for Overlord, and the appointment was announced in December 1943. The landings, delayed by a few weeks for weather and landing craft, took place on 6 June 1944 as the D-Day Normandy landings, and the Red Army launched its great summer offensive, Operation Bagration, later that month.

The supporting invasion of southern France, eventually called Operation Dragoon, followed in August 1944. Stalin’s promise on Japan was renewed at Yalta and fulfilled in August 1945.

The conference also revealed a shift in power. Britain, stretched by four years of war, was increasingly the junior partner of the United States and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt’s private meetings with Stalin, and his willingness to side with the Soviet leader against Churchill on strategy, showed where the weight of the alliance now lay.

Timeline

• 1941, 25 August: British and Soviet forces invade Iran, opening the Persian Corridor supply route.
• 1943, 22–26 November: Roosevelt and Churchill meet Chiang Kai-shek at the Cairo Conference.
• 1943, 28 November: The Tehran Conference opens at the Soviet embassy.
• 1943, 29 November: Churchill presents the Sword of Stalingrad to Stalin.
• 1943, 30 November: Churchill’s birthday dinner is held at the British legation.
• 1943, 1 December: The leaders approve the military conclusions; the conference closes.
• 1943, 24 December: Eisenhower’s appointment to command the invasion is announced.
• 1944, 6 June: Operation Overlord begins with the Normandy landings.

Myths and facts

Myth: Tehran divided Europe into spheres of influence. The conference made no formal division of Europe. Its firm decisions were military; the political talks on Poland and Germany were exploratory and were taken further at Yalta and Potsdam.

Fact: an assassination plot was alleged, but its details are uncertain. Soviet sources later described a German plan, sometimes called Operation Long Jump, to kill the leaders. Many historians regard the story as exaggerated, and little reliable documentation supports it.

Why it matters

Tehran was the moment the Grand Alliance agreed on how to defeat Nazi Germany. It locked in the invasion of France, coordinated the eastern and western fronts and brought the Soviet Union into plans for the war against Japan. Its quiet bargains over Poland also cast a long shadow over the Cold War that followed.