User:Halibutt/Western betrayal
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Western betrayal or Yalta betrayal are terms used[1][verification needed] in some Eastern and Central European countries, which refer to the foreign policy of several Western countries between 1919 and 1968, which violated allied pacts and agreements made during the period from the Treaty of Versailles through World War II and to the Cold War.
The perception of "betrayal" comes about because the western Allies promoted democracy and self-determination, signing pacts and forming military alliances prior and during World War II, but subsequently apparently betrayed their Central European allies by abandoning these pacts, for example by not preventing Nazi Germany from invading and occupying Czechoslovakia (Munich Betrayal) or by abandoning their Polish allies during the Invasion of Poland (1939)[2] and during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.[3] Western powers also signed the Yalta agreement and after World War II did nothing or very little to prevent these states from falling under the influence and control of Soviet communism. In addition, during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Hungary received neither military nor moral support from the Western powers during the uprising, which was eventually suppressed by the Red Army.[4] The same scenario was repeated in 1968 when the armies of the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to crush the Prague Spring changes in the governing Communist system.
With regard to the Yalta Conference and its aftermath, some historians[who?] dispute the concept of western betrayal, arguing that Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt had no option but to accept the demands of their ally Soviet premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran and later in Yalta. However, there were some misjudgments of the power of the Soviet Union by the Western powers, much like the case with Nazi Germany a decade before. Supporters of Yalta are sometimes outraged at the notion that Yalta was a "betrayal" of Eastern and Central Europe without considering the fate of Poland. Polish forces had fought the Germans longer than any country since the beginning of the Second World War. They fought alongside the U.S., British and Soviet troops in most major campaigns[5] in Europe, including the final battle of Berlin, with the strength of the Polish Armed Forces in the West peaking at 249,000 (out of 4 million Western allies), 180,000 in the East (out of over 6 million Soviets) and over 300,000 in underground[6] AK.[7][8] In the final stage of war the Polish troops on all the European fronts, excluding the Home Army, amounted to some 600,000 soldiers[9] (infantry, armored troops, aircraft and navy). This made the Polish Armed Forces the fourth largest after the Soviet Union, United States and British Armed Forces.[9][10] The Polish government in exile was an official ally of the U.S. and Britain. All this did not prevent Roosevelt from acquiescing[citation needed] in the dismantlement of this Allied government and its replacement with a puppet communist government. Even as the men of the Polish 1st Armoured Division, determined to link up with the American 90th Division under Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army and to close the trap on the German armies in Normandy, were battling the German Army and the Hitler Youth SS Panzer division,[11] Roosevelt was planning to hand Poland over to Stalin.[12]
Other historians[who?] suggest that Churchill urged Roosevelt to continue military action in Europe - but against the Soviet Union, to prevent the USSR extending its control beyond its own borders. Roosevelt apparently trusted Stalin's assurances and declined to support Churchill's intention of ensuring the liberty of all Europe outside the USSR. Without US backing, the exhausted, near starving and near bankrupt UK could not take action. Even with US backing, the result of action against the Soviet Union was very uncertain (see Operation Unthinkable).