THE PEOPLE'S CENTURY: THE HISTORY OF THE 20TH CENTURY
BY: LEAM HANKS ET. AL.
CHAPTER 15: THE POSTWAR ORDER: THE AFTERMATH OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
VICTORY IN EUROPE AND THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE
The Second World War in Europe had finally ended in the long-awaited victory of the allied powers. With the suicide of Hitler on April 30 and the subsequent capture of Berlin by the Red Army along with the allies breaking past through the Rhine River, the German Third Reich was finally vanquished. On May 9th, 1945, the remaining German command would unconditionally capitulate to the allied powers, ending the Second World War in Europe. With the end of the war in Europe, the victorious allied powers would meet in the German city of Potsdam outside Berlin, with the conference starting in July 1945. The participants of the Potsdam Conference were the United States, represented by President Henry Wallace, the Soviet Union, represented by General Secretary Josef Stalin, and the United Kingdom, represented by Winston Churchill, though later replaced by Clement Attlee due to Churchill losing the 1945 election in Britain. The main objectives of the Potsdam Conference were to resolve a postwar peace in Europe and the conclusion of the war against Japan, which was still fighting against the allied powers.
THE BIG THREE: These three men were British PM Clement Altee (then Churchill), American President Henry Wallace, and General-Secretary Josef Stalin
In April 1945, President Roosevelt had died in office, with Vice President Henry Wallace succeeding him as the new President of the United States. Under Wallace, the initial distrust of Stalin by some American and British officials, especially in the face of Soviet actions in Poland and Eastern Europe, would be put aside by Wallace. Wallace aimed to establish good relations with Stalin to prevent tensions and maintain cooperation with the Soviet Union in order to build his vision of peaceful postwar order all the while keeping the peace in Europe. During the conference, Wallace would focus on negotiating with Stalin and Molotov during the conference and agree to much of their demands. The relationship between Churchill and Wallace during the conference quickly soured, due to Wallace being a critic of British imperialism and his preference to negotiate with Stalin and Molotov instead. Churchill would also criticize Wallace as ‘appeasing’ to Soviet dictates, further deteriorating their relationship from its height during Roosevelt back during WW2. With the British sidelined, the Potsdam Conference would be dominated by the likes of the Soviet Union and the United States.
After the conclusion of the conference in August 1945, the allied powers would conclude the final agreement for a future postwar Germany. The allied would divide Germany and Austria into separate occupation zones under France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union as was planned during the Yalta Conference. Wallace would also abandon the original proposal at the Yalta Conference that envisioned Berlin and Vienna being occupied jointly by the allied powers, with the cities instead remaining in Soviet control. Wallace would claim that sending American troops into Berlin and Vienna would ‘provoke’ the Soviets and threaten the state of peace in Europe. The allies would also impose the five ‘D’s’, which were demilitarization, denazification, democratization, decentralization, and deindustrialization of Germany. The allies also planned for the transformation of Germany from a pre-war heavy-industry economy to an agricultural and light-industry economy. This was to be done through the establishment of the Allied Control Council, a joint council of the allied powers which would control the German economy and serve as its governing body.
As was decided in the Moscow Declaration of 1943, the allies would lead the prosecution of the National Socialist leadership and German war criminals through public trials. The conference also saw the reduction of all German territory to their pre-war borders and the expulsion of all Germany living beyond the newly-established borders, such as in East Prussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and much more of Europe. The allies would also recognize the new borders for Poland and Germany with the new Oder-Neisse enforced in the East as the new border between Germany and Poland. The Soviet annexation of East Prussia would also be recognized by the allies. The Germans in these territories would be expelled in an ‘orderly and humane fashion, although this was largely unenforced, with thousands of German expellees dying on their way to Germany.
Other terms in the Potsdam Conference also included the American recognition of the pro-Soviet and communist government in Poland under the Provisional Government of National Unity and also the pro-Soviet Provisional Government in Austria, led by social democrat Karl Renner as president. Another Soviet demand was their proposal to establish a trusteeship over Tripolitania, part of former Italian Libya, drafted by Molotov. The Americans (for obscure reasons) would accept the Soviet proposal, hoping that to appease Soviet demands for a Mediterranean base, Stalin would be more malleable in the postwar order. So it was decided that the Soviet Union would acquire a mandate over Tripolitania, with Libya becoming jointly governed by the British, Soviets, and French until an independent government was formed. During the conference, Wallace would also secretly tell Stalin about the results in the recent Trinity Test, although Stalin was not surprised (since the Soviets had spies in the program). Wallace’s recognition of the communist governments in Poland and Austria and the appeasement of Stalin to get the Soviets to join the war against Japan would earn him much criticism in the United States and Britain, with some critics comparing the Potsdam Conference to the 1938 Munich Conference and Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, substituted with Wallace’s appeasement to Stalin.
During the Potsdam Conference, the allies also drafted the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms for a Japanese surrender during the Pacific War in Asia. The terms would call for the prosecution of Japanese leaders and generals responsible for starting various wars in Asia, such as the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. Another protocol was the reduction of Japanese territory only to the home islands (i.e. Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku) and the renunciation of any conquests (i.e. Formosa, Korea, Sakhalin, Kurils). This also included a withdrawal from all occupied territories in Asia and the demilitarization of the Japanese military forces. The Potsdam Declaration would also be added to include a protocol on the partition of Japan into occupation zones under the British, Chinese, Soviets, and Americans, which Wallace agreed on in exchange for the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan. Korea and China would also be recognized by Wallace as being in the Soviet sphere of influence to additionally coerce the Soviets in joining the Pacific War.
GERMAN OCCUPATION ZONES: After the Potsdam Conference, the victorious allied powers, the British, French, Americans, and Soviets, would jointly occupy Germany with the aim to establish a people's democratic state.
THE TRIPLE OCCUPATION OF LIBYA: The former Italian colony of Libya would be in an interesting situation in which the Soviets, British, and French would jointly govern the territory, with the aim to establish a free and independent republic.
VICTORY OVER JAPAN AND THE END OF THE PACIFIC WAR
With the European Front of World War Two concluded in an allied victory, the allied powers would turn their attention to the Pacific War. The Japanese had continued to fight even after the capitulation of Germany in May 1945, determined to come out with a conditional peace or alternatively fight to the death. The United States by July 1945 had already liberated the Philippines back from Japanese occupation and had recently captured Okinawa from Japanese forces after a fierce battle. With the Japanese unwilling to do an unconditional surrender, with the Premier Suzuki declaring that Japan will rather fight to the very end, the allies would begin plans to invade mainland Japan on a set date on November 1 under Operation Olympic, which envisioned an American amphibious invasion of Kyushu on mainland Japan. The casualty estimates of such an offensive would be staggering for both the Japanese and Americans, but the allies deemed it the only way to achieve victory over the Japanese.
The situation would change however in July 1945, when the American nuclear project would bear fruit with a successful detonation of an atomic bomb in the form of the Trinity Test in the New Mexican desert. With a working atomic bomb, President Wallace would be left with a choice on whether or not to use it on Japanese cities to help hasten a surrender. However, Wallace would be adamant about the use of atomic weapons against Japanese cities, as his pacifism weakened his will to use the destructive, and radicative, potential of the nuclear bombs immediately. Fearing that by using nuclear weapons against Japan would set a bad precedent, Wallace would order the bomb to be put on hold. Hoping that the proposed Soviet entry into the war against Japan and that the current resources at disposal in an invasion of Japan would force the Japanese into an unconditional surrender.
This day would come on August 9th, 1945, when the Soviets launched a massive invasion of Manchuria, under the control of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria came as a surprise to the Japanese, who did not expect the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan. The million-strong Red Army would pour into Manchuria, sweeping aside the Kwantung Army by the end of August, the Red Army had captured all of Manchuria except for Japanese holdouts in Southwest Manchuria. Despite the Soviet entry into the war, the Japanese militarist government refused to comply with the demands of the Potsdam Declaration, especially about the clause that had the Soviet Union occupy one-fourth of Japan and the anti-monarchist sentiment of Wallace. With the Japanese committed to still fighting on, the planned Operation Olympic would take place in the beginning of start of November, with American and allied troops planning to land on the beaches of Kyushu. The Battle of Kyushu was particularly brutal on the level of Iwo Jima, with the Japanese defenders fighting to the death and armed civilians attacking allied troops doubled with both sides using chemical weapons.
Operation Olympic would take place just as the Soviet Union secured Sakhalin and the Sakhalin Islands, preparing for the invasion of Hokkaido. In a month prior to Operation Olympic, the Red Army would invade Hokkaido from Sakhalin and the Kurils in August 1945. With most of the IJA in Southern Japan fighting the Americans and the IJN practically nonexistent, the Red Army were able to secure beachheads and occupy all of Hokkaido North of the Rumoi-Kushio line by September 1945. By December 1945, the Americans would be victorious in Kyushu, occupying the lower half of the island while the Soviets swept through Hokkaido. The Americans would also conduct another landing in Shikoku in December 1945, managing to secure a beachhead at the cost of heavy casualties. With the American objective reached, which was the capture of Southern Kyushu and Shikoku by December 1945, the Americans would began planning for Operation Coronet, the invasion of Tokyo.
Back home, Wallace had to deal with increasing issues over the invasion of Japan. American war-weariness had reached its climax by the end of 1945 and many in Wallace's cabinet were convinced that an atomic bombing of Japanese cities were the only way to force a surrender. Facing pressure from his own cabinet and receiving reports of the carnage from the battles of Kyushu and Shikoku, Wallace would reluctantly approve the use of a nuclear weapons by the beginning of Operation Coronet in March 1945. In March 1946, before the Americans landed in Tokyo, the first atomic bomb against a civilian target would be deployed, with the Japanese city of Kyoto destroyed by one American atomic bomb. The destruction would be massive, with the Japanese shocked about the scope of the destruction.
Operation Coronet would start in the beginning of March, 1946, outnumbering Olympic in its size and scope, with nearly 25 divisions to be used in the operation. Operation Coronet would start with an American landing in the Kanto Plain. The allies would push the Japanese up the two peninsulas, planning to encircle Tokyo and capture the Japanese capital. The Japanese by this point in the war had committed most of their army to stop the initial invasion and were now relying on guerilla tactics to resist the allies. Though a brutal battle, the Americans were able to establish beachheads and would advance to the outskirts of Tokyo by April 1946. The Emperor and military moderates would realize the futility of continuing the war, with the Japanese nation being invaded by all sides and their enemies now possessing city-destroying bombs. The Japanese government would unconditionally surrender, accepting the Potsdam Declaration in May 1946 and instruct the surrender for all Japanese soldiers. Although many generals refused to surrender, with even a radical militarist coup attempt taking place, the war was all but over for the Japanese. Allied soldiers from the Soviet Union, America, and the British would quickly occupy Japan as per the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
In August 1946, the allied leaders would meet yet again, this time in Vladivostok to discuss how to manage the postwar order in East Asia. It was agreed to implement the protocols of the Potsdam Declaration, with Japan partitioned into occupation zones. However, the Chinese delegation would reject the proposal to have the Chinese occupy Skikoku, with Chaing Kai Shek focused on the inevitable civil war against the communists rather than occupy faraway land. So the Chinese zone in Shikoku would be given to the British Commonwealth Zone in Japan instead. Emperor Hirohito would also be forced to abdicate as Emperor of Japan, with the abolition of the Japanese monarchy soon taking place soon after. Hirohito's abdication would take place in July 1946, ending what was the world's oldest monarchy, lasting some thousands of years.
Korea would also be fully occupied by the Soviet Union, with a military-civil government under the People’s Republic of Korea led by Korean nationalist Lyuh Woon-hyung. The status of European colonies did not remain clear, as Wallace wished to see self-determination for Indochina and the East Indies instead of being returned back to European colonialism. Decolonization had already begun to take place in Southeast Asia, with the American territory of the Philippines being granted independence on July 4, 1946. This resulted in a protocol on self-determination in the Vladivostok Conference approved by Stalin and Wallace, putting more pressure on the French and Dutch who wanted to re-establish their colonies.
JAPANESE OCCUPATION ZONES: Following the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese home islands would be jointly occupied by the Soviets, British, and Americans. The Chinese zone was given to the Americans during the Vladivostok Conference, as shown on this map.
FOCUS QUESTIONS:
1) WHY DID PRESIDENT WALLACE AIM TO APPEASE THE SOVIET UNION AT POTSDAM? EXPLAIN THE REASONS.
2) WHY DID WALLACE DECIDE NOT TO USE AN ATOMIC BOMB AT FIRST ON JAPAN? EXPLAIN WHY.
3) WHAT FACTORS LED TO JAPANESE CAPITULATION? EXPLAIN THE REASONS.