atlantic charter 1941

 

1941: Secret meetings seal US-Britain alliance

The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, has spent the last few days in top-secret meetings with the American President, Franklin D Roosevelt.
Details of the meetings only emerged after the announcement of a joint declaration by Britain and America on the basic principles for a post-war world, sealing the alliance between the two countries for the downfall of Hitler.

  
It is a statement of basic principles and fundamental ideas and policies that are universal in their practical application.
 

Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/14/newsid_3536000/3536533.stm

 

Lend Lease program and the aid for Great Britain

The United States enter the war in December 1941. By the spring of 1941 Congress had approved the Lend Lease program, and the aid Roosevelt had promised at Charlottesville had begun to flow to Great Britain, where Winston Churchill was now prime minister. In July 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill met for the first time in Argentia Bay off Newfoundland, to issue a joint declaration.
Originally the Soviet Union, which had been attacked by Germany the month before, was to sign the charter as well. But the notion of "one world," in which nations abandoned their traditional beliefs in and reliance upon military alliances and spheres of influence, did not appeal to Joseph Stalin, and, in fact, neither was Churchill particularly thrilled.

This document was drawn up as a joint statement of Roosevelt and Churchill while meeting aboard ship in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland established a basis of co-operation that was subsequently endorsed at the Inter-Allied Meeting Atlantic Conference held in London and later used in the formation of the “New World Order” through the so called "United Nations", (see: Declaration by the United Nations), and eventually the creation of the permanent institution of the United Nations.

 

ATLANTIC CONFERENCE

The Atlantic Conference (code named "Riviera") was an historic meeting between President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Mister Winston Churchill and their staffs. The discussions at the Conference forged the Anglo-American alliance of World War II. Meeting at Ship Harbor, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland from August 9-12, 1941, in great secrecy aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta and the battle cruiser HMS Prince of Wales, the two leaders and their staffs discussed the general strategy of the war against the Axis Powers, although the United States was not yet a belligerent. Roosevelt and Churchill have attention to future military operations, in particular launching a second front in Europe to support the beleaguered Soviet forces.

Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed that the U.S. and Britain scientists would cooperate in developing the atomic bomb.

"With humble duty, I have arrived safely, and am visiting the President this morning."
              --- Prime Minister Churchill to His Majesty
                  the King 9 August 1941

 

As the morning mist lifted on 9 August, Winston Churchill stood on the bridge of HMS Prince of Wales dressed in the uniform of an Elder brother of Trinity House (an exotic quasi-naval uniform). Winston Churchill recounts the day in his memoirs as follows:
As soon as the customary naval courtesies had been exchanged, I went aboard the Augusta and greeted President Roosevelt, who received me with all honours. He stood supported by the arm of his son Elliott while the national anthems were played, and then gave me the warmest of welcomes.

Churchill salutes USS Augusta honor guard
I gave him a letter from the King and presented the members of my party. Conversations were then begun between the President and myself, Mr. Sumner Welles and Sir Alexander Cadogan, and the Staff officers on both sides, which proceeded more or less continuously for the remaining days of our visit, sometimes man to man and sometimes in larger conferences.
On Sunday morning, August 10, Mr. Roosevelt came aboard H.M.S. Prince of Wales and, with his Staff officers and several hundred representatives of all ranks of the United States Navy and Marines, attended Divine Service on the quarter-deck. This service was felt by us all to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded the quarter-deck - the symbolism of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes draped side by side on the pulpit; the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers; the highest naval, military, and air officers of Britain and the United States grouped in one body behind the President and me; the close-packed ranks of British and American sailors, completely intermingled, sharing the same books and joining fervently together in the prayers and hymns familiar to both: "O God, and "Onward, Christian Soldiers", O God our Help in Ages Past", and "Eternal Father" which Macaulay reminds us the Ironsides had chanted as they bore John Hampden's body to the grave. Every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. Nearly half those who sang from the crew of the Prince of Wales were soon to die when the ship was sunk in December.
Special arrangements were made to accommodate FDR's disabilities while aboard the Prince of Wales. A memorandum was prepared in advance by FDR's Naval Aide, Cpt. J.R. Beardall explaining those arrangements.

The major public outcome of the Atlantic Conference was the Atlantic Charter, issued by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill on August 14, 1941in the form of a joint declaration. An Atlantic Charter Monument was subsequently erected onshore at Argentia, Newfoundland commemorating the event..
Conference Trivia:

1. Three reasons why Argentia may have been chosen as the site for the Conference: not too heavily settled; plenty of Canadian, British and American troops stationed nearby, and any concentration of warships in the harbor of the harbor of Argentia would cause no speculation inasmuch as the U.S. Navy was already engaged in building it up as a base (based on the opinions of Elliott Roosevelt
2. During the Conference FDR and Churchill ate six meals together, five of which were aboard the Augusta
3. The joint declaration issued by FDR and Churchill was first christened the "Atlantic Charter" by the Daily Herald (London) subsequent to the Conference.

The site chosen for the Conference was Argentia, Newfoundland which had recently been "delivered" to the United States from Britain pursuant to the Lend-Lease Plan. The U.S. subsequently built a naval base there.

 

Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, August 14, 1941 :

The following statement signed by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain is released for the information of the Press:
The President of the United States and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, have met at sea.
They have been accompanied by officials of their two Governments, including high ranking officers of the Military, Naval and Air Services
The whole problem of the supply of munitions of war, as provided by the Lease-Lend Act, for the armed forces of the United States and for those countries actively engaged in resisting aggression has been further examined.
Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister of Supply of the British Government, has joined in these conferences. He is going to proceed to Washington to discuss further details with appropriate officials of the United States Government. These conferences will also cover the supply problems of the Soviet Union.
They have agreed upon the following joint declaration:
Joint declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for shaping the future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the objector securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;
Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;
Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;
Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

 

Winston Churchill's edited copy of the final draft of the Atlantic Charter.

The Atlantic Charter was negotiated at the Atlantic Conference (codenamed Riviera) by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard warships in a secure anchorage at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, and was issued as a joint declaration on August 14, 1941.

Contents 1 Course of events 2 Content 3 Reaction 4 Aftermath 4.1 Gallery

Course of events
As a cover story, a flag day was enacted at Downing Street, filmed, and then broadcast while Churchill had already set off for the conference. Disembarking at Thursam, he boarded HMS Prince of Wales at Scapa Flow. Though the ship had to make multiple course changes to avoid U-boats and lost her escorts to bad weather, Churchill found the voyage restful, reading novels, watching films and losing at backgammon to Harry Hopkins.
On the morning of Saturday 9 August the Prince of Wales sailed into Placentia Bay down a line of US ships to the USS Augusta where Roosevelt—who, like Churchill, had left Washington under a cover story (he was supposedly in New England on a ten-day fishing trip)—his son and his chiefs of staff were waiting. On first meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt were silent for a moment until Churchill said "At long last, Mr President.", to which Roosevelt replied "Glad to have you aboard, Mr Churchill". Churchill then delivered a letter to the president from George VI, King of the United Kingdom, and made an official statement which, despite two attempts, a sound-film crew present failed to record.
Whilst the chiefs of staff and head of state and head of government met, Churchill's bodyguard Walter Thompson, was shown round the ship and lunched with the president's bodyguard Mike Reilly. The following day, Sunday August 10, was fine and a church parade was held on Prince of Wales. From a lectern draped in British and US flags, and with a congregation and naval clergy drawn from both nations, hymns selected by Churchill and the sound of the patrolling US aircraft overhead in the background. Walter Thompson was personally presented to the president by Churchill on the last day of the conference.
As the Prince of Wales departed, sailors from both navies lined their ships, the US anthem was played and Churchill stood at the salute until the whole line of US ships had been passed. The ship then set off for Iceland, on a convoy route. Passing twice through the three lines of a convoy so that it could be reviewed by Churchill, stopping at Iceland for the troops there to be reviewed, and making two more course changes against suspected U-boats, the ship then arrived back at Scapa Flow. From there Churchill took a train back to London, where he was met by his wife and some of his cabinet members.

Content
The Atlantic Charter established a vision for a post-World War II world, despite the fact that the United States had yet to enter the war. The participants hoped that the Soviet Union would adhere as well, after having been attacked by Germany in June 1941.
In brief, the nine points were:

1. No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom!
2. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with wishes of the peoples concerned!
3. All peoples had a right to self-determination!
4. Trade barriers were to be lowered!
5. There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare!
6. freedom from want and fear;
7. freedom of the seas;
8. disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament
9. defeat of Germany and other powers.

Reaction

Germany, Japan, Italy interpreted these diplomatic agreements as a potential alliance against them. In Tokyo the Atlantic Charter rallied support for the militarists in the Japanese government, who pushed for a more aggressive approach against the US and Britain.

Official statements and government documents indicate that Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter. No signed copies are known to exist, however. H V Morton, who was with Churchill's party, states that no signed version ever existed. The document was thrashed out through several drafts, says Morton, and the agreed text was telegraphed to London and Washington. The British War Cabinet replied with its approval and a similar acceptance was telegraphed from Washington. During this process, an error crept into the London text, but this was subsequently corrected. Public opinion in the UK and Commonwealth was delighted with the principles of the meetings but disappointed in the fact that the US was not entering the war. Churchill himself admitted that he had hoped the US would finally decide to commit itself. On the other hand American public opinion was delighted with the principles but upset over the fact they seemed to pushed even further into belligerency. Supporters and opponents alike had both views.

 

Aftermath
Referring to Allied complicity in the planned dismemberment of Germany and expulsion of Germans, British Labour MP John Rhys-Davies stated the following in a speech in the House of Commons on March 1, 1945:

“

We started this war with great motives and high ideals. We published the Atlantic Charter and then spat on it, stomped on it and burnt it, as it were, at the stake, and now nothing is left of it.

”

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEE ALSO:	British Colonisation of the Americas | Crown Colnies  | Decolonisation | Divide and Conquer | Cash Crop | European Colonial Powers
GO TO:	•CONTACT • ARCHIVE • PUBLICATION •
	Copyright:©2007 All Rights Reserved