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August 12, 1941 marks the anniversary of the creation of the Atlantic Charter by President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Meeting in secret at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, the two leaders spent time assessing the current situation and how they envisioned a postwar world to look.
The Soviet Union, under intense pressure from the German armies that now threatened Leningrad and the capital of Moscow, needed help from the West. Joseph Stalin had asked for aid, primarily in the form of a second front being opened on the European continent to relieve pressure. But Britain, still standing alone and heavily involved in North Africa, could do nothing in terms of a landing in France. Still, the U.S. promised to offer Lend-Lease supplies to the Russians, who would eventually become America’s biggest client.
But the biggest impacts of the Charter were “down-the-road” considerations, as both countries were looking ahead to a postwar world. The groundwork for the United Nations was laid in Newfoundland, as well as the goals of the Allied Powers (despite the current “neutrality” of the U.S.). Chief among them commitment to forego all territorial gains made in the war, unless the wishes of the people in those territories were otherwise. In addition, all people had the right of self-determination, and there was to be economic cooperation and improvements in social welfare.
The goals of the U.S. and Britain were certainly at odds with those the Soviet leader, whose picture of Eastern Europe and Soviet influence looked radically different. But still, it was August of 1941, the War was relatively young, a Soviet collapse was looking more inevitable every day, and there was hope that, when (or if) things did turn around in Russia, Stalin would be more amenable to the terms of the Charter. History would prove he was not.
Recommended Reading: War Summits: The Meetings that Shaped World War II and the Postwar World
Today's History Lesson 