THE QUESTION OF BALTIC STATES IN THE POLICY OF THE GREAT WESTERN POWERS IN 1943

The fate of the Lithuania and other Baltic States was determined during the years of the World War II. The most important, still unanswered question in Lithuanian historiography is when exactly the fate of Baltic States was doomed.

The main role in the considerations of the fate of the Baltic States was played by three Great Powers. The United States of America and Great Britain were those Western powers that represented point of view of Western democracy to the issue of the occupation and annexation of Lithuania and other Baltic states.

The year 1943 brought changes not only in the military fronts but also to international relations. On the eve of Soviet military victories in the East, Soviet Union shifted the focus of foreign policy to postwar domination in Europe That had impact on the changes of attitudes of the Great Western States toward problem of the Baltic States. First main decisions on the future of the postwar Europe were made in the Big Three conference in Teheran. Though the question of Baltic States was not included into agenda of this conference discussion points had affected the issue of the Baltic states. Because the Western Allies hoped that Stalin would continue the cooperation with the Western powers, USA and Britain accepted Stalin’s demands for security in Teheran. Baltic states in inter-Allied relations were used as a bargaining chip. Realizing that U.S. president Roosevelt in the conversation with Stalin declared that he would not go to war with the Soviet Union after it re-occupied these lands. Stalin refused further to discuss the question of Baltic States. Incoherent, passive policy of the two great Westerns states conference toward the issue of the Baltic States in the Teheran determined that Baltic States were turned to soviet security interest sphere.

Western states remained firm in their legal commitment that final settlement of frontier questions will be resolved only at the Peace Conference. The legal nonrecognition of the Baltic forcible annexation did survived the trying times of World War II, but question of Baltic states was eliminate from agenda of political considerations of other Big Three conferences.