And the exhibits of what would have happened on the ground didnt matter the closing months of world war tii. To do this we asked our own rob citino. She among the seniors, i will beat him to the punch line and say he has the longest on staff. He is a Award Winning historiah. He taught for three decades including stints at west point, the u. S. Military economy, and the war college. He came in 2013 for the International Conference. He is one of our featured tour historians. He came to our 2015 tour, but he did not come to our 2015 International Conference because we did not invite him that year. We invited him to join the staff as the Museum Senior historian and we could not be luckier to have a topnotch scholar to guide us, so ladies and gentlemen, our friend george citino. What was up in 2015 . What did i do you sit at home and there is a big party in new orleans and youre wondering what happened. Thank you for those comments, ger my. I remember the first time i spoke at the conference. I was at the friday morning 8 00 a. M. Slot. I just remember walking into that room and it was jam packed. There was electricity in the air. Folks that know a lot and have good questions to ask, and the National World war two museum is a place you have to bring your a game. We worked out, you never now how timely something can be, but who can predict just how timely these things are going to be. So jeremy asked me, and he is my boss so i do whatever he does, the role that yalta played, so to take us out of the realm of diplomacy and talk more about military operations and strategy. I will try to leave time at the end for questions as well. The way it determines the post world order. It seems to be fraying and we may be living in the post post war era right now. Well have to determine if that is true how things play out. Determining the post war order, especially in europe. And that makes perfect sense. The soviet occupation and communeization of Eastern Europe. You could make a case that all of these are a fact of post war life and they flow kind of naturally. I am still reeling from that first slide with the modern face super imposed,ly have nightmares for the next three weeks. Now seen in that light. You can make various assessments of who, so to say, at the yalta conference, i know this from personal experience, so if you will indulgences. We used to say, and i have no way of determines if this is true or not, there was more s slovenians in philadelphia than in the capital of slovenia. Every sunday there was a mountain of mail for castigate ing the paper. They sold them down the river. Fdr sold poland down the river. In the 70s, it is the return of the founder of the hundrgarian nation. It was hit by a turkish musket ball. Those are the legends, but it is being held in the United States. And president carter wanted to give it back. You know to improve relations with hungary. Mary rose okar didnt even give it back. So that the yalta talk about the captive nations in Eastern Europe. Now what im going to try to argue today is there is another lens through which we can and probably should look through yalta. I think it is one that is less used. I will try to go into more detail on it here. And i think in this light we could judge it a remarkable success. On the strategy of the allies, and in the wars, but were talking about a conference in 1945, and a war that came to an end in europe, or in may, or in the pacific in august and september. How did they impact the battlefield in those months. So let me begin with, i think, a fairly obviously point and well stair at this map for awhile. The big losers at the yalta conference were not the earn europeans. As horrible as their sufferings would be, the real losers were the germans, yalta rammed the final nail in the coffin of jerman strategy for the war game. Sum marriz summarized briefly, they made it as expensive as possible through fanatical based resistance of the der man people. I think a french revolution style, a big call up of the entire population, a German National uprising. So the plan had been followed since late 1944. It was to call up last ditch levees of troops. These were made up of manpower combed o out of area areas. Administrative troops, even lightly wounded turned out of their hospital beds, giving training, formed into a division. A big chunk they were holding extremely larger septemberments of the front, you have taken every desk jockey and they would return comprised of the class c troep trope of a grandfather and grandson in the same group. You see pictures late in the war of some ger man soldiers. They really do look like sophomores in high school. In many cases thats what they were. When those were exhausted, you run out of old men and boys, there is last second partisan resistance in germany. People standing up against the invader in the east and west. That these would be partisan and fight gorilla warfare against the invaders. According to this scheme, eventually probably in britain or the United States firth, moral would crack. You cant find over every village. Eventually it would crack. And in the clip rations, okw, it was almost always assumed it would be britain or the United States first, and that would splitter the grand alliance. And that would free german troops to mask in front of the soviets. There was a strategy that was discussed all of the time in the Upper Echelon of the german high command. Im not really a fan of that point of view, but you do see it argued in the literature from time to time. Now, saying there was a strategy is different from saying it was a good strategy. Whether or not that was realistic or not, it is hard to argue if there was much there that was going to work. That entire perspective was smashed to pieces by presented a united front to the enemy. Simply by restating the commitment to unconditional a bn at yalta. So implicitly restating unconditional surrender. Simply by alaying stalins fears that somehow the west was going to do a deal against him, yalta laid the groundwork for the endgame in europe. That would end, we all know spoiler alert in the total destruction of German Military power. Sure. That seems inevitable to us today. Hey, its february this war is going to be over in three months. But hard fighting was going on all across the front while the yalta conference was taking place. Nobody was driving forward at top speed against negligable opposition. A long, long way from where they wished to be. So, victory seems inevitable. Were all guilty of it. If you have a class, University Professor or lecturer and you have limited time and youre behind on the syllabus, believe me, well, water was over in two months. If youre in charge of fighting that war, it looks a great deal more difficult from that perspective. And if the study of diplomacy and history tells us anything, its that nothing is inevitable, but theres nothing less inevitable than the end of a war. When it happens its always a relief. And in that sense, im arguing that yalta was a kind of guarantee of all ied victories since, by this point in the war, victory probably was guaranteed as long as the grand alliance held together. So, the german folk storm, these battalions made up of boys who were not yet of draft age and men who were well, well past it, the motto was a people rises up, a people stands up. But, you know what . In the face of these vast forces by the allies in the face of a grand firm alliance, the german people stood up and the vast majority of them sat right back down again. And, hence, the mass surrenders at the end of the war and the lack of any real guerrilla resistance. By saying there would be no room for that sort of thing, yalta probably did good work bringing about german surrender in may. Hitler shooting himself helped, but hitler shot himself because of what happened at yalta as well. I think thats also part of what we want to say. The second impact of yalta at the end of the war has to do with the shape of alterations in europe in the last few months. So once again, in my era, ive already revealed 1958. I grew up in the middle of the cold war, maybe at its coldest. People can always argue about what were its worst moments. In my era, historians often spoke of a race to berlin. This is how they characterized the end of the war. And they castigated the western allies for having lost the race to berlin, making this mistake, that mistake, this blunder and that one, thus surrendering a big chunk of post war germany and Eastern Europe to the soviets. Now, there were always big problems with this thesis. By march 1945, the beginning of march so immediate post yalta, defenses had smashed their way already into the reich itself and came to rest along the line of the rivers. Just about 50 miles from berlin. At the time, western allied forces under allied commander eisenhower were still stuck on the rein, 300 miles away from berlin. This is where we are at the time and here is where the soviet sorry, i dont mean to sounds like the home team. Here is where the western allies were at the time and here is where the soviets were. A real discrepancy in who is closer to berlin. But soviet defenses had smashed its way into the reich itself, overrunning east prussia here and the coastal province of pomerania and came to rest here on the rivers. Seizing the german Capital First was unlikely for the western allies but also a highly risky operation that was foreign to eisenhowers sober sense of strategy. Eisenhower does take his share of risks in the war but by and large the operations on the map are not what you could consider napoleanic in the chances they take, in the risks theyre willing to court. Thats a little 1967 book by Steven Ambrose of sainted memory. Steven ambrose, of course, is one of the fathers of this museum, along with our own nick mueller. He wrote a book called eisenhower in berlin in 1945 the decision to halt at the albaa, where the americans would eventually stop. He was one of the first, i think, to make a sustained argument in favor of ikes decision not to go for berlin, not to risk, oh, i dont know, 80,000, 90,000 or 100,000 men in a senseless fight for a city that was going to be divided amongst the allies anyway. Thats essentially the contour of ambroses argument in eisenhower and berlin 1945. Its still a book, like everything Steve Ambrose wrote, its still a book well worth reading. But, in fact, the strategic context for all these developments was laid again at yalta. After this show of interallied unity against the germans, a lunge for berlin that snashed the big prize from under stal stalins nose would have been difficult to justify, i might even say difficult to explain amongst the people who would have had a hard time explaining would have been a lot of americans. Stalin was, of course, paranoid about this very possibility. Stalin paranoia was a way of life. And feeding stalins paranoia was probably not a Winning Strategy for the allies at this point in the war or, frankly, naat any other point. That was the background for the march 28th note from eisenhower to stalin, telling the soviet dictator that they tended to drive east with the aim of cutting germany in half, north to south, not detour northeast to try to take berlin. So, my point, instead of a messy topspeed race to berlin and a subsequent, very bloody urban mele, which is what the proponents going for berlin are really asking for, yalta ensured that the war in europe would end with the meeting of soviet troops on the alba river april 25th, 1945. And i have to say, having weighed the pros and cons, pluses and minuses, its probably a better option. And i hope a lot of people in the room would agree with me. Well, what did that decision then lead to . Deciding to forego a risky, longdistance strike at berlin allowed the u. S. Army to focus on a juicy operational target all its own. The encirclement of the main german force in the west. Let me go to now there was a stroke of luck on march 7th, as u. S. Forward units ninth Armor Division seized an attacked railroad bridge over the rein river just here at the bottom of this little map. You may know the story. Troops rushing forward. Theres a german bridge that hasnt been blown yet. German troops on the bridge and on the opposite side of the river, to blow off the charges that will destroy the bridge. American troops are already on the bridge. They press it. It blows. It lifts up in the air and it comes back down to rest intact. Its one of the most amazing moments in all of world war ii. Naturally, you know, its rather freakish, by all accounts, the bridge should have gone into the river. And the nazis reacted nazi command reacted as you would expect, rounded up all the troops responsible for it, gave them a courtmartial and had them shot. Bad luck from the german perspective but at any rate the americans seized the bridge over the rein. Getting over the rein, its not crossing the little stream in your backyard. Its a major mississippistyle river and was going to be difficult to have any kind of a crossing operation. By the end of the month, massive allied forces were driving over the rein heading east. Including a gigantic air drop, the allies encircled an entire German Army Group here in the ruhr, germanys industrial heartland, 30,000 troops of army group b, marching into captivity, nearly in toto. So many pows that the u. S. Army had a hard time processing them all and kept them out in camps, openair camps along the rhine, socalled rhine meadow camps in horrible conditions, open air elements. There were too many pows to do anything with them at the time. The battle of ruhr, a caldron battle or battle of encircling. The battle of the ruhr pocket was nothing less than the greatest u. S. Military victory of all time. The german commander of army group b, seeing the writing on the wall about the future of the german war effort, took his own life in the aftermath of the debacle, shot himself. Youre here and drive over here to berlin while this force is on your flank is impossible anyway. Thats so many reasons the berlin option is not realistic in terms of operations or strategy. Two or three months it was going to be a colossal logistical challenge. So two or three months. Didnt get much more definite than that. Stalin lied and cheated his way through his career as a miserable human being, i think. He kept that promise at least. On august 9th, 1945, about three months after the end of the war in europe, the soviets launched a great invasion of japaneseoccupy japaneseoccupied mincheria i was admiring it, and realized it was in spanish. Ill be willing to talk anyone through it who needs that. Graphics are beautiful. August 9th, 1945, soviets launched tremendous invasion of japaneseoccupied manchuria. In the soviet way theres always these long titles, the manchurian Strategic Offensive operation. But it has become customary to call it operation august storm. The soviets never used that. But he called his book august storm in 19 3. Its my understanding thats why we refer to this operation as august storm. If the manchurian Strategic Offensive operation is the alternative, maybe we are better off with august storm. Whatever you call it, it was one of the wars most massive and successful blows with three fronts, the soviets used the term front in the way that we or the germans use army group. We use front in sort of an indefinite way. Soviets have a technical use for it, army group. Three great army groups or fronts array around the arc of the great manchurian bulge. Here. The second far Eastern Front and the first far Eastern Front. Getting precise numbers is never easy for a soviet operation because the soviets were always all over the place in their numbers. It was often part of disinformation campaigns about how big these operations had been. But let us say roughly 1. 5 million men. Im going about 500,000 per front. 3,000 aircraft, tavengs for a single operation. Japanese force defending manchuria. Usually in japanese propaganda terms, the great guandong army, counterinsurgency for over a decade. Best units, elite units had been bled off for the fight in the pacific by august 1945. It was far below its authorized strength. Ranks were filled with light or obsolete equipment. Soviet mechanized assault on august 9th simply blew it away. Im trying to think of some other way to thats not a technical military term. The russian offensive that smashed German Army Group center. If you could use it as a vertebra, the great guangdong army was. Utterly vaporized in about two weeks of fighting with hundreds of thousands of japanese prisoners falling into soviet hands. So, in other words, the Japanese Forces at manchuria simply dissolved. Note that date, august 9. The u. S. Dropped an atomic bomb on hiroshima on august 6th and another on nagasaki on august 9th. News arrived of the devastating japanese impact in manchuria at about the same time that the news arrived of the second atomic bomb dropping on nagasaki. Without refighting the entire scholarly battle over the bomb and its impact on the japanese decision to surrender, because there has been a big scholarly fight over it, i think its reasonable to say that the smashing of an entire japanese field army in manchuria played some role in japanese strategic deliberations. They would be utter fools if it hadnt. So, august storm, in other words, along with hiroshima and nagasaki helped. What percentage i wont say, but helped to end the pacific war. That meant no operation olympic. The allied invasion of largely American Invasion of the southern island. It meant no operation cornet, the American Invasion of the big japanese island of honshu, in tokyo where most japanese still live today. No bloody campaign to fight through the japanese home islands, fighting that would would have generated monstrous casualties, once likened fromtoan okinawa from one jap end of japan to another. Lets just say truman was correct on some level, invasion of japan would have been very bloody indeed. Im sure there are people in the room who would say manchurian didnt matter. Allies had no way of knowing that when they were begging stalin in february at yalta to join the war ag