Britain, America and the USSR were in constant contact during the war. Military officials and politicians regularly met to discuss details of organising the war.

The leaders of the Big Three met 3 times. The first was in Teheran in November 1943. That meeting resulted in a joint declaration that the Big Three would remain allies and co-operate fully.

The next meeting was at Yalta, in the USSR, in February 1945. By then it was clear that the war was coming to an end, even though there was still a lot of hard fighting to come. Stalin (USSR), Churchill (Britain) and Roosevelt (USA) wanted to discuss the war, but they were all more focused on the future. There were a number of major issues:

1. What to do with Germany after it was defeated
2. The exact details of how the new United Nations Organisation was going to work
3. Getting the USSR to enter the war against Japan
4. Reparations to be paid by Germany to the USSR
5. The borders of Eastern Europe, particularly the questions of what would happen to Poland.

There were lots of smiles and positive publicity shots. However, there was a lot of tough talking and dealing as well. In this case study your task is to decide exactly how good or bad relations were between the wartime allies.

To do this, you are going to 'take the temperature' of relations between the Allies, using the temperature gauge provided in the worksheet.

The Case Study Worksheet will also help you to organise your answer to this question.