Moscow Conference of 1943
Moscow Conference of 1943, a meeting of foreign ministers of the principal Allied powers in World War II. It resulted in a declaration of objectives called the Moscow Pact. The meeting, October 18 to 30, 1943, was held at a time when the military situation had definitely turned in favor of the Allies. The Germans had been driven from Africa, and the Allies had invaded Italy. In Russia, the Germans had been pushed back along the entire front.
The conference was attended by Secretary of State Cordell Hull for the United States, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden for Great Britain, and Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov for the Soviet Union. The pact was also signed, at the suggestion of Hull, by Fu Ping Sang, Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union.
In the Moscow Pact the Allies agreed to:
- Continue their united action through the surrender and disarmament of the enemy and the establishment of peace and security.
- Set up an international organization of the nations then allied in war. (This was what became the United Nations.)
- Destroy completely Fascism in Italy.
- Set up a free and independent Austria, its annexation by Germany in 1938 being declared null and void.
The conference also released a declaration signed by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin warning that Germans would be returned for trial to the countries where they were accused of atrocities, massacres, and coldblooded executions.