Office of the Historian

740.0011 Moscow/10–1943

British Draft Proposal for Moscow Conference Under Item 14 of the British Agenda

undated

Conference Document No. 35

The Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the United States and the U.S.S.R. have discussed at their conference the question of arrangements to be made for the administration of Allied territory in Europe when it is liberated by the Allied forces from enemy occupation, and have in general established that there is an identity of views between their respective Governments on this subject.

The Governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the U.S.S.R. desire that self-government should be restored as soon as possible in all Allied territory in Europe liberated from enemy occupation. To that end it is their common policy to facilitate the resumption of authority over liberated territory by the Allied Governments concerned; or, where no such government exists, by an appropriate authority recognized as capable of exercising governmental powers pending the formation of a freely elected constitutional government.

The application of this policy must however, in the opinion of the three Governments, necessarily be conditioned by paramount military requirements, which will make it essential that there shall be a first phase in which the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces of liberation in each theatre of operations must exercise supreme authority in areas where he is conducting active military operations. During this first phase, the three Governments, having regard to the conditions of modern warfare and to the confusion that is likely to prevail in newly liberated territory, consider it indispensable that the supreme responsibility in civil as well as military affairs should de facto be concentrated in the hands of the Allied Commander-in-Chief. This will be without prejudice to the principles—first, that this responsibility shall be transferred to the appropriate Allied authorities as soon as the progress of operations permits; and second, that the reorganized administrative and judicial services in liberated territory shall be conducted so far as possible by citizens of the Allied country in question who have shown their loyalty to the Allied cause.

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(This document was referred to the European Advisory Commission)