When World War Two ended, the world had been shattered.  The countries of Europe were devastated by the ravages of war.  Millions of people had lost their lives in the conflict through battle or bombardment, and new forms of warfare had been created.  Germany had been divided among the victors of the war: France, Britain, Russia, and the United States of America. In addition, the Communists in the East and the Capitalists in the West, lacking a common foe, were bound to conflict with each other.  Strife was building, and most countries were beginning to choose their alleigances.  As in 1914, Europe had been divided into two camps through alliances and differing beliefs, causing a great deal of tension.

	One phrase that is commonly used when talking about Europe in the late Forties is the “Iron Curtain”.  This refers to the division between the camps of Capitalism and Communism, which split Germany in two.  The phrase itself has its beginnings wreathed in shadow, but it is often attributed to the British hero, Winston Churchill.  In his 1946 speech, “Sinews of Peace”, he states:

       From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.  Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.  (Churchill, “Sinews of Peace”, 1946)

	This shows the popular opinion of the time; it was believed that all of the great treasures of civilisation were lying in the possession of the Soviet Union, which had expanded its borders in the final days of World War Two.  The cities that were behind the line were under complete Stalinist control.  The “Iron Curtain” that Churchill spoke of was simply the limit of the Soviet “sphere of influence”, stretching from North to South.  This barrier was also a sort of front line for the spread of Communism; Communist countries on the Soviet side of the Curtain would lend aid to their allies on the opposite side.  This division tended to follow borders; Russia’s piece of Germany, referred to as “East Germany”, was seperated from the whole by the imaginary line, leaving all of Berlin in Russian territory.  Overall, the division was a way of showing where the Communists were in power.

	The division known as the Iron Curtain did not come into being overnight; over the years, distrust between Capitalist and Communist countries had been growing.  The great schism of Europe began near the end of World War Two, at the Yalta Conference.  At the time, the Russians were still uneasy about allying with Britain and the United States, and vice versa; the early, failed Nazi-Soviet pact was still in their minds.  After the battle of Stalingrad, some people thought Russia could have won the war without Western assistance, and this fact altered Stalin’s attitude at the Yalta conference.  There, Stalin made a bid for further territory, under the pretense of wishing to defend his Western borders.  During the conference, Stalin was given the right to help “restore” the governments of conquered countries such as Poland.  There was also a great disagreement between the three leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) over the fate of Germany, but it was eventually decided that the country would be split into four parts temporarily: one to be governed by France, one to be governed by Britain, one to be governed by Russia, and one to be governed by the United States.  Berlin, though within Russian territory, was split between the factions, the Western half being given to the democratic powers.  The German people were told that this situation would not last forever, only until the world was stable once more.  However, this “temporary” split would continue to exist for the next 45 years.  
	As it turned out, Stalin had no intention of restoring the original democratic governments to the conquered countries.  The planned elections in Poland were cancelled, and the Soviet hold over Czechoslovakia was tightening.  Britain protested the growing Soviet sphere of influence, but their arguments were weakened by the existence of their own Empire.  The Soviets claimed that the Western powers were pushing democracy and Capitalism on the world, and that this was a direct challenge to the Stalinist Communists.  In addition to this, the demilitarization of the powers was not equal; while the American armies were cut from twelve million men to one and a half million men, the Soviet armies were only cut to four million men, most of those stationed in Eastern Europe.  They claimed that the army’s purpose was solely defense, but were using their power and resources to aid Communist factions in other countries like Greece.  Slowly, the rift between the two camps was widening.

	The two camps were more than imaginary divisions; during the Cold War, there were two major alliances set up between countries.  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO, included the Western powers such as Britain, France, Canada, Italy, the United States, and most countries that were not in the Soviet sphere of influence.  Sweden, Eire, Switzerland, Spain, and Finland remained neutral, having their own reasons for staying out of the alliance.  NATO itself was a defensive alliance; one article stated that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. . . .” (Modern Perspectives, 620-622).
	In response to this treaty, namely the addition of West Germany to the member countries, the Soviets set up their own military alliance with their sattelite countries.  It was known as the Warsaw pact, and in theory, was supposed to let the powerful Soviet Union protect its sattelite countries from Western invastion.  However, it was essentially an excuse for Russia to post troops in these “border countries”, and increase its control over its share of the world.  Together, these two alliances created a situation similar to the beginning of World War One; with Europe divided into two camps, tension was building, and the slightest spark could have started a third world war.  However, no such spark existed, and both sides were content to merely wait.
	Going by numbers, NATO was weaker than the Warsaw Pact; the Soviet alliance had many more army divisions in Europe, giving them greater military power.  For a time, the policy-makers of NATO relied on the American trump card, the nuclear bomb, to deter any plans for attack.  This distinction of power was shattered when Russian scientists managed to create an atomic explosion of their own.  The United States immediatly began production of bigger bombs, and increased their European military might.  There were no attacks, however; all the armies and bombs merely waited to be used, while both parties waited for the other to make the first move.  The clash in power was not restricted to Europe; thanks to the imperialistic attitude of the nineteenth century, what Britain and Russia created as policy applied to their colonies as well.  The global standoff, the Cold War, had begun.
	After the end of World War Two, with the Soviet influence spreading, the division known as the Iron Curtain becoming more solid, and the two camps preparing for war, there was a great deal of tension similar to the situation in 1914 that could start another war.  However, because both sides were rebuilding after the devestating World War Two, they were content to prepare their forces and wait for the other side to make the first move.  Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact tried to increase their regions of influence as they waited for a nonexistent attack.  The worldwide standoff, the Cold War, had begun.