The original signatories – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the USSR’s Ambassador to the US Maxim Litvinov, and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs T. V. Soong – were joined the next day by a further 24 nations.

Having been drafted by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Roosevelt’s aide Harry Hopkins, the short declaration was linked to acceptance of the principles of the Atlantic Charter of 1941. The document also provided a foundation for the later establishment of the UN itself, but was firmly rooted in the political and military situation of the time. All signatories agreed to apply themselves fully to ‘a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world’. Referring to these forces under the umbrella term ‘Hitlerism’, it is clear that the Allied leaders did not differentiate between the different regimes against which they were fighting.

The declaration also presented the intended conclusion of the war. Rather than accept an armistice as had happened at the conclusion of the First World War, the signatories agreed that ‘complete victory over their enemies is essential’. This meant that the Allies would only accept the unconditional surrender of their enemies. Furthermore, they agreed to cooperate with every other signatory in the ongoing war and therefore not pursue a separate peace for their own nation’s advantage.

By the time the war ended in 1945, a further 21 countries had signed the declaration.

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