Contenu du sommaire : Varia : La recherche historique russe sur les conflits.

The years 1944/1945 marked the liberation of European countries from Nazi occupation and determined the major division and frontiers of the postwar period. The position of the Soviet Union in the Yalta agreements is still challenged in historiography, and the resolution of the Polish Question is a thorny issue. This article discusses the motives and the diplomatic actions of the Big Three on the question of Poland following the Warsaw Uprising (August- September 1944). The refusal of the Polish Government in exile in London to recognize the new Soviet-Polish frontier imposed by Moscow determined the fate of the “Londoners”. They were to have no say in the political settlement of the Polish Question. Despite the support given by the US and the UK to the government in exile, the balance of forces, strategic calculations and the major challenge posed by the unfinished war against Japan prevailed over solidarity with the Mikolajczyk government. Stalin was to turn Lublin into an alternative politicalmilitary centre, in support of the Soviet troops during the liberation of Poland from Nazi Germany.

Mikhail Gorbachev and François Mitterrand played very important roles in the reunification of Germany. The essential aims of Gorbachev were to avoid an international crisis and to continue perestroika in the USSR. Mitterrand aspired to keeping Germany a participant in the process of European integration and to developing this process. Neither Gorbachev nor Mitterrand had the means to prevent the unification of Germany.

In this article the author explains the role played during the First World War by the Holy See, which was committed, at least in part, to ensuring the supply of food to the various military-occupied regions and to zones under naval blockade, both in Europe and in the Middle East. This was a new kind of war, one that set out to starve civilians in a direct and brutal way. During the pontificate of Benedict XV, the Vatican faced the intransigence of the Powers engaged in the war, and it had to overcome many difficulties in a mission that answered both to the charitable purposes of the Church and to its political and diplomatic interests.

Australia is about to spend more than any other country in commemorating the centenary of the First World War. This article examines the reasons behind the attachment of the Australian Government and part of the Australian people to commemorative celebrations. The author describes the background to this rediscovery of Australia's engagement on the Western Front, a rediscovery encouraged by government policy since the end of the 1980s.

From the end of 1917, Albert Michel, the Alsatian-born commander of the Gendarmerie, tried to improve relations between the French people and the Alsatian refugees who had settled in eastern France. In this personal enterprise he engaged in a propaganda campaign that made use of cinema.

This article focuses on opinion in the British press concerning the strategic bombing of Germany during the Second World War. By examining the editorials in the London Times, the Daily Herald and the Manchester Guardian, it presents the main arguments expressed by these three dailies during the conflict and shows that all three newspapers supported the bombing of Germany throughout the entire war. It also notes an important contradiction in their editorials. Despite their strong criticism of the Luftwaffe for using the same methods, the journals present the destruction of Germany and the civilian deaths caused by the raids as legitimate and necessary since they helped to win the war and destroyNazism.