Casablanca Conference (1943): Unconditional Surrender Demanded

The Casablanca Conference was a meeting of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and their military chiefs, held at Casablanca in French Morocco from 14 to 24 January 1943. Over ten days they agreed Western Allied strategy for 1943, including the invasion of Sicily and an intensified bombing campaign against Germany. At its close Roosevelt announced that the Allies would accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Background

By the end of 1942 the course of the war was changing. British and Commonwealth forces had won the Second Battle of El Alamein, Anglo-American forces had landed in Morocco and Algeria in Operation Torch in November 1942, and a German army was surrounded at Stalingrad.

The Allies now had to decide what to do next. American planners, led by General George C. Marshall, wanted to concentrate forces in Britain for an invasion of northern France as early as possible. The British, remembering the costly failure of the Dieppe Raid in August 1942, argued that a cross-Channel attack was not yet feasible and favoured exploiting success in the Mediterranean.

Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to meet to settle these questions. Joseph Stalin was invited but declined, saying he could not leave the Soviet Union while the Battle of Stalingrad continued.

The conference

The meeting, codenamed SYMBOL, took place in a guarded compound of villas around the Anfa Hotel on a hill above Casablanca. Roosevelt’s journey made history: he flew in a Boeing 314 flying boat across the Atlantic and then in a military transport, becoming the first US president to fly while in office and the first to visit Africa.

Most of the work was done by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the joint committee of the British and American service chiefs. The Americans were represented by Marshall, Admiral Ernest King and General Henry “Hap” Arnold. The British delegation included General Sir Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, with Field Marshal Sir John Dill acting as a link between the two sides.

The British arrived with a large and well-prepared staff, including a ship fitted out as a communications and planning headquarters. After days of intense argument, the American chiefs largely accepted British proposals for the Mediterranean in exchange for commitments elsewhere, especially in the Pacific.

Decisions on strategy

The conference produced several key decisions:

• Sicily: once North Africa was cleared of Axis forces, the Allies would invade Sicily, an operation later named Husky. The aims were to secure Mediterranean shipping routes, draw German forces away from the Eastern Front and put pressure on Italy.
• The cross-Channel invasion: a full-scale landing in France was effectively postponed to 1944, though a planning staff for it was to be set up in Britain. This led to the appointment of Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan in March 1943 as chief of staff to the future supreme commander.
• The U-boat war: defeating German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic was given first priority among Allied resources, since shipping was the basis of every other operation.
• Bombing: the “Casablanca directive” of 21 January 1943 told British and American bomber commanders to pursue the progressive destruction of Germany’s military, industrial and economic system and to undermine the morale of the German people. It laid the basis for the Combined Bomber Offensive.
• Command: General Dwight D. Eisenhower was confirmed as supreme commander in North Africa, with General Sir Harold Alexander as his deputy commanding ground forces.
• The Pacific and Burma: the Americans won agreement to continue offensives against Japan, and operations to reopen land communications with China through Burma were discussed.

The French generals

Roosevelt and Churchill also tried to unite the rival French leaders in North Africa. General Henri Giraud had been placed in charge of French forces there with American backing, while General Charles de Gaulle led the Free French from London and was distrusted by Roosevelt.

De Gaulle at first refused to come, resenting a meeting on French imperial territory arranged by foreign powers, and only arrived on 22 January under strong British pressure. On 24 January the two generals were persuaded to shake hands for photographers in front of Roosevelt and Churchill. The handshake did not end their rivalry, but in June 1943 they became joint presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation, which de Gaulle soon came to dominate.

Roosevelt also dined with Sultan Mohammed V of Morocco, a meeting later remembered in Morocco as encouraging hopes of independence from France.

Unconditional surrender

At a press conference on 24 January 1943, seated beside Churchill in the garden of his villa, Roosevelt told reporters that peace could come only through the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan. He linked the phrase to General Ulysses S. Grant, nicknamed “Unconditional Surrender” Grant during the American Civil War, and stressed that it did not mean the destruction of the peoples of those countries, but of philosophies in those countries based on conquest and the subjugation of other peoples.

The idea had been discussed beforehand, and the British War Cabinet had agreed to it in principle, but Churchill later wrote that he was surprised by the public announcement. He nonetheless endorsed it at once.

The policy reassured the Soviet Union that its Western allies would not make a separate peace, and it avoided the uncertainties of the armistice of 1918, which German nationalists had later turned into the myth that Germany had not been truly defeated. Critics then and since have argued that it handed Joseph Goebbels a propaganda gift and made it harder for anti-Nazi Germans to seek a negotiated end to the war. Most historians doubt it greatly lengthened the war, but the debate continues.

Key people

Franklin D. Roosevelt chaired the political discussions and made the unconditional surrender announcement. Winston Churchill pressed successfully for the Mediterranean strategy. George C. Marshall, the US Army chief of staff, argued for an early invasion of France but accepted Sicily as the next step. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, led the British case in the military talks. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle were the rival French leaders whose reconciliation the Allies sought.

Timeline

• 1942, 8 November: Allied forces land in Morocco and Algeria in Operation Torch.
• 1943, 14 January: The conference opens at the Anfa Hotel, Casablanca.
• 1943, 21 January: The Casablanca directive on strategic bombing is issued.
• 1943, 22 January: De Gaulle arrives in Casablanca.
• 1943, 24 January: Giraud–de Gaulle handshake; Roosevelt announces the unconditional surrender policy.
• 1943, 24 January: After the press conference, Roosevelt and Churchill drive together to Marrakesh.
• 1943, 10 July: The Allies invade Sicily, as agreed at Casablanca.

Consequences

Casablanca set the Western Allies’ course for the year. Victory in Tunisia in May 1943 was followed by the invasion of Sicily in July and then landings on the Italian mainland. The Combined Bomber Offensive grew steadily, and in the spring of 1943 the U-boat campaign suffered a decisive defeat in the Atlantic.

The postponement of the cross-Channel invasion disappointed Stalin, who had been pressing for a “second front” in Western Europe. Those tensions were taken up at the Tehran Conference later in 1943, the first meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin together.

After the conference, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to visit Marrakesh with him. There he painted the view of the Koutoubia Mosque at sunset, the only picture he is known to have painted during the war, and later gave it to Roosevelt.

Why it matters

The Casablanca Conference shaped the Mediterranean strategy that led to the fall of Mussolini and the invasion of Italy, and it set the course of the strategic bombing of Germany. Its demand for unconditional surrender became the defining war aim of the Allies and determined how the Second World War would end in 1945.