Casablanca Conference

7 Key excerpts on "Casablanca Conference"

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  Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy

  • Michael Graham Fry, Erik Goldstein, Richard Langhorne(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  276 CRISES AND MEETINGS focus of the conference, political issues became prominent. A major problem for the Allies was division within the ranks of the French expatriates. General Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French faction, several times refused requests by Roosevelt and Churchill to come from London to Casablanca for talks aimed at reconciling the various French factions. When the General finally relented, arriving in Morocco on 22 January, he had to be coerced by the two Allied heads of government into meeting with General Henri Giraud, leader of the French forces in North Africa, shaking hands publicly with Giraud and posing for a photograph with Giraud, Churchill and Roosevelt, intended to demonstrate broad solidarity. After a total of ten days of meetings, monitored by the two heads of government, the Combined Staffs produced a plan for the conduct of the war during 1943. The plan was accepted by Churchill and Roosevelt, who scheduled a press conference for 24 January to communicate the fact and substance of their hitherto secret meetings to their respective nations and the rest of the world. It was during this press conference that Roosevelt, fol-lowing the announcement of the military programme, declared, apparently spontaneously, that the Allies' objective was nothing less than the 'uncon-ditional surrender' of Germany, Italy and Japan. Churchill, who was sur-prised by the timing, but not the substance of his cohort's statement immediately declared his full concurrence. One major post-war school of thought would maintain that the unconditional surrender declaration pro-longed the war by intensifying the enemies' will to fight. An opposing school held, however, that the declaration was insignificant in comparison to other factors that resulted in a longer war than might otherwise have been expected. Quebec Conferences, 1943 and 1944 These were further wartime meetings that took place principally between US President Franklin D.

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  A Companion to World War II

  • Thomas W. Zeiler, Daniel M. DuBois, Thomas W. Zeiler, Daniel M. DuBois(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  One Christmas in Washington: The Secret Meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill that Changed the World , analyzed the critical but seriously understudied Arcadia Conference of December 1941–January 1942. Hilderbrand (1990), similarly in his Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security , analyzed that 1944 meeting to plan for the postwar international organization, while Schild (1995) in Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks: American Economic and Political Postwar Planning in the Summer of 1944 , analyzed both conferences with an emphasis on US intra and inter-departmental decision making. Dobson (1991, 2011) has filled another gap regarding the 1944 International Aviation Conference within his larger studies of Anglo-American conflict over international aviation. And Heiferman has recently published the first book-length study of the first Cairo Conference in The Cairo Conference of 1943: Roosevelt, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang , with a notable emphasis – as revealed in the subtitle – on Asia and the roles of the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang rather than just Churchill and Roosevelt (Heiferman 2011).

  Wilt (1991) analyzed the importance of the strategic decisions reached at the Casablanca Conference while Kimball devoted a chapter to that 1943 meeting within his larger work on Roosevelt as wartime statesman (Kimball 1991), but to date no book-length study has appeared on the conference. Nor have any appeared on the Churchill-Roosevelt meetings in Washington in June of 1942 and May of 1943 as well as Quebec in August of 1943 and September of 1944 (save for the previously cited Woolner collection of papers), or on either of the Churchill-Stalin meetings of 1942 and 1944 in Moscow. The second 1943 Cairo Conference probably cannot be analyzed separately from the first as well as the Tehran Conference, as the brief Churchill-Roosevelt meetings at Malta and Suez in 1945 cannot be treated apart from the Yalta Conference. But these other conferences between two rather than three of the Allied leaders still call for additional and detailed study. So does the 1943 Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference.

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  Europe from War to War, 1914-1945

  • Alice-Catherine Carls, Stephen D. Carls(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  7 Stalin reacted angrily, accusing the Allies’ of breaking their word regarding a second front in 1942. He refused to go to an Allied conference in Casablanca, Morocco, in January 1943, but pressed the British and Americans at the end of 1942 to fulfill Churchill’s August promise of a 1943 invasion.

  p.282

  At the Casablanca Conference, American and British officials, including Roosevelt and Churchill, discussed several issues dealing with strategy and priorities. Strategically, the two countries agreed, once hostilities in North Africa had successfully concluded, to begin an invasion of Sicily in 1943, with the intention of forcing Italy out of the war. The decision represented a victory for Churchill’s Mediterranean strategy that the Americans, uneasy about further operations in the Mediterranean, saw as self-serving, since it was a way to protect British access to Middle East oil and to India. The decision also effectively postponed a major cross-Channel offensive against France until at least 1944. As a way of reassuring Stalin of their nations’ determination to stay in the war to the end, Roosevelt and Churchill publicly announced their policy of demanding the unconditional surrender of Germany.

  The second front issue continued to cause considerable discord in the Grand Alliance in 1943. While Churchill’s military advisors knew after Casablanca that the planned attack against Italy that year would postpone an invasion of France until 1944, Churchill appeared to think otherwise: he wrote Stalin in February 1943 that preparations were pushing ahead for a cross-Channel invasion later that year. When Stalin learned in June from his Western partners that an invasion of France would not occur before May 1944, he recalled the Soviet ambassadors to Washington and London in protest. The new postponement deepened Stalin’s sense of betrayal by the West on the issue.

  There were other complications in Allied relations. One was the Polish question. The Soviet Union had diplomatically recognized Poland’s government-in-exile after Germany’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, but relations between them had been cool from the start. In April 1943 came the disclosure of the 1940 Katyn murders of thousands of Polish army officers and members of the Polish intelligentsia. When Władysław Sikorski’s exiled Polish government questioned the Soviet account blaming the Germans and called for an international inquiry, Stalin in late April severed relations with it. Eager to placate Stalin, the British and U.S. governments muted the Polish cries for action, meekly accepted the Soviet version of events, and raised no protest against Stalin’s break with Sikorski’s government. Their first priority was to keep Stalin in the Grand Alliance at a time when they still feared that the Soviet Union might make a separate peace with Germany. Another issue that centered on Poland was postwar boundaries. Stalin had already indicated to the Sikorski government in the summer of 1941 that the Soviet Union intended to keep the Polish lands it had gained from its pact with Germany in 1939 – lands that almost completely corresponded to the frontier established by the Curzon Line of December 1919. The London Poles by contrast had insisted on regaining their lost territory in the east, while the British and Americans had refused to make a firm commitment in favor of either side. The question of postwar borders was still unsettled in the fall of 1943.

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  Bombing To Surrender: The Contribution Of Air Power To The Collapse Of Italy, 1943

  • Major Phillip A. Smith(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Lucknow Books

    (Publisher)

  As to [the] difference in British and US strategy-Cunningham says he thinks that the British military and naval people always knew they had to fight the Germans cross- channel. However, they wanted to soften them up first in the Mediterranean. Never any doubt that they would do the [OVERLORD] operation.

  {19}

  The British position paper expressed that the main weight of the effort should fall on Italy, with the western Allied forces to conduct an operation against either Sardinia or Sicily as soon as possible. The U.S. Army position was to invade Sicily and then make an assessment for the next move based on troop availability. The USAAF position was the “best way to win the war was by an all-out air offensive from the UK against Germany’s capacity to wage war, followed by a land invasion against the continent across the English Channel.{20} Thus these preliminary events set the stage for first meeting of the principals at Casablanca.

  Casablanca Conference

  James Parton, records in his biography of Ira Eaker, that the Casablanca Conference, “turned out to be one of the war’s most decisive, especially in regard to the use of air power.”{21} Among the many issues decided upon at Casablanca in January of 1943, two stand out as critically important. First, after much debate, U.S. air leaders convinced Churchill that “daylight precision bombing” should be given a chance. Second, the major participants agreed to invade Sicily in an operation code-named HUSKY. Moreover, the Casablanca Conference provided an opportunity to discuss these issues within the context of grand strategy as a whole.{22}

  Saving daylight precision bombing proved to be a near thing. At Casablanca, General “Hap” Arnold knew the British had taken the matter up with the Prime Minister and were “determined that the Americans should not do daylight bombing, but should join their own night bombardment effort.”{23}

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  'Pug'–Churchill's Chief of Staff

  The Life of General Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PS, 1887–1965

  • Andrew Sangster(Author)
  • 2024(Publication Date)
  • Pen & Sword Military

    (Publisher)

  He went to Algiers for a brief meeting with Eisenhower, and not to be accused of ‘lolling about’ Pug made his way to Gibraltar, catching up with other conference members returning to Britain. It had been Pug’s job to explain to Eisenhower the Casablanca decisions, and to convince him of British support for him as Commander-in-Chief. Eisenhower always appreciated Alexander because of his gentlemanly style and friendly approach, and he felt very much the same for Pug. Pug returned with Mountbatten and Admiral Pound in one plane, waiting for Brigadiers Dykes and Stewart following in the next, but later heard that their plane had crashed and both men were killed. Pug had regarded Dykes as a trusted good friend, and the only other person he could send to Washington in Dyke’s place to advise of their account of the Casablanca Conference was Lieutenant Colonel Grove who flew the next night, but he too was killed in a plane crash before he arrived. It must have been a sharp reminder that although Pug and his men were administrators, war and death were their constant companions.

  Trident Conference

  Historically it is now known that the Americans were unhappy about the Casablanca Conference, thinking the British had won the strategic tussle and they were being misled. Very much in the American mind was their concern over what would happen after the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky), with the British convinced the next step should be crossing to mainland Italy, but the Americans had serious doubts. In addition to this Pug realised the Americans, with some justifications, were critical of the effort being made by the British in Burma, and were concerned about the possible collapse of China demanding more support for Chiang Kai-Shek. Pug was right and knew that although the British had a deep interest in the Far East, they were more concerned about the Nazi threat on their doorstep and limited by resources and manpower. Because of all these concerns a few months after the North African conference Churchill and Roosevelt decided on another meeting in Washington to be known as Trident. Churchill knew that the Americans were sensitive regarding Casablanca and in Washington would want to have more of their own way, so he collected a colossal staff for this next mission.

  They left for America on the Queen Mary , which had been carefully deloused because of an onboard rat infection. It was a massive team and Pug mentioned a few in his memoirs, but curiously he avoided direct reference to the three Chiefs of Staff, especially Brooke who was so critical during these discussions. During the trip various meetings were constantly held to ensure they were all singing from the same hymn sheet. There was little time for strolling on the deck, except for a lifeboat drill during which Churchill demanded that a machine gun be mounted on his designated lifeboat because he would fight to the end. The liner was fast and able to zig-zag which made it an unlikely target for U-boats, and messages were flagged to accompanying destroyers to then transmit only when they had moved away from the Queen Mary

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  Canada and the Age of Conflict

  Volume 2: 1921-1948, The Mackenzie King Era

  • C.P. Stacey(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • University of Toronto Press

    (Publisher)

  We mentioned the great strategic conferences in which Churchill and Roosevelt and the Combined Chiefs of Staff made the basic decisions that won the war. These conferences, like the Combined Chiefs committee itself, were strictly Anglo-American, except for the rare occasions when it was considered politic for the western leaders to meet with the leaders of Russia and China. The lesser allies, including all the Dominions, were on the outside, not even looking in. Churchill considered it his responsibility 334 /CANADA AND THE AGE OF CONFLICT, 1921-48 to keep the Dominions informed, up to a point. After each conference he normally sent a message to the Dominion Prime Ministers telling them in at least general terms what had occurred. Thus after the Casablanca meet-ing (January 1943) telegrams from him and from the Deputy Prime Minister (C.R. Attlee) reported the decisions in considerable detail. They did not, however, report the decision to invade Sicily, merely forecasting 'in due course further amphibious offensive operations on a large scale.' 21 A strong military case could be made, of course, for maintaining such secrecy about important future operations. Two of the conferences, 'Quadrant' in August 1943 and 'Octagon' in September 1944, were held on Canadian soil, at Quebec City. Even to these Canada was not a party. When the first Quebec conference was in prospect, Mackenzie King was urged, by both Norman Robertson and Malcolm MacDonald in concert, to insist on a dignified position in it for himself as Prime Minister of Canada; King reports Robertson as saying that he should be with Churchill and Roosevelt 'as an equal.' King him-self recorded, 'I saw the force of this but felt embarrassment in the mat-ter.' He drafted a cable mildly asserting that his position as Prime Minister would 'have to be considered'; subsequently, however, he deleted this passage.

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  Roosevelt and Hopkins

  An Intimate History

  • Robert Emmet Sherwood(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Arcole Publishing

    (Publisher)

  The President gave a background statement—not for quotation—but he chose his words very carefully and talked from notes. The only important addition to the communiqué was the President’s statement that he and Churchill were determined to accept nothing less than unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan and Italy. The President talked for about fifteen minutes. He told them of his visit to our troops and later agreed to be quoted on that. Churchill supplemented this with a masterly review of the military situation. He emphasized his personal friendship for the President and said the two of them were going to see the war thru together. They have had no disagreements.

  I talked after the conference to a number of newspapermen I had met in Washington, London and Moscow. The fact that Churchill and Roosevelt were in Africa was a complete surprise.

  At 1.15 we drove to Marrakesh—picnic lunch on the way. Everyone tired but relaxed. As the British had fixed up the lunch we had plenty of wine and Scotch. We were put up at the villa of the late Moses Taylor—very pleasant. Our host was a young archaeologist named Pendar (Louise had once rented his flat in Paris)—he was one of our secret agents in N. Africa prior to the landings.

  Averell, Randolph, Robert and I went to visit a big fair—storytellers—dancers—snake-charmers—and 15,000 natives. Very colorful. The great trading market was near—but nothing much to sell—tho thousands ever milling thru. Dinner was good—army style—company aglow—much banter—Churchill at his best. The President tired.

  After dinner we agreed on the draft to Stalin—Averell and I had rewritten it. I made a draft for the Generalissimo. They agreed and both dispatches were put on the cables. At 2 a.m. we retired leaving a call for 7.

  Robert roomed with me—he is flying to Algiers with Averell early in the morning.”

  The cables to Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek were lengthy reports on the results of the Casablanca Conference, the message to Stalin being more specific as to actual plans. In both cables, much emphasis was placed for obvious reasons on the importance of opening up the Mediterranean to Allied shipping and thereby greatly facilitating the delivery of supplies to the Persian Gulf for Russia, and to India for the Burmese operations and for China.

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