Casablanca Conference

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A meeting held in Casablanca on January 12-23, 1943, during World War II, between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to plan military strategy. After the meeting, Roosevelt publicly announced the Allied policy of unconditional surrender for Germany, Italy, and Japan.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

On 14-24 January 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met in Morocco to determine allied strategy. Stalin refused to attend as he was overseeing operations around Stalingrad. The prospect of opening a second front in northern France was discussed but the British considered it premature.

From 14 to 24 January 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, together with their military staffs, met in Casablanca, French Morocco. The conferees agreed to pursue military operations in Sicily, to continue the heavy bombing offensive against Germany, and to establish a combined staff in London to plan a large invasion of France across the English Channel. They secured the promise of Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, to cooperate with General Henri Giraud, whom Roosevelt was grooming as leader of the French forces in Africa. The leaders endorsed an Unconditional Surrender policy, which they defined as "the total elimination of German and Japanese war power."

Bibliography

Kimball, Warren F. "Casablanca: The End of Imperial Romance." In The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.

———. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. New York: William Morrow, 1997.

—Justus D. Doenecke