The Casablanca Conference of January 1943, code-named Symbol, was a meeting between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to agree on how they should proceed in the Second World War (1939 to 45). Joseph Stalin was not at the conference. The most significant decision announced at Casablanca, one taken by the United States alone, was that the Axis powers must unconditionally surrender, a policy decision that may actually have extended the war and one which, in the event, helped achieve US dominance of the post-war world.

The president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 to 1945), and the British prime minister, Winston Churchill (1874 to 1965), met in person in Casablanca, French Morocco. The leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin (1878 to 1953), was invited to attend but decided not to because of the critical and ongoing Battle of Stalingrad. The conference was held at the Anfa Hotel and various nearby villas between 14 and 24 January 1943. Also present were the US-UK Combined Chiefs of Staff. The purpose of the conference was to decide on the future Allied military and political strategies that would deliver victory in WWII against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy.

So far in WWII, Germany had occupied most of Europe by 1940 and attacked the USSR with Operation Barbarossa in 1941. After the USSR stood firm against multiple invading German armies, the Eastern Front settled down to a war of attrition. A German invasion of Britain had been abandoned after losing the Battle of Britain, but there was now no Western Front, something Stalin desperately wanted in order to relieve pressure on his Red Army in the east.

Japan's attack on the US base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii had finally brought the United States into the war in December 1941, and so the Pacific War was ongoing. The Allies had defeated the Axis powers in North Africa, the turning point being the Second Battle of El Alamein in November 1942, when General Erwin Rommel (1891 to 1944) was defeated. The Allies were now ready to use North Africa as a launchpad to directly attack Italy, with the island of Sicily being the first target.

Discussion between Roosevelt and Churchill focused on how, where, and when the 'Second Front' would be opened up, that is, the Allied invasion of German-occupied Europe. Northern France was the obvious choice given the proximity to Britain across the English Channel. Senior figures in the US military wanted to launch the invasion in 1943, but their British counterparts preferred 1944 in order to build up more men and material and to deal with Italy, perhaps removing that power from the war altogether. An amphibious operation attacking, for example, the beaches of Normandy, would be risky and surely cost many lives, even if successful. The invasion must come with overwhelming force. In the end, the US planners agreed to the later date for what would become known as Operation Overlord. Instead, 1943 would see a focus on attacking Sicily and then driving up through the Italian peninsula.

It was also decided at Casablanca that the air forces of the United States and Britain would conduct a joint Allied bombing of Germany. The primary targets for the bomber aircraft would be the great industrial cities and their factories, as well as railway systems, airfields, and dams. The Combined Chiefs of Staff issued the following objective of the bombing offensive at Casablanca:

The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.

(Dear, 196)

As intended, the bombing campaign demonstrated to Stalin that his western allies were serious about assisting the Soviet campaign on the Eastern Front. However, the belief by some Allied commanders that the war could be won using air power alone, and so avoiding a land invasion, proved to be unrealistic. Over 600,000 civilians died as a consequence of this controversial bombing campaign.

The US and British military chiefs had met for three or four days before the leaders arrived at Casablanca. The British delegation was better prepared and much clearer on its objectives, a point which had consequences for the decisions made, as noted by Albert Wedermeyer, a member of the US delegation:

They were a team with a game plan and well rehearsed in the plays. They maintained the initiative through all stages of the discussion because they had formed clear ideas of their objectives and they had coordinated the political and the military factors and worked out detailed proposals. By contrast, our own American team was not well prepared and I was the responsible individual.

(Holmes, 343)

The British Chief of Combined Operations, Louis Mountbatten (1900 to 1979), identified five priority points on which the chiefs on both sides had agreed upon:

Another decision taken at Casablanca was that the British general Harold Alexander (1891 to 1969) would become deputy to the US general Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 to 1969), who would later that year be appointed Allied commander of Operation Overlord. Alexander was also appointed commander of the British army group that invaded Italy. Another two generals, this time French, were involved in something of a public relations stunt. General Charles De Gaulle (1890 to 1970), recognised by the Allies as the leader of all French opposing the Germans, and his great rival General Henri Giraud (1879 to 1949), commander-in-chief of French forces in North Africa, shook hands for photographers.

The final press conference at Casablanca, held on 24 January, delivered a bombshell. Roosevelt announced, seemingly without informing Churchill or Stalin, that the Allies would only accept an unconditional surrender from Germany, Japan, and Italy. Roosevelt stated:

The elimination of German, Japanese and Italian war power means the unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy, and Japan. That means a reasonable assurance of future world peace. It does not mean the destruction of the population of Germany, Italy, or Japan, but it does mean the destruction of the philosophies in those countries which are based on conquest and the subjugation of other people.

(Moskin, 100 to 1)

It is now known, but was not at the time, that Roosevelt had decided on this issue before leaving Washington, and it was not an unintentional 'slip' or spur-of-the-moment decision in front of the world's press. The US Special Envoy to Europe, W. Averell Harriman, states that Churchill was not given advance warning of the decision:

I had dinner with Churchill that night in Casablanca and he was very much upset that this had been sprung on him without consideration. On Roosevelt's side it was perfectly true that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had discussed it from the military standpoint and had agreed that it was a good thing to do, but Churchill thought there should be political consideration…Roosevelt had a habit of doing things like that, he didn't like unpleasant arguments and some times did things without consultation, which occasionally made Churchill quite angry.

(Holmes, 347)

According to the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden (1897 to 1977), in a slightly different version of events, the British delegation had been told about the unconditional surrender issue prior to the press conference, and "Winston was taken aback by the actual moment of the announcement" (ibid) rather than the announcement itself.

Although Churchill privately disagreed with the decision, it nevertheless became official Allied policy, even if what it actually meant was still open to interpretation. Unconditional surrender could mean merely the surrender of armed forces or be much more involved, such as the takeover of a losing country's political institutions and industries. That it would be the harsher end of the surrender spectrum was certainly how some key German figures interpreted the situation. Admiral Karl Donitz (1891 to 1980), commander-in-chief of the German Navy, felt that an unconditional surrender put Germany in an impossible situation since it meant there "could no longer be an independent German government" (Holmes, 349), and all fighting men, millions of them, would immediately become prisoners of war. Whatever the real terms of surrender would be, all of the Allies were at least agreed that the military capability of the Axis powers should be removed and measures should be taken, whatever they might be, to ensure a lasting peace.

Deference to the wealth and military power of the United States led to the formal adoption of a strategy by Britain (at Casablanca) and the USSR (in the autumn of 1943), which many non-Americans (at the time and since) considered would only prolong the war and increase the levels of casualties and destruction. If the Axis powers saw no benefit to surrender, fighting on was their only option, certainly for the more hard-line leaders and generals. This is exactly what did happen since Germany did not surrender until Berlin was occupied, and Japan did not surrender until two atomic bombs were dropped, one at Nagasaki and the other at Hiroshima.

More cynical commentators have suggested the US policy was a deliberate attempt to weaken European states (both victors and losers) and ensure the total economic and military dominance of the United States, itself only indirectly affected by the ravages of war, in the post-war world. Commentators more sympathetic to Roosevelt suggest that the unconditional surrender policy was principally designed to favour public opinion in the United States after a negative reaction there to collusion with the Vichy French government in Algiers in the North Africa Campaign. The term 'unconditional surrender' would also have reassured Stalin that the US and Britain would not negotiate some form of independent peace settlement with Germany advantageous to themselves and disadvantageous to the USSR. An unconditional surrender would necessitate the Allies sticking together until the bitter end and not splitting off to negotiate individual deals with the Axis powers. In addition, some historians and diplomats (Eden was one) do not believe the desire for an unconditional surrender did appreciably extend the war or significantly shape the post-war world.

There is also the point that absolute language had been used previously to describe the end phase of the war; for example, Allied leaders had expressed the desire for a 'complete victory' and a 'final victory'. For most Allied leaders, WWII was not a war of national interests but a fight between good and evil. This was particularly so regarding Germany, where the removal of the Nazi regime was widely regarded as a minimum objective. How to deal with the wider support for the Nazis, particularly amongst the industrial elite, was still under debate.

Perhaps the most crucial point regarding the unconditional surrender debate is that the Allies certainly had the economic and military capacity to pursue such an aim. This fact alone meant that anything less than a demand for an unconditional surrender was unlikely to be made and perhaps even undesirable when, as was the case in 1943, the conflict was still far from over.

Casablanca was followed up by three more conferences of Allied leaders, this time with Stalin present. The Tehran Conference of November-December 1943 established that an Allied invasion of Europe would occur in France in the summer of 1944. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, it was decided that the Allies would divide and jointly govern a defeated Germany, and that Poland's border would shift westwards to compensate for occupation by the USSR in the eastern part. At the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945, a surrender ultimatum was issued to Japan, known as the Potsdam Declaration. The ultimatum was ignored until US aircraft dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on 14 August. The war was finally won, but lasting mutual suspicions between East and West meant there would be no more conferences of Allied leaders as the world entered a new era, the Cold War.