Symbol of Paradox: The Casablanca Conference, 1943

Abstract

The Casablanca Conference of January 1943 is usually treated as a pivotal point in both Allied war policy and grand stategy but for different reasons. The declaration of the policy of unconditional surrender marked a decisive shift in war policy, but the military decisions were an inconclusive compromise. This reinterpretation suggests that this distinction is artificial. The questions of what was decided at Casablanca and the impact of these decisions are approached primarily from the perspective of the efforts of British and U.S. military staffs to reshape grand strategy. These main points are made: both sides brought a clear broad vision of an overall grand strategic offensive to the table but failed to entrench either concept as definitive Allied policy; in the process, several paradoxes regarding Allied policy for the perceptions of the central direction of the war were clearly exposed and the future direction of that policy was laid down in broad outline. Churchill and Roosevelt on the one hand and their military staffs on the other held different views of the scope and time frame of agreed offensive plans. These were the most expansive Allied plans shaped mainly by British proposals, but the U.S. staff served clear notice of its intention to absorb and then go beyond the British offensive concept as soon as possible. The declaration of the policy of unconditional surrender exposed an irreconcilable clash between British war policy and grand stategy shaped by their own contradictory assumptions; this left the initiative in linking the two areas in U.S. hands. Finally, the effectiveness of British staff organization and military diplomacy taught the U.S. staffs a lesson soon put to good use in reorienting Allied grand strategy. With due attention to prevailing interpretations, this study concludes that the Casablanca conference must now be seen as a decisive stage in the emergence of an Allied grand strategy which blended British and U.S. offensive concepts, while exposing the contradiction between British war policy and grand strategy.