Casablanca Conference of 1943

a British-American conference between F. D. Roosevelt, president of the USA, and W. Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain, and including high military officials of these two countries.

The Casablanca Conference was held between January 14 and January 24 in a suburb of Casablanca in Morocco. The Casablanca Conference discussed prospective Allied military operations for 1943. An accord was reached on the landing of Allied troops in Sicily after the completion of the campaign in North Africa. The participants in the conference believed that this would not only help drive fascist Italy out of the war but also prepare a springboard for the landing of British and American troops in the Balkans. The Casablanca Conference put off the question of a second front in northern France to strike a blow at the vital centers of fascist Germany, despite pledges of action by the US and British governments to the Soviet government. Such a policy corresponded to the plan of the British and US statesmen, who hoped that the USSR and Germany would exhaust each other in a protracted war. The Casablanca Conference also confirmed a plan of operation in northern Burma which envisioned driving the Japanese troops out of Rangoon. The participants in the conference discussed the French administration in North Africa (Generals de Gaulle and H. Giraud were invited for this purpose), the position of Turkey in the war, and the fate of the colonies in the postwar period.

An important development of the conference was Roosevelt’s statement at a press conference in Casablanca on Jan. 24, 1943, that the Allies would seek the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy, and Japan.