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Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918
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Historical SummaryThe Allied invasion of French North and West Africa began on November 8, 1942. By November 15 United States forces had crossed into Tunisia. While the latter became an important battleground, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill held their fourth wartime meeting. The first had been at sea, in August 1941 (see above Document No. 275). The second and third were in Washington, D. C., in December 1941 and June 1942, respectively. The Casablanca Conference was notable for the bringing together of the French Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud, and the enunciation, at a press conference, of the principle that only unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers would bring peace to the world. Indeed, at this press gathering on January 24, 1943, Roosevelt suggested that the Casablanca meeting might well be called the "Unconditional Surrender Meeting." Following are the communiqué cabled from Casablanca to Washington (made public on January 26, 1943) and a quotation from the notes used by Roosevelt in his statement to the press.
World History 281–286.
FROM CASABLANCA TO POTSDAM
281.
The Casablanca Conference, January 14–24, 194337
A THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE
On January 26, 1943, at 10 P.M., EWT, the following communique, cabled from Casablanca, Morocco, was made public:
The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain have been in conference near Casablanca since January 14.
They were accompanied by the combined Chiefs of Staff of the two countries;
[Here follow the names of the civil and military officials who were at the conference.]
For 10 days the combined staffs have been in constant session, meeting 2 or 3 times a day and recording progress at intervals to the President and the Prime Minister.
The entire field of the war was surveyed theater by theater throughout the world, and all resources were marshaled for a more intense prosecution of the war by sea, land, and air.
Nothing like this prolonged discussion between two allies has ever taken place before. Complete agreement was reached between the leaders of the two countries and their respective staffs upon war plans and enterprises to be undertaken during the campaigns of 1943 against Germany, Italy, and Japan with a view to drawing the utmost advantage from the markedly favorable turn of events at the close of 1942.
Premier Stalin was cordially invited to meet the President and the Prime Minister, in which case the meeting would have been held very much farther to the east. He was unable to leave Russia at this time on account of the great offensive which he himself, as Commander-in-Chief, is directing.
The President and the Prime Minister realized up to the full the enormous weight of the war which Russia is successfully bearing along her whole land front, and their prime object has been to draw as much weight as possible off the Russian armies by engaging the enemy as heavily as possible at the first selected points.
Premier Stalin has been fully informed of the military proposals.
The President and the Prime Minister have been in communication with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. They have apprised him of the measures which they are undertaking to assist him in China’s magnificent and unrelaxing struggle for the common cause.
The occasion of the meeting between the President and the Prime Minister made it opportune to invite General Giraud (General Henri Honoré Giraud, High Commissioner of French Africa) to confer with the Combined Chiefs of Staff and to arrange for a meeting between him and General de Gaulle (General Charles de Gaulle, Fighting French Commander). The two generals have been in close consultation.
The President and the Prime Minister and their combined staffs, having completed their plans for the offensive campaigns of 1943, have now separated in order to put them into active and concerted execution.
B
The President and the Prime Minister, after a complete survey of the world war situation, are more than ever determined that peace can come to the world only by a total elimination of German and Japanese war power. This involves the simple formula of placing the objective of this war in terms of an unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy and Japan. Unconditional surrender by them means a reasonable assurance of world peace, for generations. Unconditional surrender means not the destruction of the German populace, nor of the Italian or Japanese populace, but does mean the destruction of a philosophy in Germany, Italy and Japan which is based on the conquest and subjugation of other peoples.
37A. from United States, Department of State Bulletin, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1943, vol. VIII, pp. 93–94; B. from Sherwood, R. E., Roosevelt and Hopkins. An Intimate History, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1948, pp. 696–697. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.
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Chicago: "From Casablanca to Potsdam," Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918 in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan (Chicage: Lippincott, 1951), 928–930. Original Sources, accessed November 21, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Y8AUA1R1PEGQIFH.
MLA: . "From Casablanca to Potsdam." Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan, Chicage, Lippincott, 1951, pp. 928–930. Original Sources. 21 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Y8AUA1R1PEGQIFH.
Harvard: , 'From Casablanca to Potsdam' in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918. cited in 1951, Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. , Lippincott, Chicage, pp.928–930. Original Sources, retrieved 21 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Y8AUA1R1PEGQIFH.
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