The Casablanca Conference

The tide of the war in North Africa was edged significantly towards the Allies after the American landings during Operation Torch in November 1942 and with final defeat of the Axis forces in the region in sight Allied leaders sat down to discuss the next step in the war. In January 1943 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, American President Franklin Roosevelt and other high ranking members of the Allied forces met at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca to discuss multiple topics that included the next stage in the war. Notably this conference was where the Allied leaders agreed they would accept nothing but “unconditional surrender” from the Axis forces.

The question of where the next Allied offensive would take place was discussed between English and American war leaders as there was no initial consensus on where they should launch an operation. It was determined that a full scale invasion would not be possible until 1944 at the earliest but resources were available for a smaller operation to go ahead before that. Soon, the Allied commanders decided that an invasion of Sicily would help to degrade Axis forces by forcing them to send troops to defend Italy and away from other fronts. It would pull divisions from Eastern Front to alleviate some of the pressure on the Russians and when the time came for a large-scale invasion in 1944, it would also give the Allies a higher chance of success with the Germans then having to defend itself on three fronts.

On the 19th of January 1943 it was unanimously agreed upon that once North Africa was cleared of the enemy, Sicily was to be invaded.

Sources

Roberts, Andrew. Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010.

Stacey, C. P., and G. W. L. Nicholson. Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. Vol. 2. Ottawa: Duhamel, 1966.