The Table Where the War Turned

They chose Casablanca because it was the last place anyone would look.

January 1943. The war was at a tipping point. The Allies had just taken North Africa — Operation Torch had secured Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The Soviets were grinding through Stalingrad. For the first time, it seemed possible that the Axis powers might lose.

Churchill wanted to meet. Roosevelt agreed. Stalin was invited but declined — he had a battle to finish. So Churchill and Roosevelt convened in the Anfa Hotel, a luxury resort on the outskirts of Casablanca, surrounded by the largest security operation the war had yet seen.

The meetings lasted ten days. Churchill and Roosevelt argued, strategized, dined on Moroccan citrus (the oranges were famously good), and made decisions that would cost millions of lives. They agreed to invade Sicily. They agreed to bomb Germany around the clock. They agreed to prioritize Europe over the Pacific.

And they agreed on unconditional surrender.

It was Roosevelt's phrase, announced at a press conference on the final day. The Axis powers would not be allowed to negotiate. They would surrender completely or be destroyed completely. No armistice like 1918. No deals. Unconditional.

The decision was controversial then and remains so. Critics argue it prolonged the war by giving Germany and Japan nothing to negotiate toward. Supporters argue it prevented another "stabbed in the back" myth. Either way, the doctrine was set at a hotel in Casablanca, over plates of Moroccan oranges, by two men who were learning to trust each other.

The Anfa Hotel was demolished in the 1970s. The site is now a residential neighborhood. But the decision made there — unconditional surrender — shaped everything that followed.