"Unconditional Surrender" + 80

 

One of the big screen's most famous films, Casablanca, was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943, conveniently coming out during the even more influential wartime Casablanca Conference of January 14-24, 1943, eighty years ago this week.

Following the successful Anglo-America invasion of (nominally neutral) French North Africa in Operation TORCH in late 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt met in Casablanca, in what was then French Morocco, to plan Allied military and political strategy going forward. This meeting has probably been overshadowed in our shrinking historical memory by the later meetings of the "Big Three" at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam, but was nonetheless a meeting of major significance. 

Along with Churchill and FDR and their staffs, competing Free-French military figures Charles DeGaulle and Henri Giraud also attended (photo), although they played no part in the military planning sessions. FDR described the meeting between the rival French leaders and their perfunctory handshake for the cameras as a "shotgun wedding." However one evaluates wartime Allied policy in Europe in general, FDR's repeated reservations about DeGaulle and his "Free French" proved to be one of his more unfortunate wartime blindspots.

A much more important ally was entirely absent, however. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin claimed to be unable to leave the Soviet Union at that critical juncture in the war. (The battle of Stalingrad was then in its final weeks.) Had Stalin been at Casablanca, he would undoubtedly have pressed Roosevelt and Churchill for the cross-Channel invasion the Americans were somewhat open to, but which Churchill adamantly opposed, preferring instead first to invade Europe through Italy, something which the conference in the end agreed to do. As a kind of compensation to Stalin, Casablanca was when Churchill and FDR agreed on the strategy of aerial bombing of Germany.

Perhaps, the most memorable aspect of the conference, however, was the announcement by FDR at the final press conference on January 24 that the Allies would accept only the "unconditional surrender" of Germany, Japan, and Italy. This unprecedented demand, precluding any possibility of a negotiated peace settlement, was controversial then and has remained so since. (I wrote one of my first grad school papers on the legality - or not - of such a demand in an International Law seminar in 1972.)

And, of course, contrary to what one might have expected, in the end the demand for "unconditional surrender" was somewhat differently applied. On its face, the policy removed any motivation among the Axis powers to change their governments and sue for peace. But, of course, that is precisely what the Italians did just several. months later. It could be argued that the surrenders of Italy and Japan were in some sense only nominally unconditional, in that it was accepted that the defeated countries could retain their own national governments (including Italy's King and Japan's Emperor), albeit under Allied occupation. Only in the case of Germany, did surrender result in the literal extinction of any German government and totally unmediated rule by  the occupying Allies.

It has, of course, long been alleged that, by denying Germany and Japan any serious hope for a negotiated peace, the demand for unconditional surrender served to prolong the war. Whether true or not, that claim clearly makes much intuitive sense, although, knowing what we now know about the actual weakness of internal opposition in both Germany and Japan, it is hard to imagine what alternative scenario might actually have succeeded. It is certainly true that the demand for "unconditional surrender" proved a propaganda boon for the Axis. But it was probably equally so for the Allies, since it announced to the world that they were united and prepared to stick together to the end, theoretically foreclosing the likelihood of either the Western Allies making a separate peace with Germany (as Stalin feared) or the Soviets making a separate peace with Germany (as the Western Allies feared).

On the other hand, 80 years later it is a fair question whether "Unconditional Surrender" has subsequently mythologized how we understand wars will end or how we believe that they ought to end. While wars do sometimes end (as World War II thankfully did) with one side's overwhelming military victory, most wars usually end with one side better positioned than the other but still needing to negotiate the final outcome with the loser. After all, part of the problem with the unsatisfactory way World War I ended and what followed was that, while Germany had by no means surrendered unconditionally in 1918, the subsequent peace treaty treated Germany as if she had done so - with catastrophic consequences that became evident fairly quickly for the future peace of Europe and the world.

Fast forward 80 years to the war in Ukraine. I sincerely hope Ukraine wins, whatever "winning" means. The more complete Ukraine's victory and the more complete Russia's defeat, the better, I believe, for Europe and for the world. That said, it should be obvious that, whatever Ukraine's winning would look like, it would likely look very different from the kind of total victory which the Allies won over the Axis in World War II. All the more reason, obviously, for the U.S. and our European allies to do all in our power to ensure as favorable as possible an outcome for the Ukrainian forces, so that in whatever "negotiation" Ukraine may eventually find itself the balance of power will be overwhelmingly in its favor.