Background: Casablanca, WWII


If General Eisenhower or any other American commander would have been asked in the years leading up to the Allied invasion at Normandy where a likely attack might be staged to initiate American involvement in the Great War,  Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco North Africa, would not have

Casablanca, originally called Anfa

been mentioned on the list.  Late to enter WWII, the Americans under President Roosevelt's charge finally offered its true weight, beyond the famous Lend Lease Program, and joined Britain in plans to form an alliance that would attempt a 'Cross Channel' attack against Axis powers.  Many American strategists, new to this war, not yet fatigued as much of the rest of Europe, and still holding onto previous century military philosophy, wanted to move onto western Europe directly.  But looking at the problem from a wiser perspective, Eisenhower and others decided that first there must be a period of time not only to militarily stage what eventually became D-Day on the French beachheads, but to politically stage this first of its kind unified front against the spreading Nazi Regime. The city of Casablanca, primarily known to modern Americans as a classic movie title starring Bogart and

Bergman, happened to be the most critical port in Africa and at the time Vichy France's chief military port outside of Toulouse.  It's important to remember that France at this point had been divided into two regional powers by force: northern France, having been taken and claimed by Germany under an aggressor-style armistice negotiation, and southern Vichy France, which was, in name only, still under control of France, but influenced on all levels by Nazi Germany.  This included all North African colonies under French rule such as Casablanca and Algiers (Recalling the great movie Casablanca, this would be best understood by the complicated political relationships between Rick, the American expatriate 'gun runner' and owner of Cafe Americain, the French military captain Louis, the newly arrived German commander, and the Czech Resistance leader Victor Laszlo.)

The Allies progressed toward Operation Torch, which was to secure critical ports, airfields, resources, and political headquarters in Northern Africa.  What would later be named the North African Campaign, spanning between June 1940 and May of 1943, is not always recognized as significant as later episodes of the War, but it was in these years that the likes of Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, DeGaulle, Patton and Montgomery would learn how to lead a world wide force that would not seek to

Churchill and DeGaulle 1944

later take over power of the countries to be liberated, but to give it back.