An Army at Dawn

On January 9, 1943, President Roosevelt arrives in Casablanca for a conference with Churchill and other top Allied leaders to chart the course for the rest of the war. Thanks to Patton's efforts, Casablanca is now a vast supply depot and port-of-entry for the thousands of Allied troops arriving in Africa each week. At the conference, Eisenhower proposes Operation SATIN. With the march to Tunis stalled, Eisenhower wants the Allies to direct their attention to southern Tunisia to cut off Rommel's army before it can meet with Arnim's. The British participants at the conference—in particular, General Brooke—are unimpressed by Eisenhower's plan. Aside from the difficulty of fighting in southern Tunisia during the winter, there is a large chance that rather than sever Rommel's army from Arnim's, the Allies will be crushed between them. Amid these doubts and a plague of logistical failures, SATIN is abandoned. Instead, Anderson will remain in northern and central Tunisia and wait to combine his force with Montgomery's.

Another major point of contention at the Casablanca conference surrounds America's commitment to fighting Germany while waging war in the Pacific. The British extract a pledge from the Americans to ensure that the Pacific campaign does nothing to undermine opportunities to defeat Germany.