Arcadia Conference

The First Washington Conference, also known as the Arcadia Conference (ARCADIA was the code name used for the conference), was held in Washington, D.C., from December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942. President Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Churchill of the United Kingdom attended the conference, where they discussed a future United Nations, and representative of the Allies adopted the United Nations Declaration.^[1]

On 7/8 December 1941, Japan invaded Thailand and attacked the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well as the United States military and naval bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines.^[2][3][4]

On 7 of December, Canada declared war on Japan.^[5] Followed on December 8, the United Kingdom,^[a][6] the United States,^[b][7] and the Netherlands^[8] declared war on Japan, followed by China^[9] and Australia^[10] the next day. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a two-theater war.

The conference brought together the top British and American military leaders, as well as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt and their aides, in Washington from December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942, and led to a series of major decisions that shaped the war effort in 1942–1943.

Arcadia was the first meeting on military strategy between Britain and the United States; it came two weeks after the American entry into World War II. The Arcadia Conference was a secret agreement unlike the much wider postwar plans given to the public as the Atlantic Charter, agreed between Churchill and Roosevelt in August 1941.

From the start, significant differences in strategic priorities appeared. The British sought to push the Axis out of the Mediterranean, securing their lines of communications to their colonies. The American Navy, led by Admiral King, wished to prioritize fighting Japan, while the American Army, led by George C. Marshall, argued in favor of an immediate cross-channel invasion in 1942. Roosevelt, favoring naval strategy, was persuaded by Churchill to prioritize the Mediterranean, and even suggested to the Soviet Ambassador Litvinoff that a landing in North Africa might enable attacking German-occupied Europe from the south. Marshall, however, insisted upon a cross-channel invasion and suggested withdrawing from the liberation of Europe if the British did not agree to his plan. On Churchill's last day in Washington, the invasion of Guadalcanal was approved.

Roosevelt ultimately overruled Marshall after the British studied the feasibility of a cross-channel invasion and found it to be impossible in 1942. General Mark Clark, commander of all American forces in Britain, corroborated this conclusion later that year, pointing out that only one infantry division (the 34th Infantry Division) was available, but had neither amphibious training, anti-aircraft guns, tanks, nor landing craft. The 1st Armored Division also lacked equipment, as were the new divisions arriving in-theater.

The main policy achievements of Arcadia included the decision for "Germany First" (or "Europe first"—that is, the defeat of Germany was the highest priority); the establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, based in Washington, for approving the military decisions of both the US and Britain; the principle of unity of command of each theater under a supreme commander; drawing up measures to keep China in the war; limiting the reinforcements to be sent to the Pacific; and setting up a system for coordinating shipping. All the decisions were secret, except the conference drafted the Declaration by United Nations, which committed the Allies to make no separate peace with the enemy, and to employ full resources until victory.^[11][12]

In immediate tactical terms, the decisions at Arcadia included an invasion of North Africa in 1942, sending American bombers to bases in England, and for the British to strengthen their forces in the Pacific. Arcadia created a unified American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) in the Far East; the ABDA fared poorly. It was also agreed at the conference to combine military resources under one command in the European Theater of Operations (ETO).^[13]

Heads of state/government

President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill

British officers

Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff

Field Marshal Sir John Dill – Chief of the Imperial General Staff (replaced as CIGS by Alan Brooke during conference)

Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Chief of Air Staff

Admiral Sir Charles Little, Head of British Joint Staff Mission to USA

Lt. General Sir Colville Wemyss, Head of the British Army Mission to USA. Joint Staff Mission

Air Marshal Arthur Harris, Head of RAF delegation to the USA. Joint Staff Mission

British officials

Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States

U. S. Naval officers

Admiral H. R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations

Admiral E. J. King, Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Fleet

Rear Admiral F. J. Horne, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations

Rear Admiral J. H. Towers, Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics

Rear Admiral R. K. Turner, Director, War Plans Division

Major General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant, U. S. Marine Corps

U. S. Army officers

General George C. Marshall, Commanding General of the Field Forces and Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

Lieut. General H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces and Deputy Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

Brigadier General L. T. Gerow, Chief of War Plans Division

Joint secretaries

Captain J. L. McCrea, Aide to Chief of Naval Operations

Lieut. Colonel P. M. Robinett, G-2, GHQ, U. S. Army

Major William T. Sexton, Assistant Secretary, W.D.G.S.

Chinese officials

T. V. Soong, Minister of Foreign Affairs

• Diplomatic history of World War II
• Washington Conference
• List of Allied World War II conferences
• U.S.-British Staff Conference (ABC-1) – the staff meeting that laid the groundwork for this political meeting.
• Second Washington Conference
• Third Washington Conference

• Bland, Larry I. ed. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall: "The Right Man for the Job," December 7, 1941 – May 31, 1943 (Volume 3) (1991) pp 29–68.
• Drea, Edward J. (1998). In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1708-0.

• Bercuson, David, and Holger Herwig. One Christmas in Washington: Roosevelt and Churchill Forge the Grand Alliance (2005), 320pp; full-scale scholarly history of Arcadia.
• Danchev, Alex. Being Friends: The Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Making of Allied Strategy in the Second World War (1992)
• Lacey, James. The Washington War: FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power That Won World War II (2019) pp. 196–212.
• McNeill, William Hardy. America, Britain and Russia: Their Cooperation and Conflict 1941–1946 (1953) pp 90–118
• Matloff, Maurice, and Edwin M. Snell. Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1941–1942. Washington (1953) Chapter V Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine and Chapter VI Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
• Rice, Anthony J. "Command and control: the essence of coalition warfare." Parameters (1997) v 27 pp: 152–167.
• Rigby, David. Allied Master Strategists: The Combined Chiefs of Staff in World War II (2012) excerpt and text search
• Roberts, Andrew. Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945 (2009), pp 66–101; covers the wartime interactions of Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall, and Brooke.
• Shortal, John F. Code Name Arcadia: The First Wartime Conference of Churchill and Roosevelt (Texas A&M University Press, 2021).

• Conferences of the Allied Grand Strategy by Steven Schoenherr
• World War II Timeline by Steven Schoenherr
• This Day in History January 1 – The History Channel
• "Proceedings of the American-British Joint Chiefs of staff Conferences" (PDF). Washington, D.C. December 24, 1941 – January 14, 1942. Retrieved 2014-07-21.