In August 1941 the British and American governments had issued a broad statement of war aims which proclaimed the right of all nations to democracy and self-determination. This liberal manifesto became known as the Atlantic Charter. Political policy now shifted under the pressures of war and in the context of the alliance with the Soviet Union. In January 1943 the Allied powers met in conference at Casablanca. There, in conditions of some confusion, was issued a demand for the ‘Unconditional surrender’ of Germany. This marked a decisive moral and political development in the history of the war. For many it must have come as a statement of the obvious. It also undermined wholly, and at a stroke, those who looked for some kind of alternative to a war driven to a final military conclusion.