The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) is the military headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) that commands all NATO operations worldwide. SHAPE is situated in the village of Casteau, near Mons, Belgium.
ACO's and SHAPE's commander is titled Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a U.S. four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as Commander, U.S. European Command.
From 1951 to 2003, SHAPE was the headquarters of Allied Command Europe (ACE). Since 2003 SHAPE has been the headquarters of ACO, controlling NATO also outside Europe. Even though the geographical scope of its activities was extended, SHAPE retained its traditional name with reference to Europe.
History
Premises
1 January 1951 – 2 April 1951: Hôtel Astoria, Paris, France
General Eisenhower arrived in Paris on January 1, 1951, and quickly set to work with a small group of planners to devise a structure for the new European command. The Planning Group worked in the Hotel Astoria in central Paris while construction of a permanent facility began.
2 April 1951 – 31 March 1967: Rocquencourt, Yvelines, France
thumb|SHAPE premises in Rocquencourt (1965)
thumb|Gen. [[Dwight Eisenhower|Eisenhower in front of the flag of SHAPE on 8 October 1951]]
thumb|1979 Military police and gendarmerie vehicles of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe parked in front of the Main Building in Casteau (Belgium).
thumb|Façade of the Main Building in 1979.
On 2 April 1951 SHAPE moved to its permanent facility at Rocquencourt, just west of the city, at Camp Voluceau next to Versailles.
France's resentment over NATO's military structure had been brewing for a number of years, as successive French governments had become increasingly incensed with Anglo-American domination of the command structure and insufficient French influence. In February 1966 President Charles de Gaulle stated that the changed world order had "stripped NATO of its justification" for military integration, and soon afterward, France stated that it was withdrawing from the NATO military structure. SHAPE and all the other NATO installations, including NATO Headquarters and Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT), were informed that they must leave French territory by April 1967.
France's withdrawal from NATO's integrated military structure forced SHAPE and several other ACE headquarters to leave French territory.
31 March 1967 – present: Casteau, Wallonia, Belgium
thumb|2013 SACEUR change of command, in front of SHAPE's main building
With France no longer available, Belgium was chosen as a new host nation for both NATO's political headquarters and SHAPE.
General Lyman Lemnitzer, SACEUR at the time, had hoped that SHAPE could be located near to NATO Headquarters, as had been the case in Paris, but the Belgian authorities decided that SHAPE should be located at least 50 kilometres from Brussels, NATO's new location, because SHAPE was a major wartime military target. The Belgian government offered Camp Casteau, a 2 km<sup>2</sup> Belgian Army summer training camp north of the city of Mons, southwest of Brussels, which was an area in serious need of additional economic investment. In September 1966, NATO agreed that Belgium should host SHAPE at Casteau. SHAPE closed its facility at Rocquencourt near Paris on 30 March 1967, and the next day held a ceremony to mark the opening of the new headquarters at Casteau.
Changing role in NATO's command structure
1951–2003: Headquarters of Allied Command Europe
From 1951 to 2003, SHAPE was the headquarters of Allied Command Europe (ACE).
An integrated military structure for NATO was first established after the Korean War raised questions over the strength of Europe's defences against a Soviet attack. The first choice for commander in Europe was American General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, as he had successfully directed the Allied landings in Normandy and subsequent march into Germany during World War II, amid many inter-Allied controversies over the proper conduct of the campaign on the Western Front. On December 19, 1950, the North Atlantic Council announced the appointment of General Eisenhower as the first SACEUR. British Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery moved over from the predecessor Western Union Defence Organization (WUDO) to become the first Deputy SACEUR, who would serve until 1958. Volume 3 of Nigel Hamilton's Life of Montgomery of Alamein gives a good account of Montgomery's exacting, tireless approach to improving the command's readiness, which caused a good deal of bruised feelings in doing so. In establishing the command, the first NATO planners drew extensively on WUDO plans and personnel.
Devising command arrangements in the Central Region, which contained the bulk of NATO's forces, proved to be much more complicated.
thumb|Organization of ACE in 1952
On April 2, 1951, General Eisenhower signed the activation order for Allied Command Europe and its headquarters at SHAPE. Headquarters, Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT) was activated in Fontainebleau, France in 1953. On the same day, ACE's subordinate headquarters in Northern and Central Europe were activated, with the Southern Region following in June.
By 1954 ACE's forces consisted of Allied Forces Northern Europe, at Oslo, Allied Forces Central Europe (Fontainebleau), Allied Forces Southern Europe (Paris/Naples) and Allied Forces Mediterranean at Malta.
The commanders and commands in 1957 were:
- Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) – General Lauris Norstad, United States Air Force
- Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) – Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, British Army
- Chief of Staff (COFS) – General Courtlandt Van Rensselaer Schuyler, United States Army
- Allied Forces Northern Europe (AFNORTH) – Lieutenant General Sir Cecil Sugden, British Army
- Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT) – Général d'Armée Jean-Étienne Valluy, French Army
- Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE) – Air Chief Marshal Sir George Mills, Royal Air Force
- Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) – General Sir Richard Gale, British Army
- Central Army Group (CENTAG) – General Henry I. Hodes, United States Army
- Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH) – Admiral R.P.M. Bristol, United States Navy
- Naval Striking and Support Forces Southern Europe (STRIKFORSOUTH) – Vice Admiral Charles R. Brown, United States Navy
- Allied Forces Mediterranean (AFMED) – Admiral Sir Ralph Edwards, Royal Navy
Four exercises were conducted in the ACE area during the autumn 1952. Blue Alliance was a major allied air force exercise for the Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE) to achieve air supremacy over the Central European front and provide close air support to NORTHAG ground forces under the overall command of Lt. General Lauris Norstad, USAF. Two 1952 central region exercises involved air-ground combined forces. Equinox was a major air-ground exercise involving French-American tactical air units and a French airborne infantry unit under the command of Général d'Armée Alphonse Juin, French Army. Holdfast was a major allied air-ground exercise involving 150,000 British Army of the Rhine, Dutch, Belgian, and Canadian troops of NATO's Northern Army Group in coordination with the Allied Air Forces Central Europe. They maneuvered east of the Rhine River in the British Zone under the overall command of Lt. General Sir Richard Nelson Gale, British Army. Finally, Rosebud involved ground maneuvers by the U.S. Seventh Army in the American Zone of Occupation of Allied-occupied Germany. The policy enunciated in Military Committee document MC14/1, issued in December 1952, saw the defence of Germany as principally a delaying action, to allow a line of resistance to be established along the lines of the IJssel and Rhine rivers. The conventional forces would attempt to hold this line while the allied strategic air forces defeated the Soviets and their allies by destroying their economy and infrastructure.
What this strategy meant for the land battle in the central region was described for publicity purposes in January 1954 by then-Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alfred Gruenther as: