Document created: 19 September 03
Air University Review, January-February
1974
If one may paraphrase Napoleon, today’s ambitious soldier should carry in his pack not a marshal’s baton but Marshall’s biography. Forrest Pogue’s magnificent third volume, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory,* continues his account of the nation’s great wartime leader from the dark days of delay and frustration at the beginning of 1943 to victory in Europe early in 1945. Like its predecessors, this volume is a triumph of exhaustive scholarship and sustained artistry, making it at once utterly absorbing and a pleasure to read.
*Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943-1945 (New York: The Viking Press, 1973, $15.00), xviii and 683 pages.
Although most military readers will be more interested in what the author has to say than how he says it, there is good reason to observe the almost architectonic structure of this volume. Officers, whatever their specialties, are persuaders, whether writing staff papers or briefing their superiors. And what better way is there to learn persuasion than by conscious analysis of a master’s work? The author rivets one’s attention in the first few pages with a succession of thumbnail sketches of the principal actors—Churchill, Roosevelt, and Marshall. Then, when the polarities of personality and national policy have been established, the reader is transported to the international conference at Casablanca, where the U.S. and British military chiefs and heads of state sought to hammer out a mutually acceptable strategic plan, including the Combined Bomber Offensive, for the liberation of Europe.
With the objectives outlined at Casablanca establishing the immediate tasks to be done, the author then devotes a series of chapters to a careful description of the machinery of command, the building of the Pentagon, how the staff functioned, and above all how General Marshall left the imprint of his values and his qualities on the whole process. Upon this foundation of fact and insight, the rest of the book is formulated. A succession of international conferences, whose very names—Quebec, Tehran, Cairo, Yalta—have become historic symbols, mark the continuing struggle to achieve free world cooperation. But national self-interest, the mischance of war, and the clash of personalities repeatedly eroded this cooperation, raising the challenges to Marshall’s generalship that marked his climb to greatness and provide the substance of this book.
Readers who come to this volume expecting dramatic interpretive breakthroughs on the issues of grand strategy will be disappointed. There are few surprises in the narrative. Its real merit is the contribution it makes to the art of command. Those who would profit most from it will heed the injunction in the Book of Common Prayer to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” Those who will but take the trouble to reread and annotate will find here a veritable treatise on generalship for aspiring commanders.
The first requisite for any officer is character, and Forrest Pogue is at pains to depict the elements of personal strength that made George Marshall the man he was. In all humility, Marshall thought it unseemly to accept honors as Chief of Staff when other men risked their lives in battle. Doubtlessly it was easy to brush aside awards and decorations as mere baubles; men who know the taste of real power have little need of symbolic tokens to reinforce their egos. But what about supreme command of the Allied assault on Europe? As a professional soldier, Marshall wanted that command; it was his for the asking. But he would not reach for it when the indication was that he was most needed in his post as Chief of Staff. This voluntary renunciation of his enduring ambition, which the author describes as the greatest drama of the general’s life, clearly delineates the self-effacing character of the man, a soldier for whom, such words as duty and honor were more than catchphrases.
Yet another dimension of Marshall’s character is compassion. Only a man with genuine sensitivity to the feelings of others can truly understand the complex human drama of a nation at war as Marshall did. During the period immediately following Pearl Harbor, he tried to write a personal note to the bereaved parents or spouse of each soldier killed in battle. The mounting carnage soon made this impossible, but his anguish remained. To make sure that the President, as the ultimate political authority for every military undertaking, was fully aware of the human costs involved, the Chief of Staff every few days put the casualty figures before him “because you get hardened to these things and have to be very careful to keep them always in the forefront of your mind.”
The other side of the coin of compassion is firmness. An effective leader knows when to say no. Marshall learned that the farther one goes up the ladder of power, the more one is besieged by importunate acquaintances seeking favors. Virtually all such requests he rejected with icy rectitude. The sole exceptions were those where individuals sought transfers from rear area posts of no danger to duty in combat; these he honored when he could.
Finally, Marshall had the moral courage that is a mark of character. He vowed to resign rather than carry out a policy he believed to be unwise. He did this on no more than a handful of occasions and always without theatrics. The quiet, ominous intensity of his threat invariably was enough to make his point. Probably the last time he felt driven to this extremity was when Prime Minister Churchill mounted a drive to have General “Monty” Montgomery set up as a Ground Commander-in-Chief between Eisenhower as Supreme Commander and the British and American armies in the field, a move Marshall successfully forestalled by his courageous threat to step down. The cost of this gesture in defense of General Eisenhower’s position can best be measured when one recalls that this happened on the eve of victory, when to step down would mean to deny himself the personal reward for years of agonizing effort. While it may be argued that character is often a matter of inheritance or early upbringing, there were many aspects of Marshall’s superiority as a leader that bore the marks of conscious preparation and continued effort even after he had become Chief of Staff. For example, papers drafted for his signature seldom passed across his desk unchanged as he slashed needless verbiage and sought precisely the right words for a succinct and unambiguous message. His unending quest for a direct, simple, and effective prose style not only sharpened his own abilities but served as an education for a whole generation of staff officers exposed to his deft emendations.
In yet another area Marshall’s penchant for careful personal preparation served him well. He read widely if not deeply from history. From a biography of Cicero he took consolation that his problems of leadership were “neither new nor insoluble.” While flying to the conference at Cairo he read the addresses of William Pitt, surely an adroit move for one who wished to establish immediate rapport with Mr. Churchill—and, as it proved, a successful one. Studying to know his man before negotiations was a Marshall hallmark. As he said of Stalin at Cairo, “I always thought they made a mistake in treating Stalin [as if he were] a product of the Foreign Service. He was a rough SOB who made his way by murder . . . and should be talked to that way.” Seemingly “none of our people had read his early history, and I thought that was quite essential when. . . dealing with a fellow who had done the things he did. . . .”
To be successful, a Chief of Staff must establish an effective working relationship with his political superiors. While many incumbents have managed to perfect a working relationship with the President and the other members of his Administration, from the Secretary down, few have been as successful in their dealings with Congress as George Marshall. Evidence that Marshall was highly regarded by members of Congress is to be found on every hand. Explaining just why he was so regarded presents difficulties, but some of the ingredients are discernible.
To begin with, Marshall had, as a matter of deep conviction, a highly developed sense of military subordination to the civil authorities. “I do not think the military authorities should make any political decisions. . . .” If the last word rested with the President and Congress, this still left the initiative for persuasion with the military, and it was here that the Chief of Staff scored some of his most notable triumphs. For a man who was neither physically impressive nor charismatic as a personality, he was a remarkably persuasive speaker. One of his colleagues described his appearance before a political body, where he spoke entirely without notes, calm, unruffled, unhurried, emotionless: “In his low but clear voice, speaking carefully articulated and exactly formed sentences, he gave an accounting of the military activities in each theater of war all over the globe. No sentence was ever begun without being carefully and purposefully ended. No words were wasted.” The secret of his impact seems to have rested on his ability to convey a sense of utter sincerity.
Men instinctively trusted George Marshall—members of Congress, the President, and the man in the street. Nor were they mistaken in this trust, for it was not only his demeanor and his words but his acts which induced conviction. One example will suffice to illustrate why the people of the nation believed him and willingly entrusted their sons to his care: He was fundamentally egalitarian; as a general rule he opposed direct commissions for college men, insisting that service in the ranks was the proper route to officers’ school. And as the pace of combat quickened, he directed that at least 50 percent of the vacancies in the junior-officer ranks of divisions in combat be filled by direct commissioning of outstanding noncommissioned officers.
Still another factor behind Marshall’s ability to secure respect and support was his remarkable ability to make use of the press. As Pogue reports, the Chief of Staff came only slowly to success in dealing with newsmen, groping his way toward an improved relationship, “first holding its members at arm’s length, then delegating his press officers to explain the Army’s policy patiently and openly, then instituting his off-the-record briefings for top Washington correspondents, and at last appearing at press meetings before key members of the profession.” There was, however, more to Marshall’s success than mounting self-confidence. Journalists trusted him because he understood that honest press coverage cuts two ways: he was as ready to accept criticism as he was to pass out news releases. Indeed, his willingness to condone dissent, sometimes painfully critical, stands as a model for all commanders who may be tempted to exercise a tight censorship over troop newspapers. Marshall knew what he was getting into and took his cue from General Pershing’s experience in 1918 with Stars and Stripes, where irreverent journalists had provoked many a division commander to indignation. For Marshall, in a democratic army such a newspaper was a necessity. He admitted it was difficult to handle, but he insisted, “If you begin to restrain it, the paper loses its cast as the voice of the enlisted man.”
After winning the confidence of the press the Chief of Staff demonstrated that he knew how to use the instrument. When a field commander failed to give adequate news coverage to his subordinate units and their leaders, Marshall would chide him. To MacArthur, a frequent offender in this respect, he pointed out that unless his public relations people provided more names, there would be fewer credits for MacArthur’s command. On the other hand Marshall deliberately used the press to build up leaders who merited support.
Fearing Churchill’s drive to secure the ground command for Monty, the Chief of Staff stirred up coverage for Eisenhower as Supreme Commander: “It is a damned outrage that because he is self-effacing and not self-advertising. . . they ignore him completely. . . .” Later, when Ike was riding high as Supreme Commander, Marshall prodded him to see that some of his more neglected army commanders received their fair share of publicity. The Chief of Staff could recall only too painfully how quickly all but a few of the Army’s triumphs were forgotten after World War I, and he was determined to avoid a repetition.
No small part of Marshall’s genius was his sensitivity to the motivations that impelled men to lay down their lives in battle. He understood that the soldier thousands of miles from home lacked the spur which goaded men who fought to defend their homes at their backs. “I think the first thing that he has to know what it is all about.” To this end he turned to the media, secured the “Why We Fight” series, established a Morale Branch, introduced public opinion polling to heed the soldiers’ gripes, and pushed for the prompt award of theater ribbons. Although he thought it “rather pathetic” to see how much importance the men attached to such recognition, he nonetheless took steps to turn their feelings to good account. On another occasion he pointed out that while infantrymen made up only 11 percent of the total air and ground force, they accounted for 60 percent of the casualties. Once again turning to the media for support, he observed, “Men will stand almost anything if their work receives public acknowledgment.”
Marshall’s success with the world outside the Army, with the President, the Congress, the press, and the public at large, was matched and probably made possible by his remarkable ability to command the loyalty of his subordinates within the service. He understood that most difficult of lessons: that loyalty down is just as important as loyalty up. When a key subordinate suffered an ill-informed political attack, he invested many hours on the Hill fending off the misrepresentations. His sincere consideration for the feelings of his soldiers manifested itself in a thousand ways. He was quick to resent Prime Minister Churchill’s references to the common soldiers as “the dull mass.”
Marshall’s instructions sent to the major generals whose divisions in training he planned to inspect provide a wealth of insights on the man and a practical manual for emulation. He wanted to be met by the division commander and no one else. There was to be no advertising of the visit; photographs were permitted, provided they were unposed. A simple dinner with the senior officers down through colonels was to be followed by inspections of troops firing on the ranges. After this he wanted to talk to junior and noncommissioned officers, captains, and lieutenants, with no seniors present. In addition he explicitly banned any influx of senior officers from nearby corps and army headquarters during the course of his visit. There were, moreover, to be no guards of honor, no reviews, no escorts, no aides or orderlies of any kind. And while he wanted to talk with the first sergeants of a number of companies, he explicitly directed that none were to be held in camp over Sunday merely to respond to his wish. Finally, he directed that no leaves were to be canceled because of his scheduled inspection. Surely it is not difficult to see why such a considerate man commanded the loyalty of his troops.
One significant facet of Marshall’s ability to hold the loyalty of his subordinates and sustain high morale stemmed from his ability to select outstanding men for promotion and assignment. Even those who lose out in the competition for advancement find it easy to bear the disappointment when it is clear to all that those who were chosen are outstanding individuals. The ability of the Chief of Staff to appoint successful commanders doubtlessly required sound intuitive judgment, but it involved something more. Marshall worked at the problem in a systematic fashion. Throughout his career, he kept book on promising officers. More than that, he deliberately cultivated potential top leaders by arranging to give progressively more demanding command assignments to the likely young men on his list.
In retrospect it is a simple matter to count only the successes, the roster of army and army group commanders who led the assault on Fortress Europa. But it is fatally easy to read history backwards. After the triumphs, anyone could point to the qualities which an Eisenhower or a Bradley, a Patton or a Clark, displayed in that incredibly massive operation. In order to assess meaningfully Marshall’s qualities as a judge of men, one must go back and stand with him as he selected a virtually unknown officer with no combat experience to command the landings in North Africa. And when that operation proved to be something less than brilliantly successful at all points, one must see how Marshall continued to have faith in his chosen instrument, urging him upon the heads of state for still higher responsibilities as Supreme Commander of the Allied cross-channel effort. This inner assurance, before the record was clear to all, is the true measure of Marshall’s ability to pick winners and back them even when the contraindications seemed greatest.
Finally, there is the measure of Marshall’s statesmanship, his ability to perform successfully in the treacherous environment of inter-Allied planning. Here again the bitter experience of World War I gave him valuable perspective on the pitfall to be avoided. Marshall’s effectiveness here seems to have stemmed from a strict insistence upon harmony. No matter how aggravating, no matter how offensive an Allied representative might be, the Chief of Staff insisted that his subordinates abstain from all criticism and complaint. Those who fell short he not infrequently dismissed.
A few such instances soon made his position clear. Nor were his expectations of his subordinates unjustified, for he set the pace himself in remarkable displays of self-control when dealing in person with such difficult allies as the mercurial Mr. Churchill and the “magnificently insufferable” de Gaulle.
For Air Force Readers there are some items of special note in this volume, notably Marshall’s interest in the potential of airborne attacks and an extended treatment of the controversial bombing of Dresden. The difficulties encountered in pinning down responsibility for the latter event offer instructive parallels for the assessment of somewhat similar controversies arising out of air operations in Vietnam; For the contemporary generation of readers who have not read the flood of books dealing with the formulation of grand strategy in World War II, the author offers an absorbing and cohesive narrative entirely comprehensible without extensive prior knowledge. But readable and useful as all this may be, the primary value of this volume derives from the many insights it offers on the ever elusive art of command.
Durham, North Carolina
Dr. Irving Brinton Holley, Jr., (Ph.D., Yale University) is Professor of History, Duke University, a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and holds a brigadier general mobilization assignment as assistant to the Commanding General, Keesler Technical Training Center. Commissioned from Officer Candidate School, he served as a gunnery officer, in technical intelligence, and on the faculty, Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Professor Holley is the author of Ideas and Weapons (1953, repr. 1971), Buying Aircraft: Air Material Procurement for the Army Air Forces, a volume in The United States Army in World War II, and numerous articles and reviews.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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