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by George C. Marshall (Author)
One president called him "the greatest living American;" and another told him, "I feel I could not sleep at night with you out of the country." Sir Winston Churchill found him to be not only "a rugged soldier and magnificent organiser" but also "a statesman with a penetrating and commanding view of the whole scene"; to Britain's great wartime leader, he was "the noblest Roman of them all." Perhaps the most moving tribute came from his wartime boss, at a small, evening ceremony in the Pentagon, the day Nazi Germany surrendered. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, whose own experience with the Army reached back almost to the turn of the century, told his dose associate and confidant, "I have seen a great many soldiers in my lifetin1e, and you, sir, are the finest soldier I have ever known." Acclaimed by his colleagues and duly praised by historians of World War II, General of the Army George C. Marshall nevertheless has been overshadowed in popular acceptance by other leaders. In part, the lack of widespread public recognition of Marshall stems from his role as the Army's Chief of Staff, creating the armies that others led to glory. In part, it can be traced to his personality. Austere and sometimes aloof, modest and self-effacing, he lacked MacArthur's flair for publicity and Eisenhower's common touch. As a superb staff officer in World War 1 and the interwar Army, he was accustomed to working behind the scenes. Still, he remembered that soldiers are human beings, not cogs in a machine, and he possessed an unusual appreciation for the citizen-soldier based on his extensive experience with reserve forces. Associates were struck by his relentless perfectionism and impatience with military dogma. Most of all, however, they were in1pressed by his strength of character: the integrity, self-discipline, sense of duty, lack of political ambition, and presence which conveyed firmness, intensity, and calm. Perhaps it was these qualities that led President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in September 1939, to bypass thirty-four generals senior to Marshall and appoint him Chief of Staff. Fifty years after the close of World War II, the U.S. Army Center of Military History takes pleasure in bringing together for the first time all three installments of Marshall's wartime reports. Published at two year intervals, these reports provide a comprehensive picture of global war as seen from the perspective of the Chief of Staff. The first report describes the race to mobilize an unprepared country and Marshall's appeal on the eve of war for the renewal of Selective Service, a reminder of how far the U.S. Army had to come to meet the Axis challenge. The second recounts the initial defeats after Pearl Harbor and the ultimately successful efforts of the United States and its Allies to turn the tide. The final report describes the drive to victory and outlines Marshall's analysis of the reasons for the Allied triumph. Summaries give an overall view of the progress of the war, but the scholar and military professional will find most interesting Marshall's comments on such topics as technology, the "9O-division gamble," the replacement system, troop morale and the citizen-soldier, and demobilization. These comments and the other material presented in the reports provide not only a fresh perspective on the myriad problems of conducting a global war at the highest levels but also renewed appreciation for the man whom Churchill appropriately called "the organiser of victory."
