In Praise of "The Architect of Victory"
Sixty years ago today, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman declared V-E Day—victory in Europe. The announcement ignited a series of celebrations from Time Square to Trafalgar Square. In Washington, D.C., Secretary of War Henry Stimson, strolled into George C. Marshall’s office and thanked the General of the Army for his role in the victory by saying “No one is thinking of himself can rise to true heights. You never thought of yourself.”
Stimson knew the modest nature of his remark vastly understated Marshall’s role in victory but he also knew the general would have been uncomfortable and embarrassed with anything more. On this anniversary, however, it is fitting to reflect on how much George Marshall—whom the New York Times once called the “architect of victory”—contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Marshall’s first contribution occurred during the late 1920’s when he was the head of instruction at the Army Infantry School. In this position, he immediately set about discarding the stale and outmoded lessons of the First World War and urged his younger charges to “begin preparing for the first six months of the next war.” Under his tutelage over 200 future World War II generals—including Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley—absorbed the lessons which they later employed with such devastating effectiveness on the battlefields of Europe.
Marshall performed his next invaluable service in the summer of 1941 when, as chief of staff of the Army, he almost single-handedly and in the face of intense public opposition convinced Congress to extend the service of hundreds of thousands of draftees. For his courage, he was publicly scorned and called “Hitler Marshall” and “a Benedict Arnold.” But when the country was attacked at Pearl Harbor just four months later and America was forced to declare war on the Axis Powers, a forgiving public was quietly thankful for the tenacity and foresight Marshall demonstrated in keeping those soldiers in uniform.
While a majority of Americans and many leading military thinkers urged President Roosevelt to defeat Japan first, Marshall quietly asserted his role as America’s leading global strategist and persuaded the president to concentrate on Germany. His rationale was simple: if Hitler was allowed to consolidate his gains on the continent, the Nazi war machine could harness the resources and industrial capacity of those occupied territories and extend the global conflict by years. The “German-first” strategy is considered by many military historians to be the single most strategic concept of the war and it was Marshall who conceived of it.
During this same period, Marshall also put together the team that successfully orchestrated the strategy. He promoted scores of younger officers and relieved hundreds of older officers because he demanded that his troops be led into battle by only the most competent of professional officers. He worked with his naval counterpart, Admiral Ernest King to attain an unprecedented level of inter-service cooperation between the army and navy, and persuaded his naval counterparts to subjugate their desire for an all out effort in the Pacific to the more immediate needs of the overall global strategy. More importantly, Marshall achieved unity of command among the allies, an act which Churchill thought impossible and later called “our greatest triumph.”
And, as if these things weren’t enough, on a daily basis, Marshall balanced the competing needs of five theaters of war, oversaw a logistics system that stretched 60,000 miles, managed the egos of such powerful men as De Gaulle, Chang Kai-shek, Douglas MacArthur and George Patton, and grew the U.S. Army from a modest force of 175,000 troops in 1939 into an 8 million person military juggernaut.
Marshall, of course, would go on to achieve even greater fame—and the win Nobel Peace Prize—for his visionary plan to rebuild war-torn Europe, but on this anniversary of V-E Day, it is fitting to stop and reflect upon the man who, as Churchill said, “called into being by his own genius” the armies that won the war. For while it is true, as Henry Stimson said, that Marshall never thought of himself, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t.
Stimson knew the modest nature of his remark vastly understated Marshall’s role in victory but he also knew the general would have been uncomfortable and embarrassed with anything more. On this anniversary, however, it is fitting to reflect on how much George Marshall—whom the New York Times once called the “architect of victory”—contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Marshall’s first contribution occurred during the late 1920’s when he was the head of instruction at the Army Infantry School. In this position, he immediately set about discarding the stale and outmoded lessons of the First World War and urged his younger charges to “begin preparing for the first six months of the next war.” Under his tutelage over 200 future World War II generals—including Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley—absorbed the lessons which they later employed with such devastating effectiveness on the battlefields of Europe.
Marshall performed his next invaluable service in the summer of 1941 when, as chief of staff of the Army, he almost single-handedly and in the face of intense public opposition convinced Congress to extend the service of hundreds of thousands of draftees. For his courage, he was publicly scorned and called “Hitler Marshall” and “a Benedict Arnold.” But when the country was attacked at Pearl Harbor just four months later and America was forced to declare war on the Axis Powers, a forgiving public was quietly thankful for the tenacity and foresight Marshall demonstrated in keeping those soldiers in uniform.
While a majority of Americans and many leading military thinkers urged President Roosevelt to defeat Japan first, Marshall quietly asserted his role as America’s leading global strategist and persuaded the president to concentrate on Germany. His rationale was simple: if Hitler was allowed to consolidate his gains on the continent, the Nazi war machine could harness the resources and industrial capacity of those occupied territories and extend the global conflict by years. The “German-first” strategy is considered by many military historians to be the single most strategic concept of the war and it was Marshall who conceived of it.
During this same period, Marshall also put together the team that successfully orchestrated the strategy. He promoted scores of younger officers and relieved hundreds of older officers because he demanded that his troops be led into battle by only the most competent of professional officers. He worked with his naval counterpart, Admiral Ernest King to attain an unprecedented level of inter-service cooperation between the army and navy, and persuaded his naval counterparts to subjugate their desire for an all out effort in the Pacific to the more immediate needs of the overall global strategy. More importantly, Marshall achieved unity of command among the allies, an act which Churchill thought impossible and later called “our greatest triumph.”
And, as if these things weren’t enough, on a daily basis, Marshall balanced the competing needs of five theaters of war, oversaw a logistics system that stretched 60,000 miles, managed the egos of such powerful men as De Gaulle, Chang Kai-shek, Douglas MacArthur and George Patton, and grew the U.S. Army from a modest force of 175,000 troops in 1939 into an 8 million person military juggernaut.
Marshall, of course, would go on to achieve even greater fame—and the win Nobel Peace Prize—for his visionary plan to rebuild war-torn Europe, but on this anniversary of V-E Day, it is fitting to stop and reflect upon the man who, as Churchill said, “called into being by his own genius” the armies that won the war. For while it is true, as Henry Stimson said, that Marshall never thought of himself, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t.
posted by Jack at 12:17 PM
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