The subtitle of this book by Mark Perry is “George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. The book begins with a chronology of George Marshall’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s lives, their military service, and the major battles of World War II. The focus is on the European theatre. Review of the chronology and the listings of major military commanders and politicians at the end of the epilogue give a quick snapshot of the events of World War II. That would be useful to a casual reader, because the book is written in incredible detail. A major focus of the book is the constant and difficult conflict between the Americans and the British. The conflicts occur at nearly every step of the planning and execution of military plans. The descriptions are undoubtedly historically accurate, but I found them tedious to read.

The Prologue describes the remarkable relationship between Confederates Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and their connections with the Virginia Military Institute where George Marshall was a student and teacher. “In time he came to revere Lee and Jackson, and throughout his life he named them the two men he admired most.” The book describes that Lee chose Jackson to lead the fight and George Catlett Marshall chose Dwight Eisenhower as his partner in command.

The first chapters of the book chronicles how Marshall had developed a list of officers in his “little black book” who deserved consideration for future posts, and Eisenhower was added to that book. Marshall promoted senior officers he judged as performing well and culled or retired dozens he judged to have performed poorly. He had little time to be patient with those who were not up the challenge after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He had a massive military rebuilding effort to accomplish in the midst of a war. Fox Connor had previously been a mentor to Marshall and became Eisenhower’s mentor during a two year assignment in the Panama Canal Zone where he shared his library of military treatises, which prepared Eisenhower to be added to Marshall’s book. Eisenhower’s first assignment with Marshall came after Marshall decided to give Leonard Gerow a field command and promote a young colonel to replace him. The colonel was killed in a plane crash, Marshall consulted his book, and the call went to Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s assignment was to develop a roadmap for what could realistically be done in the Pacific in response to the Japanese onslaught.

Marshall saw his greatest responsibility was to focus on forming an efficient military coalition. He later remarked that the war showed “…how difficult it is for armies of different nations to work with full harmony.” That theme is repeated throughout the book. Eisenhower was to become Supreme Commander not because he had proven himself in battle. He had no battlefield experience. Marshall wanted the position but refused to ask for it Roosevelt. Roosevelt chose Eisenhower because he had proven himself the most politically astute of the alternatives to Marshall. Marshall probably wasn’t chosen because Roosevelt valued having him in Washington.

The back and forth arguments between the American and British strategists, Churchill, and Roosevelt continue as plans are made for an invasion of Europe. Churchill advocated invasion of the “soft underbelly” through the Balkans while Marshall and his advisors and Stalin wanted to invade France at the earliest opportunity. Churchill was convinced the Americans were not “combat ready” for such an invasion and insisted for months that they needed to be “blooded” in North Africa. Marshall thought that was a complete waste of men, material, and time. The results indicate the English were right. The first major combat faced by American units in Africa was a disaster. The officers did not provide good leadership, the troops fought poorly and in disarray, and the battle hardened and disciplined Germans cut them to pieces. The British called the Americans “their Italians,” reflecting the nearly universal distain for the fighting qualities of the soldiers from that nation. Things changed for the Americans when Patton was brought in to provide aggressive leadership and unyielding discipline.

I found a major flaw in the book was the failure to mention the bloody fiasco of the British invasion at Dieppe early in the war. I’ve read that the invasion suffered from an overly complicated plan that had no chance of holding together in the chaos of battle. Regardless, Churchill had direct experience of the difficulties of invading France and his predictions that there would be many tens of thousands casualties were based on that direct experience. Stalin’s role in determining the need to invade France at the earliest opportunity is also not discussed. Stalin understandably wanted to take some of the pressure off of his armies, which was accomplished with the invasion of Africa. Stalin also had the motive that he wanted the Balkans for himself after the war, and he convinced Roosevelt with Marshall’s help to invade France and not the Balkans.

The next disagreement between the English and Americans was over invasions of Sicily and Italy. Marshall once again thought that was a distraction. Regardless, the book does not portray the allied efforts in a favorable manner. A relatively smaller German army took devastatingly high casualties from the invasion forces and kept them bottled up in numerous locations longer than might have been predicted against the overwhelming forces and flood of materials being sent against them.

I won’t go into D-Day in detail, since that history is well known. The success of the invasion came at the cost of a few less than 10,000 casualties on the first day, which was fewer than Churchill had predicted. The descriptions of the slaughter are difficult to read. It was said that one British unit eventually required 100 percent of its members to be replaced as all of the original men became casualties. (I wish I could figure out whether the courageous assaults on Normandy were required for reasons other than to appease Stalin. I write that knowing that Marshal believed the war could not be won if Russia did not remain an ally.)

There are some sections of the book that will not be well received. One historian wrote if the American army that “…educational standard of men shipped to combat arms ranked far below that of those posted to administrative branches.” Even more disturbing are the descriptions of the high desertion rates by American soldiers. The author presents the opinion Americans have traditionally hated war and thousands of men have traditionally tried to stay out of war. Even more disturbing is that rape was so prevalent that Eisenhower considered lining up the perpetrators and shooting them. The message of the book is that the allies did not win the war with superior strategy or execution. The war was won by the weight of America’s industrial ability to overwhelm the Germans.  

A last interesting fact is that Field Marshall Montgomery was the one who convinced Ike to run for President. There are many others, such as Marshall’s understanding the Russians no longer wanted to cooperate or have a peaceful world after the Germans surrendered. But that’s another long story.