Five-star finesse

David Petraeus, the now former director of the CIA and a much-revered four-star general who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently confessed to an extra-marital affair with biographer Paula Broadwell. He admitted that he “screwed up royally”, an epithet that may not have crossed the mind of General George C. Marshall, the incredible chief of staff of the US Army during the Second World War.

Times have changed, of course, and as Stephen R. Taaffe shows in “Marshall and His Generals”, being a four-star general once meant something.

Taaffe, a two-time winner of the US Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Book Award and a professor of history at the Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, has produced a genuinely fascinating book on how Marshall, who also served as both Secretary of State and Secretary of Defence, “faced the daunting task not only of overseeing two theatres of a global conflict but also of selecting the best generals to carry out American grand strategy”.

How were these officers selected and what were Marshall’s reactions to their performances is what this book is all about. It is a rare character study that chronicles the backgrounds, achievements, and failures of more than “three dozen general officers chosen for top combat group commands — from commanders such as Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur to some nearly forgotten”.

It is worth recalling that the US Army before the Second World War was not the force it eventually became and was distinctly worse off than the mighty German Wehrmacht under the Nazis. Still, the US Army had a cadre of senior professionals who stayed with their chosen careers and quickly rose through the ranks to replace retirees. “The army did not need brilliant generals who performed miracles on the battlefield,” Taaffe writes, “but rather competent men capable of taking advantage of American economic power [to achieve victory] with minimal losses.”

In the words of General Omar Bradley, who commanded 43 divisions and 1.3 million men and who was the last five-star commissioned US officer — a rank historically held by only four other men at the height of the Second World War (Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry H. Arnold, and Omar Bradley)] — Marshall was “one of the greatest military minds the world has ever produced”.

Taaffe explores how and why Marshall, a highly disciplined and demanding person who exuded integrity, selected the Army’s commanders. His criteria included “unselfish and devoted purpose” in each of 38 three-star and four-star officers, sound education — all were graduates of the West Point Military Academy in New York, the Fort Leavenworth Combined Arms Centre in Kansas (historically known as the “Intellectual Centre of the Army”), or the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania — and, most important, displaying a “balance between experience and relative youth in a war that required both wisdom and great physical stamina”.

As the war unfolded, Marshall further factored into his calculations combat leadership, and whatever feedback he received from theatre commanders. In hindsight, his greatest test came with Douglas MacArthur, who was in command of the Pacific Theatre and preferred to operate with a great deal of freedom. To his credit, Marshall let MacArthur have his way until the latter clashed with the overrated President Harry S. Truman. Marshall was far more successful with Eisenhower, whom he urged to relax and leave routine matters to his staff. Ike did and the allies were better served.

Readers will truly enjoy Taaffe’s various analyses on key generals, especially the irreverent but brilliant George S. Patton, “a superb field general and leader — perhaps our very best — but a man with many human and professional flaws”. Ironically, Marshall and Ike felt Patton had to be continuously watched and tethered, though, because of his forceful character and not lack of discipline.

This path-breaking work thus produces a seamless analysis of Marshall’s selection process of operational-level commanders and addresses the kinds of leadership qualities one expects from generals. To be sure, mere competence was not sufficient. It was also important to maintain higher standards, even if self-control was, sometimes, difficult. That is why the recent Petraeus scandal is relevant.

As head of the CIA, Petraeus stepped down not only to avoid embarrassment but also to prevent a security breach. This may have been a one-time mistake but, as a four-star officer, Petraeus will forever be compared to the Pennsylvanian. Marshall served the United States with distinction and seldom tolerated errors, and this superb portrait of the impeccably mannered man deserves to be read by everyone interested in the Second World War, as well as those engrossed by contemporary military leadership affairs.

Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is the author of the recently published Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia (London: Routledge, 2013).