Marshall

Marshall

General George C. Marshall never fired a shot during World War II and led no troops into battle. Instead, his brilliance was strategic and diplomatic. In this probing biography, H. Paul Jeffers offers a rich portrait of the most powerful U.S. military officer of the 20th century.

Born in 1880 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Marshall was inspired to pursue a military career after witnessing the celebrated return to Uniontown by Company C of the Tenth Pennsylvania Infantry from the Philippines in 1899. Following graduation from Virginia Military Institute, Marshall was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, and served in France during World War I under General John J. Pershing. From this point, Marshall’s rise through the ranks was meteoric, and in 1939 he became Army Chief of Staff. It is here that Marshall truly came into his own.

As Chief of Staff, Marshall was responsible for the largest military expansion in U.S. history, turning an ill-equipped force of 189,000 men into a modern fighting machine whose ranks swelled to nearly 1.5 million. It was assumed that Marshall would become the Supreme Commander of the Allied Force that invaded France on June 6, 1944, but President Roosevelt chose Dwight D. Eisenhower instead. Marshall clearly wanted the job, but the long-retired Pershing, who still wielded much influence, had other ideas; precisely because of his great admiration for Marshall, he told Roosevelt that it would be a “very grave error” to send the Chief of Staff away from Washington.

Jeffers does great justice to Marshall’s wartime contributions—his advocacy of the “Germany first” approach, his astute selection of such commanders as Eisenhower, his support of joint and combined operations among the military services, and his focus on the cross-channel invasion of France. But it is Marshall’s postwar achievements for which he is best known. At war’s end, Marshall enjoyed a brief retirement before being appointed secretary of state by President Harry S. Truman. Marshall became the State Department’s leading spokesperson for the rebuilding of Europe, spearheading the European Recovery Program—more commonly called the Marshall Plan—that pulled the war-shattered European nations out of ruin. Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize for his postwar work in 1953—the only U.S. Army general to have received this honor. Marshall distinguished himself again as secretary of defense during the Korean War, retiring for good in September 1951.

Employing ample detail about Marshall’s military and civilian career with astute analyses of his unique combination of military and political strategy, emphasis on planning as well as execution, and expertise in nation-building, H. Paul Jeffers has written the definitive biography of this military legend.

Hardcover: 224 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Press Inc. ( June 08, 2010 )

Item #: 11-4981

ISBN: 9780230614161

Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 x 0.0 inches

Product Weight: 12.0 ounces