American military leaders in World War I and World War II

American Military Leaders

The fighting of the First World War (WWI) started during 1914 and ended on 1918. The Second World War (WWII) started a lot later in 1939 and ended in 1945. These are the biggest military conflicts in the history of humankind. In both wars, military alliances formed by groups of countries were involved. The First World War (World War I, the War to End All Wars, the Great War) mainly occurred in Europe. The fighting nations were categorized in two groups, 'The Allied Powers' and 'The Central Powers'. Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary were in the Central Powers group[footnoteRef:1]. The Allied Powers group consisted of Britain, Italy, France, Japan, Russia and the U.S., which joined in 1917. In The Second World War (World War II), the warring groups were called 'The Allies' and 'The Axis'. Germany, Japan and Italy made up The Axis. The U.S., China, France, the Soviet Union and Britain, made up The Allies. The Second World War was very heinous due to the mass killings of Jewish by the Nazis. Numerous military leaders from America were involved in both wars. [1: World War i Vs. World War Ii]

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower led the huge invasion into parts of Europe that were mainly occupied by Nazis, starting from D-Day (June 6, 1944) as the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Western Europe. He was convinced to run for president by the leading Republicans in 1952. He was the commander of the NATO forces in Europe at the time. He ran and won over Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, and was supposed to serve in the White House for two terms (1953-1961). Before Eisenhower could go to Europe, however, World War I came to an end, causing him a lot of frustration. He was soon appointed to the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas[footnoteRef:2]. He graduated first in his class of 254 and became the military aide to the commander of U.S. forces during the First World War, General John J. Pershing. He later served the U.S. Army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur for seven years in which his station was in the Philippines between 1935 and 1939. [2: Dwight D. Eisenhower]

Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, causing the beginning of World War II, Eisenhower went back to Europe. He was promoted to brigadier general in September 1941 and was given his first general's star. He was later called to be a planning officer in Washington D.C. by George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General, in December after Japan's attack in Pearl Harbor. As from November 1942, Eisenhower led the Allied invasion of North Africa known as Operation Torch, which was successful. He also directed the fall of Rome in June 1944 through an amphibious invasion of Sicily as well as the Italy mainland in the year 1943. Having been made a general early in 1943, Eisenhower was promoted in December the same year to become supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He was tasked with leading the Allied invasion of parts of Europe occupied by the Nazi as planned. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the English Channel was crossed by more than 150,000 Allied forces that attacked and occupied the Normandy beaches; as a result of the invasion, Paris was liberated on August 25 and the tide of the war was turned in the Allied direction. Eisenhower returned home in 1945 and was given a hero's welcome, having risen to a supreme commander of the forces that had won the war in Europe from the position of lieutenant colonel in the Philippines in only five years. He then served the U.S. Army as the chief of staff.

Commanding the American occupation forces in western Germany, Eisenhower was based in Europe through 1945. He supported new democratic practices which had not been practised in the German system before such as encouraging school teachers to teach conflicting points-of-view and welcoming criticism from news reporters. He was chief of staff of the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1948. This was a tough time for him since he had to be in charge of demobilization, a process which reduced the army from 8 million soldiers to less than one million. In 1948, he retired as a five-star general after which he wrote his collection of memories, Crusade in Europe. Eisenhower was extremely popular because of his open and friendly personality as well as what he had done in the army. He was so popular that both political parties considered nominating him to run for presidency in 1948[footnoteRef:3]. He declined their offers, stating that someone who has been a lifetime soldier should not get involved in politics. Instead, he chose to serve Columbia University in New York City, as president, from 1948 to 1950. After the war, East Germany and many other Eastern Europe countries were occupied by the Soviets. They forced these nations to accept communist governments and appeared to be a threat to Western Europe. Canada, the U.S. and ten nations from Europe responded by creating a defence alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Eisenhower was appointed to command the NATO forces by President Harry S. Truman in 1950. His responsibility would be building a NATO army strong enough to stop the Communists from advancing into Western Europe. His success was limited due to a couple of reasons: first, the Europeans could not raise new armies because they were still recovering from the war's destruction; secondly, the American troops had diverted to assist South Korea after invasion by Communist North Korea in June 1950, igniting the Korean War. These actions prove that Eisenhower represented the American culture. On whether he was a Christian role model, I think he was not because his affiliation to the Christian faith has not been mentioned. He stood firm with the values of an American leader and a military commander. [3: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), American Military Leader and 34th President of the United States (1953-1961)]

George C. Marshall

George C. Marshall (1880-1959) is among the military leaders who are decorated the most in the history of America. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, became a staff officer in World War I and later served the U.S. Infantry School as the assistant commandant. In 1939, when World War II begun, he was appointed the chief of staff when World War II began and was responsible for increasing the U.S. Army's size exponentially. He also assisted in creating Operation Overload (1944)[footnoteRef:5]. When the war ended, he served as the secretary of state under President Harry Truman. He created Europe's economic recovery program, which was referred to as the Marshall plan. In 1953, Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. [5: George C. Marshall]

The only soldier who is more respected than George Marshall in the history of America is George Washington. However, George Marshall never commanded troops in battle, which is the common path to greatness for military leaders. He was excellent at various tasks that are performed by a modern officer. He also served remarkably as a policy maker as well as a diplomat, which are civilian roles. He climbed the ladder in the U.S. Army through reforms that were made early in the twentieth century. These reforms put more emphasis on professional military education, preparation of war through a new staff system and closer coordination between the regular army and the National Guard's citizen soldiers. In the First World War, Marshall was a staff officer where he had a central role in the offensives' planning process by the American Expeditionary Force that was in France. When he was the assistant commandant of the Infantry school, he left a significant mark on the tactics that would be used in the Second World War by the U.S. Army. Working with National Guard Units extensively exposed him to the world of civilians and gave him experience in dealing with and relating to politicians, which was not common for officers during his time. Marshall was made chief of staff immediately the Second World War begun in Europe yet he had never been in command of a division before. Back in September 1939, the U.S. Army scarcely had any modern weaponry; it was almost the same size as the Dutch army, which had not even survived a week when fighting the German blitzkrieg in 1940. By 1942, when they started fighting the Wehrmacht, the U.S. Army's strength of combat had increased by more than ten times. Marshall is credited for this remarkable improvement.

Marshall was ready to retire when the war ended but Harry Truman, the president, sent him to stop a civil war between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang government in China in late 1945. However, even the force of Marshall's remarkable character could not bring a long-term compromise between the two parties. The experience he gained in China, however, proved to be of benefit when he was serving as the secretary of state in 1947. He could make a sound argument that it would be very costly if the American military intervened in the Chinese Civil War and there was a very small chance of succeeding.

Just like in the Second World War, Marshall considered Europe as America's top strategic priority in the Cold War. Friendly European nations were protected from being subverted by Communists through the widely known foreign aid plan, which bore his name. Before leaving the State Department in 1949, Marshall assisted in creating a couple of other plans for containment in Europe to work with the Marshall plan -- a state in West German and NATO, a Western military alliance. Marshall was brought out of retirement again by Truman, following the Korean War outbreak. This time he was appointed the secretary of defense. The president was hoping that Marshall would be able to control General Douglas MacArthur. However, Marshall did not fit well into this role. Although he had a deep belief in the control of the military by civilians; in practice, he had held the belief that commanders of theaters should be allowed to act based on their own judgment to a considerable extent. After MacArthur got fired by the president, Senator Joseph McCarthy ferociously attacked Marshall, calling the Communists dupe. However, almost all the time, Marshall was mostly respected for his patriotism and his character.