With the u. S. Army command general Staff College in for the eleven worth on marking 75 years since world war ii. It also comes in the middle of the librarys partnership from january through may with the eisenhower president ial Library Foundation in ablene. And its on the Dwight Eisenhower exhibit up on the second floor art gallery here at the library, the mountain gallery. And we have a series of programs running on Dwight Eisenhower through may. Next one of those, in fact, is next wednesday. Tonight we focus on eisenhower and George Marshall. The army chief of staff who targeted ike for advancement as a military officer, keen eye for talent, because among others, with ike, you know, he spied george patton. He spied omar bradley and he became one of ikes primary mentors as the army chief of staff from 1939 to 1945. Marshall of course went on to become the secretary of state and win a noble peace prize. David mills assistant of military history and has phd in history from north Dakota State University and the distinction of being the first person to earn a doctorate in history from the school in 2009. He spoke at the library two years ago on operation snow bound. About the mammoth federal response to the blizzard of 1949 which stretched from kansas into the canadian border. Were so pleased to have david back tonight. Please welcome david mills. [ applause ] well thanks everybody for coming out tonight. As steve mentioned i was supposed to be here few weeks ago but we got slowed out. Looks like we might have inclement weather tonight. That may look like a pattern to you, believe me its just a coincidence. So thanks for coming out. Im going to go ahead and incorporate some of the information i was going to talk about a little earlier. So if it looks like at some point i wander off on tangents talking about marshall a little bit, then thats probably why. All right. So this is the story of two great men. Both were revered as well as famous in their time. Since world war ii however it could be argued that general Dwight Eisenhower has probably eclipse general marshall in fame, at least when it comes to what each of them did during world war ii. Most people know general eisenhower was the commander of the invasion of france during world war ii but theyd probably be hardpressed to tell you exactly what general marshall did. In fact marshall built the army that eisenhower used to defeat the germans. Both men were from humble bam ground backgrounds, both patriotic driven by desire to end the war quickly rather than seeking glory for themselves. This is their story. General George Marshall was born december 31, 1880, in union town, pennsylvania. He graduated from Virginia Military institute in 1901. He served as the chief of staff of the army during world war ii. And then as the secretary of state and secretary of defense. After the war was over. He advocated the plan that bears his name, the Marshall Plan, for which he won the noble peace prize, helping europe to recover economically from the war. One fact that you may not know about general marshall is that he loved to ride horses. This is how he relaxed and he called it great exercise. Although i would think it would be better exercise for the horse. [ laughter ] but what do i know. So, his personal life was actually very difficult. He graduated from college in 1901. In 1902 he was married with lily carter cole who was born with a heart defect and he had to be very careful with her and very doting husband, always trying to make sure she was comfortable and had everything that she needed. She died in 1927. They never had any children. He married catherine voice upper in 1930. She was a widow with three children of her own. And marshall became very close to the children. Two of the boys, in fact, were Army Officers during world war ii and the youngest, allen was actually killed by a sniper in italy during the war. His step daughter was also married to an army officer who served. Although marshall never used his position to influence their careers. He was above all a very honorable man and would never do anything that he thought would tarnish that. Marshall serve in a variety of positions throughout the world upon graduation from vmi. Before world war i promotions were pretty slow and coming. But marshall did pretty well. When world war i broke out he went to france in the summer of 1917. He was a member of the Division Staff for the First Infantry Division. His plan, his job was really planning and training. The draftees and National Guardsmen that rounded out the First Infantry Division. Now there were two significant episodes that were pretty risky careerwise but really made a difference for marshall when he was endeared to two very influence men. And the first of those episodes began during world war i. And thats when general john j persian the commander of the American Expedition force, came to check on training. You got to understand persian was under a ton of pressure from the french to get the American Army up and ready to take position in the trenches. So he comes out and is looking at training and is not happy. He thinks that the training is too slow and its not very challenging. Hes really upset by what he sees and proceeds to take it out on the division commander. A guy by the name of general william c bert the first infantry commander and he proceeds to chew him out in front of all of his subordinates. Well marshall thought this was extremely disrespectful and uncalled for. As a lowly captain he grabbed that Major General by the arm and proceeded to tell him very angiely how he thought it was uncalled for. When he was done general persian pulled away and mumbled something and stormed off. All of marshalls friends shook his hand and wished him farewell because his career is over. [ laughter ] dont you know, when general persian came back to check on the First Infantry Division he would go find marshall and ask him how things were going. So the two actually formed a very important relationship that would effect both of them throughout their lives. So, in mid 1918 marshall went to the aef staff and worked directly for general persian. After the war was over he became an aide to general persian and as a matter of fact general persian was the best man in marshalls wedding when he got married the second time. So after the war marshall ended the war as a actually he finishes as a Lieutenant Colonel and is reverted back to major. He did pretty well. He commanded a regimen then a division and then he commanded 35 ccc camps throughout oregon and washington and in 1938 he was brought to washington as a Brigadier General, by then, chief of staff of the army general malin craig. Craig wanted marshall to succeed him as chief of staff of the army so he brought him there, he made him chief of the War Plans Division, eventually made him deputy to the chief of staff. And becoming chief of staff was really a dream job for marshall. So lets talk about marshall and roosevelt particularly, and a little bit about churchill. Roosevelt and marshall worked very well together. Although the two were never close personally. They were almost exact opposites. In fact marshall confessed he didnt really like roosevelt very much when he first moved to washington. General marshall was very guarded. He was formal. He was serious. Above all, he valued dignity. So marshall valued dignity and nobody would ever call him funny. And there were very few pictures of him ever smiling. Although if you notice the first picture i showed you was marshall smiling so dont believe what you read, believe what im telling you, there arent many pictures of the man with a smile on his face. Roosevelt however was a politician. He never met a person he wouldnt shake hands with, he always had a joke and was always smiling and laughing. He also had that politicians deepseed add version to ever answering a question with a straight answer. He didnt want to get tied down to one particular answer. He always wanted plausibility denyability and be able to change his mind and go a different direction. Which drove marshall absolutely nuts. Because as a military guy he needs decisions and needs to know what direction the country is going so that he can actually make things happen. Marshall also never let the president get too close to him personally. He never laughed at the president s jokes. He never allowed the president to call him george. And he never went to visit the president at his home in hyde park new york. Marshall was also a army man. Whereas the president was a navy man. He had served as assistant secretary of the navy. He loved the navy. He loved the sea. And he was an accomplished sailor himself. At one point marshall had to ask the president stop saying they when talking about the army and stop saying we when talking about the navy [ laughter ] so roosevelt succumbed to the suggestion of the promise of air power and thought all of americas problems could be solved through just buying more planes so he is constantly trying to buy more airplanes at the expense of the army but other branches as well. Marshall on theed. He marshall objected. He thought there should be more balance how to procure equipment from the different branches. One specific example, november, 1938, roosevelt had a meeting with all of his top advisors and he said off the top of his head, he said america ought to by 20,000 airplanes to keep us safe and we ought to give couple thousand to england for being a good ally. You know how it is, boss comes up with an idea, everybodys like, great idea, boss, shaking their head yes. And off the top of his head turns to george and says dont you think so. So marshall winced. Because he called him george. Marshall never allowed anybody to call him george except for his wife. And he fundamentally disagreed with the president and told him so. He said mr. President im sorry i just dont agree with any of that at all. So the president was rather surprised as everybody else was in the meeting. They all got up and left, again, shaking his hand, wishing him good luck because youre career is over. [ laughter ] but roosevelt never held it against him. And so, this was the second episode in his life that proved to marshall and only reenforced the idea that his values were something that he should always stand up for. Church hill also had Great Respect for marshall. In fact, he very rarely ever challenged him directly. If marshall was doing something that church hill didnt agree we would go talk to eisenhower or roosevelt, anybody but marshall and try to get them to change his mind. Churchill called marshall the organizer of victory and he went openly when visiting marshall on his death bed in 1959. So in april 23, 1939, roosevelt brought marshall into his office and offered him the dream job. Chief of staff of the army. And although it was a dream job marshall had a few a list of demands, if you will. So he says, you know, mr. President i will work as hard for you as i can, i need to come in and speak honestly with you, i need to be able to bring you bad news and roosevelt reluctantly agreed to that but roosevelt also pointed out that he had some demands. You know. He expected to get the very best that marshall had. So they came to an agreement. And marshall became the acting army chief of staff. So this is in april of 1939. He was acting in that capacity up until the 1st of september 1939 when craig retired. So september 1st the day germany attacks poland, world war ii begins, marshall becomes the chief of sfaf staff of the arta army. Germany attacks poland in 1939. They attack france in 1940. The loss of france is a complete shock to the United States. Begins to bring the United States out of its complacency. Not out of isolation. Congress and the American People wanted absolutely nothing to do with a war in europe but congress understands that they got to begin preparing for war. And so the louisiana maneuvers held in 1940 and 1941 were designed to see how well the army performed and the answer was, not well. The exercises had revealed a number of equipment problems such as iron pipes being labelled cannons and trucks being labelled tanks and single seat by planes being labelled bothers. That sort of thing. The army was not only under staffed theres about 200,000 soldiers total that point. We also had number of equipment problems. So marshall decided it is time to build up the army. October 1920 after the first series of exercises marshall and the president go to congress and enact the Selective Service act bringing 900,000 draftees into the army. And also activating the National Guard. So initially marshall has a large number of soldiers to train. But soon theyre only in the army for a year. So their term of enlistment is almost up and nobody is more excited about that than the soldiers themselves. So the louisiana maneuvers of 1941 were fundamentally different. Excuse me. Marshalls insistence on training paid off. He wanted mistakes made in louisiana rather than in europe so the 1941 exercises consisted of 400,000 service members, twice the number that was even in the army the year before. You got 19 divisions actively out there participating in these war games. So the war games are over in 1941. Were well on our way to doing, to creating a much better army, but our army is about to go away with the expiration of the Selective Service act. So marshall and a number of members of the administration go talk to Congress Members and get them to extend the Selective Service act for 18 months. Which will guarantee that we keep getting soldiers into the army. So theres one other aspect of the louisiana maneuvers that deserves to be mentioned, and that is, that marshall came around and he was watching and he was always on the look out for new talent. Rumor was he had a little black book, when he spotted somebody with high potential and high talent hed write their name in this little book and one of the people they identified in these maneuvers was colonel Dwight Eisenhower who was responsible for the blue force coming up with the planning and the training and the exercises were an overwhelming victory for eisenhower. Another person that he identified in these exercises was Major General george patton. So a number of other folks that were supposed by supposedly had their name in the book omar bradley, mark clark, joseph collins, courtney hodges, and maxwell taylor. Now this little black book has never been found. So did it exist . Did it not exist . If there was no book then marshall must have kept those names in his mind. But these were the folks identified and groomed for higher command once the war broke out. England had been at war with germany since 1939. Above all they were intent on preserving the British Empire after the war. The imperial general staff, or the british general staff also thoroughly and completely rejected the idea of ever having a crosschannel attack and confronting the germans in europe itself. They preferred an approach that attacked the periphery of germany. They would have navy blockade german ports restricting trade coming in and Bomber Campaign would keep hitting german cities night after night. So what churchill believed is this would under mine morale you didnt need to confront them directly you could attack the borders or periphery of the german empire but marshall fundamentally disagreed with that he said the only way to defeat germany is to fight germany. This is going to be a fundamental confrontation between the americans and british throughout the war. When germany invaded the soviet union in 1941 both churchill and roosevelt believed that we had to supply everything that we could it to the soviets to keep them in the war. Marshall fundamentally disagreed with that. He didnt believe that the soviet union was going to be able to survive. The attack by the germans. If you think about it, the Russian Air Force was largely eliminated in the first few weeks of the war. Millions of men were killed or taken prisoner. The germans are on the outskirts of moscow. He fundamentally didnt believe there was anyway the soviets could survive. So why waste that equipment when the u. S. Needed that. The soviets are knocked out of the war its up to the soviets and british to defeat german armies. You are probably wondering when the eisenhower piece is going to kick in. Here we are. Lets talk about general eisenhower for a few minutes. So he is born in texas. October 14, 1890. He is the third of seven boys. Heres the eisenhower brothers with their mother. The family moved to kansas in 1891. Abilene, kansas. But they never had a lot of money. Ike and his brother agreed to alternate years going to college. One would work and the other would go to college and then switch. S]j so he applied to west point and eisenhower became member of the west point class 1915. 59 members of this class were to achieve general officer rank. Nolan as the class the stars fell on. So while at west point makes varsity team meters and marries his wife in 1916. He asks for combat continuously. W4 world war i breaks out and they say okay and hes schedule to get on ship november, 1918, he never makes it to france. So he thinks his career is over for not having seen combat during world war i. So eisenhowers career was actually not bad. Not great but pretty good for not having been in combat. Hes a Brigadier General when pearl harbor is attacked. He spent five years working for Douglas Mcarthur in the philippines. Not surprisingly he doesnt get along well with dog lawsuit mcarthur. But ike made his bosses look really good. So even though mcarthur and eisenhower didnt get along great he still wouldnt let eisenhower go because he was just a great staff officer. While other officers were being weeded out of the army, particularly during the great depression, eisenhower continued to get promoted pretty steadily. During the great depression, lead up to world war ii, marshall is looking for a commander who can work with senior commanders from other nations and can organize diverse interests in a common goal. He had not identified that man in december when pearl harbor takes place. Although eisenhowers stock was pretty high. Eisenhower and marshall were also complete opposites. Marshall was pretty reserved and proper and ike was very outgoing, always smiling and joking, hes ready to chat with anyone for extended periods of time. And he hosted dinner parties on a pretty regular basis. Hes very social. Again, the opposite of marshall. Eisenhower was never called ike. Marshall never called anybody by their first name. It was always eisenhower, patton, clark, bradley, no matter your rank it was always a former address by marshall. Although a little later in life he did relent from calling him eisenhower and did call him mr. President. If thats loosening up, a little, i dont know. So less than a week after the attack on pearl harbor eisenhower gets a phone call. Its marshalls office. Hey, the boss wants to see you, get up to washington, d. C. So marshall calls ike into his office, sits him down, proceeds to explain all of the problems that the army would have in defeating the japanese. And then he asks eisenhower, so how do we solve those problems . Eisenhower stands up and he says, give me a couple hours. So he walks off, finds a quiet place, starts with a blank piece of paper and proceeds to think through the problem. How would we operate in the pacific . Couple hours later he comes back and says heres what i think we ought to do. I think we ought to start staging troops out of australia. We got to build a coalition of willing nations to work with us in order to beat back the japanese and we got to make sure our lines of communications are always open. We can always supply those Coalition Soldiers with all of the equipment that they need. Marshall listens quietly, nods in all the right places and says i agree, go make it happen. So he had just gotten a new job and he had also just heard from marshall, he says, dont wait for me to approve every move. Solve the problems and tell me about it later. Ike understand he was there to make important decisions and to make things happen. He also just figured out he had just been given a test and apparently he had passed and was hired as pacific and far eastern sections of the war Plan Division and as eisenhower worked on the problems he began to do better job than his boss. Normally thats a career problem when you start doing better than your boss but thats exactly what marshall was looking for. In fact he ended up promoting eisenhowers boss out of that position, head of the War Plans Division so he could give it to eisenhower. So eisenhowers promoted to Major General in march of 1942. Pearl harbor was a disaster and quite an emotional event for america. However, for the british it was a stroke of luck who were str k struggling in their war with germany. Churchill led a contingent of military players in washington right after pearl harbor in december 1941. And they begin planning what theyre going to do going forward. So one of the greatest headaches, believe it or not, for the american generals during the war, was dealing with the british. They constantly questioned the readiness of the American Army and tried to implement plans that suited them and always have a british officer as a commander. One of the principle conferences between these two players was called the arcadia conference where they sought to did develop a common strategy. Again, churchill wants to attack the peripheral, north africa, sicily and marshall wants a crosschannel attack in 1942, nearly immediately. So they didnt agree on a strategy for going for. What they did agree on was a europefirst strategy. They agreed on the the idea of command. Somebody has to be in charge. You cant have everybody having an equal say. You can only have one and that person needs to be in charge of all ground, sea and air assets. So when the meeting was over the allies were determined to Work Together for the common cause of defeating the germans but they still didnt have a cohernia co strategy. Away from the soviets that had their hands full at this point and they were trying to keep it from collapsing. Either being defeated or negotiating a separate piece for the germans. Either would be catastrophic for the british and the americans. The americans suggested operation sledge hammer which envisioned not really a large scale invasion of france but more of a reinforced raid, kind of running, you know, into france saying here we are and pulling off a number of units from the eastern front. Fdr, roosevelt approved the plan. And the british to say the least were not enthusiastic. They didnt have enough troops to be able to pull this off and any attack would be an enormous gamble with the army that they did have and they were simply not ready to do that. However, rather than argue with allies they said well consider it. Well make this plan a but well keep thinking so the americans walk away with this plan thinking they have approval and agreement but they dont. In june he comes and says we are opposed to your idea. So marshall explodes. He thinks he has the word of the british that the plan was a cross channel attack and so the british are fundamentally against it and then they start floating the idea well if we can do a cross channel attack, where can we go . Kind of planting the idea that north africa is the logical place and they leave this meeting with not really settling the idea or settling the notion of where theyre going to attack. So the americans are still convinced that perhaps a cross channel attack is in the offing and who the commander is going to be. Marshall is adequately against it. And roosevelt doesnt want to let him go. He settled on eisenhower as the commander for the invasion of europe. So eisenhower goes to england to begin planning the invasion of europe or the cross channel attack and he writes his first letter to marshall. He will write 180 letters. In fact, marshall never bothers to write him back. Its just eisenhower letting him know whats going on. Heres some of the issues that i see with the commanders and heres what is going on. Marshalls job was to support eisenhower in everything that he did. So it soon became clear that the british are right. Were not ready for a cross channel attack in 1942. So heres the cross channel attack in 1944. We simply didnt have any of this stuff available in 1942. It didnt help when he changes sides and agrees with churchill. Now you have the president and the Prime Minister arguing that north africa is the logical place. So roosevelt doesnt want to be the guy to have to deliver the bad news. Finally he says look you need to come up with a place in 1942 that will take the pressure off the russians. It becomes north africa. To help matters the british agree to a unified command. In other words they agreed to let him become the overall command commandering and b because this works. You can see all the different invasions there. So this in summary these are the places where the operation is. At the same time, were building up combat power because were going to cross the channel into france. And the americans and the british hammer out a plan for north africa. So they take place and casablanca and the british general in the east and eventually theyre victorious forcing them to either surrender or evacuate. As you can imagine, the next question is what do we do now . So the americans want to focus on europe. The brits have promised that 1943 is the year of the cross channel attack. Hey, guess what happens. Three guesses what they come to the table with. Lets go to sicily followed by the invasion of italy. Lets promote him out of the position and promote him into the stratosphere so that we can make it a whole lot easier to get what we want and it didnt help that they gave a number to british newspapers arguing that the americans didnt really do much in north africa. It was mostly a british campaign. So as you can understand that didnt go well. That didnt sit well with their allies, the americans. None was bolder than the decision to maintain the 90 division so thats an important number and 1941 and 1942 of divisions to win the war were high. The American Army anticipated that they would need somewhere in the neighborhood of 2015 divisions which would take as you can imagine a whole lot of manpower. So these numbers were premised on a whole lot of offensive operations in europe and the probability and theres many other demands and people power and women power. And confusing as you can see. And but also, heavy industry and it becomes clear that the arsenal of democracy is going to smoother them with tanks, planes, ships, guns and beef coming out of america. And join the military and top number and whatever it would be is 15 million. So 25,000,015 million the top number and really the number is 8 million and that number will drop to 7. 7 million in 1944. So the American Army starts with 200,000 soldiers in 1939 and up to 8. 8 million in 1943 and drops to 7. 7 million in 1944. One of the first changes marshal makes is to change the organization of u. S. Infantry divisions so he goes to the Triangular Division with three regimens. So if you have a number of Infantry Divisions already staffed they will make up the bulk of Infantry Divisions that youre trying to make. It was made up of regimens from National Guard units from illino illinois, North Carolina and massachusetts. Square division was better for warfare. There was a trend toward increasing the number of infantry and airborne divisions in 1943. And making it possible to shift them overseas much faster. So there were fewer and more standard Infantry Divisions. Originally, they estimated we needed about 61 armored divisions. No more than 16 were actually fie fielded if that gives you an idea. So the last Infantry Division was formed and in total there were 90 divisions. 67 infantry, 16 armored and two calvary and its going to be a question that would come back and haunt them over and over again. The same day that the germans surrendered in north africa. The conference opened up where churchill was addiment that the allies could invade sicily followed by italy. It didnt quite turn out that way and he was convinced and hes the Prime Minister again he explodes when churchill is trying to push this. The problem is after north africa and so again he feels like they are only going back on their word and this is the only way youre going to end the war by confronting germany directly. And it was no longer necessary. And so the soviets were winning after stalin and german units. And theyre still there. Theres 37 divisions in europe ready for this cross channel attack. Soon a compromise strategy begins to take shape. The british agreed to a cross channel attack. In 1944 if the americans will agree to an attack in sicily and then an attack on it will i proper. The only difference is the americans are going to pull seven Infantry Divisions and send them to england to prepare for the cross channel attack. And his reports to marshall. He made the decision. And the course of action and especially after apologizing not only to the members of the hospital staff where the incidents took place and also to the soldiers themselves. But this time marshall is willing to compromise. He would continue the invasion of italy. Theyre working to hammer out the details. The british wanted a full invasion of italy and the americans said no. You cant make us. We are going to france in 1944. So eventually the british still arent done trying to put off this cross channel invasion. They meet in teheran for the first time tomorrow. This is the first time that they met with stalin and churchill tries to convince stalin that the only real idea is to attack italy in force even he says, no, thats a dumb idea. He says no, thats not the best idea. The best idea is an attack on france. So the americans use this as an excuse going forward. Well, stalin said thats what were going to do. Make sure that we understand who the commander is going to be. So marshall walks in to roosevelts offense and its pretty easily the opportunity for roosevelt to make marshall the commander. He wont ask for the job and he wants it. But finally roosevelt breaks the silence and breaks the stalemate by saying i guess eisenhower is the man. And marshall says okay. Lets make that happen. So he never complained about it. He was disappointed but he understood the main thing, the most important point was to defeat the germans. He wants to take him with him to be the ground commander. Churchill objects. If he is no longer the commander in the mediterranean why not put a british officer in there and they wanted to name him alexander as the commander of all forces down there. However, just like in north africa, theres going to be an over a Deputy Commander for air and sea and ground but this time theres going to be a fourth Deputy Commander. Responsible for writing, implementing the final plan was general montgomery who most people didnt get along with. Eisenhower didnt get along with him that well and one of the reasons was montgomery had been a soldier in world war i. He was actually shot in the chest. He was shot through the lungs. He was pronounced dead on the battlefield. Guess what, he didnt die. So when youre pronounced dead and then you arise from the dead, you have this complex that says, what you have you were saved for a reason, right . So what you are going to do next is probably pretty important so he was he was labeled as kind of an arrogant person and difficult to deal with. But nobody ever accused him of not being a meticulous planner. He was an incredibly detailed person. He was scheduled to write the plan for Operation Overlord. So it was his job to make sure that the Landing Force was not pushed off the normandy beaches. Were talking about operation anvil which is the invasion in addition to overlord here in Norman Norman normandy. So the major asset that montgomery brought to the table was that he was a meticulous planner as i said. The original scope of the operation called for three divisions attacking into the normandy beach. It was montgomery. He said no we need a minimum of five and everybody agreed that that was a much better plan. One that would be more Landing Craft than in france. Guess where they come from in the british had a fundamental problem with Operation Overlord and starts a whole new series of arguments. The brittish argued it wasnt necessary. Izen power simply didnt care. Not only were the british putting up a hard time but now they were so convinced of their superiority that Strategic Bombing could end the war that they didnt want to have any part in Operation Overlord. So the planners had called for them to bomb all the rail heads in the rail facilities and to keep the germans from reinforcing normandy. Hes getting a lot of push back on his plan and he starts to cave in and he starts to negotiate with people and hes telling marshall about this. Marshall is livid. Hes nice at first and then takes on more of a tone and in 1942 and in 1943 they have got their way in north africa, sicily and italy. Its time for you to stand firm and in fact, its up to the idea is for the germans to divert their forces away from normandy. Not the allies. So marshall went from suggesting to demanding and i got the message. And youre going to give me the Landing Craft that i need. Hey, you better get on board with a plan as well. Things werent going well for the british in italy. Eisenhower simply didnt care. They had a serious disagreement over the planning but it was a temporary set back. And they got over it. Operation overlord was a success. Five Infantry Divisions. Three airborne divisions successfully landed behind the divisions landing on the beaches and by the end of the first day 156,000 allied troops are in france. So the allied are in france but the germans were pretty good at keeping them bottled up for quite awhile. So eventually they broke out and a lack of fuel and ammunition stopped the rapid advance of pattons army. It was at this point that eisenhower agreed to montgomerys plan which was to seize a series of bridges. The last one being a bridge too far that youre probably far with that they couldnt hold on to that bridge and so the operation was not successful. And eventually bringing fuel and ammunition to the front. They were hoping to keep a reserve in america. So theres three army groups by the end of or even by the beginning of the battle of the bulge. So theres montgomerys 21st army group and bradleys 12th army group and the 6th army group in all the allies had 87 divisions and 6,000 tanks. The germans had 50 something divisions and like 1500 tanks. And so eisenhower stripped he still needed more combat power and there were more. Only about 350,000 were actually combat soldiers if that tells you how much stuff an army consumes. So he starts stripping the companies of typists and mechanics and cooks and start sending the guys to the front to be infantrymen. So the allies beat back the german offensive that had begun on december 16th effectively breaking the back of the german army. However, the british had one more opportunity to annoy marshall and eisenhower. And that is when british newspapers for some mysterious reason begin to attribute all of this success to general montgomerys 21st group and he decided he should be in charge as well for various reasons and he sends a very sternly worded message to eisenhower. He had had it. So he picks up the phone and hes looking for montgomery. Tell that guy to come to my headquaters. Well his chief of staff picks up the phone so he kept montgomery for being relieved from command. At the end of the day, the chief of staff gets ahold of montgomery and tells them hes about to lose his job. Montgomery rushes over to eisenhower and says hey, that poorly worded request, just forget that i even said that. Just lets just ignore that. So eisenhower does. Why go through that heart ache. So in the spring of 1945 the allies pushed deeper into germany and then they slow down and then they stop. The soviets were in the process of taking berlin they lose 352,000 soldiers simply taking berlin. A cost that eisenhower and marshall were simply not willing to pay. The soviets could have the honor of taking berlin and paying that cost. So its time to end the war. The Long Partnership between marshall and eisenhower proved successful if not always cheerful. They had done their duty. So leave you with the last thought. Marshall and eisenhower had made a very formidable team. They didnt always get along. Marshall was the chief of staff and viewed eisenhower as working for him. However, he never made it and he was under strains. Give them a pretty easy schedule for a week or so. And eisenhowers staff asking how many hours of sleep does he have. Make sure that he is relaxed. Do whatever you can to take some of the pressure off of him. And supporting them at every turn. And given their relationship and the fact that marshall selected and performed admirably throughout the entire war. It was his guidance and leadership and set them up for success and gave us president eisenhower eventually. So a couple of books that i would recommend, a book called partners in command really looks at the relationship between eisenhower and marshall. Theres a new one thats come out, i havent had a chance to read it, marshall and the atomic bomb. Eisenhower didnt know anything about the atomic bomb and when it was detonated twice in japan, he was beside himself, outraged that we would do Something Like that. So that probably carried over into his presidency as well. So with that, if anybody has any questions that i probably wont be able to answer youre more than welcome to ask but please make sure that you use the microphones. The british had always, one of their main reasons for trying to take control of the operations is there are not trained. They were not ready. They were constantly being ridiculed as a fighting force. The victory in africa gave the americans the credibility that they needed to go back and say no, no, no, we are no longer this untrained force. We are just as bloodied as you are. The africa core was a truly elite force or is that exaggerated. The folks fighting on the russian front or the units that were fighting there as well. And they were just as good as the german units. Absolutely, it was important. If they didnt have all the gasoline and ammunition do you think he could have shortened the war. That would call for a fair amount of speculation. Even montgomery was short of ammunition and fuel. And moving forward. Moving east kind of line abreast. And once they did figure it out. And i think its what does happen. And its kind of that will. And the account being and its such an ugly word but it didnt go the way that folks have envisioned. Youre right italy is still being fought in 1945. Its not that soft. These things that get harder. He was addiment. He had his ideas and wasnt going to be convinced. I was watching the history channel. I was wondering how much america really paid to rebuild europe. Long story short, the Marshall Plan. Too late to make this a short story. So the long version is germany is a conquered country after world war ii. There was a move afoot to punish germany. There was the plan envisioned to simply take all the industry away and making germany an agricultural nation. But they figured out quickly you cant do that. So the Marshall Plan was nothing more or less than making all the nations in europe if they wanted to participate that needed loans to rebuild their countries. Make them come up with plans like if we give you money, what are you going to do . Rebuild roads and infrastructure and railroads and that sort of thing. Back when a billion dollars was a lot of money, the entire Marshall Plan was 13 billion spread and it gave the europeans the confidence that they werent being abandoned and we are a conquerer and he wins the peace prize. And nifundamentally starving throughout europe and the Marshall Plan gave people hope and it did more than anything to rebuild europe if that answers your question, sir. I think that we have time for this one last question. One more question. Have things changed . Did the dynamic change when true man became president. Well, april of 1945 where most of them and between germany and japan and really inherent and roosevelt did whatever it was that roosevelt would have done. He hadnt found his feet underneath him and he didnt fundamentally start doing Different Things or breaking from what he thought roosevelt would do. Thank you. The japanese launched nearly 2,000 attacks on american ships. The fleet and by hollywood and part of the reel america series that looks at history through archival films. American history tv now and over the weekend on cspan 3. Every saturday night, American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Raise your hand if you ever heard of this murder before this class. The deepest cause where we will find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the American People. Well talk about both of these sides of the story here. The tools and the techniques of slave owner power and tools and techniques of power. On topics ranging to september 11th. And its available as a podcast. Television has changed since cspan began 45 years ago. To provide an unfiltered view of government. And president ial impeachment progress. A federal response. You can watch all of cspan online or listen on our free radio app. And cspans program. Cspan, created by prooivate industries. And brought to you today by your television provider. Back to world war i and challenges general narratives. During his talk and the New York Historical society had a 15
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