What Eisenhower Said When He United American and British Forces Under Churchill's Watch скачать в хорошем качестве

What Eisenhower Said When He United American and British Forces Under Churchill's Watch

He was worried because history had taught him that coalitions are fragile things. World War I had been won by an alliance, but that alliance had spent years arguing about command, coordination, and who would make the final decisions. Thousands of soldiers had died because French generals and British generals couldn't agree on tactics, because no single commander had authority over both armies, because cooperation meant endless negotiation and fatal delays. Churchill was determined not to repeat those mistakes. He had brought with him the British Chiefs of Staff—Admiral Dudley Pound, Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal, and Field Marshal John Dill. These men represented decades of military experience, victory at sea against the German navy, successful defense of Britain against the Luftwaffe, intimate knowledge of how modern war was fought. Churchill expected them to shape Allied strategy. He expected British military expertise to guide American enthusiasm. He expected, though he would never have said it so bluntly, that Britain would remain the senior partner in the alliance, providing wisdom born of two years of combat while America provided muscle. What Churchill did not expect was George Marshall. General George C. Marshall was not like Churchill. He didn't give soaring speeches. He didn't dominate rooms through personality. He didn't stay up until three in the morning debating grand strategy. Marshall was quiet, methodical, almost reserved. But underneath that calm exterior was steel. And on Christmas morning, 1941, Marshall made clear exactly what that steel was for. The setting was a conference room in Washington, filled with American and British military leaders. The topic was command structure in the Pacific, where Japanese forces were smashing through Allied defenses with terrifying speed. Singapore was threatened. The Philippines were under siege. The Dutch East Indies stood exposed. Allied forces—American, British, Dutch, Australian—were scattered across thousands of miles of ocean, each answering to different governments, different headquarters, different chains of command.