George C. Marshall
George Catlett Marshall Jr. was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army under presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman. Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. During the subsequent year, he unsuccessfully tried to prevent the continuation of the Chinese Civil War. As Secretary of State, Marshall advocated for a U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, the only Army general ever to receive the honor.
Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901. He received his commission as a second lieutenant of Infantry in February 1902 and immediately went to the Philippines. He served in the United States and overseas in positions of increasing rank, including platoon leader and company commander in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War. He was the top-ranked of the five Honor Graduates of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907 and graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class. In 1916 Marshall was assigned as aide-de-camp to J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Western Department. After the nation entered the First World War in 1917, Marshall served with Bell, who commanded the Department of the East. He was assigned to the staff of the 1st Division; he assisted with the organization's mobilization and training in the United States, as well as planning of its combat operations in France. Subsequently assigned to the staff of the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, he was a key planner of American operations, including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
Following his service in World War I, Marshall became an aide-de-camp to Army chief of staff John J. Pershing. Marshall later served on the Army staff, was the executive officer of the 15th Infantry Regiment in China and was an instructor at the Army War College. In 1927, he became assistant commandant of the Army's Infantry School, where he modernized command and staff processes, which proved to be of major benefit during World War II. In 1932 and 1933, he commanded the 8th Infantry Regiment and Fort Screven, Georgia. Marshall commanded 5th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and Vancouver Barracks from 1936 to 1938; he received promotion to brigadier general. During this command, Marshall was also responsible for 35 Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Oregon and Southern Washington. In July 1938, Marshall was assigned to the War Plans Division on the War Department staff; he later became the Army's deputy chief of staff. When Chief of Staff Malin Craig retired in 1939, Marshall assumed the role of Chief of Staff in an acting capacity before his appointment to the position, which he held until the war's end in 1945.
As the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff, Marshall worked closely with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to organize the largest military expansion in U.S. history, and was ultimately promoted to five-star rank as General of the Army. Marshall coordinated Allied operations in Europe and the Pacific until the end of the war. In addition to accolades from Winston Churchill and other Allied leaders, Time magazine named Marshall its Man of the Year for 1943 and 1947. Marshall retired from active service in 1945, but remained on active duty, as required for holders of five-star rank. From 15 December 1945 to January 1947, Marshall served as a special envoy to China in an unsuccessful effort to negotiate a coalition government between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists of Mao Zedong.
As Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, Marshall advocated rebuilding Europe, a program that became known as the Marshall Plan, and which led to his being awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize. After resigning as Secretary of State, Marshall served as chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission and president of the American National Red Cross. As Secretary of Defense after the start of the Korean War, Marshall worked to restore the military's confidence and morale after the end of its post-World War II demobilization and then its initial buildup for combat in Korea and operations during the Cold War. Resigning as Defense Secretary, Marshall retired to his home in Virginia. He died in 1959 and was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Early life and education
George Catlett Marshall Jr. was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children born to George Catlett Marshall and Laura Emily Marshall. Both sides of his family were long from Kentucky, but cherished their Virginia roots. He was also a first cousin, three times removed, of former chief justice John Marshall. He was also a distant cousin of Richard J. Marshall. Marshall's father was active in the coal and coke business. Later, when asked about his political allegiances, Marshall often joked that his father had been a Democrat and his mother a Republican, whereas he was an Episcopalian.Marshall was educated at Miss Alcinda Thompson's private school in Uniontown and spent a year at Uniontown's Central School. Having decided early in life that he desired a career in the military, but unlikely to obtain an appointment to the United States Military Academy because of his average grades, he looked to the Virginia Military Institute for a formal education. Marshall's brother Stuart, a VMI alumnus, believed George would not succeed and argued that their mother should not let George attend out of concern that he would "disgrace the family name." Determined to "wipe his brother's face," Marshall enrolled at the age of sixteen in September 1897. To pay for his tuition and expenses, Marshall's mother sold parcels of land she owned in Uniontown and Augusta, Kentucky.
At the start of his college career, Marshall was subjected to a hazing incident in which upperclassmen positioned an unsheathed bayonet with the point up and directed him to squat over it. After twenty minutes, Marshall fainted and fell. When he awoke, he had a deep laceration to one of his buttocks. While being treated for his injury, Marshall refused to inform on his classmates. Impressed with his bravery, the hazers never bothered him again.
During his years at VMI, Marshall always ranked first in military discipline and about midway academically. He attained the rank of first captain, the highest a cadet could achieve, and graduated 15th of 34 in the Class of 1901. Marshall received a diploma, not a degree. At the time of his graduation, the top five or six VMI graduates received bachelor's degrees. The rest received diplomas attesting to their status as graduates. He played tackle on the football team and in 1900 he was selected for All-Southern honors.
Early infantry career and the Philippines
Following his graduation from VMI, Marshall served as Commandant of Students at the Danville Military Institute in Danville, Virginia. He took a competitive examination for a commission in the United States Army, which had greatly expanded to deal with the Spanish–American War and Philippine–American War. Marshall passed and used endorsements his father obtained from both of Pennsylvania's U.S. senators to bolster his application. VMI Superintendent Scott Shipp also supported Marshall's application, and in a letter to President William McKinley compared him favorably to other VMI graduates serving in the Army, saying Marshall was "Fully the equal of the best." He was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry in February 1902. In a matter of days he married, resigned the Danville job, and shipped out to serve with the 30th Infantry Regiment in the Philippines.Prior to World War I, Marshall received various postings in the United States and the Philippines, including serving as an infantry platoon leader and company commander during the Philippine–American War and other guerrilla uprisings. He was schooled in modern warfare, including tours from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor. He was ranked first of five Honor Graduates of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907 and graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class. After graduating in 1908, Marshall was assigned as an instructor at the Fort Leavenworth Infantry-Cavalry School. While on the faculty, he met Hunter Liggett, who was then commanding a battalion at Fort Leavenworth. Though Marshall was subordinate to Liggett, Liggett volunteered to study the curriculum under Marshall's tutelage; Marshall made the lessons and practical exercises available to Liggett, critiqued Liggett's answers, then shared with him the faculty's schoolhouse solutions.
Beginning in 1913, Marshall served as aide-de-camp to Major General J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Department of the Philippines. He continued in this role during Bell's command of the army's Western Department at the Presidio of San Francisco. In the summer and fall of 1916, Marshall was responsible for organizing several Western Department Citizens' Military Training Camps. After the American entry into World War I in April 1917, Marshall relocated with Bell to Governors Island, New York, when Bell was reassigned as commander of the Department of the East. Shortly afterwards, Marshall was assigned to help oversee the mobilization of the 1st Division for service in France.
World War I
Shortly after the American entry into World War I in April 1917, Marshall had roles as a planner of both training and operations. In the summer, he was assigned as assistant chief of staff for operations on the staff of the newly created 1st Division, commanded by Major General William L. Sibert, a fifty-six-year-old engineer officer. After overseeing the division's mobilization and organization in Texas, he departed for France with the division staff in mid-1917. On the long ocean voyage, his roommate was the division's assistant chief of staff for training, Major Lesley J. McNair; the two formed a personal and professional bond that they maintained for the rest of their careers. Marshall was the first passenger from the first boat transporting American Expeditionary Forces soldiers to set foot in Europe, and one of the first to enter the trenches of the Western Front.After arriving in France, Marshall served with the 1st Division on the Saint-Mihiel, Picardy, and Cantigny fronts. Although the division was designated as a Regular Army formation, most of the officers and men serving within its ranks were almost completely lacking in combat experience. They were also deficient "in training, staff work, and logistical problems. More than half of its soldiers were new recruits. Only a few of its non-commissioned officers had been in the Army for two years or more, and nearly all of the lieutenants had been commissioned less than six months".
In late 1917, General John J. Pershing, the commander-in-chief of the AEF, inspected the 1st Division. Unimpressed by what he observed, Pershing began to berate Sibert in front of Sibert's staff. Sibert took Pershing's criticism in silence, but when Pershing turned his attention to the division chief of staff, Marshall angrily interceded to inform Pershing of logistical and administrative difficulties of which Pershing was unaware. Marshall also informed Pershing that the AEF staff had not been very helpful in dealing with the problems. Sibert and his staff were concerned that Marshall's willingness to confront Pershing had probably cost him his career. Instead, Pershing began to seek out Marshall and ask for his advice whenever he visited the 1st Division, which, over the winter, "completed extensive training, much of it under French tutelage". By mid-April 1918 the division, now commanded by Major General Robert Lee Bullard, was deemed to have progressed enough in its training to have its own sector of the Western Front to hold.
Marshall won recognition and acclaim for his planning of the Battle of Cantigny, which took place from 28 to 31 May 1918; Marshall's success resulted in the first notable American victory of the war. As he conducted pre-attack planning, Marshall traveled alone under cover of darkness to personally view the terrain and mentally map it. Marshall ventured beyond the front lines and far into no-man's land, often under friendly artillery fire and routinely risking discovery and capture by Imperial German Army troops. On 26 May, he was injured while traveling to several subordinate units to conduct pre-attack coordination. As he departed the division headquarters area, his horse stumbled, fell, and rolled over; Marshall's left foot was caught in the stirrup, and he sustained a severe sprain and bruise. A physician bound Marshall's injured ankle and foot with adhesive tape so he could avoid medical evacuation and remain with the division to oversee the attack. In 1920, Marshall was awarded the Citation Star for his heroism during this battle. When the Silver Star medal was created in 1932, Citation Stars were converted to the new award.
In mid-1918, Pershing brought Marshall on to the AEF operations staff, G-3, where he worked closely with Pershing and was a key planner of American operations. He was instrumental in the planning and coordination of the Meuse–Argonne offensive, which contributed to the defeat of the German Empire on the Western Front in 1918. In August, he was assigned as assistant chief of operations for First Army, which was commanded first by Pershing, then by Liggett. At the end of the war, Marshall held the permanent rank of captain and the temporary rank of colonel and was recommended for promotion to temporary brigadier general in October 1918, but the Armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918 occurred before the recommendation was acted on.
After the Armistice, Marshall served as chief of staff for the VIII Corps. For his services during the war he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal, the citation for which reads: