How George Marshall’s quiet genius for planning helped the US win world wars

As a young U.S. Army infantry officer in the Philippines in 1902, George Marshall was leading his soldiers single file across a stream when one of them spotted a crocodile. Panic ensued, with the men scrambling out of the water to safety. Marshall had graduated from the Virginia Military Institute not long before, and he was younger than most of the men he was commanding. Still, despite his relative inexperience, his immediate response was to order the soldiers to return to the stream. 

Josiah Bunting III tells the revealing story in “The Making of a Leader: The Formative Years of George C. Marshall.” The subject of this engaging and admiring biography went on to lead the Allies to victory in World War II and, later, to serve as secretary of state and secretary of defense; the plan that helped rebuild Europe in the war’s aftermath bears his name. Bunting’s book concludes long before those accomplishments, however, instead pondering how a young Marshall grew into the towering figure we remember today. His leadership qualities, as the crocodile incident suggests, were apparent early on.

Indeed, Bunting observes that from the time he was an adolescent, Marshall – born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1880 – evinced a quiet and cool determination. “He began to cultivate a certain solitude of spirit, a reserve, that would become a settled part of his adult character,” the author writes. Marshall was ambitious, but he didn’t distinguish himself academically. Sensing that the Army would be the best outlet for his talents and drive, he attended the Virginia Military Institute, where he excelled in military subjects.   

Bunting briskly summarizes the significance of Marshall’s early postings, which, in addition to the Philippines, included Fort Reno in Oklahoma and Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The book’s longest chapter covers Marshall’s eventful World War I service in France. The author relates the famous episode that followed the redoubtable Gen. John Pershing’s inspection of the division in which Marshall was serving. The commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, unimpressed by what he saw, upbraided the senior officer, William Sibert. Marshall, to the shock of those present, stepped forward and defended the soldiers. Rather than being offended by the challenge, General Pershing was impressed, and he came to rely on Marshall’s counsel.

Marshall had hoped to command troops in battle, but his organizational skills, focus, and discipline meant that his commanding officers preferred to have him on their staffs. “I seemed to be getting farther and farther away from the fight, and it was particularly hard to work on a plan and then not attend to its execution,” he later wrote of his World War I service. He was a key planner of the decisive 1918 Meuse-Argonne campaign. Its success in the face of the daunting logistical challenge of moving 600,000 troops solidified Marshall’s reputation as, in the author’s words, “a paragon of almost inhuman efficiency.” 

After World War I, Marshall turned down a lucrative job offer from J.P. Morgan & Co., instead spending five years as aide-de-camp to General Pershing, who, after the war, became chief of staff of the Army. (Marshall would hold the same position during World War II.) General Pershing, who disliked administrative tasks, leaned heavily on his aide. As Bunting tells it, he marked requests with the same notation: “Major M, take care of it.” 

Because of his taciturn nature, Marshall can be a difficult subject for biographers. Bunting succeeds in creating a balanced picture. He notes that his subject possessed a remote demeanor that did not invite intimacy or familiarity. But he also observes that “contemporaries remember [Marshall] as earnest, good-hearted, rigorous in the execution of his duties.” 

After World War I and into the Great Depression, the author explains, America significantly reduced military funding. This slender volume ends shortly before Marshall was tasked with transforming the Army into the heroic force that would help turn the tide for the Allies. Bunting emphasizes that Marshall was up to the job not only because of his strategic and administrative gifts, but also because of his connection to the men he commanded. He calls him “a general who understood the aspirations and needs, and quality, of his citizen soldiers; who would know what he was asking of them, and who would, his own protestations to the contrary, feel their anguish, exhaustion, fear, and pain.” Some fortuitous blend of Marshall’s innate talents and character, combined with his early experiences, prepared him well for the grave challenges that lay ahead.