STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR COALITION WARFARE: 1943-1944. By Maurice Matloff. (1959, 1970; 640 pages, 5 tables, 1 map, 26 illustrations, 5 appendixes, bibliographical note and guide to footnotes, glossaries, index, CMH Pub 1-4.)
In this volume Dr. Matloff, coauthor of the preceding volume, carries the subject forward from the conference at Casablanca (January 1943) through the second Allied conference at Quebec (September 1944), applying essentially the same methods and approach as in the earlier volume.
During these years General Marshall and his strategic planners had to grapple with the problems of the offensive phase of coalition warfare. The book is a carefully studied and thoroughly documented exposition of the American case for concentration, first against Germany, then against Japan.
While the author looks at the war through the eyes of the Washington high command, he looks at the whole war, in order to explain American thought and the measures that the American war leaders took. The reader will therefore find here a study of the positions of Great Britain, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and China and of their leaders, Churchill, Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek, as well as of Roosevelt and the American military chiefs, as they sought to resolve strategic and political problems.
Their proposals were tested in the debates at the great conferences of the coalition, and this volume contains a full account of five of the most important of these: Casablanca, TRIDENT (at Washington, May 1943), Quebec (August 1943), Cairo-Tehran (November-December 1943), and second Quebec. The period covered witnessed the triumph of the proposal for which the Americans most vigorously contended-a massive drive at the heart of Germany at the earliest possible date, finally set for early June 1944. In his exposition, the author gives ample space to the development of a strategy for the defeat of Japan, which was primarily an American responsibility. In accounting for the final adoption of the grand design of Allied strategy, he describes the increasing proficiency of the Americans in the art of military negotiation and diplomacy and the effect on strategy of the growing military weight of the United States and the USSR in the coalition.
As in the first volume, American planning is related at every step to its basis in American resources of industrial capacity and manpower, in the war aims of the government, and in public support of the war. The crisis of adjustment to recognition in the fall of 1942 of the approaching limitations of manpower available for conversion into fighting forces; the increasing investment in air power; and General Marshall's decision to limit American ground combat strength to ninety divisions
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are described in their relation to strategy. In these critical decisions on military policy, as well as in his role in decisions on strategy under debate with America's allies, General Marshall emerges as the principal American architect of military victory.
Key topics:
1. The interplay of military, economic, and political factors in strategic
decisions (Introduction, Chs. I, VI, VII, X, XI, XVI, XXI).
2. Interaction of strategic concepts and the requirements of logistics
and deployment (Chs. II, XI, XIV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXIII). (For this
and the following topic, see also both Global Logistics and Strategy
volumes.)
3. The influence of problems of production and manpower on strategy (Introduction,
Chs. V, VIII, XI, XVII, XVIII, XXIII).
4. Concentration on a knockout blow versus a strategy of encirclement and
peripheral attrition (Introduction, Chs. I, II, III, VI, VIII, X, XI, XVI,
XVIII, XX).
5. Divergences in strategic outlook of the Army and Navy and their coordination
(Chs. II, IV, IX, XIV, XX, Epilogue).
6. Integration of air concepts and plans with those of the ground forces
and Navy (Chs. I-IV, VI, IX, XIV).
7. Techniques of military diplomacy and negotiation (Chs. I, V, VI, X,
XIII, XV, XVI, XXIII).
8. Relations between military planning and war aims (Introduction, Chs.
I, XV, XVI, XVIII, XXII, XXIII, Epilogue).
9. President Roosevelt as Commander in Chief and war leader (Introduction,
Chs. I, V, VI, X, XV, XVI, XXI, XXIII, Epilogue).
10. The major international conferences of midwar (Chs. I, VI, X, XIII,
XVI, XXIII).
11. Problems of limited versus unlimited war (Introduction, Chs. XIV, XVII,
XX, XXIII, Epilogue).
12. The effect on coalition strategy of changes in the balance of military
power within the coalition (Chs. XVI, XXII, XXIII, Epilogue).
13. The unconditional surrender formula as a war aim (Chs. I, XVI, XVIII,
XXIII, Epilogue).
14. The OVERLORD decision in its global framework (Chs. VIII, X-XIII, XV-XVI).
15. The decision to limit the U.S. ground army to ninety divisions (Chs.
V, VIII, XVIII).
16. The Combined Bomber Offensive, the B-29, and the role of air power
(Chs. I, III, IV, VI, IX, X, XIV, XIX, XXI, Epilogue).
17. Anglo-American plans and Soviet expectations (Introduction, Chs. I,
XIII, XVI, XXII, Epilogue).
18. The China problem in politico-military strategy (Introduction, Chs.
IV, VI, IX, X, XIV, XVI, XIX, XXI, Epilogue).
19. Paralleling Pacific with Mediterranean advances (Chs. IV, IX, XIV,
XVI).
20. The decision for the southern France operation (Chs. XVI, XVIII, XXI).
21. The problem of neutrals: Spain and Turkey (Chs. I, II, XI, XVIII, XXII).
22. Expansion and distribution of American military power (Chs. XVII, XXIII,
Apps.A,D,E).