An epic joint biography, Masters and Commanders explores the degree to which the course of the Second World War turned on the relationships and temperaments of four of the strongest personalities of the twentieth century: political masters Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the commanders of their armed forces, General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each was exceptionally tough-willed and strong-minded, and each was certain that only he knew best how to win the war. Andrew Roberts, "Britain's finest contemporary military historian" (The Economist), traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often-explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations, and he helps us to appreciate the motives and imperatives of these key leaders as they worked tirelessly in the monumental struggle to destroy Nazism.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Roberts offers an outstanding example of a joint biography in this study of the actions and interactions of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall and Alan Brooke. The president, the prime minister and their respective army chiefs of staff were the vital nexus of the Anglo-American alliance in WWII. The path was anything but smooth. London-based historian Roberts (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900) demonstrates his usual mastery of archival and printed sources to show how the tensions and differences among these four strong-willed men shaped policy within a general context of consensus. The politicians had to master strategy; the soldiers had to become political. The result was a complicated minuet. The increasing shift of power in America's direction coincided with the achievement of the central war aims agreed on for the Mediterranean and with the viability of a cross-channel attack. Last-minute compromises continued to shape grand strategy, a good example being the choice of Dwight Eisenhower over Brooke to command Operation Overlord. Flexibility and honesty, Roberts concludes, enabled focus on a common purpose and established the matrix of the postwar Atlantic world. 16 pages of b&w photos, 7 maps. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
As the post-war battle of the memoirs revealed, the World War II Anglo-American alliance wasn’t one of unbroken harmony. Its acrimony over grand strategy bursts forth in this history of the four men responsible for final decisions: FDR, Churchill, and their top military advisors, George Marshall and Alan Brooke, respectively. Both to humanize the pressure on figures now memorialized in bronze and to serve as Clio’s arbiter of impassioned disagreements over the optimal strategy to defeat Nazi Germany, Roberts examines how arguments played out amongst the quartet and those in their orbit. Suspicious that the British weren’t dedicated to launching a cross-channel attack, the Americans had no appreciation, felt the British, for the risk of a premature D-Day. Assessing the strategic correctness of what ensued—the campaigns in North Africa and Italy, followed by Operation Overlord—Roberts splits the difference by validating both Mediterranean operations up to fall 1943 and American resistance to them thereafter. Roberts reinforces his reputation for high-quality military history with this comprehensive synthesis of primary sources about the fundamental strategic decisions of WWII. --Gilbert Taylor
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hammering Out Allied Strategy...,
By
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This review is from: Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)
In "Masters and Commanders", British historian Andrew Roberts combines the availability of several private memoirs and diaries with the official record and published accounts to evaluate the US-UK strategic partnership that produced victory in the West during the Second World War. Roberts focuses on the complex relationships between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill as heads of government with each other and with their senior military advisors, General George Marshall and General Sir Alan Brooke.
Roberts reconstructs the formal and informal interactions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff from their first conference in Newfoundland in 1941 to their last at Yalta in 1945. He examines the contentious debates over strategy, resources, and politics with an eye to the way personality and professionalism shaped the outcomes between strong-minded and capable leaders. In the process, he provides welcome sunlight on the contributions of Marshall and Brooke, overshadowed in history by more publicized leaders such as Eisenhower and Montgomery. Roberts very capably captures the shifting dynamic of the US/UK alliance between 1941 and 1945, as initially superior British experience and forces in being eventually gave way to the maturing strategic thinking and far vaster resources of the Americans. In the process, Roberts closely reviews a number of topics of enduring interest to students of the Second World War, including the timing of OVERLORD, the efficacy of the Mediterranean strategy, and the influence of post-war considerations on the invasion of Germany. "Masters and Commanders" walks an intriguing line between serious scholarship and popular history. At over 500 pages, the length may discourage the general reader, despite the accessibility of Roberts' narrative. The knowing student of the Second World War may find few startling revelations in Roberts' even-handed conclusions, but much to enjoy in the details. "Masters and Commanders" is highly recommended to students of the strategy of the Second World War.
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Scholarly History of British/American Strategy & Infighting at the Highest Level,
By
This review is from: Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful book covering the interpersonal dynamics at the highest levels of command betwen the British and Americans in World War II. It is NOT for the casual reader, except that many of Roberts' presentations should become common knowledge among all those interested in World War II.
The author in an Englishman, and the book is written in British English. He must be commended for his even-handedness as I could detect in only a very few places a slight pro-British bias. An example would be in his discussion of Dragoon (which the author felt was unnecessary) that the effort should have been made in the Scheldt estuary to open up Antwerp, but then he fails to mention that the Scheldt could have been opened immediately after Antwerp was captured and that it wasn't was strictly due to Montgomery's negligence. There are other small items missing (can't cover everything in only 585 pages) such as why the British were on the left flank in Normandy (that was then used as the reason why the British would gain control over Northern Germany.) The planner who put Montgomery on the left flank was General Frederick Morgan, the British General in charge of the planning for the cross-Channel invasion while Eisenhower and the armies were slaving away in the Mediterranean. That being said, there is so much good here I don't know where to begin. The problems in running the Allied show were immense and almost every other book on World War II simply skates over the very real problems between the British and Americans as if we were always one big happy family. The truth is that Churchill often subordinated military reality to political fantasies, Roosevelt was a mediocre intellect who was influenced by cronies who were very pro-Soviet (and even Soviet agents,) Brooke was a general who had never won a battle but felt he knew everything and that Americans were all idiots, and Marshall (like Eisenhower) had never commanded troops in battle. That they struggled through to victory seems like a miracle. How that came about is the subject of this book. In short, the American plan was to build up their forces as rapidly as possible and strike across the Channel into France at the earliest opportunity. Marshall and Roosevelt felt the shortest path to victory lay through France to Germany with the Soviets coming from the East through Russia and Poland into Germany. The British had known only defeat by the Germans until October, 1942, and wanted to nibble around the edges of the Germany conquests until the German Army lost much of its combat effectiveness. This approached was supported by all the post-war analyses of effectiveness that have shown that the German soldier was clearly better than his Soviet, British or American counterpart by as much as fifty percent. Brooke, in particular, seemed to overrate the Germans to the point where it eliminated aggressiveness on his part (but only toward the Germans -- he retained it toward the Americans.) The British talked the Americans into Torch, the invasion of North Africa, against Marshall's better judgment (even to the end of the war.) The conference at Casablanca was seen by the Americans as a British victory, one which they would not allow again. In a very large sense, Churchill and Brooke overplayed their hand as experts among innocents, and after obtaining American agreement for Husky and the subsequent invasion of Italy (and the mission creep up the Italian peninsula), the Americans hardened and paid the British back with interest. Churchill's much-loved diversions like Norway, the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean were simply discarded out of hand by Marshall and Roosevelt when they came up. Eventually, of cource, the United States carried the lion's share of the fighting and as early as the summer of 1944, Great Britain could no longer supply replacements to maintain its fighting strength. Brooke's many battles to delay Overlord and divert troops into areas to serve British imperial interests ultimately came to grief. After the spring of 1944, the American planners were totally dominant, and British influence on strategy became minimal. In retrospect it seems incredible that Brooke expected to be named Supreme Commander in Europe when ultimately two-thirds of the forces would be American. There are many interesting side elements in this work such as the British using large numbers of Canadian troops, resources and financial support without giving the Canadians a seat at the planning and control table. In fact, the British spoke for all the Dominion forces, Australian, Indian, South African and New Zealanders without sharing power while usually including them in tabulations of British strenght. And when a Dominion government went against the British as did the Australians in calling for their two divisions to be returned from the Middle East to defend Australia, Churchill became angry beyond control. It was no small wonder that the American planners felt that the British were just using everyone else to defend or regain their empire. Americans would do everything they could to defend England but not British interests throughout the world. Oh gosh, I could go on and on like this for many pages -- there are so many issues fully discussed in this work. The subjects come alive through their diaries and post-war writings, much of which the author quotes with the comment that they were unfair, misleading or untrue. Yes, both sides lied to each other, sometimes angrily and with great passion. Unfortunately, Roosevelt generally refused to have notes taken at his meetings and then never got the chance to present his side in print. Nonetheless, the author has managed cover Roosevelt's input and decisions very well. In conclusion, this is an extremely valuable work and destined to become a classic on World War II. I recommend this work without reservation and commend the author for his fine writing and scholarship. We are all the better for his work.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent But,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945 (Paperback)
Masters and Commanders is an excellent, extremely detailed account of the occasionally humorous, often acrimonious, always fascinating interactions between the four principals most responsible to for guiding WWII: Generals Alan Brook (CIGS) and George Marshall (US Army Chief of Staff), and British PM Winston Churchill and US Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Historian Andrew Roberts does a masterful job of telling a very complex tale, relying heavily on the personal diaries on the men directly involved with determining Allied strategy for WWII, not just for Europe but ultimately across the entire conflict. Anyone with an interest in how a small group of extraordinary men arrived at the most momentous decisions yet taken by the human race, literally concerning the life and death for 10s of millions and with consequences affecting every person alive, then and now, will want to read this book. Roberts is British and while his sympathies are obvious, his writing is fair and he is unsparingly in pointing out the flaws in his principals and their arguments and positions, whether they are British or American. His praise for their good -- often great -- points is likewise fair, genuine and unforced. So why the "but"? I think for all its merits, Roberts introduced a structural flaw into his book by virtue of the sources he relies on; the very thing that makes his book unique. Unavoidably, his main protagonist is Gen. Sir Alan Brook -- unavoidable because this is the man with whom Roberts' sympathies most clearly lie and because Brook left a detailed, day-by-day diary of the events narrated. Brook's diary is the thread that holds the narrative together. Other diarists are also prominently used, but in the main they were members of Brook's staff and reinforce his opinions. (Churchill's doctor is one of the few British voices presented who was not a protégé of Brook's.) The problem is that Brook's diary casts him in a very unflattering light. He comes across as arrogant, obstructionist, hidebound, narrow-mined, petulant, trapped in the past, and at times even defeatist. He is adamant in his drumbeat that he -- and only he -- has the vaguest notion of what strategy is, both in the abstract and with respect to the war; only his ideas have any value and everyone else is ignorant, foolish, hopelessly incompetent as strategists whatever other virtues they may have, and sometimes even dangerous and mad. Brook writes this way about everyone from Churchill to Marshall to Roosevelt to the members of the US Joint Chiefs and even to other British officers (though not his personal staff officers). He despairs of the state of the British officer corps, impugns the British fighting man, and is dismissive of Americans. In fact the only two people who do not raise his ire to near fever pitch are Gen. Douglass Macarthur, the most arrogant and divisive of US generals and -- incredibly -- Stalin; this last despite the fact that Brook was a staunch anti-Bolshevik. This does not inspire confidence in his judgment. The problem here is that Alan Brook was indeed a great man and excellent general with a impressive strategic grasp (although I cannot say that this book convinced me he was the brilliant strategist he is usually made out to be). He was fair-minded, gracious, firm, determined, humane, had an extraordinary grasp of detail, was an excellent administrator and an inspiring leader. His actions on the battlefield just before and during the Dunkirk evacuation were exemplary. The high degree of admiration he inspired in everyone he worked with, British and American and Russian, was almost universal, even among those -- or especially among those -- with whom he had the most bitter disagreements (which seemed to be almost everyone at some point or another) and yet remained on good terms with. There can be no doubt that Brook's contribution to winning WWII was enormous. Roberts makes all of this clear and shows Brook's pleasant human side as well, so what is the problem? The problem is that Brook's diary was his safety valve -- the necessary outlet of a humane man with strong emotions who had been through WWI, the death of his adored young wife in an auto accident that happened while he was driving, and who then, because of his superior abilities, was given the job managing the largest conflict in history. So yes, in his off-hours he got a little cranky. But this has unfortunate ramifications for the portrayal of Brook. No matter how hard Roberts tries to add balance to the free-flowing invective of Brook's diary, it is quoted at such length in this long book that in the end balance just can't be satisfactorily achieved. We are left wondering which is the real Brook -- the firm and seemingly brilliant leader who is the lynchpin of victory or the small-minded dyspeptic crank who disparages anyone and everyone in his diary? In the end, it seems impossible to say. The matter is not helped by quoting so extensively from the diaries of those closest to Brook, who often echo not only his conclusions but his emotional views as well. This reinforces the negative view of Brook and seems to suggest that he surrounded himself with people as bitter and flawed as he appears in his entries. Yet, these men too were officers of extraordinary competence and ability and the cattiness, blatantly biased judgments, and intemperate opinions of their private diaries seems never to have manifested itself in pubic or unduly effected their work. Of course this is probably an unavoidable problem when trying delve into the minds of great men operating under pressures exceeding that anyone else has ever experienced. It is literally mind-boggling. Brook and his officers are not just extremely smart and dedicated, they are complex human beings. We cannot know how much of what they privately wrote was just hyperbole and to what extent it reflected their actually beliefs. Of course, to adequately convey this complexity in a book is a daunting prospect, and Roberts deserves just praise for doing as well as he does. But there is a larger problem here: Brook is juxtaposed most directly with the two other leaders with whom he worked most closely: Churchill and Marshall. Churchill is character of Jovian stature -- a vastly large-than-life genius who seemed to eclipse almost everyone and everything around him. Churchill's talents are the stuff of legend, seemingly uncontainable and uncontrollable. Brook found himself chained as it were to this colossus, constantly battling Churchill's wilder flights, boundless ideas, expansive vision for the war (Churchill was himself -- and knew himself be -- no mean strategist) and bombastic temper. Brook considered the hardest part of his extraordinarily hard job to be "keeping Winston on the rails," (something he did very well). If Churchill comes across as incredibly charming, engaging, infuriating; a titanic intellect with an ego to match, equally capable of the most dismissive cruelty and the most beguiling grace and boundless affection, Gen. George Marshall is something of a different order altogether: the only General Churchill was ever afraid of. Marshall seems to be the undoubted hero of the piece: the omni-competent, eternally gracious, unshakeable and unflappable leader, seeing farther and deeper and more incisively than anyone else into the prodigious morass that was the problem of WWII. It was Marshall, not just more than anyone else but almost uniquely, who was thinking and planning for the aftermath of WWII while he still fighting it. After the Allied victory, it was Marshall who, as Secretary of State, put his plans into effect and literally remade a shattered world. Against Brook's private rages is set Marshall's phenomenal strength and calm: perfectly modest, completely selfless, unfailingly gracious, guiding but never bullying, rarely raising his voice and never losing his temper; seemingly unaffected by stress or the incredible rigors of his job, moving through the cataclysmic events of WWII with a natural ease and overriding command that are seemingly Not Of This Earth. So what's wrong with this picture? Only this: Churchill wrote volumes, all of the highest literary quality, unmatched as a wartime memoir by anything except perhaps Caesar's Commentaries, and (like Caesar's Commentaries) essentially political documents that tell us nothing the author does not wish us to know (and fudging a few things along the way, as Caesar did.) On the other hand, Marshall wrote nothing at all (he was offered $1 million for his memoirs but turned it down). We have no window into his soul as we do with Brook; we do not know how he dealt with the enormous pressures he was under, by what private means he maintained his Olympian calm and perfect focus. ( As an aside, it also does not help us see Marshall the man that he is so often and unavoidably juxtaposed with Adm. King, CNO USN, who was nominally his equal on the Joint Chiefs, and who was described by his daughter as the "most even tempered man in the Navy -- he is always in a rage". Moreover, set against Marshall's manifest virtues are King's well-known vices: intolerance, liquor, and seducing other men's wives. But King was also brilliant strategist and a fighting admiral with few equals in WWII or any other war. ) Had Marshall kept a dairy, we might see him revealed as being as human and fallible as we see Brook. If Brook had not, we might see him as a man of the same stature as Marshall (as in fact many did at the time). So the narrative is inherently unbalanced. No matter how the author plays up Brook's virtues, which were many, and points out Marshall's... Read more ›
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