America’s “Warrior General”

General George Patton was the most feared American commander for the German generals on the Western Front. The Wehrmacht’s officers described Patton as America’s Rommel. The volume under review is the latest biography of the Allied side’s most controversial general. William Nester, an American professor specializing in modern military history attempts what he calls a psychological review of the American armored general’s art of command.

This biography is not as voluminous as that of Carlo D’ Este’s 960 pages long Patton: A Genius for War. Nester examines the evolution of Patton as a military commander from the Mexican intervention (1915) to France (1918), North Africa (1943) to the Allied invasion of Western Europe (1944-45). Nester’s book is mostly based on the general’s own autobiographies and diaries (the published versions). It would have been academically more fruitful if Nester has used the private papers and archival documents to illustrate what Patton’s other contemporaries thought about his combat leadership during wartime and Patton’s ponderings on his own actions in the heat of battle.

What comes out from this biographical study is that at the beginning of his military career, Patton was passionately attached to the cavalry branch. However, he soon understood the importance and future potential of armor. For Patton, the ‘speed of battle’ determines both tactics and strategy. Patton’s method was to detach the armored divisions from slow marching infantry and aim for the ‘blood and guts’ of the enemy. Further, from Patton’s own writings it is clear that he believed in what the Germans called Auftragstaktik or mission-oriented command. These two principles constituted the central ethos of Germany’s panzer knights. These very principles place Patton at the opposite pole of Britain’s most distinguished general of the Second World War: Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

Patton was for attacking the flanks and rear of the hostile forces as quickly as possible before the enemy can prepare his defensive positions. In contrast, Monty was for slow and methodical preparations. Monty, unlike Patton, favored a frontal assault with massive artillery preparation. Further, Monty unlike Georgie micro-managed his subordinates (corps and divisional commanders) and almost stalled their initiatives. This contrast comes out clearly during the fighting in the summer of 1944 at Normandy. While Monty was making a slow and painful frontal push against the German defensive position at Caen (Operation Goodwood, July 1944), Patton with his armored divisions broke out from St Lo and Avranches (August 1944; second phase of Operation Cobra) and made a wide outflanking move at the southern flank and rear of the German OB West.

However, there is a caveat. Patton was not able to launch such an audacious campaign against Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel in Tunisia. In fact, the ‘Desert Fox’ licked him badly at the Battle of Kasserine Pass (February 1943). Nester’s defense that most of the GIs were ‘green’ while the Afrika Korps’ personnel were veterans and the bulk of the American divisional and corps commanders were inefficient, is not enough. Even though the correlation of forces favored the Allies, still German tactical brilliance in the battlefield held sway. The reality was that Patton was still learning his trade.

By August 1944, not only was Patton more sure about his abilities to dominate the ‘krauts’ but also the overall strategic situation had turned very badly against Germany. What Patton admirers like Nester forget is the fact that despite Montgomery’s plodding generalship, the bulk of the panzer divisions in Normandy were arrayed against him. Further, the sky belonged to the Allies. This in turn allowed an opportunity for Omar Bradley and Patton to outsmart the German Army Group B. Even then, the Bradley-Patton-Montgomery trio failed to crush the German pocket at Falaise. Nester overlooks Patton’s failure in closing the Falaise Gap between 12 and 21 August 1944. Nester himself quotes Patton’s words that he was aiming to go east towards the Seine when Bradley asked him to turn north to close the Falaise Gap. In other words, Allied high command had no clear idea whether to close the trap at the Seine or at Falaise. Both Patton and his present biographer Nester blame Bradley and Monty, and to an extent Eisenhower. for allowing elements of the Fifth Panzer Army to escape from Falaise. One could not ignore the conclusion that despite all the bravado none of the British and American generals, unlike their Soviet counterparts. were able to conduct a kesselschlacht at the operational level of war.

Overall, the present biography is interesting and easily readable. Nester brings out clearly the features of Patton’s buoyant dynamic leadership. It would have been interesting if the author had engaged intensely with the Mask of Command where John Keegan formulates the concept of heroic frontline command. Nester’s biography proves beyond doubt that whether at the Seine or the Rhine, Patton always wanted to go forward to fight. He was indeed the epitome of ‘warrior general.’ And like most (not all; Alexander was an exception) warrior generals, Patton’s weakness was logistics. To conclude, when the ‘cultural turn’ has almost killed the genre of ‘great men’ concept in history writing, Nester’s General George S. Patton and the Art of Leadership is an important addition to the stock of modern military biographies.

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Our Reviewer: Dr. Kaushik Roy is Guru Nanak Chair Professor, Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He is the author of numerous works in military history, such as Battle for Malaya: The Indian Army in Defeat, 1941–1942, The Army in British India: From Colonial Warfare to Total War 1857 - 1947, The Indian Army in the Two World Wars, Sepoys against the Rising Sun: The Indian Army in Far East and South-East Asia, 1941–45, and many more. He previously reviewed Civil War Infantry Tactics and The Clausewitz Myth.

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Note: General George S. Patton and the Art of Leadership is also available in e-editions.

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