George Marshall: Speech to the American Historical Association on the National Organization for War

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Marshall assumed his position as army chief of staff a few hours after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Like President Roosevelt and other members of his administration, Marshall had served during the World War I and worried that the United States would be forced to enter this new world war as unprepared as it had been when it entered World War I. Over the next two years Marshall gave a series of speeches urging preparation for war. In this speech to the American Historical Association, the leading professional organization of historians in the United States, Marshall enunciates themes that recur in many of his speeches: the costs of military unpreparedness, the need to educate the public, the necessity for industrial as well as military preparedness, and the benefits of a citizen army, democratic government, and civilian direction of the military.

Marshall frequently sprinkled his speeches with historical references and urged people to study history to avoid mistakes of the past, particularly the United States' inadequate preparation for World War I. In this speech, he notes the problems the United States faced in mobilizing for war, particularly in modernizing and enlarging its small army. Marshall hoped to both shake Americans from their complacency and recruit historians to the cause of preparedness. In developing the latter point, he suggests that historians should expose past military failures to encourage the development of more effective military forces. While this study might not find a cure for the “deadly disease” of war, studying military history and preparing for war were essential to win wars at the least cost and for the United States to realize its potential to become the “strongest nation on earth.” Time, he emphasizes, was of the essence, since the United States could not afford to wait until it was attacked. Germany's rapid conquest of Poland demonstrated that modern wars moved too quickly to allow the United States' traditionally slow pace of mobilization. This mobilization could proceed, however, only if widespread consensus favored it. For that reason, Marshall encourages the nation's historians to study war so that they would come to understand the urgent necessity of war preparation and then be able to help educate the American people on the subject.

As German victories mounted in 1940, Marshall elaborated on these points in a succession of speeches, particularly after France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. Shortly afterward, Marshall called for increased weapons production, activation of the National Guard, and conscription—calls that Congress answered with record military spending and the Selective Service Act, the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.