Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2020/Book reviews




 * By Nick-D

The Mantle of Command is an account of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership of the US military during the year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, with an emphasis on exploring some of the key decisions FDR faced during this period regarding grand strategy. Its author, Nigel Hamilton, is a specialist biographer who is perhaps best known for his work on the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. While Hamilton knows his stuff at a very deep level and is filling a surprising, but very important, gap in the literature on the war, the result is decidedly uneven. Perhaps the biggest shortfall is that the book is unbalanced - Hamilton states that he chose to write it from FDR's perspective, but this means that he's portrayed as being almost infallible. For instance, the important debate (which continues to this day) over whether the decision to launch operations in North Africa and the Western Mediterranean was a good one is portrayed as FDR being completely correct for choosing this strategy and anyone who disagreed with him being unbelievably dumb. The bad decisions FDR made and stuff-ups he didn't act to correct are either ignored (such as the failure to institute convoys on the east coast) or covered briefly (such as the internment of Japanese-Americans). As another example, Hamilton also goes totally over the top in rubbishing the performance of the British military during this period, though it was probably the nadir of the war for the British Empire.

That said, the book does have some real strengths. Hamilton very successfully describes how FDR operated and reached decisions. This includes covering how he gathered and processed information, handled debates and communicated his decisions to subordinates and the public. Hamilton also does a convincing demolition job on the performance of Winston Churchill and Douglas MacArthur (among others) during this period, demonstrating that FDR was wide awake to their flaws while being able to see how their strengths could be used. Most importantly, the book demonstrates that FDR had a firm hand on the wheel when it came to grand strategy and didn't delegate this as is often supposed.

As a result, The Mantle of Command is a useful work on how the Allies formulated grand strategy during 1941-42 and FDR's style as war leader, but it's less than convincing as an analytic work.




 * By Hog Farm

Having previously read some of Stephen W. Sears' work, and finding it both readable and informative, when I wanted to read a book on the Battle of Chancellorsville, I turned to Chancellorsville. The book follows the Union Army of the Potomac from Joseph Hooker taking command through its offensive against Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, until Hooker's retreat from Chancellorsville.

Having never read a full-length work covering Chancellorsville, I found the work, on its face, to be very informative as to how the campaign and battle unfolded. The whole story is presented: Hooker taking over a dejected and demoralized army after his fellow officers refused to continue to fight under his predecessor, Lee's chronic supply problems leading him to detach some of his best troops out of easy supporting distance, Hooker's fine move across the Rappahannock to catch Lee by surprise, an abortive Union cavalry raid, Lee dividing his army in the face of superior forces, a Confederate flank attack that's still taught in some military courses, and the brutal disjointed slugfest that the battle devolved into after Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded and Hooker suffered a concussion from a porch pillar. Sears provides a clear, complete, and extremely readable overview of the campaign.

Chancellorsville does not do as good of a job at explaining why the campaign unfolded as it did. Sears paints an image of a Joe Hooker who was betrayed by incompetent subordinates and an untimely injury. What Sears does not mention is that many of the gravest Union errors at least partially have to be blamed on Hooker himself. The Union plan of battle relied on a cavalry raid to cut Confederate supplies and communications; this failed miserably due to the incompetence of George Stoneman, the raid's commander. Since Hooker personally appointed Stoneman to lead the raid, he must bear at least some of the blame for its failure. Likewise, a diversionary expedition that evolved into a critical part of Hooker's strategy late in the campaign failed because of the sluggishness of its commander, who is best known today for his ironic last words. Again, Hooker must take some of the blame for personally placing in such a role a leader who was known to struggle in independent command. Much has been made of the rout of the XI Corps by Jackson; again, it should be questioned as to why Hooker allowed his flank to be held by his least reliable unit and why he failed to ensure that XI Corps' problematic commander obeyed orders to protect his flank. Sears also downplays the results of Hooker's ordering the abandonment of a strong artillery position known as Hazel Grove, from which Confederate artillery later shredded the Union lines.

While Chancellorsville is a highly informative and readable work, its downplaying the failures of Joe Hooker presents a thesis that does not line up with a more critical and honest evaluation of the Union general's handling of his army command opportunity.