Evening star., 1942-08-17
Says Supreme Council
Of Nations Is Needed
Writer Sees PorIey Required
To Control Relations Between
Stotes and Commanders
Bu Moi. Georoe Fielding Elliot.


selection Of a commander in chief This
is perhaps proportionately less true to-
day than in former wars, considering
| that purely military activities occupy a
proportionately less important place
among the essential ingredients of VIC
tory 1t might better be said that the
heaviest responsibility devolving upon
is the exercise of wise leadership him.
self. in that he must command the
| total war effort of the nation; and the
next most important responsibility is
the selection of capable leaders to di-
| rect the several departments of ma
| nonal activity which together make up
the sum OF that effort. Some of these
leaders will necessarily be military, and
some must just as necessarily be ci-
villains. 1t will rarely be wise to put
military men in control of civilian ac-
tivities, in which they are Just as mex
| perienced as the civilian would be in
military matters.
The Importance of the wise choice of
. a commander in chief In the field Is of
| course, proportionate to the importance
| OF his particular command in relation
10 the national war effort as a whole;
| that is to say. to the end which the war
| Is being fought to attain. In the war of
l9l7-l8, for example, the United States
had but one main front, that in Western
Europe, toward which practically the
whole of the military effort of the Ma
ton was directed. The commander in
chief on this. front. therefore, occupied
a position of overwhelming Importance
and because of the distance which sep
arated his headquarters from the Ma
tlonal Capital, it was necessary to give
him the greatest possible freedom of
action. For both these reasons it NAV
we'll be said that the most important
decision made by President Wilson dur
ing that war was the appointment of
Gen. Pershing as commander in chief
of the AEF.
In the present war we have so far no
front OF anything like as great propor-
tlonate Importance as that commanded
by Gen. Pershing In 1917-1S. Probably
the most important active command
which we have so far Is that of the
United States Fleet, which Is being ex-
ercised from Washington by Admiral
King, who combines In his person the
task of commander of all our naval
forces and that of principal naval ad-
wiser to the President.
Our two principal Army commands
abroad are those of Gen. Macarthur In
Australia and 1t. Gen. Eisenhower in
the British Isles; neither OF these as vet
possesses anything like the amount of
force which was furnished to Pershing,
or anything like major portion of our
total military power. The effect of this
Is naturally to make more important the
post of Gen. Marshall as chief of staff
of the Army and principal military ad-
wiser to the President.
The greater the scope of the activities
OF the commander in the field and the
greater the consequences dependent
upon his success or failure, the greater
the influence he must command. II the
whole national effort is concentrated in
single theater of war, the commander
OF that theater is a much greater figure
than the chief of staff at home, as Per-
shing's influence in 1917-18 was greater
than March's. If the national effort is
divided among several theaters, the
chief OF staff who co-ordinates these
several fighting fronts and allocates
forces to them is likely to occupy a
position of greater Importance than the
commander of any single theater.
nevertheless, in the end, both COM
manders in the field and the chief of
staff at home are the servants of the
Nation and responsible to the President
as supreme Commander in Chief of all
the armed forces in the United States.
The President in his turn, while assum-
Ing responsibility for the final decisions,
must allow adequate freedom of acton to
his commanders and give weight to their
advice.
All this would be simple enough In
principle If the United States alone were
engaged in war against single adver-
sary But in the present instance, when
the United States is fighting as men,
Der Of an alliance, and when in almost
every theater of war the forces engaged
are only partly American, the question
of the appointment of inter- Allied COM
manders in chief becomes OF paramount
Importance in order to obtain the essen
tlal unity of command in each theater.
Immediately this necessity is faced,
vexatious questions arise. To whom is
an inter-Allied commander in chief re-
sponsible? Not to his own government
alone, surely, but to all the governments
which have concurred in his appoint
ment and who contribute to the forces
under his command. These governments
will doubtless have agreed upon the
terms of his original directive. But sup
pose 1t becomes necessary to change the
plans thus agreed upon? Suppose REIN
torcements are urgently required? Sup
pose junior commander is inefficient
or insubordinate and must be removed?
There are a thousand and one contin-
gencles OF this sort, and unless the inter-
Allied commander in chief is to be COM
PEELED to organize a sort of private state
department of his own for maintaining
l-diplomatic contacts with the va
rlous governments he is serving, it Is OBJ
vlous that those governments themselves
must provide a joint political high COM
mand, supreme war council, by means
OF which the relations between the sew
eral Allied governments and the selected
forces in the field may be regulated