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Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life

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Dwight Eisenhower's life has been so thoroughly written about and re-written that another biography seems laughable. Nevertheless, Carlo D'Este deserves credit for this highly readable description and analysis of Ike's career through the end of WWII. D'Este highlights Eisenhower's strengths but also his weaknesses, some of which are in the eye of the beholder (the debate over the "Broad Front" strategy in late 1944-45 will likely never be settled).

Some Eisenhower worshippers may be offended by D'Este's detailing of Ike's faults (both as D'Este defines them and Ike's troublesome British and American contemporaries). However, he always comes back to the one ultimate, essential point: who else could have led the coalition better?

Carlo D'este has followed up his work on General Patton with a biography of General Eisenhower which cover his life through World War II. The book is 705 pages long not counting the notes, and will take some time to pioneer your way through. I found the book to be interesting, but have to admit I was glad when I finally finished it. You will learn a great deal about Eisenhower the young boy and his competitive attitude which contributed to his qualities of leadership. The responsibilities he had thrust upon him throughout his military life brought on an addictive smoking habit that would later lead to health problems. Juggling the egos of George Patton, Omar Bradley, Bernard Montgomery, and others proved to be a challenge and strain on Eisenhower as he directed the allied forces through Europe. Patience and restraint were often needed when it may have been helpful for Eisenhower to vent his frustrations. Ike's relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby, is dealt with in some detail. They were very good friends, but there is no evidence of a consummated romantic relationship. I'm not going to rehash the book in this review. Suffice it to say if you want to learn about America's man in command of World War II this book will provide you with ample information of both Eisenhower the man and the soldier.

By far the superior Biography of Ike is Ambros's 'Eisenhower: Soldier and President'. Carlo's biography differs in that it covers only the war period. Weak on the Lousiana Manuevors it does detail essential aspects of Ike's career. It explains his terrible experience as staff officer to Macarthur. It also shows his dull career as an army nothing in which he trudged through years of worthlessness before being appointed the top job in Europe.

Ikes story is purely American. Unnoticed for years, with a less then interesting record at West Point, he was picked by Marshall to lead the men ashore in N. Africa.

This biography explains the essential Ike, the books Maps are well presented and show the tactivcal units that most books fail to show. Nevertheless the writing lacks and Este's account does not do him justice.

Carlo is well known writer on WWII, his books on Patton and his books on the Italian and Sicialian camapigns are one of a kind, but this focus on Ike is not his best work.

I admit I approached this book with some trepidation. After all, Stephen Ambrose is considered the definitive Ike biographer, and I doubted that D'Este could do proper justice to Eisenhower. Boy, was I mistaken. D'Este writes well and weaves together all the characters in the Ike saga with effortless skill. The pro-Eisenhower prejudice which occasionally mars Ambrose's books is completely lacking here. The author respects Ike but plainly sees his shortcomings and faults. He gently argues that an essentially desk-bound general such as Ike can never be considered the equal of a battlefield general like Robert E. Lee or U.S. Grant.

There is plenty of material here about Ike's famous disagreements with the bombastic Monty, as well as his views on Patton, Bradley and the other members of SHAEF. Also included is material on Ike's relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby. Did they or did they not "do" it? D'Este will tell you. I recommend this book for students of WWII or Eisenhower. It's very readable and factual.

D'Este appears to be well qualified to present a soldiers story. The book is entertaining in a way that only authenticism carries. If you read it you will believe that he knows what he is talking about. D'Este presents Ike free from either adulation or vendetta. You get the whole man, warts, luck, falibility, and all. The Summersby story seems too glossed over. Even if we believe, as D'Este does, that theire was no illicit liason going on, there was obviously a lot of inappropriate intimacy that compromised Ike's work, extending into his treatment of secret information, and his working relationships with his Army, and his masters. Even if Ike felt comfortable sharing everything with Kay, he should not have always presumed that his subordinate commanders did. Eisenhower would have been the first to condemn and probably sack a subordinate who let his personal life intrude so strongly into his professional responsibilities. D'Este neglects this avenue of analysis and simply declares that there was nothing scandalous going on. The other major fault of the book lies with the editor. The book contains a lot of repetition and overly simple statements of the author's opinions without justification or supporting arguments. A careful editor should have corrected some of that.

This is probably one of the most thorough treatments of Eisenhower's military career out there. Despite it's exhaustive coverage, Carlo D'Este manages to keep it very readable throughout. The reader doesn't get bogged down or bored anywhere in the book. A very gripping account of a very exceptional man.

There is so much compelling in Eisenhower's story and his rise from obscurity, (he was a major for 16 years) to command of the greatest invasion in the history of armed conflict. D'Este gets most of telling this story right, especially the battles. D'Este also compellingly conveys the loneliness of command; you could cut the tension with a knife the morning Ike decides, based on the weather report, to launch the invasion of Europe on June 6th. The weight of that decision, and the fate of so many men, must have been crushing.

And yet I can't recommend this book. There no cohesive narrative flow; D'Este jumps around too much and as a result makes it hard to follow him sometimes.

Even worse, this book is replete with factual errors, some galling. His map of Northern Africa in 1942 confuses Algeria with Morocco. How the hell does that happen? Ike's father apparently married at the age of 2 based on the dates cited in the book. I could go on, but there is no point.

Instead of this book, pick up Ambrose's two volume bio.

This is a powerful, compelling and probably destined to be somewhat controversial book which captures Dwight D. Eisenhower in a different light than past biographers. Carlo D'Este has carefully and thoroughly woven together exhaustive research to describe with often brutally honesty "Ike," the man. Eisenhower's childhood, education at West Point, long and painful service between the World Wars and his meteoric rise from Lieutenant Colonel to Five-Star General reveal a man driven by ego and determination, fired by a tremendous and sometimes ungovernable temper. The author carefully removes the veneer from almost every important character within Ike's circle of friends, fellow soldiers, adversaries and others with whom he had to interact as he ascended to Supreme Allied Command. Ike's relationships with Kay Summersby, Generals Marshall, Patton and Bradley, Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery are explored in great detail, much of which will be new and intriguing to most readers. The political pressures Eisenhower faces as his responsibilities increase, from the Pentagon, to London, North Africa and finally the D-Day Invasion and ultimate surrender of the Germans, are artfully explored and the key players like General Charles de Gaulle, Churchill and President Roosevelt are brought into sharp focus. The author treats all those surrounding Ike with penetrating precision, extolling their strengths and exposing their shortcomings. Readers will come away appreciating that Eisenhower's almost mystical skills in holding together allies, led by men of great power and even greater egos, are the critical aspect of allied success in the war. His single-minded determination and methods for achieving the allied cause make for dramatic reading entertainment. This book is very well written, clearly revealing the incredible pressures Eisenhower faced and the travails they created, giving the reader an enjoyable and highly informative picture of one of America's greatest military men.

This book tells just about all a person would want to know about Eisenhower's career as a soldier. From the early days when he pined for a combat command but was always assigned to staff jobs up to the end of World War II when he was the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe and a five star general. According to this book, he was still basically an administrative and political general all through the war. His number one achievement seems to have been keeping the Allied forces working more or less together, which seems to have required mostly politics and compromise. He doesn't seem to have ever been a tactician or a strategist. His command was constantly plagued by the personal ambitions of his subordinate generals, Patton, Montgomery, and Bradley. As per the book Patton was a genius at tactics but very unstable at times; Montgomery was an exceptional battlefield general but also a prima donna; Bradley was a competent general but a bit on the conservative and dogmatic side. Keeping all these personalities cooperating must have indeed been a tough job. Adding on all the other duties, including the vast administrative work made Eisenhower's job more than one man should have to do. Failing to delegate some of the other duties seems to have been one of his faults.

The book doesn't go into a lot of detail about the supposed assignation with his woman driver, Kay Summersby. It states that Eisenhower had little time for such a thing and little time when he wasn't surrounded by a lot of people, making it tough to have such a relationship. It does sound like he had a lot of interest in her.

Eisenhower's tremendously heavy decision to postpone the D-Day invasion for one day because of bad weather and then to go ahead with it the next day on the strength of a guess by his weather forecaster is given a pretty good treatment. The weather as it was on D-Day seems to have helped rather than hurt the Allies, so he couldn't have made a better decision.

There are some pretty good insights about the end of the war and the Berlin situation.

Parts of the General's early life were a surprise to me. It's interesting that he was a bare knuckle fighting champion and star athlete in his boyhood. He was also slated to be a star football player at West Point until he permanently injured his knee in cavalry training.
The fact that he was an expert cook and a world class poker player was a surprise to me.

All in all this is a worthwhile book for anyone who wants to study World War II or military history.

Through the lens of history, Dwight David Eisenhower, General of the Army, Supreme Allied Commander, President, is often seen as the affable embodiment of all that it is to be American. Of course, the truth is actually much more interesting. In Carlo D'Este's superb biography we are introduced to an Eisenhower who is full of contradictions and failings, but one who ultimately takes on a greater, and certainly more real, stature as a result of them.

As with his likewise excellent biography of Patton, D'Este sets the stage for Eisenhower's life by exploring the origins and beliefs of his forebears. As a result, the reader is introduced to perhaps the greatest irony of Eisenhower's life: his parents were staunch pacifists, and while proud of their son's accomplishments, were never particularly comfortable with his chosen career path. It is also worth noting that Eisenhower's life was utterly different from George Patton's, whose career became intertwined with his own. Unlike Patton's privileged upbringing, Eisenhower was dirt poor for pretty much his entire life, and yet the two men were close friends for decades before the pressures of war drove them irretrievably apart.

What is perhaps most interesting about Eisenhower, is that America's most well known soldier never actually directly commanded men in combat. His proficiency as a trainer kept him out of the trenches of WWI, and his skill as a staff officer meant that thereafter, he was always the brain behind the throne for a string of officers including such luminaries as MacArthur and Marshall. Yet, it was this perceived deficit in his resume that actually proved to be his greatest strength.

Above all, Eisenhower was a master administrator; he could take a long view of the situation, and insomuch as he was able, build a consensus out of the egos of his generals. It is perhaps the greatest strength of D'Este's research that he can paint a portrait of Eisenhower beset on all sides by prima donnas like Montgomery, Bradley and Patton, who is still able to maintain control over the long term progress of the war. D'Este is particularly scathing of Bradley, who is clearly the most overrated general of World War II, but even with Montgomery and Patton, who were undoubtedly Eisenhower's superiors in matters of operational art, he correctly recognizes that they lacked the fundamental character traits that made Eisenhower so successful as Supreme Commander. Traits like patience, affability, and the ability to place the good of the Allies above his own feelings meant that he could guide a supremely fractious coalition to victory.

That's not to say that D'Este is an unabashed admirer of Eisenhower. He correctly recognizes that, particularly early in the war, Eisenhower was far too tentative in his command. Moreover, he had a tendency to place personal loyalty above competency, and tolerated far too many laggards on his staff for political reasons. Moreover, as an infantryman, Eisenhower never completely grasped the need for maneuver and speed in his operations, a failing that lay at the root of his problems with Patton. That said, Eisenhower is often unduly criticized for not capturing Berlin. Military considerations and possibilities aside, any captured territory behind that designated in the Yalta agreements would have been turned over to the Soviets at the conclusion of hostilities anyway.

Finally, a few complaints about what is overall an excellent work. First, D'Este all too frequently digresses into long descriptions of the operational situation and then fails to link it back to Eisenhower. It is perhaps inevitable in that Eisenhower was in a position where he was frequently just an overseer. Still, I would argue that there are plenty of fine operational histories of WWII, and that the narrative could have been greatly improved by more effectively tying Eisenhower to the action on the ground. Secondly, while I applaud the use of primary sources, D'Este's use of the them is oddly stilted. For example, he will insert the text of a letter from Mamie Eisenhower to Ike, but then fail to link it to the overall flow of the narrative. Such non sequitors can be very disruptive, and more than once I had to flip back a page to pick up the point D'Este was trying to convey. Lastly, I was rather disappointed that D'Este didn't include Eisenhower's illustrious post-war career. While 1945 is certainly a logical stopping point, and D'Este can hardly be blamed for not tackling the monumental task of researching the post-war years, I finished this work feeling that I didn't have a complete picture of either Eisenhower the soldier, or the man.

Those complaints aside, I would like to reiterate that this is a superb biography. As was the case with "Patton: A Genius" for war, D'Este reveals his admiration when appropriate but is never unbalanced as a result. He gives a fair evaluation of Eisenhower's triumphs, and likewise considers his tragedies, and his miscues. Throughout, he offers a fascinating, thoroughly real portrait of a remarkable man. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay to this book is to state that it is my sincere hope that D'Este will follow it up with a second volume covering 1945 to the end of Eisenhower's life.