General Fox Conner: Pershing's Chief of Operations and Eisenhower's Mentor (The Generals Book 3)

Regarding the necessity of junior officers being subordinate to their superiors, Chynoweth wrote: “There is a lesson in it. I never learned the lesson.”

By late October, as the French and British offensives to the west continued to succeed, Pershing and his staff began to recognize that Foch’s strategy to end the war in 1918 might actually work. Acutely aware of the AEF’s poor showing—and that jockeying among the Allies for postwar influence had begun—Pershing dispatched Fox Conner to meet the pres

Leavenworth’s “applicatory method” drew heavily upon military history to analyze the quandaries faced by an army’s high command and to devise solutions under rapidly changing conditions. Students learned, through map exercises, to plan and control the movement of troops from afar.

In the fall of 1897, Company A received a new tactical officer to enforce discipline in the company.28 The new “tac” himself had been the top graduate of the West Point Class of 1886; he knew all the cadet tricks, including the places where men hid to smoke.

Conner also addressed the inadequacy of military spending in a 1928 article titled “The National Defense.” True to form, Conner grounded his thesis in history, beginning with the War of 1812 and proceeding through the Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish–American War, and the recently concluded Great War. Conner quoted each era’s leading lawmakers, who

To begin lifting French morale, Pershing ordered his staff officers to display a sense of optimism at all times; a positive attitude became “a matter of duty,” as Conner put it.

Conner told his protégé: “In all military history, only one thing never changes—human nature. Terrain may change, weather may change, weapons may change … but never human nature.”

Conner also interacted with his men on a daily basis as he made his rounds through the post on a horse named Old Bill. As Eisenhower put it, Conner “never abandoned the position—and no senior officer ever should—of being an instructor.” Once, Conner encountered some Puerto Rican soldiers on a work detail who did not know how to use a scythe to cut

In a 1967 monograph, Chynoweth recounted a conversation in which Eisenhower acknowledged his “guiding philosophy” for serving under Conner: “I forget my own ideas and do everything in my power to promote what he says is right.” Chynoweth asked: “Right or wrong?” Eisenhower purportedly replied: “The Commanding Officer is never wrong with me.” [Empha