Accession Number : ADA471368

Title :   From Salerno to Rome: General Mark W. Clark and the Challenges of Coalition Warfare

Descriptive Note : Master's thesis

Corporate Author : ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS

Personal Author(s) : King, Glenn L.

PDF Url : ADA471368

Report Date : 15 JUN 2007

Pagination or Media Count : 100

Abstract : On 9 September 1943 the United States Fifth Army landed at Salerno, commencing a lengthy and costly campaign that would transit the Italian Peninsula. Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark commanded this army. His many supporters, including Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, considered him a brilliant staff officer and trainer. His detractors, including General George S. Patton, considered him overly ambitious and self serving. Clark had been promoted ahead of many senior and experienced officers, some of whom were now his subordinate commanders within the Fifth Army. His army would come under the jurisdiction of the Fifteenth Army Group, a combined American-British Headquarters commanded by General Harold Alexander, an Englishmen. Clark would command a number of foreign troops, including the British X Corps, the New Zealand Corps, and the French Expeditionary Corps. Throughout this campaign, Clark would face the complexities of coalition command, tactical in nature but with strategic consequences. This thesis contends that the command arrangements within Fifteenth Army Group, together with biased perceptions, influenced the decision making of General Clark, an accomplished staff officer yet inexperienced army commander.

Descriptors :   *MILITARY HISTORY, *DECISION MAKING, *JOINT MILITARY ACTIVITIES, *MILITARY COMMANDERS, *GENERAL OFFICERS, *SECOND WORLD WAR, *ITALY, MILITARY FORCES(UNITED STATES), BIOGRAPHIES, PERCEPTION(PSYCHOLOGY), UNITED KINGDOM, PHILOSOPHY, LEADERSHIP, MILITARY FORCES(FOREIGN), ARMY PERSONNEL, THESES, CAREERS, COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEMS

Subject Categories : Administration and Management
      Humanities and History
      Military Operations, Strategy and Tactics

Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE