“When you are commanding, leading men under conditions where physical exhaustion and privations must be ignored, where the lives of men may be sacrificed, then, the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical ability.”

General George C. Marshall (1880 to 1959)

Speaking to the first graduating class of the Officer Candidate School, Fort Benning, September 1941; quoted in Roger H. Nye. (1986) The Challenge of Command.

George Catlett Marshall was a General in the US Army, being Army Chief of Staff during World War II (1939-45) and later US Secretary of State (1947-49) and Defence (1950-51). The European Recovery Programme he proposed in 1947 became known as the Marshall Plan. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953.