Overview

On December 12, 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the American gunboat Panay, which was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanjing, China. Although the Japanese apologized, the attack turned American public opinion against Japan, and President Roosevelt dispatched Captain Royal Ingersoll to London to begin conversations with the British admiralty about Japanese aggression in the Far East. While few Americans remember the Panay Incident, it established the first links in the chain of Anglo-American military collaboration that eventually triumphed in World War II. In The Origins of the Grand Alliance, William T. Johnsen provides the first comprehensive analysis of military collaboration between the United States and Great Britain before the Second World War. He sets the stage by examining Anglo-French and Anglo-American coalition military planning from 1900 through World War I and the interwar years. Johnsen also considers the formulation of policy and grand strategy, operational planning, and the creation of the command structure and channels of communication. He addresses vitally important logistical and materiel issues, particularly the difficulties of war production. Military conflicts in the early twenty-first century continue to underscore the increasing importance of coalition warfare for historian and soldier alike. Drawn from extensive sources and private papers held in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, Johnsen's exhaustively researched study refutes the idea that America was the naive junior partner in the coalition and casts new light on the US-UK ""special relationship.""

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9780813168333

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...an excellent piece of scholarship fully deserving of the highest praise. It can be recommended without reservation to anyone with a serious interest in the period or the politics of wartime coalitions in general. * Journal of the Society for Army Historical Resarch *

This is an important contribution to historical understanding of the military history of World War II and represents the most authoritative account of the military dimensions of the Anglo-American relationship to date. - Theodore A. Wilson, author of Coalition Warfare: A Guide to the Issues. Johnsen makes a singular contribution to the literature by not only synthesizing the findings of other scholars but also bringing his own research and analysis to bear on an array of critical issues. - Paul Miles, author of FDR's Admiral: William Leahy and the Making of Grand Strategy in World War II

Johnsen makes a singular contribution to the literature by not only synthesizing the findings of other scholars but also bringing his own research and analysis to bear on an array of critical issues. -- Paul Miles, author of FDR's Admiral: William Leahy and the Making of Grand Strategy in World War II

Author Information

William T. Johnsen is professor of military history and strategy in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College, and he previously served as the institution's dean of academics. After graduating from West Point, he served in the infantry for twenty years.

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