Land Power Library - Patton’s Tactician

The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes

by Geoffrey Keyes, edited by James W. Holsinger Jr

University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2024,  459 pp

Hardcover ISBN: 9780813198712

Reviewed By: Chris Roberts

Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes, a 1913 graduate of the United States Military Academy, saw active service in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations during the Second World War, and later served in occupied Germany and occupied Austria. During the North African Campaign, from November 1942 to June 1943, he was George Patton’s Deputy Commander of the United States (US) Western Task Force (later US I Armoured Corps) and again when Patton assumed command of the US II Corps. In July and August 1943, he served in Patton’s Seventh Army, where he was given command of the Provisional Corps, which swept through the western region of the island, capturing the capital Palermo. Assuming command of the US II Corps in September 1943, Keyes led it throughout the Italian Campaign in Lieutenant General Mark Clark’s US Fifth Army from October 1943 until the European war’s end in May 1945. After a short period in Austria, he was appointed to command the US Seventh Army, and later to command the US Third Army in occupied Germany. In January 1947 he was appointed US High Commissioner on the Allied Council for Austria, a position he held until October 1950. As the diary’s editor, James Holsinger notes, Keyes was regarded as ‘a gentlemanly, hard-driving officer with a strong personality and plenty of initiative’, and people remarked on ‘his common sense and levelheadedness’. It is apparent from the diary that Keyes was held in high regard by his subordinates. 

The title Patton’s Tactician is somewhat of a misnomer. Keyes served under Patton for around eight months, spending most of his war-time service in the US Fifth Army under Mark Clark, and later under Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott. Nor is there any indication in his diary that Keyes guided Patton’s tactical views or plans. The title might be derived from Patton’s opinion that Keyes had 'the best tactical mind of any officer I know’, and that General Dwight Eisenhower admired his ‘tactical knowledge’. 

Covering the seven years from October 1942 to October 1949, half of the diary is devoted to the campaigns Keyes fought in; the remainder covers the postwar period. It records his day to day activities in a routine manner, ranging from visits, personal and administrative matters to training, the movements and actions of his subordinate units, and his views of colleagues and allies, interspersed with parties, conferences, ceremonial events, and family anniversaries and activities. There is little to no inclusion of his opinion about the wider military or political events he was involved in. As a soldier, Keyes provides little or no analysis of, or tactical insight to, the battles and campaigns he was involved in – rather his entries simply address what his subordinate units undertook on a particular day, and his frustrations with Clark, who was eight years younger than him. The reader has to rely on the regular use of ‘Editor’s Notes’ to explain the events that were occurring. Keyes’s period as US High Commissioner to Austria is more revealing. The reader learns of his firm stance on the future of Austria, its strategic importance in the emerging Cold War, and of the difficulties the Allies had with the Soviets on the Allied Council in what was then a partitioned Austria occupied by the British, French, Americans and Soviets. Again, regular ‘Editor’s Notes’ explain certain events Keyes refers to. 

Also enlightening are Keyes’s relationships and opinions of superiors and others he dealt with. He enjoyed an excellent relationship with Patton, whom he admired and regarded as a close friend and confidant. The same could not be said concerning Keyes’s dealings with Clark, whom he portrays as a difficult, demanding and selfish commander who was too ready to blame subordinates for their failures and them not being offensively-minded enough. One gains the impression that he had little regard for Clark’s tactical ability, a view supported by some historians. Similarly, Keyes was not enamoured with his British and New Zealand allies, showing a distinct bias against their commanders. While critical of British failures and blaming them for being too slow, he is nevertheless able to find a justification for any of his own troops’ failures. This anti-British bias continues into his postwar diary, although he seems to have had good relations with his British military counterparts in Austria. Throughout the diary, there is a pervading feeling that Keyes felt he was undervalued by his seniors, except Patton, especially when others gained Army command or promotion, and that the achievements of his II Corps were underrated in official reports. Similarly, in his postwar activities there is a continuing dislike of Clark while both were in Austria. Meanwhile, his relationship with his US State Department advisor in Austria – John Erhardt – is a difficult one, becoming more confrontational between military and civilian viewpoints. It eventually led to Erhardt’s removal and Keyes’s retirement from the Army.

This is not a book that will keep the general public’s interest. Nor will military officers gain much from it. Instead, it can be regarded as another primary source for historians of the Sicily and Italian Campaigns, or those concerned with postwar Austria. Nonetheless, together with the addition of maps, appendices, endnotes – and more especially his introduction, conclusion and copious ‘Editor’s Notes’ – Holsinger has done a fine job in delivering the diary of a little known American Army officer, who played a significant role as a Corps commander in Sicily and Italy, and as US High Commissioner on the Allied Council in early postwar Austria. 

About the Reviewer

Chris Roberts graduated from RMC Duntroon in 1967 and saw operational service in South Vietnam with 3 SAS Squadron. More senior appointments included Commanding Officer The SAS Regiment, Commander Special Forces, Director General Corporate Planning - Army and Commander Northern Command. Retiring in 1999 he spent 7 years in executive appointments with the Multiplex Group. He is the author of Chinese Strategy and the Spratley islands Dispute and the seminal and highly acclaimed The Landing at Anzac, 1915; and is co-author of Anzacs on the Western Front and The Artillery at Anzac.