hist2004
07-18-2004, 01:23 PM
Despite the controversy, wartime failures, and bruised egos, General Bernard Law Montgomery remains, for many of the troops he commanded, one of the most endearing and beloved personalities of World War II.
By Alfred A.Z. Siha
A journal written by a British Eighth Army soldier compares General Bernard Law Montgomery to his nemesis, the German General Erwin Rommel:
"Monty was not such a dashing, romantic figure as his opponent [Rommel]; nor would you find him leading a forlorn hope in person, for the simple reason that if he was in command forlorn hopes did not occur. He planned all his battles most carefully -- and then put them out of his mind's eye every night."
Britain's greatest WWII general was born to a bishop on 17th November 1887. He began his military career by joining the Royal Warwickshire Regiment after graduating from Sandhurst Military Academy in 1908. He at first served in India, but as the First World War began to sweep across Europe, Montgomery found himself in the thick of things in France. He was seriously wounded, left for dead, and later hospitalized in England. After his convalescence, Montgomery returned to the battlefield and became the chief of staff of the 47th London Division by the time he was 31 years of age.
Montgomery's aptitude for leadership became evident during his campaigns in France. He later wrote in his memoirs that he felt "the higher staffs were out of touch with the regimental officers and with the troops. The so-called ‘good fighting generals' of the war appeared to me to be those who had a complete disregard for human life." These lessons, learned during his apprenticeship in the First World War, would prepare Montgomery to become the master strategist of World War Two.
The stage on which he earned his reputation was the North African desert, where Rommel had inflicted serious setbacks on the British. After watching Rommel's advance toward Egypt, Winston Churchill ordered Montgomery to take command the British Eighth Army and stop the German drive at a small railway station known as El Alamein. After hoarding arms and men for nearly six weeks, Montgomery released the largest artillery bombardment since the First World War, codenamed Operation Lightfoot. During the initial stages of Monty's attack, Rommel was in Austria on sick leave, but Adolf Hitler ordered him to return to his troops to organize a defence. Upon his return, the Germans held off further Eighth Army advances and Churchill rather disappointedly looked upon the stalemate as a "half-hearted" battle.
On 1st November 1942, Montgomery unleashed the second stage of his assault, called Operation Supercharge. Rommel, who had already committed his best troops, quickly realized defeat was at hand and began a withdrawal. Hilter, though, ordered him to stand fast. Montgomery broke through the German lines and appeared ready to cut apart Rommel's army until a rainstorm retarded the British advance and allowed Rommel scurry back to the Egypt-Libya border.
Even while Monty was winning at El Alamein, an American army commanded by General Eisenhower landed in North Africa to open up a second front against Rommel's Afrika Korps. Montgomery, advancing following his pivotal victory, basked in the glory of his achievement, which had put Rommel on the defensive even before the Americans had arrived to threaten his rear. Winston Churchill emphasized the importance of Montgomery's success when he declared, with some hyperbole: "Before Alamein we never had a victory, after Alamein we never had a defeat." Monty's attack was undeniably a turning point. The Allies soon captured the key port of Tripoli, and the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered at Tunisia on 11th May 1943.
Montgomery's success in the desert made him a logical choice for a leading role in the proposed invasion of Europe, and he was appointed commander of Allied ground forces. Although Monty believed himself to be better equipped for overall control of Operation Overlord, Eisenhower was given that power and thus the most intriguing subplot of the invasion of Normandy began to take shape.
In a journal entry dated one year prior to D-Day, Eisenhower praised Montgomery but added that Montgomery needed a "strong immediate commander." Eisenhower noted that Montgomery "loves the limelight but in seeking it, it is possible that he does so only because of the effect upon his own soldiers, who are certainly devoted to him." Montgomery also "has been the most loyal -- personally and officially -- and has shown no disposition whatsoever to overstep the bounds imposed by allied unity of command."
In the same fashion, Montgomery wrote his own doubled-sided impression of Eisenhower in his memoirs: "I would not class Ike as a great soldier. He might have become one if he had ever the experience of exercising direct command of a division. But he was a great Supreme commander -- a military statesman. I know no other person who could have welded the allied forces into such a fine fighting machine in the way he did. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once. He is the very incarnation of sincerity."
However, during the planning stages of Operation Market Garden--Montgomery's own daring plan for crossing the Rhine and entering Germany--Monty felt he received luke-warm support from Eisenhower. After the operation's failure in September 1944, Montgomery began to openly question and criticize General Eisenhower's decision-making ability.
For his own part, Eisenhower was forced to plot a suitable course through a minefield of egos and political wrangling. While Monty pushed strenuously for Eisenhower to fully support Market Garden, American generals lobbied equally hard for Eisenhower's assent to their own plan to cross the Rhine farther to the south. Eisenhower's dilemma was that the Allies had enough supplies to support only one of these options wholeheartedly, so either the British or the Americans would have to take a back seat.
Montgomery continued to push strenuously for his own plan. In a letter to General Eisenhower, Montgomery made his point clear: "If we attempt a compromise solution and split our maintenance resources so that neither is full-blooded we will prolong the war. I consider the problem viewed as above is very simple and clear cut. The matter is of such vital importance that I feel sure you will agree that a decision on the above lines is required at once." In his memoirs he again emphasized his objection to any splitting of resources, "The more I considered what we were setting out to do, the more certain I was that it was wrong. The British economy and man-power situation demanded victory in 1944: no later."
Operation Market Garden was a plan that was most uncharacteristic of its creator. General Bradley admitted that it was "one of the most imaginative in the war." Eventually Eisenhower began to fully back it. This backing, however, gleaned criticism from General Patton: "Whenever Eisenhower appeared to favour the Ruhr thrust, Patton used to say he was the best general the British had."
In the end, Eisenhower's support was not enough to make Monty's plan a success: "Operation Market Garden was duly launched on the 17th September 1944…I will not go over it again," Monty wrote tersely in the wake of the Allied defeat. "We did not, as everyone knows, capture that final bridgehead north of Arnhem."
In his memoirs, he claimed "the operation was not regarded at Supreme Headquarters as the spearhead of a major Allied movement…There is no doubt in my mind that Eisenhower always wanted to give priority to the northern thrust and to scale down the southern one. He ordered this to be done, and he thought it was being done. It was not being done."
In addition to the lack of support from Supreme Headquarters, Montgomery also notes that "the airborne forces at Arnhem were dropped too far away from the vital objective -- the bridge. It was some hours before they reached it. I take the blame for this mistake." This, however, was the last blame Montgomery willingly shouldered. As for the other causes of the defeat, he placed much of blame on the weather weather. "But weather is always an uncertain factor, in war and in peace. This uncertainty we all accepted."
Another factor for the failure of Operation Market Garden was the presence of powerful German armoured units in the area around Arnhem. "The 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps was refitting in the Arnhem area, having limped up there after its mauling in Normandy. We knew it was there. But we were wrong in supposing it could not fight effectively; its battle state was far beyond our expectation."
"As after Normandy, so again after Arnhem, I was bitterly disappointed…" Monty concluded. "The Germans could not carry on the war for more than about three months after they lost Ruhr. But we still hadn't gotten it." But this bitter disappointment did not sway Montgomery from belief in his plan: "In my -- prejudiced -- view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job -- it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd S.S. Panzer corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate."
Despite his failure at Arnhem, General Montgomery was soon faced with a surrendering German army and the task of stabilizing a nearly leveled post-war Germany. Following the end of the war, Montgomery commanded the British Army of the Rhine and later became chairman of the permanent defense organization of the Western European Union, and deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
It is to this day, however, the name of Field-Marshal Montgomery is held in high regard, despite recent allegations of his own racist master plan for postwar Africa, as reported by the prestigious British daily The Guardian on 7th January 1999.
Despite the controversy, wartime failures, and bruised egos, Montgomery remains, for many of the troops he commanded, one of the most endearing and beloved personalities of the Second World War. As for the others, Monty himself simply notes that: "When you bear tremendous responsibilities it is not always easy to live up to these ideals and I fear I have often lagged behind."
Regards,
Hist2004
By Alfred A.Z. Siha
A journal written by a British Eighth Army soldier compares General Bernard Law Montgomery to his nemesis, the German General Erwin Rommel:
"Monty was not such a dashing, romantic figure as his opponent [Rommel]; nor would you find him leading a forlorn hope in person, for the simple reason that if he was in command forlorn hopes did not occur. He planned all his battles most carefully -- and then put them out of his mind's eye every night."
Britain's greatest WWII general was born to a bishop on 17th November 1887. He began his military career by joining the Royal Warwickshire Regiment after graduating from Sandhurst Military Academy in 1908. He at first served in India, but as the First World War began to sweep across Europe, Montgomery found himself in the thick of things in France. He was seriously wounded, left for dead, and later hospitalized in England. After his convalescence, Montgomery returned to the battlefield and became the chief of staff of the 47th London Division by the time he was 31 years of age.
Montgomery's aptitude for leadership became evident during his campaigns in France. He later wrote in his memoirs that he felt "the higher staffs were out of touch with the regimental officers and with the troops. The so-called ‘good fighting generals' of the war appeared to me to be those who had a complete disregard for human life." These lessons, learned during his apprenticeship in the First World War, would prepare Montgomery to become the master strategist of World War Two.
The stage on which he earned his reputation was the North African desert, where Rommel had inflicted serious setbacks on the British. After watching Rommel's advance toward Egypt, Winston Churchill ordered Montgomery to take command the British Eighth Army and stop the German drive at a small railway station known as El Alamein. After hoarding arms and men for nearly six weeks, Montgomery released the largest artillery bombardment since the First World War, codenamed Operation Lightfoot. During the initial stages of Monty's attack, Rommel was in Austria on sick leave, but Adolf Hitler ordered him to return to his troops to organize a defence. Upon his return, the Germans held off further Eighth Army advances and Churchill rather disappointedly looked upon the stalemate as a "half-hearted" battle.
On 1st November 1942, Montgomery unleashed the second stage of his assault, called Operation Supercharge. Rommel, who had already committed his best troops, quickly realized defeat was at hand and began a withdrawal. Hilter, though, ordered him to stand fast. Montgomery broke through the German lines and appeared ready to cut apart Rommel's army until a rainstorm retarded the British advance and allowed Rommel scurry back to the Egypt-Libya border.
Even while Monty was winning at El Alamein, an American army commanded by General Eisenhower landed in North Africa to open up a second front against Rommel's Afrika Korps. Montgomery, advancing following his pivotal victory, basked in the glory of his achievement, which had put Rommel on the defensive even before the Americans had arrived to threaten his rear. Winston Churchill emphasized the importance of Montgomery's success when he declared, with some hyperbole: "Before Alamein we never had a victory, after Alamein we never had a defeat." Monty's attack was undeniably a turning point. The Allies soon captured the key port of Tripoli, and the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered at Tunisia on 11th May 1943.
Montgomery's success in the desert made him a logical choice for a leading role in the proposed invasion of Europe, and he was appointed commander of Allied ground forces. Although Monty believed himself to be better equipped for overall control of Operation Overlord, Eisenhower was given that power and thus the most intriguing subplot of the invasion of Normandy began to take shape.
In a journal entry dated one year prior to D-Day, Eisenhower praised Montgomery but added that Montgomery needed a "strong immediate commander." Eisenhower noted that Montgomery "loves the limelight but in seeking it, it is possible that he does so only because of the effect upon his own soldiers, who are certainly devoted to him." Montgomery also "has been the most loyal -- personally and officially -- and has shown no disposition whatsoever to overstep the bounds imposed by allied unity of command."
In the same fashion, Montgomery wrote his own doubled-sided impression of Eisenhower in his memoirs: "I would not class Ike as a great soldier. He might have become one if he had ever the experience of exercising direct command of a division. But he was a great Supreme commander -- a military statesman. I know no other person who could have welded the allied forces into such a fine fighting machine in the way he did. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once. He is the very incarnation of sincerity."
However, during the planning stages of Operation Market Garden--Montgomery's own daring plan for crossing the Rhine and entering Germany--Monty felt he received luke-warm support from Eisenhower. After the operation's failure in September 1944, Montgomery began to openly question and criticize General Eisenhower's decision-making ability.
For his own part, Eisenhower was forced to plot a suitable course through a minefield of egos and political wrangling. While Monty pushed strenuously for Eisenhower to fully support Market Garden, American generals lobbied equally hard for Eisenhower's assent to their own plan to cross the Rhine farther to the south. Eisenhower's dilemma was that the Allies had enough supplies to support only one of these options wholeheartedly, so either the British or the Americans would have to take a back seat.
Montgomery continued to push strenuously for his own plan. In a letter to General Eisenhower, Montgomery made his point clear: "If we attempt a compromise solution and split our maintenance resources so that neither is full-blooded we will prolong the war. I consider the problem viewed as above is very simple and clear cut. The matter is of such vital importance that I feel sure you will agree that a decision on the above lines is required at once." In his memoirs he again emphasized his objection to any splitting of resources, "The more I considered what we were setting out to do, the more certain I was that it was wrong. The British economy and man-power situation demanded victory in 1944: no later."
Operation Market Garden was a plan that was most uncharacteristic of its creator. General Bradley admitted that it was "one of the most imaginative in the war." Eventually Eisenhower began to fully back it. This backing, however, gleaned criticism from General Patton: "Whenever Eisenhower appeared to favour the Ruhr thrust, Patton used to say he was the best general the British had."
In the end, Eisenhower's support was not enough to make Monty's plan a success: "Operation Market Garden was duly launched on the 17th September 1944…I will not go over it again," Monty wrote tersely in the wake of the Allied defeat. "We did not, as everyone knows, capture that final bridgehead north of Arnhem."
In his memoirs, he claimed "the operation was not regarded at Supreme Headquarters as the spearhead of a major Allied movement…There is no doubt in my mind that Eisenhower always wanted to give priority to the northern thrust and to scale down the southern one. He ordered this to be done, and he thought it was being done. It was not being done."
In addition to the lack of support from Supreme Headquarters, Montgomery also notes that "the airborne forces at Arnhem were dropped too far away from the vital objective -- the bridge. It was some hours before they reached it. I take the blame for this mistake." This, however, was the last blame Montgomery willingly shouldered. As for the other causes of the defeat, he placed much of blame on the weather weather. "But weather is always an uncertain factor, in war and in peace. This uncertainty we all accepted."
Another factor for the failure of Operation Market Garden was the presence of powerful German armoured units in the area around Arnhem. "The 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps was refitting in the Arnhem area, having limped up there after its mauling in Normandy. We knew it was there. But we were wrong in supposing it could not fight effectively; its battle state was far beyond our expectation."
"As after Normandy, so again after Arnhem, I was bitterly disappointed…" Monty concluded. "The Germans could not carry on the war for more than about three months after they lost Ruhr. But we still hadn't gotten it." But this bitter disappointment did not sway Montgomery from belief in his plan: "In my -- prejudiced -- view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job -- it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd S.S. Panzer corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate."
Despite his failure at Arnhem, General Montgomery was soon faced with a surrendering German army and the task of stabilizing a nearly leveled post-war Germany. Following the end of the war, Montgomery commanded the British Army of the Rhine and later became chairman of the permanent defense organization of the Western European Union, and deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
It is to this day, however, the name of Field-Marshal Montgomery is held in high regard, despite recent allegations of his own racist master plan for postwar Africa, as reported by the prestigious British daily The Guardian on 7th January 1999.
Despite the controversy, wartime failures, and bruised egos, Montgomery remains, for many of the troops he commanded, one of the most endearing and beloved personalities of the Second World War. As for the others, Monty himself simply notes that: "When you bear tremendous responsibilities it is not always easy to live up to these ideals and I fear I have often lagged behind."
Regards,
Hist2004