Bernard Law Montgomery

Monty?

  • Positive and I'm British

    Votes: 26 15.9%
  • Negative and I'm British

    Votes: 4 2.4%
  • Mixed and I'm British

    Votes: 16 9.8%
  • Positive and I'm American

    Votes: 11 6.7%
  • Negative and I'm American

    Votes: 19 11.6%
  • Mixed and I'm American

    Votes: 35 21.3%
  • Positive and I'm neither British or American

    Votes: 21 12.8%
  • Negative and I'm neither British or American

    Votes: 12 7.3%
  • Mixed and I'm neither British or American

    Votes: 16 9.8%
  • Thande was Britains best Field Marshall(don't care/other)

    Votes: 4 2.4%

  • Total voters
    164
Victor of el Alamein. Whats your opinion of him?

I have a suspicion there may be different views in Britain and America on him. Inspired by the WW2 Again thread.
 
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I know he was a rascally little chap, and didn't exactly display much tact when it came to working relations with other allied (particularly US) officers, but he was who we had: He rose to the occasion, he got results, and he cared for his men. This last factor I think is almost unique among Second World War generals, and leads to the charges often levelled at Monty of being overcautious and slow. Monty would insist his men train, and train again, even going as far as to send regiments along with their (in some cases) elderly COs on forced desert marches while preparing for battle.

Secondly; Market Garden. Its been a long time since I saw A Bridge Too Far, but the impression it left me with was 'Gosh, wasn't Monty a bit of a plank?'. More recent TV and films (Band of Brothers, maybe) kind of reinforced this... But when I studied the operation in more detail than the film that has become popular public opinion, I thought it was pretty clear that he made the best of a bad situation, doing most things right and being caught out by bad luck. Closed channels of communication with the resistance, faulty intel and whatnot.

Thirdly, and, well this is really just a continuation of point two. Everyone seems to treat him as their whipping boy, whether its Patton trying to out-showboat him at every turn, Tom bleedin' Hanks whining about Monty's slow advance on Caen in Saving Private Ryan (yes Tom, I'd like to see your 8-man team go and crack those elite german units - and this time without your fait accompli a'la Spielberg thankyouverymuch) and, well even Churchill more than a few times. But then old WC didn't really like anyone that much did he? ;)

Its not all going to go his way, of course: There are many things I don't like about Monty too. But my main gripe isn't often cited by his detractors - The way that when he took over command in the desert, hemore or less kicked over the tables and fired anyone he didn't like, often dismissing those who'd made great achievements. One of the main reasons IMO that Indian Army units who fought as hard as anyone aren't really recognised as much as they should be (ignored here, and betrayed as outcasts by the Indian population... for shame).
 
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questions that always bugged me about Monty:
1. How did he manage NOT to catch up with Rommel
2. In Market Garden, why didn't he use the para's on the other side of the Rhine to basically defend a bridgehead (once it became clear they couldn't take the bridge), bringing in every bomber and gun within two hundred miles to provide support and build a couple of pontoon bridges to have his tanks cross ????

Other than that, he wasn't bad.
 
I'll just leave it at that I'm a Patton fan. Sure, he had faults (LOTS of them), but in his own way he pushed his men to victory.
 
I'm mixed about Monty. He had his good points and bad points, but as an American, I'm a Patton fan.

Good:
  • Monty had fought 4 years in the trenches in WWI and wanted to avoid the wholesale slaughter that trench warfare had produced.
  • He was popular with his men and an inspiring leader.
  • He was a good tactician.
  • He got results when he had too.
Bad:
  • He would be the first to tell you that he was not an easy subordinate and liked to go his own way.
  • He would advance slowly and only after he had a clear superiority in men & material.
  • He was a primadonna who loved to read about himself in the papers & often called for the Allies to throw all their troops & supplies into one single thrust, with himself leading the charge.
One crucial fact that is often overlooked about Monty was that for a good part of the war, he was a Field Marshal reporting to a 4-star General. The style of command between the British & American Armies differed in that when a British officer gave an order it was grounds for discussion whereas when an American officer gave an order it was expected to be carried out immediately with discussion coming later.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Critics of Monty usually have his slow meticolous methods as his greatest weakness and often refer to a dashing type as Patton as the ideal. Had Monty and Patton been on German side they ideed would have been right, but on allied side Monty's caution IMHO was his greatest advantage and the boldness of Patton his greatest weakness.

The allies had time working on their side and should just apply their ever growing force and victory would come - sooner or later. Under such conditions a careful and meticolous commander was the perfect choice, and the worst you could get would be a dashing type taking big risks to achieve things you will get anyway.

In a tight leash Patton still was a great asset, as he also showed when turning the front of 3rd Army at the Bulge in 24 hours, but still a secondary one compared to Monty. Where Monty IMO had his weakness was in his lack of diplomacy. In a coalition war that can be absolutely disastrous, no matter how much you say that grown up professionals should be able to cope with such poseurs. In that context Eisenhower, no matter how dull a field commander he might have been, was nothing short of fabulous.

That Monty still had the ability to be daring is clearly shown by Goodwood (Caen) and Market Garden, but obviously not daring to a degree risking the overall mission. I doubt anyone on allied side could have done Goodwood better, and although I don't believe that Monty intentionally tied up the Germans at Caen so the Americans could break through a very thin front to the west, it certainly had that very positive effect. Market Garden was an opportunity that just had to be sought, and had he not he would rightly have been blamed of being too cautious. Just too bad that bad intelligence and a veto from London to taking the necessary casualties to drive XXX Corps through prevented a good plan from a lucky execution.

If we have to point to bad planning in that campaign it would be to those saying that the Ardennes would be a quiet sector of the front where enemy armoured trusts would be impossible due to the terrain. It was less than five years ago the allies had lost France through the exactly same and false assumption - will they ever learn! That the Germans even thought they could pull that trick one more time really is a big mystery, but they were close to being right.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
I have to include this quote. The head of the Imperial General staff was discussing issues with King George the sixth.


Head of Imperial Staff "You know I think Monty's after my Job"

The King "I think he's after mine."
 
On the conflict of fast vs. slow, a good deal of that is in part that Patton was a tank general. Did time favor the Allies and their much greater resources? Of course. Had they wanted to, I'm sure they could have waited and bombed some more, weathered the emergance of jets, and bombed Germany into the stone age eventually.

But tanks are fast and offensive weapons. The faster you move them and throw the enemy into disarray, the better. When one looks at Patton's casuality statistics, his casualities were incredibly low when he was moving as fast forward as he could, but they mushroom when he was put on a tight leash. Depending on whether you believe certain after war reports, both captured German ones as well as some American ones, there was at least one point when Patton was brought to a halt by orders from Ike in front of abandoned defensive lines. German troops had already pulled back, and the forced halt allowed them to regroup and return to the fortifications, afterwhich Patton's casualities greatly increased.

Patton did his best when aggressive. He drove faster and harder for cheaper and less than anyone else. That's a part of his American legend. (And if someone has NOT seen the movie Patton, I fully recommend they do so. And this from someone who sees a dozen movies a year, max.)
 

maverick

Banned
He was a good general at best.

As for beating Rommel at Egypt, Montgomery had air superiority, twice the men, twice the vehicles, twice the resources (fuel, food, parts for the vehicles) and air superiority, yet Rommel still lasted 3 years in the Desert.

As for Market Garden, it was the fifth most stupid mistake of the war.(The Pearl Harbour, Barbarossa and Mussolini's invasions of Greece and Egypt)

Being methodic was probably his best quality.
 
As for beating Rommel at Egypt, Montgomery had air superiority, twice the men, twice the vehicles, twice the resources (fuel, food, parts for the vehicles) and air superiority, yet Rommel still lasted 3 years in the Desert.

And how many Allied Generals obtained victory *without* these resource based criteria? Levelling that as a criticism of *one* allied general is a fairly flawed approach. Eisenhower had far superior resources in North West Europe, and each of his army commanders had similar superiority in their areas of operations. The main complaint of the Germans in the west was that the allies weren't 'playing fair' by using the fighter-bombers, air superiority and artillery superiority (while carefully ignoring the fact that their own great successes early in the war had these same superiorities)
 

Larrikin

Banned
Rommel in the desert

He was a good general at best.

As for beating Rommel at Egypt, Montgomery had air superiority, twice the men, twice the vehicles, twice the resources (fuel, food, parts for the vehicles) and air superiority, yet Rommel still lasted 3 years in the Desert.

As for Market Garden, it was the fifth most stupid mistake of the war.(The Pearl Harbour, Barbarossa and Mussolini's invasions of Greece and Egypt)

Being methodic was probably his best quality.

Rommel went on the run in the desert approximately 3 months after Mongomery arrived. Before that he had beaten the 8th Army at Gazala when it had an even greater preponderance of men and materiel than Montgomery had at El Alamein.

One of the reasons Montgomery was so "slow" in following up Rommel was that he didn't trust his armoured divisions not to get themselves destroyed by the PAA rearguards, as exampled by the first time it happened, when Ariete shot up 10 Corps badly.

Another was the supply situation - the C'wealth forces had twice had to stop at El Agheila because that was as far as their supply lines could support troops. It's no use out running your logistics and then sitting in the middle of nowhere twiddling your thems exposing yourself to a riposte. so your advance as fast as your logistics base will let you.
 
My view: Good General, knew his troops limits, what they were good at and (usually) didn't take risks with their lives (a general who doesn't like killing his men is a good one in my book). he made mistakes, and Market Garden was a biggie, and he lacked tact BUT he would have been someone I would ahve happily served under-and other than Wellington, Moore and Lee (in latter case, ignoring his governments politics and focusing on him as a leader), I am hardpressed to think of any other generals I could say that about.
 
Monty knew the British were junior partners to the US - even including the contributions of the Commonwealth - by 1943 and 1944. He was proud of his victory over Rommel - before the US was a factor. He felt he was a better general than the Americans because he beat a legend and thought he could do it again. Of course, the other generals hated him for it, so he was unpopular. But, he knew he could not afford heavy losses or the UK would be no power at all. He fought a "safe" war and kept as many of his troops alive as possible. When he took chances, he lost (Goodwood and Market Garden), so his desire to "play it safe" was strengthened.
 

maverick

Banned
Or we could just ask: what's your favorite WWII general? although that would leave Yamamoto and Halsey out.
 
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