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
(e) D-Day: Monty was quite correct in wanting to expand the area of first bridgehead. His problem lay in his love of publicity. He declared he was going to take Caen on D+1. This was the first worm in the apple so far as the newspapers were concerned. However, it seems to me clear that the whole concept of the easternmost forces (the Anglo-Canadians) soaking up the German counterattacks, whilst the westernmost forces (the Americans) consolidated for a mass breakout, was certainly in senior planners' minds. If you look at the road net, it is the obvious plan to pursue. Whether it was Monty's idea is another question. Also, like any good general, Monty was an opportunist and if there was a chance of, say, Epsom or Goodwood succeeding, then he would take it.
(f) Goodwood: The massed bomber raid had nothing to do with the failure of Goodwood, quite the reverse, it enabled the tanks to make good progress at first (the axis of attack was outside, not inside, the city of Caen.) No-one ever seems to rate the strength of the German opposition. May I point out that the Germans fielded no less than 10 panzer divs against the Allies in Normandy, half of them SS (to cite a comparison, the Russian destruction of Army Group Centre was done in the face of 3 panzer divs, two of them understrength, and subsequently 2 more, a total of 5.)
(g) The British Army: Goodwood and Market Garden have something in common, which was that the UK was running out of men to do the fighting. By the time Goodwood came around, the fighting had sopped up most of the Anglo-Canadian infantry divisions. On the other hand, the 3 tank divs were unoccupied, and ready. So Monty used them, but with inadequate infantry support (which is why the offensive foundered on dug-in German A/T forces.)
(h) Elbow-room: Goodwood and Market Garden have something else in common, which was a narrow axis of advance. The geography of the area next to the Odon prohibited extended deployment of the armour and also Monty's options to change the plan, when it wasn't working. The fact is that most people don't consider D-Day to D+60 as a single operation, ultimately carried out in accordance with the original plan, and they should (the Red Army would certainly have done so.) Hitler played into the Allies' hands by launching the Falaise offensive and the end result was that the whole German army in France, including all those panzerdivs, ceased to exist as operational units.
 
Monty as incompetant bungler is not an accurate picture. He may not have been a general of the first class, but the fact is that from 1943 onwards he was the British general always at the sharp end. So he got the most publicity, which he loved. He was, however, a very professional soldier.
Oh, I might have been a bit harsh in my wording, but I really can't stand the levels of praised heaped upon Monty. And as I said, he was a mediocre corps commander and something of a failure as an army/army group commander!

Sharp end? Well, Dempsey, Horrocks, Brooke, Slim, Alexander, O'Conner, Wavel and who have we seem to have seen a lot of action as well...

(a) Alamein: I understood that he acquired a plan for Second Alamein from Auchinleck's staff and modified it somewhat (as well as replacing some of the staff.) Not sure where Bluenote gets his stuff about concealed guns - sounds like he's thinking of First Alamein, before Monty took command. It turned out a long and hard battle, ending in the destruction of about two-thirds of the Axis forces, and the headlong retreat of the rest.
Ah, but it is my general understading that Rommel's counter attacks in late october/early november was blunted in said way, but I might have the two confused. But the fact that Monty took another man's plan as his own and by the way had Churchill worried silly about his ability to win during the battle against an almost worn out opponent just underlines my point about Monty! It is, however, important to note that Monty as usual were refighting WW1, which might be why the British casualties were so high, and this is the general who is often noted for taking good care of his troops...

(b) Post-Alamein: Monty was not a fool and had looked at the war in the desert so far. It had been continual offensives ending when the apparent victor, disorganised by the chase and short of supplies, ran into an entrenched opponent with short supply lines. This happened not only to the British generals, but also to Rommel. Monty was determined to avoid this trap - hence his slow pursuit. He wanted his people well-supplied and in hand when he came up against the Germans again. He wanted to finish the job.
But the German's were running, and had next to no armour left. Anybody with just the slightets grasp of modern armoured/mechanized warfare, or warfare in general, I suppose, know you have to exploite said situations. What happened? Rommel got time to consolidate and the British and Americans actually had to fight him again to secure North Africa.
Besides, Monty never lacked anything, not only were his supply dumps well stocked, so he could be reinfored by land by the many, many trucks under his command or by air and sea if needed be. The man finally got to the Mareth Line in March, 1943!!!

(c) Mareth: I mention this battle as it showed one of Monty's particular qualities, the ability to smoothly change plan when it was clear the original plan wasn't working (No plan survives reality....) He did this at Alamein too. Some folk think this is a vice - I consider this flexibility to be a military virtue.
Monty did NOT ever smoothly change planes No way, no how! Look at Caen! He just kept at it, and when he tried to change plans it took him nearly two weeks to organized Epsom. I have never ever heard Monty described as flexible, quite the contrary!

And again any commander worth his pay will seek to outflank a defensive line, just as Monty did with, ehm, it was Freyberg and his Kiwis, I think. Ironically, Monty at the same time actually tried to smash trough it as well, not just tie the enemy down for Freyberg to succesfully move south of the line! Once again, dear friends, into the breach just as in the last war!

(d) Sicily: I don't think this demonstrates anything about Montgomery being a "slow mover." He had the short route to Messina, but it was also the most defended. In particular, there was a very heavily defended river-crossing at Catania. Without this, 8th Army would have been in Messina well before the Americans. Monty could move forces swiftly when he wanted, look at the speed of his advance from Falaise to South Holland. He never wanted to move swiftly where it involved a risk.
Well, that's not quite true. I seem to remember the British landing more or less unopposed, while the Americans found it rather tough going. Anyway. when Patton met stiff resistance the Americans overcame said opposition by flanking it with air and amphibious landings - air landing that I think the Royal Navy nearly got shot out the air all together btw - and what have we. Monty just hit them head on again and again.

I truly believe that Sicily should have taught the British and Allied High Command that Monty was overrated as the Americans showed themselves both capable and flexible, while Monty messed about in his usual way! Again Monty's lack of success gave a German army the oppotunity to escape certain detsruction...

And regarding Monty's speed in his attack on Holland, well, apparently he had some difficulty capturing Antwerp as well all the other things he not quite got around to in time...

Interesting little debate btw!

My regards!


- B.
 
(e) D-Day: Monty was quite correct in wanting to expand the area of first bridgehead. His problem lay in his love of publicity. He declared he was going to take Caen on D+1. This was the first worm in the apple so far as the newspapers were concerned. However, it seems to me clear that the whole concept of the easternmost forces (the Anglo-Canadians) soaking up the German counterattacks, whilst the westernmost forces (the Americans) consolidated for a mass breakout, was certainly in senior planners' minds. If you look at the road net, it is the obvious plan to pursue. Whether it was Monty's idea is another question. Also, like any good general, Monty was an opportunist and if there was a chance of, say, Epsom or Goodwood succeeding, then he would take it.
To the very best of my knowledge it was an integrated part of Neptune (Edit: to the best of my knowledge Opr. Neptune was the initial phase of Overlord, not only the naval part, but I might be wrong) that Caen should be taken! We're not talking MacArthur boasting about Soul here! It was part of the plan, and a part that failed badly and cost thousands of lives. Beside the road net is centralized around and in Caen, which was the reason why the Allies needed to take Caen rapidly; to exploit said roads and to prevent German use there of. And had Monty and Co moved off the beaches in strength and numbers as planned, they might have done so!

(f) Goodwood: The massed bomber raid had nothing to do with the failure of Goodwood, quite the reverse, it enabled the tanks to make good progress at first (the axis of attack was outside, not inside, the city of Caen.) No-one ever seems to rate the strength of the German opposition. May I point out that the Germans fielded no less than 10 panzer divs against the Allies in Normandy, half of them SS (to cite a comparison, the Russian destruction of Army Group Centre was done in the face of 3 panzer divs, two of them understrength, and subsequently 2 more, a total of 5.)
My point about Goodwood and all Monty's other schemes in this regard was that is was designed to rectify his failure to capture Caen in the first place!

Seriously, the Germans might have fielded a lot of divisions, but they were under-stregth, often lacked supply and were operating under total Allied air dominance. Furthermore the Allies had support in form of the ships cruising in the Channel as well as plenty of ordinary artillery. And to be frank, the British were veterans and as tough as anything the Germans threw at them. Hell, even the green Canadians fought the 12th Hitler Youth to a draw.

The terrain and Allied air supremacy prevented the Germans form forming up and concentrating their armoured forces as they used to, so their advantage was neglible. The terrain was in many ways ideal for infantrymen well-equipped with anti-tank weapons to fight a defensive war, but the Germans lacked infantry in meaningful numbers.

(g) The British Army: Goodwood and Market Garden have something in common, which was that the UK was running out of men to do the fighting. By the time Goodwood came around, the fighting had sopped up most of the Anglo-Canadian infantry divisions. On the other hand, the 3 tank divs were unoccupied, and ready. So Monty used them, but with inadequate infantry support (which is why the offensive foundered on dug-in German A/T forces.)
And again, Goodwood should not have been necessary. As soon as the 7th Armoured found a hole in the German line everything including the proverbial kitchen sink should have been trown into exploiting that breach.

That said and done, Goodwood was not very well handled, but I suppose one can argue one way or another in that regard!

Marked Garden... well, you just don't put an entire armoured corps on to one road. I mean, jezz, you'll have vehicles from here to Norway all bunched up and ready to be stopped by two guys with any old anti-tank gun. The 30th Armoured Corps didn't go very fast as the Germans stopped them time and time again with remarkably little effort!

Instead, if one was not a selfserving primadonna, one would have approved of diverting forces and resources to the Americans move rapidly inland further south and on the verge of breaking into Ruhr almost unopposed... oh, yes, and focusing on one's job; taking Antwerp!

(h) Elbow-room: Goodwood and Market Garden have something else in common, which was a narrow axis of advance. The geography of the area next to the Odon prohibited extended deployment of the armour and also Monty's options to change the plan, when it wasn't working. The fact is that most people don't consider D-Day to D+60 as a single operation, ultimately carried out in accordance with the original plan, and they should (the Red Army would certainly have done so.) Hitler played into the Allies' hands by launching the Falaise offensive and the end result was that the whole German army in France, including all those panzerdivs, ceased to exist as operational units.
Well, the Germans launched an attack at Mortain, I think it's spelled, and the Americans stopped them cold, and thus Falaise became the trap it almost was.

Anyway, the Falaise Gap was not closed, but it could have been had the Americans been allowed to keep at it, and while most material never got out intact most men did and formed the core of the opposition the Allies ran into at the West Wall. Oh, that's a third time Monty directly or indirectly had been the cause of German armies escaping destruction...

And no, the periode after D-Day was not one operation because it was never intended or planned to be. Monty failed in his objectives pure and simple and tried with increasing desperation to rectify it, and each and every time it cost his men, especially the poor Canandian, dearly!

While I remember it, I'm sorry if my language is a bit rough around the edges, so to say, but as you might know, english is not my first language!

My regards!


- Mr.B.
 
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(i) Market Garden: There's a certain inevitability about many of the Western Allies' plans, in the sense that they could never have done anything other than that which they did. By an accident of geography and positioning, the Anglo-Canadian Army Group was best placed to attack what was seemingly the best route into Germany (North German Plain.) So effectively Ike had little choice but to allocate supplies to Monty, but to keep the American generals happy he had to impose a time limit. Anyway, Monty had the advantage so what could he do about it? The first 100 or so miles with flat countryside criss-crossed by dykes, embankments, waterways ending at the huge expanse of the Rhine was the most difficult. So it had to be done quickly. Bearing in mind there was only one effective road, how to do it fast? Monty came up with the idea of an unrolling carpet of airborne troops, to be swiftly relieved by advancing armour. I think it was quite clever. It also had the advantage of using the airborne, which were now fresh and rested after D-Day, as a substitute for the rather worn-down British infantry.
I am not going to get down in tactical argument here, but as for the failure of M-G, my money is on the German resistance at Nijmegen, which the American paras and the Brit armour had to spend a vital day getting through.
The flaw in the plan was that it depended on there being no intense resistance at any specific point. But it is difficult to see what else could have been done. I repeat, contrary to what Bluenote says, there was no other viable route. There's inevitability for you.
Other Generals: OK, if not Monty, who else to command the Army Group in north Europe? The fact is, there was no-one. Alanbrook dearly wanted it, but he was Britain's finest strategic brain and there was no way he was going to leave WSC's side. Wavell was now a sick man, having injured himself badly at Singapore when commanding ABDA. Alexander was a fine political general (in the Med he commanded more polyglot forces than Ike did) but Alanbrook had run his slide-rule over Alex and concluded he was very tired - no disrespect to Alex in this.
Then we come to the question of seniority, which has been totally ignored. None of the other names mentioned were senior enough to command this Group. Two of them were actually there, subordinate to Monty, Horrocks as Monty's second and O'Connor as a Corps Commander. Bill Slim was a junior general, but he made his reputation quickly and did not want to leave 14th Army. I can't speak for Dempsey, as I don't know enough about him.
Quite a few generals had some fine campaigns, O'Connor with Compass, Slim wiping up the Japanese divisions in Burma (no-one ever mentions McCreery's clearance of the lower Po valley, but hey history's unjust.) But to run a major campaign with a huge Army Group needs great strength, endurance and steadiness. Whatever Monty's tactical mistakes, he had that.
 
Well, you're actually making my point for me, Johnny, with only one viable route, Marked-Garden should not have been even considered in the first place. You just simple do not deploy armour like that!

Oh, and regarding the generals, you're are quite right about the whole seniorty debacle. There weren't really any alternative (although I'm still quite certain Brooke-Patton instead of Ike-Monty would have worked wonders :) ). I only reacted to you commendt about Monty being at the sharp end - again Monty spring to everybody's mind, but several generals were at the sharp end!

What Slim did during the war should be hailed time and time again. He was no doubt the best senior British officer during the war.

Dempsey btw served as the British army commander under Monty during Overlord. As I see it he did his best under the circumstances. Crerar (and Keller) did extraordinary well. Keller is propable one of the all too frequent unsong heroes who served under Monty as well.

Richard McCreery was indeed a fine officer as well. He wielded Monty's old command as it should have been wielded!

Strangely, or ironic if you will, most of Monty's underlings, especially Dempsey and McCreery, seem more capable than their boss and had a more than fair grasp of modern combined operations and armoured warfare.

Regards and all!

- Mr. Bluenote.
 
At e risk of boring our readership about Market-Garden, I think I should emphasise that the strategic objective was to get into North Germany and end the war quickly. The forces in best place to do this were Monty's, which is why Ike allocated the supplies. There is no point saying it can't be done because of tank deployment - something had to be tried. So you end up going along the same Dutch highway whichever way you look at it - there was no other route to achieve the objective.
It follows that whoever was in charge of the Brit Army Group would have had to try M-G, or something very like it. BTW there's no point talking about Antwerp. The British had taken Antwerp "on the run" the port itself wasn't the problem. The problem was the Germans on the north bank of the Scheldt, whose guns commanded the sea approach to Antwerp. If you sent a force to clear them at that stage you would have to secure its flanks. The only way to secure its flanks would be to take Nijmegen. If you're taking Nijmegen you may as well go the whole hog and go for Arnhem and the Rhine.
So any British commander (hell, any Allied commander) would have had to try something like M-G, and would probably have lost.
Anyhoo, this is a poll and were I to vote I should say "Mixed and I'm British"

I'm not a terrific fan of some of Monty's tactical decisions, particularly those coloured by what he saw as his place in history. I suppose I'm talking about something called "fitness for high command." A surprising number of good generals don't have it. O'Connor didn't (he freely admitted this) for instance. Personally, I don't think Horrocks had it (although to be fair, he had been wounded in the desert.) Slim certainly had it, but he was junior, but ultimately was CGS during the Korean War.

Alanbrooke was way too important as CIGS to be shoved off to Europe.

I suppose I should stick my neck out and talk about the Americans. Both Ike and Bradley had FFHC in spades. However, I'm never very sure about Patton. It's odd that Monty should always be juxtapositioned with Patton because they weren't really very like one another (except for loving publicity.) Patton was a risk-taker - a corollary can be found in the fact that no-one outside the Red Army could move a force with the speed Patton could. Monty tended to err on the safe side.
Ultimately the campaign was won (by Eisenhower) on the Sure-and-steady method, which was the method Monty liked. Oddly, Monty and Ike were a bit like one another, although they didn't get on. But Monty also had FFHC, by virtue that he achieved his objective (the taking of Hamburg and the neck of Denmark.)

BTW, with regard to the Commonwealth generals mentioned, it is a mark of military virtue to be able to pick good subordinates.
 
Admittedly Monty had his faults but no general or military commander in history has been perfect. His tactical decisions may not have been perfect and he may have used the press to turn what could have been considered a failure into a perseeved victory for him but regardless Monty was very important to the Allied campaign.

You may point to his over-ambitious goals for the D-Day landings as a failure in judgement but he was facing the Desert Fox Rommel and his campaign against Cean turned the bulk of the German forces attention to him and his army which contributed in a large part to the US army breaking free into Normandy and turning the German left.

His greatest disaster was the attempt to capture the bridge at Arnham and I cannot justify that however his victory over Rommel at El Alamein proved that he was capable of beating the German forces including one of Germany's best generals.

Monty's attitude no doubt caused much friction between himself and a number of American officers including Eisenhower however it was that attitude that made him popular with his men and without Monty the D-Day landing would have been a failure.

Montys presence at the Battle of the Bulge was also much needed as he reorganised the defense of the Northern end of the battle when the initial German offensive had scattered the US army into series of isolated actions and managed to organise them into a coherant battle with the Germans. He refused to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the American Army to increase their force and prevent the German force from breaking through.

Monty, while far from being perfect, has a poor reputation in America due to the difference in the approach to war between the American Generals and himself, his outspoken personal views and a series of long running feuds between him and a number of high profile American officers.

While he disliked many American Generals he held the American soldier in high regards. He once said of the American soldier "I never want to fight alongside better soldiers. I have tried to feel that I am almost an American soldier myself so that I might take no unsuitable action or offend them in any way"

Despite his flaws Monty was essential to the Allied campaign. The most true staetement every said of Monty was this; "He is probably the finest tactical general we have had since Wellington. But on some of his strategy, and especially on his relations with the Americans, he is almost a disaster."
 
He never fought a meatgrinder? That's because he knew better than to, and was effective at using Armor hard and fast. Most of Patton's casualities came from when he was forced to move slowest, not quickest.

You might want to read up on the Metz campaign, mate. Alternatively titled: Patton comes up the against the fixed defenses he so consistently bags and gets a bloody nose.
 
To the very best of my knowledge it was an integrated part of Neptune (Edit: to the best of my knowledge Opr. Neptune was the initial phase of Overlord, not only the naval part, but I might be wrong) that Caen should be taken! We're not talking MacArthur boasting about Soul here! It was part of the plan, and a part that failed badly and cost thousands of lives. Beside the road net is centralized around and in Caen, which was the reason why the Allies needed to take Caen rapidly; to exploit said roads and to prevent German use there of. And had Monty and Co moved off the beaches in strength and numbers as planned, they might have done so!

This is absurd. Montgomery was Army Group commander. Any command failings for taking Caen lie at brigade/division/corps level, at least two levels below Montgomery.
 
This is absurd. Montgomery was Army Group commander. Any command failings for taking Caen lie at brigade/division/corps level, at least two levels below Montgomery.

As well as the fact that the German forces believed Cean was vital to the defense of Nazi Germany from the D-Day landings and put most of their efforts into defending it. And also the terrain favored defense so Monty and his forces were right against it.

The fighting between British and German forces was fierce throughout the Cean campaign and Monty and Rommel crossed swords in that area again to try and force the other army from their positions and gain the upper hand.

So taking into account the terrain, the number of defenders and the commanding officers of the German forces I would say that Monty did quite well in his Cean campaign, even if he did not take it when he first believed he would.
 
All the WW2 histories I've read were written by Americans, and they tended to be neutral or favorable towards Montgomery. They all highlighted the rivalries between Montgomery and Patton, but in general the two allies recognized they were allies with slightly different cultures. The British generals won when they could and held on to whatever they could when they couldn't win; since they were on the winning side one would have to say they were successful.
 
Ah, the egos of WWII!

On Montgomery I remember Lord Alexander's hilarious comment when Monty's autobiography came out: Viscount Alamein has at last revealed how he won the Second World War...singlehand.:p

Not that there was any lack of prima donnas on the Allied side. Perhaps the all-time classic was the latest in a series of spates over prerogatives and areas of control between MacArthur and Lord Mountbatten to be sent to Churchill. Churchill went to a map, measured the distance between MacArthur(Sydney) and Mountbatten(New Delhi), noted the distance between the two as 6600 miles and asked the room at large if that was felt to be sufficient.
 
was shaped two main circumstances:
1. His claim to have been the be all and end all of winner at the Bulge
2. Patton's pathological jealousy of him.

I'd like to add two more factors to how the US opinions on Monty was shaped.

3. Omar Bradley's pathological jelousy of those more successful or more acclaimed than he was. Bradley living longer than any other member of the Allied High Command let him get the last word in and the fact the he rose to such meteoric heights as a military commentater on WWII and other conflicts only served to further enforce his version of things on the American psyche. Also Bradleys influence on the film "Patton" and the position that film gained in American popular culture served to further sour American opinions towards Monty.

4. Monty levelling heavy accusations of incompitance toward Eisenhower in regards to his strategic and tactical ability when Eisenhower was the President of the US. Monty never denied that Eisenhower did a good job in getting the egos at play in Europe to work together but he did criticise Ike overall strategies and plans and did so at a time when Ike's popularity was at it greatest in America, which was never going to go down well over there.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Eisenhower was indeed a pretty poor strategic leader. He though was hamstrung by the combined staffs directives that in many ways left him with little choice. They tried to control the ETO from DC which was always a mistake.

Bluenote did such a tremendous job of showing why those sniping at Patton are pretty much either totally biased or ignorant. If you ever get a chance to read the analysis's on file at the Army War Staff College in PA you will get an eyefull. Multiple studies conducted over the last 50 years by various officers all conclude the same thing: from a standpoint of most gained with fewest losses in the least amount of time no one came closeto Patton: and that was broken down into 6 phases NA, Sicily, the breakout, Metz (where with only 7 divsions left in his entire army- while Hodges had 13- and no supplies and being forced to use captured German artillery due to shortage of ammo) he still did a much better job against fortifications then Hodges did around Aachen and we will not even get into Huertgen Forrest; the the Bulge, then the last 3 months of the war going into Germany. In every single one of them 3rd army outperformed any other unit in the allied army.

Now as regards Montgomery he did a very good job reorganizing the British forces in NA after the debacle (much like Patton did with II corps after Kasserine). Playing a waiting game at El Alamein and using his massive advantage in forces (the numbers were ridiculous on the order of 5-1)
he steadily pounded the Africa Corps into rubble and Hitler as usual would not let Rommel retreat. Big edge there. The Mareth Line was maybe a bad thing in the end because it stuck with him and that was where Market Garden came from. Market Garden almost certainly never had a realistic chance- once again putting a whole reinforced Corps down a single dual lane rd with multiple bridges (many of which had to be strengthened to take tanks) was a bad idea no matter what. And add to that the arrogance of the British intelligence to ignore the Dutch warnings (which had been very accurate in the past ) plus the bad radios and so on- It is remarkable that they got as close as they did- kudo's to the airborne. 101 did as well as it could be expected to since they basically had a mission that should have needed 2 divisions instead of one. Same for 82nd and British airborne. In the end there just was not enough of them. Plus even if they had more they did not have the transports or gliders to get them there. It was too soon after the troops had been pulled from Normandy.
If they had had the aircraft, and 1 St British Airborne Division had been made ready along with the 17th US airborne, and those units used as well; maybe. Sad fact is that the attack was launched about 2 weeks too late- if the attack had been done then just maybe.

Patton himself said Monty was a very good set piece commander and he was. Give him the time and resources and he would get the job done pretty well. But anything that required him to act quickly or aggressively was NOT his strong point.
And by the way the job he did at the bulge was very over rated. The US 1st Infrantry and other units were VERY organized and ready. Stopping the counter attaacks proposed has been questioned by many for a long time- opinions are very mixed there. Considering the slowness of Dietrich and the German lack of supplies and road net of the northern area, a more aggressive defense could have made a big difference.
 
Another example of how well relations were going is this little incident from the 1943 Quebec Conference: During a testing of the pykecrete concept a bullet was fired at the block of pykecrete and officers left outside openly speculated as to whether Admiral King had shot Mountbatten or Mountbadden had shot King.

I must be a freak exception who doesn't find Patton an epic champion of military prowess but doesn't think too highly of Montgomery either although I would admit that in any fight not involving my side having an overwhelming advantage I would never give Montgomery a battlefield command.
 
I think it was too bad Ike couldn't switch Monty and Patton at will. Monty was good at planning and Patton was good at execution. Or if Monty had been at Metz and Patton at Market Garden.
 
I must be a freak exception who doesn't find Patton an epic champion of military prowess but doesn't think too highly of Montgomery either although I would admit that in any fight not involving my side having an overwhelming advantage I would never give Montgomery a battlefield command.

That's not really fair is it. Monty did sterling work in Europe in 1939 when the Germans had overall superiority in airpower, manpower, material, weaponry and intelligence and his troops were one of the few who were not totally overwhelmed. Though admittedly he was under Alan Brooke at that time (he was essentially the second in command of II Corps) it was neverthless Monty's prior insistence on thoroughly preparing his men for a retreat before the BEF invaded that enabled that forces to do so well.
 
Also Bradleys influence on the film "Patton" and the position that film gained in American popular culture served to further sour American opinions towards Monty

Goddamm it, Patton's a good film, Coppola's script is brilliant, but why do so many American's rely on it as history?! It's not history, it's the Iliad>Aeneid>WWII.

Pick up a history book, jingoes!

PS: I would have voted 'Positive and I'm Mixed British' if the poll had had the option.
 
Actually I give Montgomery little credit for the successful evacuation of the BEF.

There are so many more important figures, including Brooke, Admiral Ramsey, Lord Gort, Churchill himself and so many more who, had they erred, would have caused damage far beyond Montgomery's ability to retrieve. Nor do I recall any major British units crumbling in France in 1940.

Also the Germans definitely did not have the edge in manpower, material, weaponry or intelligence in 1940 although they did have the edge in the air. Although it also need be noted that the same British(and later American) officers who whined so much about the Luftwaffe deciding early campaigns were somehow dead silent when the Anglo-Americans had an edge in the air beyond anything Goering ever dreamed of yet somehow the Wehrmacht did not crumble.
 
Monty was IMO a mediocre general with some serious flaws that crippled his ability to lead competently. He did have some successes but most seem to be because he had the help of more skilled officers holding his hand. Whenever he actually took charge, things tended to end is disaster.
 
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