Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC (IPA: /məntˈgʌmərɪ əv ˈæləmeɪn/; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), often referred to as "Monty", was an Anglo-Irish British Army officer. He successfully commanded Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein, a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign during World War II, and troops under his command were partially responsible for the expulsion of Axis forces from North Africa. He was later a prominent commander in Italy and North-West Europe, where he was in command of all Allied ground forces during Operation Overlord until after the Battle of Normandy.
1st world war
The First World War began in August 1914 and Montgomery moved to France with his regiment that month. He saw service during the retreat from Mons, during which half the men in his battalion became casualties or prisoners. At Meteren, near the Belgian border at Bailleul on 13 October 1914, during an allied counter-offensive, he was shot through the right lung by a sniper and was injured seriously enough for his grave to be dug in preparation for his death. He was awarded the DSO for gallant leadership.
After recovering in early 1915, he was appointed to be brigade-major training Kitchener's New Army and returned to the Western Front in early 1916 as an operations staff officer during the battles of the Somme, Arras, and Passchendaele. During this time he came under IX Corps, part of General Sir Herbert Plumer's Second Army. Through his training, rehearsal, and integration of the infantry with artillery and engineers, the troops of Plumer's Second Army were able to achieve their objectives efficiently and without unnecessary casualties.
Montgomery served at the battles of the Lys and Chemin-des-Dames before finishing the war as General Staff Officer 1 and effectively chief of staff of the 47th (2nd London) Division, with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. A photograph of October 1918 shows the then unknown Lt-Col Montgomery standing in front of Winston Churchill (Minister of Munitions) at the victory parade at Lille.
2nd world war
Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. The 3rd Division was deployed to Belgium as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Montgomery predicted a disaster similar to that in 1914, and so spent the Phony War training his troops for tactical retreat rather than offensive operations. During this time, Montgomery faced serious trouble from his superiors after again taking a very pragmatic attitude towards the sexual health of his soldiers - outraging the clergy by stating openly in a memo that in his opinion "when a man wanted a woman, he should have one" - but was defended from dismissal by his superior Alan Brooke, commander of II Corps. Montgomery's training paid off when the Germans began their invasion of the Low Countries on 10 May 1940 and the 3rd Division advanced to the River Dijle and then withdrew to Dunkirk with great professionalism, returning to Britain intact with minimal casualties. During Operation Dynamo — the evacuation of 330,000 BEF and French troops to Britain — Montgomery had assumed command of the II Corps after Alan Brooke had taken acting command of the whole BEF.
On his return Montgomery antagonised the War Office with trenchant criticisms of the command of the BEF and was briefly relegated to divisional command and only made CB. In July 1940 he was promoted to lieutenant-general, placed in command of V Corps and started a long-running feud with the new commander-in-chief, Southern Command, Claude Auchinleck. In April 1941 he became commander of XII Corps and in December 1941 renamed the South-Eastern Command the South-Eastern Army to promote offensive spirit. During this time he developed and rehearsed his ideas and trained his soldiers, culminating in Exercise Tiger in May 1942, a combined forces exercise involving 100,000 troops.
North Africa and Italy
In 1942 a new field commander was required in the Middle East, where Auchinleck was commander-in-chief. He had stabilised the allied position at Alamein, but after a visit in August 1942, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, replaced him with Alexander, and was persuaded by Alan Brooke to appoint Montgomery commander of the British Eighth Army in the North African campaign after Churchill's own preferred candidate, William Gott, was killed flying back to Cairo.
Montgomery's peremptory assumption of command of the Eighth Army was deeply resented by Auchinleck and his departing staff, but transformed the Eighth Army. Taking command two days earlier than authorised on 13 August 1942, Montgomery ordered immediate reinforcement of the vital heights of Alam Halfa, joined the army and air headquarters together in a single operating unit, and ordered all contingency plans for retreat to be destroyed. A criticism of the Eighth Army up until this point had been that the constituent units tended to fight their own separate battles. Montgomery was determined that the Army should fight its battles in a unified, focused manner according to a detailed plan.
Montgomery made a great effort to appear before troops as often as possible, frequently visiting various units and making himself known to the men, often arranging for cigarettes to be distributed first. Although he still wore a standard British officer's cap on arrival in the desert, he briefly wore an Australian broad-brimmed hat before switching to wearing the black beret (with the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment next to the British General Officer's badge) for which he became famous. Both Brooke and Alexander were astonished by the transformation in atmosphere when they visited on 19 August.
German commander Erwin Rommel attempted to encircle the Eighth Army at the Battle of Alam Halfa from 31 August 1942. ULTRA decryption had confirmed Montgomery's initial decision to defend the area, and Rommel was halted with very little gain. After this engagement, Montgomery was criticised for not attacking the retreating German forces; however, in Montgomery's judgement, the Eighth Army could not defeat the Germans in mobile, fluid mechanised battles and choosing to engage in such a battle, therefore, would play to German strength.
The reconquest of North Africa was essential for airfields to support Malta and for Operation Torch. Ignoring Churchill's demands for quick action Montgomery prepared meticulously for the new offensive. He was determined not to fight until he thought there had been sufficient preparation for a decisive victory, and put into action his beliefs with the gathering of resources, detailed planning, the training of troops, especially in night fighting and in the use of over 300 of the latest American-built Sherman tanks, 90 M7 Priests, and visiting every single unit involved in the offensive.
The Battle of El Alamein began on 23 October 1942, and ended 12 days later with the first large-scale, decisive allied land victory of the war. Montgomery correctly predicted both the length of the battle and the number of casualties (13,500). Montgomery, however, is sometimes criticized for failing to capitalize on his victory at El Alamein.
Montgomery was knighted and promoted to full general. The Eighth Army's subsequent advance as the Germans retreated hundreds of miles towards their bases in Tunisia used the logistical and firepower advantages of the British Army while avoiding unnecessary risks. It also gave the Allies an indication that the tide of war had genuinely turned in North Africa. Montgomery kept the initiative, applying superior strength when it suited him, forcing Rommel out of each successive defensive position. On 6 March 1943 Rommel's attack on the over-extended Eighth Army at Medenine (Operation Capri) with the largest concentration of German armour in North Africa was successfully repulsed. At the Mareth Line, 20 to 27 March, when Montgomery encountered fiercer frontal opposition than he had anticipated, he switched his major effort into an outflanking inland pincer, backed by low-flying RAF fighter-bomber support.
This campaign demonstrated the battle-winning ingredients of morale (sickness and absenteeism were virtually eliminated in the Eighth Army), co-operation of all arms including the air forces, first-class logistical back-up and clear-cut orders.
The next major Allied attack was the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). It was in Sicily that Montgomery's famous tensions with US commanders really began. Montgomery managed to recast plans for the Allied invasion, having Patton's Seventh US Army land in the Gulf of Gela (on the left flank of Eighth Army, which landed around Syracuse in the south-east of Sicily) rather than at Palermo in the west of Sicily as Patton had wished. Inter-allied tensions grew as the American commanders Patton and Bradley (then commanding II US Corps under Patton), took umbrage at what they perceived as Montgomery's attitudes and boastfulness. They resented him, while accepting his skills as a general.
During the autumn of 1943 Montgomery continued to command Eighth Army during the landings on the mainland of Italy itself. In conjunction with the Anglo-American landings at Salerno (near Naples) by Mark Clark's Fifth Army and seaborne landings by British paratroops in the heel of Italy (including the key port of Taranto, where they disembarked without resistance directly into the port), Montgomery led Eighth Army up the toe of Italy. Some criticism was made of the slowness of Montgomery's advance. The Eighth Army, responsible for the eastern side of the Allied front, from the central Apennine mountain spine to the Adriatic coast, fought a succession of engagements alternating between opposed crossings of the rivers running across their line of advance and attacks against the cleverly constructed defensive positions the Germans had fashioned on the ridges in between. Eighth Army crossed the Sangro river in mid-November and penetrated the German's strongest position at the Gustav Line but as the winter weather deteriorated the advance ground to a halt as transport bogged down and air support operations became impossible. Montgomery abhorred the lack of coordination, the dispersion of effort, and the strategic muddle and opportunism he perceived in the Allied effort in Italy and was glad to leave the "dog's breakfast" on 23 December.
Normandy
See also: Battle of Normandy
Montgomery returned to Britain to take command of the 21st Army Group which consisted of all Allied ground forces that would take part in Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. Preliminary planning for the invasion had been taking place for two years, most recently by COSSAC staff (Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander). Montgomery quickly concluded that the COSSAC plan was too limited, and strongly advocated expanding the plan from a three-division to a five-division assault. As with his takeover of the Eighth Army, Montgomery travelled frequently to his units, raising morale and ensuring training was progressing. At St Paul's School on 7 April and 15 May he presented his strategy for the invasion. He envisaged a ninety day battle, ending when all the forces reached the Seine, pivoting on an Allied-held Caen, with British and Canadian armies forming a shoulder and the US armies wheeling on the right.
During the hard fought two and a half month Battle of Normandy that followed, the impact of a series of unfavourable autumnal weather conditions disrupted the Normandy landing areas and seriously hampered the tactical delivery of planned transportation of personnel and supplies which were being carried across the English Channel. Consequently, Montgomery argues in his literary account (WIP) that he was unable to follow his pre-battle plan precisely to the timescales planned outside of battle. It should be noted that the extension of the battle plan by one month was the cause of significant retrospective criticisms of Montgomery by some of his American peers, including the much respected Bradley and equally controversial Patton. However, it can be shown that this may well have been embitterment relating to Montgomery's Bulge press statement above.
Montgomery's plan was clear in its early brief, that is, an aggressive British and Canadian presence in the east to attract the bulk of the German armour, combined with a building up of American forces in the west as preparation to a southern breakout, followed by a pincer east originally towards the Seine, where all bridges west of Paris were destroyed. Correctly the American pincers turned north for an entrapment at Falaise. Regardless of concerns over delays and operational wisdom, Montgomery significantly adapted and strategically planned the Normandy landings to the extent that it was the significant structure which attracted, trapped and destroyed the bulk of the German attacking forces from north western France, that is from the Point de Calais to Le Havre, and beyond. (WIP).
As stated above, this series of battle plans by the British, Canadian and American armies inflicted one of the biggest defeats of the war on the German army in the west. The campaign that Montgomery fought was essentially attritional until the middle of July with the occupation of the Cotentin Peninsula and a series of offensives in the east, which secured Caen and attracted the bulk of German armour there. An American breakout was achieved with Operation Cobra and the encirclement of German forces in the Falaise pocket at the cost of British sacrifice with the diversionary Operation Goodwood.
Operation Market Garden
The increasing preponderance of American troops in the European theatre (from four out of seven divisions at D-Day to 72 out of 85 in 1945) made it a political impossibility for the Ground Forces Commander to be British. After the end of the Normandy campaign, General Eisenhower himself took over Ground Forces Command while continuing as Supreme Commander, with Montgomery continuing to command the 21st Army Group, now consisting mainly of British and Canadian units. Montgomery bitterly resented this change, even though it had been agreed before the D-Day invasion. Winston Churchill had Montgomery promoted to field marshal by way of compensation.
Montgomery was able to persuade Eisenhower to adopt his strategy of a single thrust to the Ruhr with Operation Market Garden in September 1944. It was the most uncharacteristic of Montgomery's battles: the offensive was strategically bold, but poorly planned. Moreover, Montgomery ignored ULTRA intelligence which warned of the presence of German armored units near the site of the attack. As a result, the operation ended in an unmitigated disaster with the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem and the loss of any hopes of invading Germany by the end of 1944. Montgomery's preoccupation with the push to the Ruhr had also distracted him from the essential task of clearing the Scheldt during the capture of Antwerp, and so after Arnhem, Montgomery's group were instructed to concentrate on doing this so that the port of Antwerp could be opened.
When the surprise attack on the Ardennes took place on 16 December 1944, starting the Battle of the Bulge, the front of the U.S. 12th Army Group was split, with the bulk of the U.S. First Army on the northern shoulder of the German 'bulge'. The Army Group commander, General Omar Bradley, was located south of the penetration at Luxembourg and command of the U.S. First Army became problematic. Montgomery was the nearest commander on the ground and on 20 December, Eisenhower (who was in Versailles) transferred Courtney Hodges' U.S. First Army and William Simpson's U.S. Ninth Army to his 21st Army Group, despite Bradley's vehement objections on national grounds.[2] Montgomery grasped the situation quickly, visiting all divisional, corps, and army field commanders himself and instituting his 'Phantom' network of liaison officers. He grouped the British XXX Corps as a strategic reserve behind the Meuse and reorganised the U.S. defence of the northern shoulder, shortening and strengthening the line and ordering the evacuation of St Vith. The German commander of the 5th Panzer Army, Hasso von Manteuffel said
"The operations of the American 1st Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough."
Eisenhower had then wanted Montgomery to go on the offensive on 1 January to meet Patton's army that had started advancing from the south on 19 December and in doing so, trap the Germans. However, Montgomery refused to commit infantry he considered underprepared into a snowstorm and for a strategically unimportant piece of land. He did not launch the attack until 3 January, by which point the German forces had been able to escape. A large part of American military opinion thought that he should not have held back, though it was characteristic of him not to want to throw troops away owing to inadequate preparation. After the battle the U.S. First Army was restored to the 12th Army Group; the U.S. Ninth Army remained under 21st Army Group until it crossed the Rhine.
Montgomery's 21st Army Group advanced to the Rhine with operations Veritable and Grenade in February 1945. After a meticulously-planned Rhine crossing on 24 March and the subsequent encirclement of the German Army Group B in the Ruhr, Montgomery's role was initially to guard the flank of the American advance. This was altered, however, to forestall any chance of a Red Army advance into Denmark, and the 21st Army Group occupied Hamburg and Rostock and sealed off the Danish peninsula.
On 4 May 1945, on Lüneburg Heath, Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in northern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Characteristically, this was done plainly in a tent without any ceremony. In the same year he was awarded the Order of the Elephant, the highest order in Denmark.
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