"Monty"

I think Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery is the only commander of WW2 that has been mentioned both in out "best generals" and our "worst generals" topics. He is one of the most controversial authorative figures of the war, and surely is worth a topic of his own.

What do you members think of him? One of the greatest generals, because of his calculation and life-saving preparation for campaigns? Or one of the worst, because of his lack of adaptation, arrogant attitude and Master Plan?

 

That's a difficult one to decise on, Roel. But I liked his style (even if it were a little self centred and arrogant) and when push comes to shove he did win alot for the Allies.

 

I would never include Montgomery on a 'Worst' list.
He definately belongs on a 'Best' list.The only thing keeping him from being 'The Best' was his tendancy to be over-cautious.

 

Well, possibly he was overcautious, but on the other hand, he was rash once and we all know how that turned out (Market-Garden).

However, his inability to adapt to changing circumstances in battle is a bg downside on his personality; after all, no battle ever goes entirely according to plan, and most don't go according to plan at all. Yet Monty was always convinced that his Master Plan was the only way, and that it always succeded, and that he never had had to divert from it. Not good in a general!

 

Montgomery was an egotistical primadonna, a mediocre general at best, whose indecision and lack of audacity caised more casualties in the British ranks than he ever caused in the German ranks.

Only when outnumbering the Afrika Korps two to one on the ground and five to one in the air did he win, and as Patton said, "Monty will not take Caen on D-Day or D-Day plus six".

Montgomery was a joke.

:smok:

 

Monty

Just a thought Monty had to be cautious because he simply did NOT have the reinforcements the Americans had.He had survived WW1 with the hideous losses there from bad generalship and was not going to let that happen under him.Remember after D-Day many units in the British Army were severely undermanned so he had to be very carefull with what he had left.Then when he did jump he went wrong so he gets blamed both ways.

 

To attack a defending enemy with only a 2 to 1 advantage and win is a good achievement.

As many people on here have agreed that the Panzers were better tanks overall. I do believe the better British tanks in Africa were in short supply.

 

Especially seeing as previous British numerical superiority in armour had been converted into British numerical supermacy in scrap metal at least twice before under Monty's predecessors.

 

Ceteris paribus, yes. But in this case, the British were also completely dominating the air, while the enemy had no fuel, hardly any ammunition and no resupply of men or material anywhere in the future. The tanks they used were largely older Panzers, no Tigers, and even a bunch of Italian tanks; the British, however, had Grants and even a few Chruchills fighting for them. The british advantage, in short, was much greater than just 2 to 1 in men.

 

There are other aspects.
Past commanders had built up numerical advantages, which had been wiped out by the Germans. So this time around, Monty can tell his troops that we have more men & tanks (again - big deal), but ours are better (well, some are), plus the Enemy supply route is in tatters, and we pretty much control the air.
Would you feel happier being a soldier with that kind of backing?
Look at the previous British efforts in the desert - we only got anywhere against the Italians (bad equipment & sometimes lack of will to fight) or the Germans when they ran out of fuel.

 

The normal rule for taking out a dug in position is 3 to 1. A few grants and a few churchills, doesn't mean a great deal.

I am not saying he was fantastic but there again I am not saying he was a joke.

Does anyone have the break down of tanks in Africa at the time?

 

We relied quite heavily on the Mk III Cruisers at the time, I believe.
Most of the rest were Valentines, a fair few Stuarts, then a mixed bag of Lees & Shermans, oh and 6 Churchills.

 

Yes, but on how many occasions was this amount actually reached, and on how many occasions in which it was reached did it prove to be succesful? The rule isn't the reality, and I think there are few times & places where a commander even had a 2:1 advantage over the enemy, let alone an accompanying 5:1 advantage in the air.

 

In modern warfare if a platoon is to be engaged it would be a company commder given the task, this would give you 3 platoons to chose from and hence your 3 to 1 advantage. If there is a section position to be assaulted then a troop would be given that task, etc.

Sometimes you don't get the luxury but it is preferred.

The point is, if you have a dug in position you are going to lose men during the assault, and therfore you would like to have more men, you may have to use the same companies in several consecutive assaults but that is war.

 

Montgomery's greatest achievement (and I'm not being sarcastic) is that he realized that it was more important to prevent the Germans from gaining a significant victory than it was for the Allies to win one. He realized that the Allies would eventually win as long as they didn't give the Germans an opportunity to inflict a major defeat.
He was also a good enough general to realize that having the Germans mass against the British & Canadians was providing the Americans with a great opportunity. Unfortunately his ego made him claim that this was his plan all along. If that was the plan than his "decoy" attacks to tie down the Germans were terribly wasteful. The Germans also helped Monty's plan by deliberately deploying the Panzers against the British & Canadians. They planned a major offensive in that sector since they felt it was the area of the battlefield that was best suited to armored operations. The Germans saw the Bocage country the Americans were operating in as more conducive to defensive operations. Once the US forces had broken out, the Germans moved the bulk of the Panzers (or what was left of them) against the Americans for the Mortain counter-attack, so Monty was unable to pin them down at a critical point of the break-out.
Montgomery was a good general, one of Britain's best, but he would never move forward without making sure everything was "tidy". I don't think he ever comprehended that time equal lives. Sometimes it is better to lose 500 men in one day than 50 men a day for a month. As a result his set piece battles always ended up resembling the thing he wanted to avoid, a WWI style slug fest battle. Montgomery's reluctance to admit that some of his battles didn't go the way he planned shows that he did not think it was important for a general to be able to react to changing conditions and seize opportunities.
Montgomery was a leader; he was by all accounts adored by the common Tommy. Leese never got the same affection from Eighth Army that Montgomery did.

 

At his best he was the best general of the war bar none in my opinion. Montgomery defeated the great Rommel in Egypt (twice), Tunisia and Normandy, during all of which he forced Rommel to fight his (Montgomery’s) kind of planned battle, rather than the fluid, mobile campaign Rommel preferred. Certainly in those campaigns he had numerical superiority, though not as much as is sometimes claimed, nor what most strategists reckon is needed for the frontal attack he was forced to launch at Alamein. His performance in the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 (where his division retreated in good order despite very disadvantageous circumstances, getting back to Britain with minimal losses) shows he could do a good job in very extremely difficult circumstances as well. In 1944 he took a leading role in the planning for, and commanded on D-Day (something for which he was better suited than any other allied general) and got a very difficult job done very well.
Montgomery has often been accused of over caution, certainly he was cautious but usually with good reason, and the over cautious tag is, I feel undeserved. In World War I he had served as a staff officer after being wounded in action, and had seen only to well what happened when offensives were launched with inadequate planning, preparation and troop training. Other factors must also be taken into consideration – at Alamein he could not afford not to win, Britain desperately needed a victory after the fall of Tobruk (other than the defensive victories won by Aukinleck and Montgomery in the run up to Alamein), and so Montgomery’s preparation was incredibly thorough, the proof of the pudding of course is in the eating and the battle was won and won well. In Normandy in 1944 the British army was running seriously low on infantry replacements, and Montgomery could not afford to be profligate with the lives of his men yet he still pinned down ¾ of the German forces while sustaining only marginally more casualties than the Americans, facilitating the American break out almost exactly as he planned. Though the Normandy breakout took longer to achieve than hoped, and cost more in casualties, is oft repeated my Montgomery’s detractors, but German tactics (Hitler’s absurd hold to the last man instructions) and the terrain played a large part, the bottom line is the plan worked. Later in the campaign he played an important role in the Battle of the Bulge and his crossing of the Rhine was a superb example of planning and execution.
The great stain on his reputation is of course operation Market Garden (conceived in frustration with Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ strategy), and while this was certainly a failure, it was a damned close run thing and given the prize at stake was probably worth a try.
Montgomery was unfortunately also an egotist, extremely difficult to get along with, very arrogant and very hard to handle as a subordinate. He also held a very low opinion of the American generals he had to work with, and while this was opinion was common among British generals, Montgomery made little effort to conceal it, which is hardly helpful in waging a coalition war. His actions during the Battle of the Bulge is a good example of his strengths and weaknesses – a very effective military performance, but combined with such a level of dismissive contempt for his allies that many Americans will not say a good word about him to this day. His record though does not lie, and Churchill who quite ruthlessly sacked unsuccessful commanders never got rid of Monty.

 

He defeated Rommel because the great Rommel couldn't fight the battle he preferred; that much is true. However the reasons why he couldn't, in both cases, were not Monty's imposed battle conditions; it was the circumstances in which Rommel was forced to fight. In North Africa he was out of fuel and reinforcements; since he could hardly move, he was forced to fight a static battle with Monty who had numerical and tactical superiority. In Normandy he had virtually no freedom of movement himself since Hitler ordered everything from above and forbade him to move his troops in the manner he wanted to; there was to be no retreat. Therefore Rommel could neer play his tactical genius on Monty while Monty did get to play his tactical genius on Rommel; the comparison is unfair towards Rommel.

But the attitude that resulted from witnessing WW1 eventually got France and the BEF defeated because of a static mindset; how can you say it is an advantage in a general? Warfare had changed since he last saw it and mobility had returned to the battlefield. Monty should have seen and used this to his advantage.

Montgomery's mission was to capture Caen on D-Day. He captured Caen on July 8th. How can you say it went exactly as planned? He did manage to draw German forces into his area so as to give the Americans an opportunity to advance rapidly, but the terrain was such that they couldn't; they were themselves three weeks behind schedule when they captured Cherbourg on june 27th. The fact that they eventually did break out, and that the Germans were defeated in Normandy and beaten out of France, is entirely due to the enormous superiorities the Allies enjoyed combined with the retarded orders submitted by Hitler.

Oh, don't go there, please. There is a reason why the Americans can not say a decent word about him, and it is not his personality I can assure you. When he was in command of First army not only did he almost bungle their gallant defence, but he refused to go into counterattack for weeks on end while the forces of Patton in the south were fighting to snip the bulge while the Germans were vulnerable. It would have been the end for all the German troops in the bulge if the 1st Army had attacked along with the 3rd on December 23rd, after Peiper's unit was destroyed, but Monty proclaimed that he could not attack for at least a month. Meanwhile 2nd Armoured division showed this was not so by defying Monty's orders and charging straight into the German flank at the tip of the bulge, destroying two German regiments. But Monty held on to his policy, even called in the British 30th Corps to aid him (which cost the lives of around 1200 CW soldiers) when he finally attacked on January 5th and all the remaining German armor got away safely before 1st and 3rd Armies met at Houffalize on January 18th.

And Market Garden simply cannot be justified, IMHO. It was not a close-run thing, it was a complete failure which cost 17,000 casualties.

 

To a point, but at Alamein the battleground was also important as the Qatara (apolagies for spelling) depression made a battle of manouver impossible, after the battle Mongomery refuses to risk what he has won with a rash pursuit, allowing Rommel to show his ability in mobile warfare and doing to him (Montgomery) what he had done to Cunningham after Crusader. What Mongomery never did was allow himself to be drawn into a situation where Rommel could fight the battle he (Rommel) would have liked, this was not always the case with other commanders, Kasserine for example

Of course warfare had changed - by learning from the experiences of WWI, one lesson Montgomery learned is that battles are better fought with metal than flesh, and that thorough planning and preparation are the best way to A) get the job done, and B) minimise casualties, and this is how he fought his methods certainly did not have the dash or glamour of Rommel (or Guderian for that matter) but they certainly worked

As I said, the plan took longer and cost more than intended BUT it did work, and work as planned (ok perhaps exactly was an overstatement but close enough) - the allies got ashore, consolidated and broke out, that is the achievment in an operation of that magnitude not whether Caen or Cherbourg were taken on schedule

Mongomery's objective was to stop the Germans crossing the Meuse, and so long as that was achieved he was not overconcerned about the loss of a village here and there, which caused discord with Hodges and Ridgeway who did not want to concede any ground at all, but as the Germans did not cross the Meuse his stratergy was succesful. XXX Corps was moved to assist the American 1st army on December 24th which it did. When he did attack, despite distinctly adverse weather conditions he made steady progress linking up with Bradley on the 13th January

Gues we'll just have to differ on that one

 

Rommel had no fuel and hardly any troops. It is entirely understandable that even if he had been given the chance to operate as he would have liked, he wouldn't have been able to take the opportunity. I don't think Monty's beating the DAK was such a big feat by November 1942.

I don't exactly favor generals of dash and glamour (my favorites are people like Heinrici, the defensive expert of the war, whom nobody has ever heard of) but Monty's work is simply overcautious. Letting the enemy take the initiative is a bad thing in war, and that is exactly what his "thorough preparation" would do. However, the soldiers under his command may consider themselves lucky that he wasn't often rash since the results of his only rash action ever are known (Market Garden).

Of course, but how much of that can be credited to Montgomery, and especially, how much can be credited to his master plan? He's the one who always insisted that everything went according to plan. In Normandy it didn't. This was not his greatest success; judging by his won mindset it was his greatest failure. I think the Allies on the beachhead were helped infinitely more by the German inability to act freely without control from Hitler than by their own commanders.

Of course he did his job, but only after he took command did the Americans start to draw back significantly; they could have held positions further east as well as further south if properly supplied, and the situation was such as to provide ample supply in 1st Army sector. I'm not saying he failed at his job, I'm saying that he left vital opportunities unused. He was recieving massive reinforcements for his army yet he refused to use them offensively, crushing Germany's last reserves, until he was sure that 3rd Army in the south had secured a breakthrough and drawn all German armoured units into its section.

The first units of 30th Corps indeed started to arrive on Decembr 24th, notable the 29th Independent Tank brigade which occupied the bridge at Dinant in the nick of time. However, Monty waited for all five divisions of this corps to be at his disposal before he started attacking, whereas Collins had already shown what could be achieved by immediate action.

And which linkup was achieved on December 13th, exactly?

'Tis a deal.

 

I think monty was middle of the road. He caution was good to a point, but I still say a bit more Patton would have helped him out. He was over cautious. He was arogant, and didn't adeptwell, right on there. Those are deffinatly bad things. I still say the worst thing for Monty's reputaion was the Market Garden catastrophy. I am biased, but I like Pattons drive through the sigfried line. The germans would have cause a lot of causalties, but if Patton, or Monty, or anyone else could hit them with a hard blow before giving them months to rest, we might have been better of than with Market Garden, but hindsight is 20:20.