The man known to history as Bernard Law Montgomery
was born on the 17th of November 1887 in Kennington, South London, in the United Kingdom. Bernard was the fourth of nine children and
was born into a church family, his father was the Reverend Henry Hutchinson Montgomery,
who came from a distinguished family of Protestant Anglo-Irish landowners and whose father had
worked as an administrator in the Indian Civil Service, Henry Montgomery attended Harrow
school and Cambridge university before becoming a cleric in the Church of England, he was
dedicated and hardworking but left the raising of his children primarily to his wife, Maud
Farrar. Maud married Henry when she was just 16 years
old and he was 34, and Maud would later complain of her lot, being left to raise a family on
her own, her primary role was motherhood and she would give birth to nine children, and
it was Maud who had the greater impact on Bernard compared to his father, as she was
much more heavily involved with him in his youth than was Henry. In 1889 when Bernard was just 2 years old,
Henry Montgomery was appointed Bishop of Tasmania and moved his family to the far-flung colony,
whilst there Bernard’s father embarked on numerous missionary expeditions to remote
corners of the colony, leaving Maud alone to raise the family, and she instituted strict
discipline on the children with regular beatings and engaged in frequent fights with the young
Bernard, who was an ill-disciplined and rebellious child. The family moved back to London in 1901, and
at the age of 14, Montgomery was sent to St Paul’s school, a private school, with an
elite reputation and after just his first day Bernard declared his intention to be part
of the preparatory class for those wishing to enter the Royal Military College at Sandhurst,
his family were disappointed by his failure to pursue a religious vocation and for his
lack of interest or ability in academics generally, however, what he lacked in academic talent
he made up for in sporting and leadership qualities, becoming captain of the rugby and
cricket teams and gaining a renowned reputation amongst his peers as a result. In 1907 Bernard passed the examination to
take him to Sandhurst, being placed 72nd out of the 170 cadets admitted in his year, and
once at Sandhurst he continued to distinguish himself through his leadership qualities and
secured a promotion in his first term, however, his place at the military college was jeopardized,
when Montgomery instigated a fight with a fellow cadet in December 1907 and set fire
to his shirt tails, leaving the cadet badly burned and requiring hospital treatment and
Montgomery was demoted as a result. Montgomery aimed to gain a commission in the
Indian Army, however this was a much sought-after position and after passing 36th in his class,
Bernard went instead into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a second lieutenant at the age
of 21, though he still served in India as the Warwicks were posted along the violent
Afghan frontier in the North-West of the country. Montgomery arrived in India in late 1908,
however the next four years were distinctly uneventful, and Bernard never embraced the
social aspect of the officer’s life in the British army in the early 20th century, he
went hunting but maintained a lifelong distaste of alcohol, consumption of which was a key
social expectation for a British army officer, and after being promoted to the rank of lieutenant
in 1910, Montgomery returned to England at the end of 1912 with his battalion. Montgomery’s battalion was stationed in
Kent, and for the next year and a half, Bernard attended courses at the School of Musketry,
learning how to operate the machine gun, a relatively new weapon that was to have a devastating
impact in the oncoming European conflict. By the summer of 1914, Bernard was 26 years
old and a platoon commander in the Royal Warwickshires, where he was regarded as an able commander
and an effective leader of men, however, the British army, Europe, and the wider world,
was about to change for ever, when on the 28th of June, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot on the streets of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital,
by a Serbian nationalist determined to gain independence for the Slavic nations from the
Habsburg Empire. After making virtually unacceptable demands
to Serbia, of which all but one were accepted by the Serbian government, that being the
participation of Austrian officials in investigating the killing, Austria-Hungary declared war
on Serbia on the 28th of July, causing Russia to mobilize its army in defense of its Serbian
ally, in late July, Montgomery wrote to his parents assuring them that war would not come,
and if it did, Britain would be able to stay out of it, reflecting the opinion of most
people in the British army at this time, however events soon spiraled out of control as Germany
and France mobilised on the 1st of August, and two days later, Germany invaded France
through neutral Belgium. This violation of Belgium’s neutrality caused
the British government to send an ultimatum to Germany demanding they withdraw their armies
from Belgium, it was ignored, and on the night of the 4th of August, Britain declared war
on Germany, not just due to their invasion of Belgium but also because of a deeper mistrust
and fear of Europe’s rising power, as they were challenging the dominance of the Royal
Navy with their naval expansion programme. Montgomery was initially sent to the Isle
of Sheppey on the South-East coast to guard against a potential German invasion by sea,
but he was soon sent to France to join the British Expeditionary Force, landing in France
on the 23rd of August, with Bernard himself in command of 67 soldiers, and marching across
the country to join the Allied forces on the frontier, who were retreating from Mons in
Belgium. On the 25th of August, the British Expeditionary
Force’s Second Corps under General Smith-Dorrien clashed with the Germans at Le Cateau, and
the Royal Warwickshire regiment had by now joined the British forces, giving Montgomery
his first experience of combat in the Great War, the British lost some 7,000 men killed
in this engagement and Montgomery’s battalion was now given the role of rearguard for the
British retreat towards the Marne River, thus witnessing destruction and chaos in his first
major combat experience the likes of which no British officer who had served in the colonies,
could ever have been prepared for. Prior to the Allied counter-offensive across
the Marne, Bernard was granted the acting rank of captain, and he commanded a company
as the British joined the French in pushing back the Germans to the river Aisne, during
this march, Montgomery and his men passed over the battlefield of Crecy, where 568 years
previously, King Edward III of England had led his soldiers to an improbable victory
over the French. The so-called ‘Race to the Sea’ began
as the Allied and German armies attempted to outflank one another to the North, until
near the channel ports in Belgium, the Germans clashed fiercely with the British Expeditionary
Force in the First Battle of Ypres, as the allies clung on and prevented a German breakthrough,
however, Montgomery experienced the ferocity of the fighting first hand when on the 13th
of October in the village of Meteren near Ypres, Bernard ventured into no-man’s-land
to inspect his defensive positions and was shot in the back, the bullet passing through
his right lung, and he was also shot again in the knee. This wound was so serious that a grave was
dug in preparation for Montgomery’s death, yet by the 15th he was back in England and
recovering, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his bravery, indeed, his
recovery was remarkably swift and by February 1915 he was pronounced fit for domestic duties,
being posted to Manchester as Brigade Major of the 112th, the senior staff officer within
the brigade, which was composed of young men who had volunteered in 1914 and 1915 and were
inexperienced and untrained. After helping to train the infantry for combat
on the western front, in January 1916 Montgomery returned to France with the 35th division,
where he would spend the rest of the war as a staff officer, and though later in life,
he was critical of the British Expeditionary Force leadership and tactics, through his
letters at the time, Bernard showed approval of the transformation of the British army
throughout the war and believed that costly battles of attrition were necessary for breaking
German resistance. Bernard was involved as a staff officer in
the major battles of the Western front including the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916,
and the Battles of Arras and Passchendaele in 1917, where he was responsible for operations
and training, first of a division and then of IX Corps, these battles were all costly
for the British, yet they were equally costly for the German army and diverted the Germans
away from the battered and, by mid-1917, mutinous French forces which allowed them to recover
by 1918, a year in which, having defeated the Russians on the Eastern front in the previous
year and with American troops arriving to help the Allies in the West, Germany’s generals
decided to launch the ‘Kaiser’s Offensive’, an all-out assault on the Western Front to
win them the war. Montgomery helped oversee defensive preparations
against the German attack in IX Corps before being promoted to chief of staff for the 47th
division, thus ending the war as the senior staff officer of an entire division, having
started the war commanding a single platoon, and despite coming close to breaking the Allied
lines held in 1918, allowing the British, French and Americans to push the Germans back
after Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff had exhausted his offensive options. Montgomery now involved himself in planning
for the final offensive operations that would bring the war to a close, demonstrating his
tendency for detail and precision in preparing offensive plans that would defeat the enemy
through superior use of resources rather than relying on speed and shock power to overcome
the enemy. Following a decisive Allied victory at the
Battle of Amiens in August 1918, the autumn months saw a steady advance for the Allied
forces all along the Western Front, as superior numbers and improved tactics, including effective
use of tanks, pushed the demoralized German army back from the Hindenburg Line and ever
further East, Montgomery was incredibly active throughout this time, issuing a list of ‘lessons
learned’ after each action from his division and publishing training programmes, overseeing
their implementation. As October neared its end, Germany’s allies
began to abandon the war, the Ottoman Empire leaving the conflict on the 30th of October
and Austria-Hungary following suit on the 3rd of November, finally, on the 11th of November
1918, with the Kaiser having abdicated the previous day, Germany requested an armistice. The 30 year-old Bernard Montgomery, had emerged
from the Great War physically scarred, yet vastly more skilled as a soldier and as a
staff officer than when he had entered the conflict, and his reputation within the British
Army was a highly positive one, even if he was still relatively unknown within the upper
echelons of the army. Immediately following the armistice, Bernard
was assigned to head of operations in the headquarters of the British Army of the Rhine
that occupied Germany, based in Cologne, however his sights were on the Staff College at Camberley,
because since his injury, Bernard had been serving as a staff officer and yet he had
no formal qualifications for such a role, and in peacetime promotions were much harder
to come by and could not be attained by performance in action. However Montgomery failed to enter the College
by examination results, and was forced to persuade the Commander of the British army
of the Rhine, General Sir William Robertson, to provide him a recommendation to attend
the college whilst at a Tennis party at the General’s home, Robertson had risen all
the way through the ranks from being a private trooper to a Field Marshal and so his endorsement
carried great weight, and Bernard’s methods of persuasion paid off, as he was able to
begin studying at Camberley in January of 1920, beginning a one year course that was
intended to prepare officers for senior command. Just as he had done at Sandhurst, and would
continue to do throughout his life, Montgomery soon alienated his peers and his teachers
through his complete disinterest in social events such as hunting, and he was also considered
to be arrogant, impatient and haughty, nevertheless, he studied hard and after graduating, he was
made brigade major of the Cork Infantry Brigade in Ireland, at a time when the Irish rebellion
for Home Rule, the Anglo-Irish war or Irish War of Independence, was raging. The Irish Republican Army were battling British
forces to attain independence, yet the situation was complicated by the presence in the North
of Ireland of Protestant Unionists, who were determined to remain part of the United Kingdom,
forming the Ulster volunteers to oppose Irish Home Rule by force. Montgomery was emotionally invested in the
conflict, as his family was descended from Northern Irish Protestants, and in November
of 1920, his cousin was assassinated by the IRA while serving as a staff officer for the
British army in Dublin, and in January 1921 he took up his post, however, the British
army struggled to effectively counter or understand the guerrilla tactics employed by the insurgents,
which the IRA used to devastating effect, and murders and reprisals were committed by
both sides. Montgomery produced a set of instructions
for all British officers serving in Ireland, emphasising discipline and the need to act
within the law, privately he thought that ruthless suppression was the only way in which
an insurgency could be put down, and believed that, as these methods were against public
opinion, the British army could not hope to contain the revolt. The politicians recognised this as well, and
in December of 1921, the Anglo-Irish treaty was signed, establishing the Irish Free State
as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, and allowing Northern Ireland to opt
out of this arrangement, which it did, remaining part of the United Kingdom, and with the signing
of this treaty the British Army withdrew from Ireland, and Montgomery was appointed brigade-major
and was sent with the 8th Infantry Brigade to Plymouth. After completing four years of staff work,
Montgomery returned to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire regiment as a company
commander in 1925, and following this he became an instructor at the Staff College at Camberley,
Montgomery did not have the opportunity in these years to significantly advance his career,
as not only was Britain not involved in any major wars in this period, but the army was
undergoing a significant reduction in size and investment having grown to an unprecedented
scale in the First World War, between 1923 and 1932, the army’s budget fell by around
£7.5 million, and just two years after the end of the Great War the number of soldiers
had fallen by over 3 million as volunteers left the army to take up their old jobs. Nevertheless, Montgomery used his spare time
in these years to write numerous pamphlets for the use of other officers to enhance tactical
and leadership training in the army, as well as making connections, becoming friends with
Captain Francis de Guingand, a man who would become Montgomery’s wartime Chief of Staff
in the Second World War, also at this time, in 1925, Montgomery, then aged 38, was determined
to marry and after being rejected by the 18-year-old Betty Anderson, he became infatuated with
Betty Carver, the widow of a soldier killed during the World War 1 Gallipoli campaign,
Montgomery married Betty on the 27th of July 1927, and took responsibility for her two
sons aged 11 and 13, whilst the two had their only child together in 1928, a boy who they
named David. Meanwhile Montgomery excelled as an instructor
at Camberley, and whilst in this role, he developed his thinking towards modern warfare,
becoming increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by the tank as well as armoured warfare
in general, writing in 1928 that he believed that very soon, the tank would replace the
infantry as the primary assault arm of the army. At the end of 1928, Montgomery returned to
his regiment as a company commander, and he was soon appointed by the War Office to a
committee that was revising the Infantry training manual, further elevating his reputation within
the army as an excellent trainer and effective military mind, although in typical Montgomery
fashion, he managed to fall into dispute with most of his fellow committee members. In January of 1931, Montgomery was elevated
to take command of his battalion of the Royal Warwickshires, and they were posted to Palestine,
which since the end of World War I and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 imposed on the defeated
Ottoman Empire, had been under British jurisdiction, and Bernard was in effective command of all
British troops in Palestine, and in his usual style, Montgomery impressed with his outstanding
abilities as a trainer of men, but also gained considerable unpopularity through his high-handedness
and lack of sensitivity. Montgomery had the same impact on his fellow
officers and men, when he and his battalion were transferred to India, at the end of 1933,
which was the same year in which Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist party, became
Chancellor of Germany, and following the Reichstag fire in February of that year, preceded to
accumulate dictatorial power over the German state through the Enabling Act of March 1933,
allowing Hitler to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag for four years, subsequent
to which, on the 14th of July, all political parties other than the Nazis were banned. In June of 1934, Montgomery was made chief
instructor of the Indian Army Staff College at Quetta, in modern-day Pakistan, and was
promoted to the rank of colonel, this college attracted officers from across India and the
British Imperial territories and was a major appointment for Montgomery, and one in which
he made an indelible impression on his superiors, whose reports on his performance were glowing. The next three years passed fairly uneventfully
for Montgomery, however, between 1934 and 1937, tensions in Europe were growing once
again, and just like in the early 1910s, it appeared that Europe was on the path to war;
Adolf Hitler was made the German Fuhrer in August of 1934, and a dramatic build-up of
the military began in Italy and Germany, with Benito Mussoulini, the Italian dictator, ordering
the invasion of Abyssinia in Northeast Africa at the end of 1934 and the German Fuhrer publicly
repudiating the Treaty of Versailles and the limits it placed on the German military in
May of 1935. In March of 1936, German troops entered the
demilitarized Rhineland territory on the Franco-German border, in a clear violation of the Treaty
of Versailles, yet Britain and France were wary of confronting Germany and upsetting
the European peace and so did nothing, and this lack of action prompted Hitler to continue
to pursue a brazen foreign policy, initiating the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into
Germany, in March 1938. As Europe was edging closer to the tragedy
of another great war, Montgomery was facing tragedy of his own; he had moved to Portsmouth
from India in June 1937 to take command of the 9th Infantry Brigade, when whilst on a
holiday in Burnham-on-Sea with their son David, Betty Montgomery contracted an infection,
likely from an insect bite, and although the infected wound was treated as inflammation
at first, as months went by it became clear that Betty was severely ill, and with blood
poisoning spreading, her leg was amputated in September 1937. Betty’s condition worsened over the next
6 weeks, and on the 19th of October, she died in the arms of Bernard; Montgomery was heartbroken,
his wife had brought out the best in him and had tempered his aggressive and high-handed
nature and their marriage was a very happy one, Montgomery responded to this shocking
blow by throwing himself into his work, determined to fight his grief rather than embrace and
submit to it, and this response is indicative of Bernard’s strict upbringing and the prevalent
beliefs of the time, that saw emotional mastery and stoicism as key virtues, particularly
for men. Montgomery thus engaged with his work with
indomitable energy, holding an amphibious assault training exercise in Devon, unaware
of the importance that this exercise would have for the looming war, and he did so just
as the military, for so long neglected in the government’s spending priorities, began
to receive more attention due to the growing threats in Europe, and the army was slowly
beginning to be built up, whilst a law of conscription was prepared. In foreign policy however, pursuing a policy
of appeasement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French government agreed
to cede the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, a vital industrial heartland along the Czech-German
border, to Hitler in an attempt to contain his European ambitions at the Munich Conference
of September 1938, however despite Chamberlain’s declaration of ‘peace in our time’ in
the aftermath of the conference, it took the German Fuhrer less than 6 months to violate
the treaty, when German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia on the 14th of March
1939. Montgomery meanwhile saw his dedication to
his work pay off, when he was offered the rank of major general and command of the 8th
Division based in Palestine, a territory which was by now riveted by tensions between the
Arab and increasingly numerous Jewish populations, whose controlled immigration into the country,
Britain had permitted since the First World War, and the British troops in the region
were caught in the middle of this increasingly bitter and violent feud. Montgomery arrived in Palestine near the end
of 1938 and decided that the priorities for British forces were the protection of the
local population and the quelling of the Arab rebel gangs who were protesting the Jewish
immigration to their country with violence, in order to do this, he drew on the counterinsurgency
tactics he had learned whilst combatting the IRA in post-war Ireland. Despite meeting with some success in putting
down the Arab revolt, in April of 1939, Montgomery was told by the War Office to prepare to return
to Britain to take command of the 3rd Infantry Division, as the situation in Europe had deteriorated
further; on the 22nd of May, the Pact of Steel was signed in Berlin, cementing an alliance
between fascist Italy and Germany and war now seemed inevitable, with Britain and France
declaring that, should Hitler invade Poland, they would declare war on Germany. After having received the command to prepare
for a return to Britain, Montgomery was seized by ill health, seemingly an infection of the
lungs, however during the long return journey by sea, Montgomery was able to make a recovery
and was able to take up command of his division in Portsmouth on the 28th of April. Poland had been restored as an independent
country after the First World War, having been under the occupation of Prussia, Russia
and Austria since the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, however Hitler was determined to
reunite East Prussia, which was within Polish territory, with Germany, and moreover he now
believed that France and Britain would be incapable and unwilling to resist his Eastern
ambitions, and so after signing a mutual assistance pact with the USSR on the 23rd of August which
contained a secret clause to divide Poland between Germany and the Soviets, German troops
invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939. Britain’s declaration of war followed swiftly
on the 3rd of September and Montgomery’s division was part of the British Expeditionary
Force that was deployed to France, forming Second Corps which was under the command of
Sir Alan Brooke, however once in France, Montgomery’s division saw little action as both sides,
though now at war, took time to consider their plans following the fall of Poland. Montgomery’s men had very few armoured tank
units and insufficient air cover, with the Allies in command of 2,000 planes to the German
air force, or the Luftwaffe’s - 4,200 planes, and so in late 1939 and early 1940, Montgomery
began training his men in mobile operations and made frequent visits to frontline units,
conversing with soldiers of all ranks, however, whilst Montgomery was ensuring that the training
standards of his division remained high, the German high command was creating an unexpected
plan to break through the Allied defensive line in North-Eastern France. Known as the Manstein Plan or Case Yellow,
it envisioned a light attack upon the main Allied line in Northern Belgium, whilst the
bulk of the German forces drove through the forest of the Ardennes - which the Allies
believed was impassable for the German tank units - before circling north to the Channel
ports to encircle and cut off the Allied armies, the Allied supreme commander Maurice Gamelin
planned to invade Belgian territory as soon as the German offensive began and set up a
defensive line about 60 miles into Belgium. The Allies were not prepared for the new tactics
of warfare employed by the German Wehrmacht, Blitzkrieg - or lightning war - saw the use
of fast-moving Panzer tank units to penetrate the enemy lines and rapidly encircle them,
with airpower adding to the speed and destruction of the invasion, and on the 10th of May these
tactics were unleashed on the West as they had been upon Poland the previous September,
with the invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands. Holland capitulated within two days and officially
surrendered on the 15th of May, whilst seven German panzer divisions began to push through
the Ardennes, as the Allies moved into Belgium to assume defensive positions, however, by
the 16th of May the Allies realised that they had been outflanked by the panzer divisions
and the British Expeditionary Force began to withdraw from Belgium to prevent encirclement,
as chaos reigned within the Allied high command due to the unexpected rapidity of the German
offensive. Montgomery was given command of Second Corps
for the retreat, and he helped to organise a rapid withdrawal of the British Expeditionary
Force towards the channel port of Dunkirk, indeed, Montgomery had been training his division
for the possibility of a tactical retreat in the previous months, due to his fears about
the Allied operation, and this now proved useful as the British Expeditionary Force
was able to reach Dunkirk ahead of the pursuing German forces. The British government now launched Operation
Dynamo in an attempt to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force and as many French soldiers
as possible, and between the 26th of May and the 4th of June over 330,000 Allied troops
were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in small civilian shipping vessels as well
as ships of the Royal Navy, and Montgomery’s division stood out for its discipline and
control amidst the chaotic scenes; Montgomery himself was evacuated on the morning of the
1st of June, in an operation which, though highly successful in many respects, represented
a retreat from a disastrous defeat on mainland Europe, and made it clear that Montgomery
and the British army had considerable work to do in order to help liberate Europe from
Nazi control. France surrendered on the 18th of June 1940,
and upon his return to Britain, Montgomery angered the War Office though his vocal criticisms
of the way that the British Expeditionary Force was commanded, heaping pressure on a
British high command that was already stunned and perplexed as to what actions to take following
the Dunkirk evacuation, the confused state of the British command is clearly illustrated
by the succession of confused orders given to Montgomery in the months following Dunkirk,
to plan for the invasion of the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands and the Republic of Ireland,
should the Germans attempt to occupy them, however each of these orders were swiftly
countermanded, much to Bernard’s frustration. Instead, Montgomery and the British army prepared
their island’s defences, amidst the fear of a possible German invasion from France,
and Bernard instituted a program of tough training that was typical of his command style,
even cancelling his soldiers’ leave, and as was also typical of Montgomery he quickly
developed an enmity with the man responsible for the defence of the English south coast,
the popular Lieutenant General Sir Claude Auchinleck, whose path he was to cross later
in the war. In July of 1940 a shake-up of the British
command structure under new Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw Montgomery made a lieutenant-general
and promoted to commander of V Corps, Auchinleck’s former command, and Montgomery was immediately
scathing of his predecessor’s Corps, removing numerous commanders who he deemed incapable
and pushing ahead with the formulation of defensive tactics directly opposed to what
Auchinleck was attempting to institute, as Montgomery favoured a strong mobile reserve
for counter-offensives rather than rigid front line beach defences to combat potential invasion. In another reshuffling of high command, Auchinleck
departed for India in October 1940, whilst in April of 1941 Montgomery was moved to command
of XII Corps which was based in Kent, the most likely area for a potential invasion,
which by now seemed increasingly unlikely; the Royal Air Force had triumphed in the Battle
of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940, forcing Hitler to call off his invasion of
Britain due to the failure of the Luftwaffe to secure control over the English Channel. Elsewhere though, the war was not going as
well for the British; in June 1940 Italy had declared war and invaded Egypt, a British
protectorate, from their Libyan colony, and despite being driven back deep into Libya
in late 1940, this setback caused Germany to send armoured forces to North Africa, under
the command of Erwin Rommel, who counterattacked and retook most of the territory taken by
the British offensive. In July 1941, Auchinleck took command of the
North African front, following the failure of Operation Battleaxe to dislodge the Axis
from their positions in Libya, however in the summer of 1942, the Axis powers secured
a major victory when Rommel captured the key port of Tobruk after defeating the British
at the Battle of Gazala, and following this, German forces were able to threaten Egypt
itself. Though Rommel was halted at the First Battle
of El Alamein in a stalemate encounter, the British position in North Africa was extremely
tenuous, this position was vital due to the presence of the Suez Canal in Egypt which
controlled the sea route to India as well as vital resource shipments into the Mediterranean,
and so Churchill visited Cairo in August 1942 to reshuffle the command in the region - William
Gott was initially chosen to command Eighth army, the primary British force in North Africa,
however soon after, Gott’s plane was shot down by enemy fighters and he was killed,
allowing command of the Eight Army to pass to Montgomery. Montgomery would serve under Sir Harold Alexander,
commander of British forces in the Middle East, and they would be under the watchful
eye of an impatient Prime Minister, who demanded an offensive against Rommel; Montgomery had
initially been preparing to take part in Operation Torch, the Anglo-American seaborne invasion
of French North Africa, however on the 10th of August 1942 he departed England for the
theatre of war that was to catapult him to national prominence. Montgomery arrived to find an Eighth Army
low on confidence and morale, with Rommel’s Afrika Korps less than 60 miles from Alexandria
and desperate to strike soon before American resources could tip the material balance in
favour of the Allies; and he immediately set about imposing his leadership on the army
and reviving the morale of the British forces, his first order stated his refusal to contemplate
any further withdrawal, he decreed that the Eight Army would stand and fight where they
were. Montgomery’s war-time command style saw
him place great emphasis on the morale and fighting spirit of his troops, as he truly
believed that the enemy could only be overcome by soldiers who were deeply motivated to fight
and whose spirits were high, and thus on his arrival he made great efforts to visit his
troops and inject a more positive outlook into his commanders; soon after arriving in
the desert Montgomery adopted a black beret with the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment
and the British General Officer’s badge pinned to it, and this would come to be an
iconic piece of headwear that defined Montgomery’s image. British deciphering capabilities allowed Montgomery
to intercept and read Rommel’s messages to Berlin, and thus on the 15th of August
he was able to see the German plan for their upcoming offensive, and he immediately set
out his defences to counter it, strengthening the defensive positions at the Alam el Halfa
ridge, and it was here that the bulk of Rommel’s forces struck on the night of the 30th of
August, and were repulsed by Montgomery’s well placed defenders - though he was criticised
for not initiating an immediate counter-attack, Montgomery was determined to continue to steadily
build up British forces, so that his planned late-October offensive would be overwhelming
and decisive. Following the defensive Allied victory reinforcements
began to arrive throughout September, so that by October, Montgomery possessed an army of
around 200,000 men, 1,000 tanks and 2,000 antitank guns and artillery pieces to face
an Axis army with just over 100,000 men, 500 tanks and around 1700 antitank guns and artillery
pieces, in addition to this, Rommel’s vast supply lines were under constant threat from
the Royal Navy and Air Force, whilst Allied lines of supply were shorter and far more
secure. Montgomery’s planned offensive would be
known as the Second Battle of El Alamein, and after meticulous preparation and planning
it was launched on the 23rd of October 1942, with Montgomery placing the greater part of
the attacking force in the North, four infantry divisions and two armoured divisions, whilst
a smaller attack would be made to the south, unlike the style of attack favoured by his
adversary Rommel, Montgomery’s offensive would not be a rapid armoured thrust but rather
a slower combined assault. On the eve of the battle, Montgomery gave
a message to his troops telling them that they were about to engage in ‘one of the
decisive battles of history’, and at 10pm on the 23rd of October his soldiers advanced
and won great initial successes, taking their objectives in the Axis centre, however the
attack soon got bogged down at many points along the line. The Operation now became a battle of attrition
as Montgomery launched repeated fresh offensives of infantry and tank units, eventually, after
12 days of hard fighting, the Allied troops broke through the Axis lines and Rommel was
forced to retreat, Montgomery’s Eighth army had lost about 13,500 casualties and a considerable
number of tanks, however they took around 30,000 prisoners and won a gruelling yet decisive
victory, one of the first Allied victories of the war. The victory was greatly celebrated within
Britain and Montgomery was knighted and promoted to General in its aftermath, meanwhile Rommel
was forced to order a retreat that would take his forces 2,000 miles back to Tunisia, some
have criticised Montgomery for his failure to decisively crush Rommel’s retreating
army, however the Afrika Korps was still a formidable force and Montgomery was a meticulous
general who did not want to take unnecessary risks. Montgomery’s Eighth Army thus moved steadily
onwards, pushing the Axis out of Libya and capturing the port of Tripoli at the end of
January 1943, and the turn of the tide in North Africa was mirrored by events on the
Eastern front, where German forces were on the verge of surrender at Stalingrad and the
Nazi invasion was spluttering all across Russia, whilst in November 1942 an Anglo-American
force landed in Tunisia, putting further pressure on Axis forces in North Africa. On the 6th of March 1943 Montgomery was able
to repulse a major Axis attack at Medenine, and he continued his advance through Tunisia,
outflanking the heavily defended Mareth Line in late March, and by early April the Anglo-Allied
forces who had landed in the West were able to link up with Montgomery’s Eighth Army
advancing from the East, however Montgomery held a low opinion of the US forces, partially
due to their prior defeat at the Kasserine Pass, and was not afraid to express this,
causing considerable tension with American commanders such as Eisenhower and Patton. Indeed, this uneasy relationship was shown
when Montgomery made a bet with Eisenhower’s chief of staff that he would be able to capture
the Tunisian town of Sfax by the 15th of April, and would receive a US Flying Fortress bomber
if he did so, when Montgomery captured the town he then demanded the plane to use as
his personal aircraft, despite the Americans believing the bet to be a joke, Montgomery’s
repeated demands for the plane were eventually met, though Eisenhower took a dislike to the
British General. On the 12th of May 1943, the Afrika Korps
surrendered and the campaign in North Africa was over, so Allied attention now turned to
the other side of the Mediterranean, to the invasion of Sicily and ultimately Italy, with
the aim of advancing upon Nazi Germany from the south, Sicily was to be the launchpad
for the Italian invasion, and thus Operation Husky was initiated on the 10th of July 1943. Montgomery had played a significant role in
creating the Allied plans for the invasion and was to be the primary commander on the
ground, he envisioned initial attacks made by his Eighth Army and Patton’s Seventh
Army on the southern coast of Sicily, supported by airborne assaults, and on the day of the
10th of July, all went according to plan, as the Italian defenders were suffering from
low morale and by late afternoon all of Montgomery and Patton’s forces had landed and secured
their beachheads. The Sicilian campaign, though successful for
the Allies, was dominated by the rivalry between Montgomery and Patton, the initial plans had
envisioned the British Eighth Army as providing the main thrust through Sicily, whilst Patton’s
forces guarded its flank, however Patton was a far more aggressive general than Montgomery
and it was the American’s rapid armoured units that reached the key port of Messina
first, at the North-east corner of the island on the 16th of August, whilst Montgomery’s
forces became bogged down, however when the Americans reached it the Axis forces had already
been evacuated to prepare for the defence of Italy. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had
fallen from power on the 25th of July, however there was still a strong German military presence
in Italy and the Allies, following their Sicilian conquest, began to plan for the invasion of
Italy, where Montgomery and his Eighth Army would once more play a central role. The Allied landings began on the 3rd of September
1943, with Montgomery’s forces landing unopposed in Southern Italy, however the campaign soon
became a slog with bad weather and stiff German resistance hampering Allied progress, in addition,
the mountainous terrain was ideal for the defenders who were motivated and well-led
by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, on top of this, the attention of Allied high command
was by the autumn of 1943, shifting towards the forthcoming invasion of France, and resources
began to be diverted from the Mediterranean in preparation for Operation Overlord. As Autumn turned to winter, Allied offensive
operations in Italy came to a virtual halt, and that December Allied supreme command was
deciding which men would lead the armies into France - Eisenhower was appointed as supreme
Allied commander, whilst Montgomery was given command of the 21st Army group, the main British
land force, and de facto command of all Allied land forces in France, although his appointment
to this position was opposed by Eisenhower, senior British figures such as Churchill,
Montgomery’s patron General Brooke, and the Secretary of State for war James Grigg
backed Montgomery, and so it was that Bernard departed Italy for London in late December,
to prepare for one of the most important operations of the entire war. Planning for Operation Overlord had been overseen
by Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Morgan and his coalition planning group, and they
quickly decided to land on shallow beaches and to buildup Allied strength on the beachhead
before neutralising German defences, they also decided to launch a deception operation
in order to make the Germans believe that their intended landing place was the Pas de
Calais, at the narrowest section of the English channel, when in actuality the landing site
was to be in Normandy. Montgomery was critical of the invasion plans
upon hearing of them in January 1944 however, arguing for a greater weight of initial land
forces and an attack across a wider front, and in response to these criticisms the landings
were extended to include Utah Beach on the Cotentin Peninsula, whilst the initial assault
would be made by five divisions, two British, two American and one Canadian, each with their
own landing beach. Montgomery’s revision to the plans also
saw him place the coastal town of Caen as the key initial target for the allies, after
this was secured, the build-up of Allied resources could take place and the drive eastward towards
Paris could begin, in preparation for the operation Montgomery surrounded himself with
trusted allies who had served under him in the Eighth Army in North Africa, such as his
chief of staff Freddie de Guingand. Planning for Overlord was complete by the
end of March, with intensive training for the offensive beginning in April, and finally,
after a day’s postponement on the original starting date to allow for a storm to clear,
D-Day, as it would come to be known to posterity, began on the 6th of June 1944 with the landing
of over 156,000 troops for the loss of just 10,000 casualties on day one, catching the
German defenders completely unaware. Montgomery’s first priority was to take
the town of Caen from the 21st Panzer division, this was to be done by British troops, whilst
he ordered the American forces to take the port of Cherbourg, however, although he sent
his finest performing divisions of the North African front against Caen, the initial British
attacks were repulsed with heavy losses, the Germans had sent some of their most formidable
divisions to the defence of Caen, including divisions of the fanatical Waffen SS, however
Montgomery has been criticised for his costly struggles in seizing the key town in the weeks
following D-Day, and it was only taken by British troops in July of 1944, after a carpet
bombing campaign devastated the town and surrounding area. However the British struggles at Caen concentrated
German units in the area and allowed US forces under Patton to burst through the German lines
and drive into the French countryside in Operation Cobra, following from Cobra, the US and British
forces again worked together to close the Falaise gap, a pocket that had emerged in
which thousands of German troops were trapped between the Allied armies - the victory at
the Falaise Pocket on the 22nd of August 1944 was a major Allied victory that made the capture
of France virtually inevitable. However, Montgomery was once again criticised
for his slow and methodical advance, which the American commanders insisted had allowed
many German forces to escape the Allied trap, nevertheless, the exemplary planning of Operation
Overlord by Montgomery and his fellow commanders had ensured its success in France, even if
the Allies faced greater resistance and delays than they had foreseen, and even if Montgomery’s
job was briefly under threat due to the British struggles around Caen. On the 1st of September Eisenhower took over
command of Allied ground forces, with Montgomery continuing to command the 21st Army Group,
this was done mainly due to the fact that there were now 3 American troops fighting
on the Western front for every 1 British or Canadian soldier, in compensation Churchill
promoted Montgomery to Field Marshal. Montgomery, whose army group was on the Northern
sector of the Allied advance across France, now turned his attention to capturing the
channel ports, as he needed ports closer to the advancing Allied armies to maintain rapid
lines of supply, and in early September Calais and Dunkirk were taken, whilst the Scheldt
river, which connected the key Belgian port of Antwerp to the sea, was captured by Montgomery
after a prolonged two-month struggle with tenacious German defenders in November 1944. During the Autumn of 1944, Montgomery was
developing a significant offensive plan that was uncharacteristically audacious, spurred
in part by the launching of V-2 rockets against London from concealed sites on the Northern
Dutch coast, it envisioned the Allies outflanking the Germans by bursting eastwards across the
Rhine and north of the German chain of fortifications known as the West Wall and trapping German
forces in Holland, the key to the operation was to seize and establish bridgeheads over
the Rhine, however, Operation Market Garden was to be a significant failure for Montgomery
and the Allies. Eisenhower approved these plans on the 10th
of September and a week later, with Patton’s advance stalling somewhat further south, Montgomery’s
offensive went into action; it was an airborne operation of unprecedented size for the Allies,
and it relied upon the British tanks reaching the vital Rhine crossing at Arnhem and relieving
the airborne forces within 48 hours amidst the wet and wooded terrain of the Netherlands,
in addition, the small front of the attack gave an advantage to the defenders. To further the Allies’ problems, the German
defenders had two refitted panzer divisions and had discovered the Allied battle plans,
and thus when the operation began, the Germans immediately worked to slow the advance of
the British tanks on Arnhem and to destroy the airborne units - these lightly-armed airborne
troops were soon isolated and under heavy pressure from German armour and artillery,
and needed to be supported by the British tanks, however the Allied armoured units were
held up by enemy resistance and failed to relieve the airborne divisions. Operation Market Garden staggered on for just
over a week, however on the 25th of September it was brought to a close; Allied casualties
were about 17,000 to the German 9,000, whilst they failed to establish a bridgehead on the
Lower Rhine, German morale meanwhile was boosted by their first major victory on the Western
front since D-Day - many historians argue that had Market Garden succeeded, the war
could well have been over by 1944 and the Allies may well have taken Berlin before the
Soviets, Montgomery’s gamble was a bold and audacious one, however it did not succeed,
and blame for its failure can be apportioned to every level of Allied command, however
the bulk of it must lie with Montgomery. The failure of Market Garden further strained
relations between Montgomery and the American high command, as did the failure of a fresh
American offensive further south in November which Montgomery condemned, however, as the
Allies were arguing over their next moves, with Montgomery favouring a single concentrated
assault on the Ruhr and Eisenhower favouring a broader, two-pronged attack, the Germans
took matters out of the Allies hands, launching a winter counter-offensive in the Ardennes. The German plan was to attack through the
dense forests of the Ardennes and split the Allied lines, separating the Americans from
the 21st army group, before turning North to recapture the port of Antwerp - it began
on the 16th of December and caught the Allies completely unaware, as they did not believe
that the Germans were capable of mounting a major offensive, the first days of the attack
saw German units advance more than 20 miles into Allied territory, causing chaos as Allied
communication lines broke down. This conflict would come to be known as the
Battle of the Bulge, named after the 40 mile-wide and 60 mile-deep bulge in the Allied lines
created by the advancing German units, and it would be won by the Allies largely thanks
to the skilful manoeuvre of General Patton’s third army, who swung into the Southern flank
of the bulge and were able to relieve American troops besieged at Bastogne on the 26th of
December. Montgomery also played a key role, taking
command of the entire northern sector of the battle after the American forces became split,
taking charge on the 20th of December of the US First and Ninth Armies and creating a firm
defensive line to withstand the German assault, moreover, Montgomery’s calm yet firm leadership
under pressure, restored cohesion to the Allies’ northern front in this moment of crisis, just
as he had restored the confidence of the beleaguered Eighth Army when he had arrived in North Africa
in 1942. In early January of 1945, Montgomery and the
Allies began their counterattack and despite fierce resistance, their superior numbers
allowed them to push the enemy back to where they had started the Ardennes offensive by
the end of January, Germany had suffered more casualties than the Allies and had lost almost
1,000 precious combat planes, nevertheless, in a press conference held by Montgomery in
the aftermath of the battle, he appeared to take credit for the Allied victory, whether
or not he intended to give this impression, there was an uproar in the US Army, and relations
between the Allied commanders soured even further. In early 1945, the Allies had been in a slow
battle of attrition with German forces for months, in bitter winter conditions, and now
planned to begin a steady advance into Germany, beginning with the crossing of the great Rhine
River, Eisenhower planned an attack on a broad front, with Montgomery making the main assault
across the Lower Rhine to the North, and receiving the bulk of Allied resources for this effort. Montgomery’s attack on the Rhine, known
as Operation Veritable, began on the 8th of February, and the Allied units met dogged
resistance once again, however Montgomery’s forces made steady progress, he then launched
the second part of his pincer movement on the 23rd of February with American units,
who met up with the British and Canadian soldiers on the 3rd of March, pushing the German defenders
back across the Rhine. Montgomery now turned his attention to crossing
the River, and was frustrated to learn that Patton’s forces had managed to begin crossing
further south on the 22nd of March, nevertheless, Montgomery’s crossing was to be the largest
Allied crossing and the most important for eventual victory; he planned to cross on a
12 mile front and began by sending the 15th Scottish division and the 51st Highlanders,
they crossed in amphibious vehicles on the night of the 23rd of March and all the battalions
made it across the river safely and secured the Eastern bank, two days later bridges had
been put in place to allow the crossing of vehicles. The crossing of the Rhine was a major Allied
success, helped by Montgomery’s use of airpower to secure Allied positions, and was the beginning
of the end for the German war effort on the western front, once across the Rhine, the
Allies now burst into Germany’s heartland, however Montgomery was careful throughout
the drive towards and past the Rhine, as he always was, to limit his Army’s casualties,
and thus his advances were always slower and more deliberate than some other commanders,
so that he might keep his casualties to a minimum. Although Montgomery wanted to race into the
North German plain towards Berlin, unbeknownst to him, the US and Soviet political leaders
had reached an agreement to allow the Soviets to take Berlin in order to prevent a clashing
of the Allied forces, thus the bulk of the western forces went South-east towards Dresden,
whilst Montgomery was instructed to swing north towards Hamburg and the Baltic Sea,
cornering German forces in the North-west by moving towards the border with Denmark. Though Montgomery’s men met pockets of fierce
resistance as they moved deeper into Germany, the end was nearing, Hitler had committed
suicide on the 30th of April, and on the 4th of May the Northern German forces surrendered
unconditionally to Montgomery, four days later, in Berlin, Field Marshal Wilhelm von Keitel
ratified the surrender of all German forces, and the War in Europe was at an end. Montgomery returned to Britain as a hero,
he was the country’s most famous and most popular commander to have emerged from the
Second World War and was seen, alongside Churchill, as defining British resilience and fighting
spirit throughout the conflict; his prominence in the North Africa and Western Europe campaigns
gave the British a sense of having made a strong and important contribution to turning
the tide of the war and defeating Nazi Germany, and though Montgomery was certainly not the
most talented general of the war, nor the most talented Allied commander, one could
not argue with his results, from El Alamein to the crossing of the Rhine, Montgomery had
secured vitally important victories against Germany for the Allied cause, and it was down
largely to his skilful planning that the invasion of Western Europe in 1944 had been such a
success - after the war he would be known forever more to the people of Britain affectionally
as ‘Monty’. Moreover, despite the sour opinions towards
him of his fellow senior commanders, Montgomery was loved by his troops, who appreciated his
regular visits to the frontlines and also admired the fact that his careful planning
and deliberate actions had saved many of their lives, with his iconic beret and morale-raising
public appearances and speeches, ‘Monty’ developed an aura around him that spread throughout
the ranks of the British army and made him a symbol of inspiration for the men. Immediately after the war, Montgomery became
Commander of the British Occupation Forces in Germany and served as the British member
on the Allied Control Council, the governing body of the Allied occupation zones of Germany
and the de facto German government after the fall of the Nazis. In 1946, he was made 1st Viscount of Alamein,
and following the resignation of Alan Brooke, Montgomery was made Chief of the Imperial
General Staff, the top administrative position in the British army, although, in typical
Montgomery fashion, he did not have a good relationship with his fellow senior chiefs
of staff, forming a mutual dislike of his colleagues as he had done with the Americans
in 1944 to 1945, and Montgomery himself was almost entirely to blame for this. Montgomery was a key player in bringing about
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of 1949, or NATO, to contain Russian influence
in Europe, using his cross-Atlantic links to help foster the partnership, indeed, in
1948, Montgomery stepped down as Chief of the Imperial General Staff to become chairman
of the military arm of the Western European Union, the precursor to NATO, however this
role too was overshadowed by his disputes with his French chief of land forces. Upon the creation of NATO, Montgomery became
deputy to the NATO Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower in 1950, this was a role he maintained
after Eisenhower retired, under NATO commanders Matthew Ridgway and Al Gruenther, until his
retirement in 1958 at the age of 71, after his retirement, Montgomery published several
books based on his wartime experiences, such as ‘El Alamein’ published in 1948 and
‘The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery’ in 1958, perhaps unsurprisingly, Montgomery’s
memoirs were rather inflammatory, accusing Eisenhower and other senior Allied commanders
of poor and incompetent leadership, despite Eisenhower being the President of the United
States at the time. Aside from the minor storm caused by his memoirs,
Montgomery enjoyed a relatively quiet retirement, but did cause some controversy when he used
his position in the House of Lords to speak out against the US invasion of Vietnam and
the passing of a law to de-criminalise homosexual acts in 1967. Bernard Montgomery eventually died on the
24th of March 1976 at the age of 88 at his home in Isington, East Hampshire, and was
given a state funeral in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, before being buried in
a churchyard in Binstead, Hampshire, upon his death tributes came in from national leaders
and wartime commanders around the world, even men whom Montgomery had feuded with, paid
their respects to this iconic leader. Montgomery’s legacy has been debated and
disputed by historians and military leaders alike in the years following his death and
still is even today, it is very hard not to come to the conclusion that Montgomery was
an extremely unlikable man at a personal level, he fought with most of his fellow officers
throughout his career, most prominently with his American counterparts in the invasion
of Western Europe, and it is hard to escape the fact that he was high-handed, arrogant,
insensitive and often ruthless, making him very hard to cooperate with and explaining
the long trail of colleagues, from Churchill to Eisenhower, who came to dislike and resent
Montgomery. Nevertheless, his uncompromising style and
confidence in his own abilities helped Montgomery to become an effective military commander,
he could take bold decisions and use his relentless energy and determination to inject energy
and life into his army, whilst at the same time his skills in training and planning helped
ensure his offensives were methodical, tactical and minimised casualties, and thus whilst
he did not acquire a reputation for lightning offensives like Rommel and Patton, and whilst
he did not have the same level of daring military genius as these men, Montgomery got results
and was able to plan and execute successful, long term offensives such as the campaign
in Western Europe or his comprehensive victory in North Africa. In addition, Montgomery’s troops greatly
admired and respected ‘Monty’ and saw him as an inspiring leader who they could
rally around, and this combination of intense energy, precise attention to detail and iconic
popularity amongst the troops propelled him into the upper echelons of command, even with
animosity from his fellow commanders, as he was able to inject life and energy into his
soldiers like very few commanders could. Montgomery’s defeats and setbacks, such
as at Caen in 1944 and Operation Market Garden, did not stop him from becoming and remaining
a key symbol of the victorious British war effort or cementing a reputation as one of
Britain’s most iconic military leaders, his famous victories at El Alamein and in
Western Europe, guaranteed his foremost place in Britain’s military history, and although
he may not have been one of the most talented or ingenious military leaders of World War
2, he was certainly one of the most effective and iconic. What do you think of Bernard Montgomery? Was he a consummate tactitian and master of
logistics or was he an over-rated, cautious commander who lacked the daring of a number
of his contemporaries and adversaries? Let us know in the comment section and in
the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
