Montgomery, Field Marshal Sir Bernard

Montgomery, Field Marshal Sir Bernard (1887–1976),British Army officer whose victory at the second El Alamein battle in November 1942 made him the war's most successful—and most publicized—British general.

Commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908, Montgomery was severely wounded in 1914 and served as a staff officer for the rest of the First World War. His experiences during those years taught him that, as he saw it, the ‘profession of arms was a life-study’, and he devoted himself to his profession with an almost religious fervour, determined to win his battles at a minimum cost in human life. Meticulous planning before an operation, the gathering of maximum support to aid his ground troops during it, and a fierce refusal to move until he was ready, made him the master of the set-piece battle. To some these were the symptoms of over-caution, but though he was less adept at exploiting a fluid situation—as the pursuit of the defeated Axis forces after El Alamein showed—his advance to Antwerp during the Normandy campaign, when his two armies covered 320 km. (200 mi.) in one week, was a triumph.

Between the wars he served in India, Egypt, and Palestine, and proved himself a first-rate instructor and an outstanding brigade commander. His ability was unquestioned, but his brusque and abrasive manner aroused hostility which probably hampered his early career. However, in April 1939 he was given command of 3rd Division, part of the British Expeditionary Force which took part in the fighting that preceded the fall of France in June 1940, and his demeanour during this crisis so impressed his corps commander, Lt-General Brooke, that he remained one of Montgomery's strongest supporters throughout the war.

Montgomery's rise was now rapid. Promoted lt-general in July 1940 he commanded 5th Corps, then 12th Corps, and from December 1941 South-Eastern Command, all key appointments. His insistence on training, more training, and more training still, in all weathers, day and night, became legendary, as did his emphasis on physical fitness. When one corpulent colonel protested that he would die if he was forced to run seven miles, Montgomery—teetotal and a non-smoker—replied that it would cause fewer administrative problems if he died in training than on the battlefield.

The death in August 1942 of Lt-General William Gott, Churchill's first choice as commander of the British and Commonwealth Eighth Army then fighting for its life in the Western Desert campaigns, gave Montgomery his chance. Handed a dispirited, defeated force, he instilled into it the will to win. He was perhaps fortunate that ULTRA intelligence confirmed that his dispositions were correct when Rommel attacked at Alam Halfa, but the second El Alamein battle which started in October 1942 was a personal triumph, the set-piece situation that suited him so well. It earned him promotion to general and a knighthood, but the North African, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns which followed revealed his flaws more than his strengths (it has been remarked that he always seemed to mislay his genius when he met a mountain). However, his interventions during the planning stages of the Sicilian and, later, the Normandy landings (see OVERLORD), improved the assault phases of both immeasurably and may well have prevented disaster.

With OVERLORD—during which he acted as Allied land commander—Montgomery displayed his best qualities. His energy and organizational skills, his ability to grasp the essentials of a problem, and his insistence on simplicity, all contributed to its success. However, his attempts to capture Caen—which somehow became transmuted by him into a deliberate strategy—earned him much criticism and there was talk of replacing him. Eventually the break-out was achieved and France was liberated, but with the Germans in full retreat he made two errors: he failed to move beyond Antwerp to cut off the German forces which had retreated on to the Beveland peninsula, and he then chose to launch MARKET-GARDEN to gain a bridgehead beyond the lower Rhine at Arnhem instead of clearing the approaches to the Scheldt Estuary.

However, it was not Antwerp or MARKET-GARDEN that nearly proved Montgomery's undoing, but his astonishing insouciance. His increasing fame fed an egocentricity that made him incapable of understanding that co-operation was the basis of the Allied effort. Once the supreme commander, Eisenhower, had assumed control of ground operations on 1 September 1944—the day Montgomery was promoted field marshal and reverted to the command of 21st Army Group alone—he became increasingly divisive and fractious, for though he admired Eisenhower the man he judged him incapable of fighting a battle. He rejected Eisenhower's Broad Front strategy in favour of a concentrated thrust into Germany (see OVERLORD); by pursuing this to the verge of dismissal he automatically put himself in the wrong; and by implying at a press conference that it was he who had defeated the Germans during the Ardennes campaign, he pushed the Americans to the limits of their patience, and perhaps beyond. However, he survived to lead his Army Group in the battle for Germany and on 4 May 1945 he accepted the surrender of all German forces in north-west Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands (see Lüneburg Heath). Final victory brought him adulation and high honours, and in January 1946 he was created Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

Montgomery's utter dedication to his task inspired the total confidence of those who served under him and he had the knack of being able to communicate to the ordinary soldier in the simplest of terms—‘we'll hit 'em for six’ was one of his favourite phrases. But his almost unbearable conceit and cockiness infuriated many—particularly, but not only, the Americans—and his shortcomings as a man have inevitably coloured assessments of him as a great commander.

Bibliography

Hamilton, N. , Monty, 3 vols. (London, 1981–6).
Lewin, R. , Montgomery as Military Commander (London, 1971).
Montgomery, B. L. , Memoirs (London, 1958).