My Dad fought under Gen Montgomery in Sicily & Italy (1st Canadian Armoured Brigade - Calgary Tanks), and had NOTHING BUT PRAISE for him. I didn't hear many stories about the war, but here's a short one.... General Monty was a bit of an odd duck. He was out checking out the troops one day in Italy - where the weather was SCORCHINGLY HOT. His vehicle passed a truck doing an ammunition run, and was a bit stunned to see several Canadians either loading or unloading the truck, completely NAKED - except for their boots and ...... TOP HATS. The next day - a General Order was issued.... "TOP HATS Will NOT be worn in the British 8th Army." 🤣
_”Nigel Hamilton’s assessment of Montgomery as ‘Master of the Battlefield’ does not seem exaggerated then. It is in fact echoed by his subordinates and staff officers. Richardson calls Montgomery ‘without a doubt a supreme master of the battlefield’. Roberts declares bluntly that no one except Montgomery could have won either Alamein or Normandy. Leese, who incidentally saw at close quarters how both Alexander and Slim won battles, considers Montgomery ‘the greatest soldier of our age’, often ‘most difficult and even exasperating’ to his equals and superiors, yet ‘as a commander to serve under on the battlefield, it’s Monty for my money any day.’”_ - Monty's Greatest Battles 1942-1945 by Adrian Stewart
Johnny good to see you're dusting off your old accounts because no one believes this one,keep scribbling your made up rot and presenting it as the authors. Which page number so we can prove your back to to scribbling nonsense Barrie Rodliffe joined 26 Sept 2013 Giovanni Pierre joined 28 Sept 2013 John Peate joined 28 Sept 2013 John Burns joined 07 Nov 2013 John Cornell joined 13 Nov 2013 TheVilla Aston joined 20 Nov 2013
Or how about this john: SIR BRIAN HORROCKS CORPS COMMANDER Sidgwick & Jackson LONDON 1977 Page 216 ‘The more I studied the problem the less it liked it; without going into technical details, we were not properly balanced for this task. Whilst I was thinking it over, the telephone rang and a Staff Officer from the Twenty-first Army Group said that Field Marshall Montgomery was on his way to see me. A few minutes later he entered my caravan and said, ‘Jorrocks, I am not happy about Bremen. ‘Nor am I sir’, I replied. ‘Tell me about it’, he said. So, sitting in my map lorry I described the problem to him and made certain suggestions. He said not a word until I had finished. After a short pause while he considered the problem on the map, he said, ‘We will do A, B, C, and D. ‘These four decisions were vital - and Bremen was finished. I have deliberately mentioned this because it was typical. Montgomery was not my immediate Commander, but he always kept in such close touch with the battle that he knew when and where ‘the shoe pinched’. He then went down to see the Commander on the spot - in this case, me - and listened to what he had to say. He then made up his mind immediately. As he drove away I knew that he had probably already forgotten about Bremen and would already be considering the next problem. That was what made him such a superb battle commander.’
@@thevillaaston7811 Yep. I read that recently in a book by Adrian Stewart on Montgomery’s battles. Also this by John Harding: _’Greatly as I admired Alexander and Slim, if I had to go to war again, I would sooner go under a plan prepared and conducted by Montgomery than by anybody else who lived through either war.’_
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Wonderful presentation and production. Montgomery was a born soldier. One can imagine Churchill doing many things but not Monty who was utterly single minded. Great series so far😂
My father remembered a passing-out patade at Eaton Hall, where Monty said: "we all respect leaders who are heroic: I want you to be leaders who make it unnecessary [by out-thinking the enemy]."
That’s very wise! Personally I kind of feel like the whole reason the modern Western theory of warfare even exists is basically this principle. Because it underpins everything we do.
There is supposedly a comparison made between Rommel and Montgomery… It being said that in an emergency, Rommel would always be there. Montgomery made sure that there were no emergencies.
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I think the best quote I heard to sum up Monty was ''not as good as he said, but a lot better than his detractors say''.
I maintain that his siege of Caen helped American forces clear the western areas of Normandy. Monty kept crack Panzer units pinned down, and unable to counter the Americans.
I cannot imagine the effect of laying out in No-Man's Land with a serious wound, and a dead medic laying on top of him all day must have had on Monty; he must have been seriously damaged mentally.
As an Australian familiar with MacArthur’s role - and behaviour - in the SW Pacific, it would be easy to see the American High Command as intensely competitive and political…. and that would go a long way to explain the American distaste for Montgomery. He was almost as arrogant as they were. 😂 (Ok, Ike being an obvious exception. 👍)
The Australian Spitfire ace Gordon Olive fought in the Battle of Britain (his "Spitfire Ace" is a very good book, by the way). Later, when he returned to Austrlia, he disliked the attitude of the US High Command and its attitude to Australian soldiers (some of the very best of WW2). I think it's safe to say they weren't very humble.
The preparations prior to the D Day landing were amazing, done without the Germans realising which beaches were to be taken. The mine clearance, the nautical signage laid. All quietly done.
Montgomery was unquestionably the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 by some way. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander in WW2. Thus is fact.
What other rare gems have you mined for the comment section today you poltroon? Brooke had stated many times that Monty was out selling himself to others- adrift in twaddle & nonsense. What Lincon said about McClellan applies to monty - *“If he had a million men he would swear the enemy has two million, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three.”* You imperial peddler have an amazing capacity to talk tripe,denial it seems is a British trait. You are be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense. With out the USA or Russia monty was Dunkirked - RUNAWAY seems to be a Monty thing
Lyndon As we all (Except Para Dave) know, Alanbrooke saw Alexander and Montgomery in the thick of it in France in 1940, already knowing that they, like him had been in action in the First World War, and therefore that they would keep their nerve when things got rough. I wonder what the US General Marshall found out about Eisenhower, Bradley, and Devers, as they organized train loads of paper clips, a mere 3,000 miles from the nearest enemy.
@@thevillaaston7811Just for once, I'd like any Montgomery detractor to factually tell me who won more battles, took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than Montgomery, out of all the western allied ground commanders. I've yet to hear any of these muppets even begin to try and refute facts. 4,000km through 8 countries while facing dozens of quality German divisions. Nobody even comes close.
Dunkirked RUNAWAY,better call the Yanks - you're welcome tinkerbell.Maybe Father Christmas will get burns and you out of the home for the Holidays Barrie Rodliffe joined 26 Sept 2013 Giovanni Pierre joined 28 Sept 2013 John Peate joined 28 Sept 2013 John Burns joined 07 Nov 2013 John Cornell joined 13 Nov 2013 (Lyndon) TheVilla Aston joined 20 Nov 2013 Get a life already
@@lyndoncmp5751 This General this, that General something else seems to be an American thing, judging by what can be seen and heard on TH-cam. Compare the number of TH-cam comments by Americans about Montgomery with comments by Britons on items about the likes of Eisenhower, Bradley, Bradley’s subordinate, Patton, and others. Perhaps its all that they got in regard to the war? After all, the USA was not in the war until after Germany and Italy could longer win. Japan could never have won. Their homeland was 3,000 miles plus from any hint of danger. They have no Battle of Britain, or Stalingrad. Their troops faced danger at the front, but so did the troops of every other country involved. Britain, Canada, and Russia mobilized more of their respective populations. Even their production figures have to be set against the fact that the USA is one largest countries in the world, it has an abundance of raw materials, not a single enemy aircraft dropped a bomb on the US mainland. Relative to its circumstances, Britain’s war production effort was far more impressive. Probably, the war production figures for Canada, and of Russia, was also more impressive. Maybe, Americans think that comparing this General to that General, and so on, somehow evens up the score? Who can say?..
How could Monty in the hour of careless talk costs lives declare, “We are drawing the Panzer Devisions (7?,) on Caan, withdrawal then destroy.” Why would he say that at any time? Because it was part of the plan They all knew the plan It all takes time to eventually leave space for a breakout Discretion is the better part of valour
I mean at the time overlord was on going a public rebuttal, about what was happening in Caan Wouldn’t have been a sensible thing to do Too reveal the master plan: through careless talk; like mine So help me
Tedder was not intelligent enough as he finished his eduction with a lower second at Cambridge, Eisenhower was just a politician who had an affair with a junior officer, Leigh-Mallory was a back stabber who warned against the air drops the night before the operation was launched, Montgomery was a prima donna and lacked any personal charm, Bradley was dull and without imagination, Ramsey retired before the war and was too old and Smith was just a factotum of Eisenhower. Yet somehow, these men planned the landing in Normandy as good as can be reasonably expected. Either the armchair generals that I’ve quoted are not very smart or they are missing the point or both.
I don't think that Monty had any choice over Arnhaim, I think that the decision to go came from Washington due to the first V2 attack. I know there is little evidence to back up my theory but Washington expected the Germans to mount, if not an atomic warhead, then a dirty warhead. Interestingly, none of the American generals blame Monty for its failure, they fall out later when Monty speaks to the press.
They fell out later because Montgomery's words in the press conference during the Bulge were heavily cherry picked and edited, and more than a few were humiliated that Montgomery had to come down and organise and command the battle for them. That was the real reason. These same people never praised or even acknowledged that Montgomery helped them tremendously.
Monty was a genius. Anyone else in human history with his tactlessness could never have remained alive more than a few minutes, but he did! No colleague of his could ever have been criticised had they shot him in anger.
I wouldn't go so far as to describe Montgomery as a 'genius.' Certainly not at the level of Marlborough, but I have never understand why commentators, predominantly American, constantly insult him for his cautious approach. Had I been on the front line at, for example, Second Alamein (as my father was), I would have been reassured by a General who made sure of his superiority in intelligence, numbers, equipment, and logistics before beginning a battle. I appreciate that, of course, this doesn't look quite so exciting in a movie.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 I'd say Monty was good at Strategy, Logistics and Operations. For Tactics and Manuever, the best British generals at that level were Marlborough, Wellington, Slim, O'Connor, McCreery.
@dovetonsturdee7033 Anyone who correctly predicted El Alamein to last around 2 weeks and Normandy to last around 3 months, as Montgomery did, is a genius in my view. He also correctly predicted in August 1944 the war would not be over that year after Eisenhower decided on the broad front strategy.
Montgomery has never taken a hurried step in his life. He was slow in North Africa, schooled by Patton in Sicily, dithered in Italy and recalled before embarrassing himself any further, he then got stuck for 43 days @ Caen. He moved so slow at Falaise it allowed the German forces to escape complete encirclement prolonging the war by several months. And he didn't have the cajones to show up at Market Garden - after demanding it. He planned OMG while ignoring to open up the Port of Antwerp, then disappeared when the pathetic plan unraveled. Monty was only able to win El Halfa because of the intercepted Enigma codes and the RAF/RN routing the Germans supply. Monty was caught many times changing stories depending the out come. IKE left the decision to Monty since he pushed for this decacle. When his exulted expedition came to a screeching halt 3 miles from the start at the Belgian Border. Then only made 7 miles the 1st day, that slouching impediment Bernard ignored all sorts of intelligence, then got scarce and stayed at his mobile caravan 60 miles away. During the battle there are pictures of him playing with his bunnies, birdies & puppies - seriously. He would have been sacked in Germany and shot in Russia
Bradley,A Generals Life,Page 299 Gen Bradley wrote "the news of the German escape from the Falaise Gap was a shattering disappointment - one of my greatest of the war.a golden opportunity had truly been lost.I boiled inside,blaming Monty for the blunder". As Omar Bradley said, "Montgomery rarely won a battle any other competent general wouldn't have won as well or better."Montgomery was not only famously insensitive and deliberately insulting to his brothers in arms, but he was capable of outright lies if he thought it would elevate him above potential rivals"
Bernard Law Montgomery - Military History - Oxford Bibliographies "The National Army Museum conducted a poll in 2011 to determine Britain’s greatest general. Montgomery’s name was not among the finalists."
@@nickdanger3802 Erwin Rommel - "Once Monty arrived, the war in the desert stopped being a game:" Gerd Von Rundstedt - "Generals are like race horses, they are supposed to win, and montgomery won most of the time" Friedrich Von Mellenthin - "Montgomery is undoubtably a great tactician- circumspect and thorough in making his plans, utterly ruthless in carrying them out. He brought a new spirit to Eighth Army, and illustrated once again the vital importance of personal leadership in war.” Günther Blumentritt - "Field Marshal Montgomery was the one general who never suffered a reverse”. Hasso Von Manteuffel - "The operations of the American 1st Army has 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”.
According to this video Slim was Britain’s best General. Yet: Philip ‘Pip’ Roberts had this to say: _’I should like to close my reminiscences with a tribute to Monty. _*_I do not believe there was anyone else at the time who could have won Alamein; I do not say that if we and lost Alamein we would have lost the war but it would certainly have prolonged it…..And then it is my view that no-one else could have won the invasion in Normandy;_*_ there were some setbacks, but the Seine was reached on the day he said it would be, and that made certain they the war in Europe would be won.’_ Slim had several failed attacks to his name. Montgomery never had a failure - never. In November 1940 Brigadier Slim, as he then was, was instructed to capture the Sudanese frontier fort of Gallabat that had been taken by the Italians and Metemma, the corresponding Italian fort in Abyssinia. He did recapture Gallabat, but his advance on Metemma was repulsed amid some panic; the Italians then drove him out of Gallabat as well. In March 1942, Lieutenant General Slim commanded Burma Corps-two infantry divisions and an armoured brigade-opposed by a single Japanese division, but he suffered a series of defeats ending only in May with the flight of his remaining troops into India. The Japanese were formidable soldiers. Slim called the Japanese ‘the most formidable fighting insects in the world’ and it is often assumed that they were the most dangerous of all opponents. Ronald Lewin, however, in Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story, specifically compares them with the SS formations in Normandy and rates these ‘even more formidable’. They certainly had better equipment. The soldiers advancing on Mandalay encountered just thirteen obsolescent light tanks-promptly wiped out by anti-tank Hurricanes-but those advancing on Caen faced from 520 to 725 tanks that were far from obsolescent. Indeed, before examining Montgomery’s offensive battles it is worth considering the difficulties he faced. He did have a superiority in numbers, though nothing like as great as that enjoyed by Slim or, for that matter, by Auchinleck in the battles of July 1942. On the other hand, he fought very capable enemies: the SS troops and parachutists in North-West Europe and Panzerarmee Afrika in the desert. He often had to overcome strong, skilfully prepared fixed defences and always had to cope with weapons of similar or superior quality; principally tanks, anti-tank guns and mortars. In addition, Montgomery was opposed by enemy commanders of a very high standard. Slim did not have the same problem, for the best Japanese generals were not wasted on a sideshow like Burma but were in the Philippines, Iwo Jima or Okinawa. He was up against Rommel in North Africa from Alam Halfa to Medenine and the list of his opponents in North-West Europe is an impressive one: Rommel, von Rundstedt, Model, Kesselring, Student, von Manteuffel and several others of only slightly lesser ability. Slim’s twin victories of Kohima and Imphal really were great ones. While Fourteenth Army had fewer than 17,000 casualties, the Japanese had 53,000 that could never be replaced and so ensured a subsequent British reconquest of Burma. The Japanese, however, were very inferior in numbers of men, artillery, armour-only fifteen Japanese tanks appeared and these of inferior quality-and in the air. They were also desperately short of ammunition, medical supplies and even food. Yet the battles were won only after savage struggles of attrition lasting from early March to early July 1944 and compared by participants on both sides to the brutal conflicts of the First World War. That emphasizes the courage and tenacity displayed by British, Indians and Japanese alike-Bose’s double-deserters dishonourably excepted-but would not normally be regarded as a tribute to the generalship on either side. Compare the generalship shown in Montgomery’s defensive battles. At Alam Halfa with the two sides nearer to an even balance than at any other time and the enemy possessing superior tanks and anti-tank guns, Montgomery won by a combination of determination and flexibility plus an admirable use of his supporting air power. The same qualities won the Ardennes Battle. Medenine, on the other hand, was a deliberate attempt to trap and destroy German armour: a new concept that a desert veteran like Kippenberger could call a ‘masterpiece’.” Slim never carried out an amphibious landing; those in Burma were executed by Lieutenant General Christison, including the one in May 1945 that led to the capture of Rangoon before the Fourteenth Army could reach it. It can’t however however, in difficulty or importance can be ranked equal to Montgomery’s achievement as ‘NEPTUNE’s general’, as Ronald Lewin called Montgomery. If Slim was imaginative it was clearly not in the field of strategy. In the first Burma campaign, the Japanese, having taken Rangoon, had two lines of advance into Upper Burma: the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Sittang Rivers. The former was blocked by Slim’s Burma Corps and the latter by two Chinese formations called ‘armies’, but each only equal to a British corps in manpower and vastly weaker in equipment, transport and supporting units. In addition, Slim faced only one Japanese division while the Chinese were confronted with three. Since the Chinese understandably proved unable to hold their ground, Slim’s left flank was continually open to attack. Yet Major General James Lunt in A Hell of a Licking reports that Slim declared his ‘intention to recapture Rangoon before the monsoon broke in mid-May’. Slim’s memoirs discreetly omit this, but do confirm his constant desire to counter-attack. He never seems to have realized that the further south his counter-attacks progressed, the more chance there was of his men being cut off when his left flank gave way, and the more men who took part, the more were endangered. Slim showed little more strategic imagination at later times. By the end of 1944, shattering Japanese defeats at Kohima and Imphal had been followed by still greater ones elsewhere, notably in October 1944 the titanic Battle of Leyte Gulf. In this the Japanese fleet was eliminated, ensuring their loss of the Philippines and the natural resources for which they had gone to war in the first place. After this, their army in Burma could not be strengthened but lost troops who were sent to the Pacific. In these circumstances, the strategy of Slim and the theatre’s Supreme Commander, Mountbatten, was very limited: that of ‘reaching Mandalay before the monsoon’. It was Leese, after his arrival as Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces in November 1944, who urged the much more daring and successful strategy of taking Rangoon as well. As he would write to his wife, ‘When I first came out here it was never even thought of.’ Slim never acknowledged Leese’s action
@@philipmoores4094 Market Garden was not a defeat. It took 100km of German held ground. The Germans retreated and lost Eindhoven and Nijmegen. The allies later used Nijmegen to attack into Germany. Only Arnhem was a defeat but technically this was an all air operation. Planned by the air forces. Montgomery had no jurisdiction to order First Allied Airborne Army and RAF to accept his suggestions and they didn’t. Montgomery argued for double missions flown on day one, for closer drops to Arnhem and for coup de mains on the bridges. The air commanders refused all of this. Consequently, Arnhem was not Montgomery’s battle to lose technically speaking. Deep down he may have felt the same way. It was planned mainly by the Air Force commanders, Brereton and Williams of the USAAF, though I’m not letting Hollinghurst of the RAF off here. His decision not to fly closer to Arnhem doomed 1st Airborne. It was Bereton and Williams who: ♦ decided that there would be drops spread over three days, defeating the object of para jumps by losing all surprise, which is their major asset. ♦ rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-day on the Pegasus Bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet. ♦ chose the drop and and landing zones so far from the Bridges. ♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to take on the flak positions and attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports, thereby allowing them to bring in reinforcements with impunity. ♦Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of “possible flak.“
@@johnpeate4544 It was a defeat, but not as big as people make out, I would say it was a tactical defeat but with strategic gains ie Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Grave, Heumen, 6 bridges taken etc.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Arnhem wasn’t really Montgomery’s battle to loose, not technically speaking. Like I said he had no jurisdiction over the air forces and couldn’t contest their decisions though he tried. The Allied command saw MG as partially successful I think. They took 60 miles of enemy held territory and a couple of important bridges. From Operation Victory by MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FRANCIS DEGUINGAND, (Page 419) _’It is interesting to consider how far we failed in this operation. It should be remembered that the Arnhem bridgehead was only a part of the whole. We had gained a great deal in spite of this local set-back. The Nijmegen bridge was ours, and it proved of immense value later on. And the brilliant advance by 30th Corps led the way to the liberation of a large part of Holland, not to speak of providing a stepping stone to the successful battles of the Rhineland.'_ General G.G. Simonds, in command of II Canadian Corps, issued a directive shortly before the Canadians moved into the Salient: _’The Nijmegen bridgehead is the most important pieceof soil along the front of 21st Army Group. Here we hold the only bridge across the main course of the Rhine. If the Germans accept a decision west of the Rhine, the eastern face of the Nijmegen bridgehead between the Meuse and the Rhine forms a base through which an attack can be launched against the northern flank of the German battle line. If the Germans withdraw to the east bank of the Rhine, the Nijmegen bridgehead forms a base from which an assault across the Neder Rijn turns the main course of the Rhine itself._ _Military bridging of the lower course of the Rhine is a doubtful possibility under winter conditions. Therefore, the Nijmegen bridge is of the greatest importance to us and must be protected against all forms of attack.’_ The Germans never saw it as a failure. General Kurt Student, in a statement after the war actually considered the Market Garden Operation to have been proved to be a great success. At one stroke it brought the British 2nd Army into the possession of the vital bridges and valuable territory. The conquest of the Nijmegen area meant the creation of a good jumping board for the offensive which contributed to the end of the war, the Allies later using Nijmegen to launch Operation Veritable and advance into Germany. _The loss of the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen were was a great embarrassment to us” said General von Zangen of Fifteenth Army._ _By capturing them the Allies forced us to remain on the defensive in this area in order to prevent this bulge from growing. We were never able to assemble enough troops for a serious counter-attack to retake Antwerp.’_ -Defeat in the West by Milton Shulman The German High Command under Model regarded the allied bridgehead north of the Waal River as a severe threat. They feared that the allies could still use the area as a springboard to the north to cut off the German Fifteenth Army in the western part of Holland and threaten the plains of North-Western Germany. For Model it was imperative to recapture the ground they had lost in the Betuwe in order to restore the situation by acting quickly, before the allied front had settled. Model, therefore ordered Obergruppenführer Wilhelmina Bitterch, of II SS-Panzer Corps, to destroy the allies between the Nederrijn and Waal by coordinated armour and infantry attacks from the north and east. Horrocks’s XXX corps (two divisions) defended the liberated area against two SS Panzerkorps and Fallschirmkorps - a total of six divisions (though understrength) - and came out victorious. 9th SS Panzer Division “Hohenstaufen” lost almost all its fighting vehicles. Hitler, in a special Fuhrer Directive issued on 25 September, had personally ordered the destruction of the allies in the Nijmegen - Arnhem area. On the news of the failure of its destruction during its capture by the allies Hitler ordered an inquiry. It’s strange how strategic successes like Epsom and Goodwood are written off as tactical defeats/failures while when talking about Market Garden, which took 60 miles of enemy held territory, the critics of Montgomery will never fail to point out that it failed to obtain its objective which was a bridgehead over the Rhine.
Only Allied general whom I call professional and earned every bit of respect from his subordinates and lower ranks. Whatever his personality faults and quirks and inability to socilise , he knew the army he served and commanded and got as much efficiency as he could in his operations to conclude his campaigns successfully. He was not flamboyant for public spectacle but his single minded obsession to win battles , conclude the operations he led successfully with as low casaulty as possible and finish the campaigns victoriously , even willing to oppose his superiors for those principles , are today lacking in similar higher ranks
Eclipsed by Bill Slim in Burma! Most thinking historians today realise that Slim did far more with far less than Monty - but his theatre of operations was so far from Europe both him and his men were truly the Forgotten Army! Slim deserved more recognition and many agree that he was the best General Britain produced in WW2.
@@brettcurtis5710 Both Slim and Monty shared an emphasis on training and logistics, as far back as Wellington the British Army has generally taken the attitude that the side with better logistics and better trained troops will win 9 times out of 10 and the rest of the details will take care of themselves. Although as a Tactician, Slim was probably the better of the two, but i'd say in planning and strategy they were equally matched.
@brettcurtis5710 In his China Burma India Theater yes but in Burma , Slim was defeated twice very badly in when he lost Burma in 1942 and his Arakan Offensive collapsed on 1943. He learned from his mistakes and landed a knock out blow in Japanese Imphal - Kohima offensive which was stupidly waged and extended by Japanese generals with catastrophic Japanese losses. After that , main obstacle for Slim and his Forgotten Army was distances to cross over and geopraphy featutes like vast Irrewady river rather than Japanese resistance when main Japanese field armies were mauled in Imphal and Kohima and rest were devoid of resources and supplies and reinforcements since all were going to halt US advance in Pacific or to China for U-Go offensive. Montgomery's situation in Europe where Germans held vast and in depth defences and waged active defence and offensive operations with their main industrial bases for war production close by and Germans held main communication and transport resources for fast movement and deployment like French railways and German autobahns and a huge portion of German wartime resources and German tanks , AT tanks and operational tactics and leadership available to counter Monty and they were way better than charging Japanese. Slim never had to face those conditions since he was trained to wage war in Southeast Asia not in Africa or Europe
@@bigwoody4704 Just before his death even Gott admitted the Eighth army needed somebody 'new' A great deal of the lack of trust was down to the political interference in operational matters.
Continuation: Dorman-Smith was effectively airbrushed out of history, possibly because, at Sandhurst, he was heard to say, “Montgomery takes a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.
@ I think I read it in Dorman-Smith’s biography (possibly called “Chink”). Is there reason to doubt it? When Churchill published Montgomery’s assessment of the Auchinlek-Dorman-Smith team, Dorman Smith successfully sued him (Churchill) for libel. Part of Monty’s mission to claim all credit for himself was to discredit others, often quite unfairly. However, Monty was loved by his men, which Dorman-Smith, being less of a showman, never was.
@ Possibly Montgomery was at Sandhurst on different occasions. Maybe it was said somewhere else, but it seems to me entirely believable that ‘Chink’ disparaged ‘Monty’ in this way, and that he suffered the consequences.
Dorman-Smith’s battalion commanders refused to serve under him in Italy and he was declared unfit for brigade command. _He really was as near being a lunatic as you can get,’_ Major-General Oswald, another staff officer at divisional and then army level at the time, remarked.
The fog of war. The morale of the soldiers mattered the most. Propoganda can influence soldiers when they experience defeat after defeat. General slim had such a army and he and Mountbatten turned it around.
Montgomery. Met his Teacher. Of what planning for what lay ahead where as General. Patton and Bradley. May be looked upon. These 2 Were noted to be always out in front of His Soldiers his speech before it was time to teach those What a real Soldier is like.
The Title is in itself deceptive. Others below him, with both their experience or inexperience in warfare, may well have influenced the resulting opinion by either actions or inaction that he endorsed that were never executed.
None of these men were great commanders. Things were not equal in most battles. The side with the most forces usually won. The only thing they did great at was intelligence.
Did Montgomery have a good chiefs of staff? I tend to think of later armies requiring a leader and a manager, such as Napoleon and Berthier or Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Did Monty just do everything or was there a subordinate he relied on?
His Chief of Staff was Major-General Sir Francis De Guingand from 1942- 1945, who was generally acknowledged to be highly competent and liked by the US Generals.
Montgomery was the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander. That's historical reality not in the mind. Montgomery even had to go down and command the American forces in the Battle of the Bulge for them.
Hardly unbeatable... Market Garden, failure to close the Fasise gap, lack of response during the Battle of the Bulge. Good officer, motivator, good with the press. He is comparable to the US General MacArthur.
@JamesBrooke-co7od Market Garden was still a better campaign than the Hurtgen Forest one. In the Falaise Gap Bradley was more concerned that the Germans would simply roll right over Patton and flatten him if he blocked their escape from Normandy. He put it best in his memoirs preferring *"A hard shoulder at Argentan to a broken neck at Falaise"* Given that the German Army was moving units back inside the pocket to help the mob escape it was a reasonable decision. Despite that, the Germans still lost 60,000 men and 344 tanks. Lack of response? Yet Monty took command of BOTH the US 9th and US 1st army on the Northern Flank on December 19th under Eisenhower's orders.
Market Garden was actually the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. Nearly 100km of German held ground taken in just 3 days. Only Arnhem was a defeat but that was purely an air forces and airborne planned and executed battle. Montgomery had no jurisdiction to make the decisions for Arnhem. It was under SHAEF.
Market Garden was the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. Compare it to the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine failures at the same time.
I think Eisenhower should have planned D Day and left the Brits to jog on after them making tea. Anyone know why Eisenhower wasn’t land force commander for D Day ???
'Anyone know why Eisenhower wasn’t land force commander for D Day ???' Perhaps because Eisenhower had made a muck of the land campaign in Tunisia, and the invasion of Italy, and because he did even have a single day of personal combat experience to his name? Who can say?..
@@californiadreamin8423 Ambrose the plagiarist? The man who lied for a living? ................. Historian David Greenberg stated in 2015 that Ambrose's "wanton acts of plagiarism and the posthumous revelation that he fabricated interviews with Dwight Eisenhower have rendered his work unusable"...................yep that liar!
Eisenhower wasn't Ground Forces Commander for D-Day because Eisenhower had absolute no experiance whatsoever as a field commander at any level. He was a career staff officer who never even personally saw combat let alone command even a company in battle. Montgomery was chosen because he the most proven winner the Western Allies had at the time. Whether you think it the right or wrong choice doesn't change the fact that there was no better qualified candidate.
@@11nytram11 My original post was tongue in cheek. After my father passed away , I continued reading widely as he had, about where he had been. I realised quickly that if I read about Montgomery and Spike Milligan, it gave me a picture of where he had been. France, Dunkerque, North Africa and Italy , with only a Red Cross armband and stretcher for defence. D-Day onwards he missed being otherwise occupied in Anzio and then the Gothic line. The view of Montgomery, particularly in the US , nearly always appears to be about prestige, and scapegoating him, hides lots of unnecessary deaths due to …underestimating the Germans.
@@bigwoody4704 Got many men killed? Woody slow down for a second, please just examine his casualties compared to his opponents below.... In his first performance at Dunkirk, his handling of the 3rd Infantry division during the retreat was outstanding. By the end of the campaign he had got his division back to Britain in such good order, that it was the only division from the BEF to be considered fully combat effective immediately after Dunkirk. At Alam El Halfa, his Eighth Army took 1,700 casualties, the Afrika Corps had 2,900. At 2nd El Alamein, his Eighth Army took 13,000 casualties, the Afrika Corps had 73,000. At Medinine his Eighth Army lost 130 men, the Afrika Corps lost 635. At the Mareth Line, once again his Eighth Army took less losses than the Africa Korps with 4,000 casualties compared to 7,000. In France during the Battle of Caen the British 2nd Army and 1st Canadian Army took around 50,000 casualties, the Germans took around 158,000. In Operation Veritable, his 21st Army Group took 15,000 casualties, the Germans 44,000 casualties. In the crossing of the Rhine in Operation Plunder his 21st Army Group took 6,700 casualties the Germans 16,000 casualties. In Market Garden the Allies suffered 17,000 casualties, the Germans 30,000 casualties.
funny I just respond to all the same slappies blowing bernard's horn - If I'm obssessed it's with the truth, that your creeps with crown certainly don't want told
@@johnpeate4544 I wouldn't be so sure of that John, Slim was quite the imaginative commander. Operation Extended capital shows this. He also installed the German "Mission Command" doctrine into his 14th Army, he would have done something similar with 21st Army Group in France I think. Slim drafted a one-page memorandum to guide his unit's training which mentions "There should rarely be frontal attacks and never frontal attacks on narrow fronts. Attacks should follow hooks and come in from flank or rear, while pressure holds the enemy front." As well as emphasises the use of Infantry and tanks to recon enemy positions "Tanks can be used in almost any country except swamp. In close country they must always have infantry with them to defend and reconnoiter for them." He probably would have got behind Caen somehow.
@ If he was imaginative it clearly wasn’t in the field of strategy. In the first Burma campaign, the Japanese, having taken Rangoon, had two lines of advance into Upper Burma: the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Sittang Rivers. The former was blocked by Slim’s Burma Corps and the latter by two Chinese formations called ‘armies’, but each only equal to a British corps in manpower and vastly weaker in equipment, transport and supporting units. In addition, Slim faced only one Japanese division while the Chinese were confronted with three. Since the Chinese understandably proved unable to hold their ground, Slim’s left flank was continually open to attack. Yet Major General James Lunt in A Hell of a Licking reports that Slim declared his ‘intention to recapture Rangoon before the monsoon broke in mid-May’. Slim’s memoirs discreetly omit this, but do confirm his constant desire to counter-attack. He never seems to have realized that the further south his counter-attacks progressed, the more chance there was of his men being cut off when his left flank gave way, and the more men who took part, the more were endangered. Slim showed little more strategic imagination at later times. By the end of 1944, the massive Japanese defeats at Kohima and Imphal had been followed by still greater ones elsewhere, notably in October 1944 the titanic Battle of Leyte Gulf. In this the Japanese fleet was eliminated, ensuring their loss of the Philippines and the natural resources for which they had gone to war in the first place. After this, their army in Burma could not be strengthened but lost troops who were sent to the Pacific. In these circumstances, the strategy of Slim and the theatre’s Supreme Commander, Mountbatten, was very limited: that of ‘reaching Mandalay before the monsoon’. It was Leese, after his arrival as Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces in November 1944, who urged the much more daring and successful strategy of taking Rangoon as well. As he would write to his wife, ‘When I first came out here it was never even thought of.’ Slim never acknowledged Leese’s action”
Question: how much credit for the planning of Alam el Halfa should be given to the reviled and abrasive Colonel (?) Eric Dorman-Smith, working together with Auchinleck?
'Question: how much credit for the planning of Alam el Halfa should be given to the reviled and abrasive Colonel (?) Eric Dorman-Smith, working together with Auchinleck?' Who can say?.. THE MEMOIRS OF FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS CASSELL, LONDON 1962 P22 ‘Recently there has been discussion whether or not General Montgomery ‘adopted’ as his own the plan evolved by his predecessor for the action that was shortly to be fought - actually within a little more than a fortnight of his taking over command - in defence of the Alamein position. I cannot conceive that General Montgomery is likely to have been interested in other people’s ideas on how to run the desert war; and in my own conversation with General Auchinleck, before taking over command, there was certainly no hint of a defensive plan that at all resembled the pattern of the battle of Alam Halfa as it was actually fought. …as I have already indicated, the actual pattern of the battle was exclusively Montgomery’s.’
@@dovetonsturdee7033 No, not really. There was little done to fortify Alam Halfa Ridge, no mention of laying a minefield, no mention of the armour attacking Rommel’s suppply units, no proper co-operation with the Desrt Air Force and lots of talk of battle groups, tactical withdrawals and the battle becoming _’fluid and mobile.’_
@davidsedlickas8222 He got the job of taking over the Normandy Overlord plan and making it work, as well as being appointed as Commander in chief of all Allied land forces in France by Ike. Monty wasn't a poor general. Poor generals are men like Percival who lost Singapore to the Japanese or Hodges who threw men into meatgrinders like the Hurtgen Forest.
The Supreme Commander's job was always going to go to an American because Britain was running out of manpower by 1944 and America was going to be providing the majority of the soldiers from then on, so it was politically impossible for a British General to get the job and not any reflection of the individual commanders or their merits.
Unbearable, unbeatable and tremendously overrated. Without the resources available at the time he was in command he would have been no better than anyone else.
Actually worse but Churchill faffed around messing up the operations of two very accomplished British Officers O'Connor and Auchinleck.If this happened today with all the social media Churchill's mettling and Monty's misadventures could not be covered up
Bernard was garbage he's not studied he got schooled by Patton in Sicily. The old refrain "if the Russians had Montgomery, we'd be in Moscow" Bernard will see you in the channel for your FULL MONTY
@@bigwoody4704 If the Russians had Monty they wouldn't have lost anywhere near as many soldiers as they did. Zhukov lost over 300,000 men and 1,600 tanks in Operation Mars 1942 alone.
Rubbish! He won more, more significant battles against more of the enemy than ANY other Allied commander in the ETO, without ever losing a single one (despite what certain Hollywood movies might make you believe).
Really , a disaster who led Eighth Army in Opertion Husky ( planning of entire amphibious landing was his work by the way instead of shoddy Force 133 that distributed planned landings all over Sicily which Monty vetoed) and Italian Campaign till Sangro river and beyond , planned and commanded D-Day , Operation Overlord as overall Land Forces Commander victoriously and reached Seine river two weeks in advance than planned date and liberated entire Northern France and Belgium in one week , saved First US Army from encirclement at Battle of Bulge as overall northern flank commander and led 21st Army Group victoriously all the way to Rhine and Denmark in 1945 ?
Nonsense. Under Montgomery as C-in-C of all allied ground forces the allies were 400km ahead of schedule by the start of September 1944 and liberating Brussels Belgium when only Paris was supposed to be reached. Then Eisenhower arrogantly took over Montgomery's job of C-in-C of and got the allies stalled for the next six months, with even a retreat in the Ardennes.
A careful study of the verified historical record, shows that Churchills faith in Montgomery was misplaced and it shows that it was not Montgomery who defeated Rommel, but the Australian and New Zealanders. Misreporting of this led to the Australian PM withdrawing all their troops from North Africa. On D Day Montgomery also fluffed it with his mismanagement of the British advance towards Caen which he failed to take for a month. Patton wheeled around him and the Germans retreated. Then operation Market Garden was a complete disaster, and only 1500 troops of the 1st Airborne survived at of 12,000. Eisenhower thereafter sidelined him and never trusted him again.
@TechnikMeister2 "Patton wheeled around him and the Germans retreated.:" They only retreated because the Germans had no reserves to hold Patton back because the British and Canadians were busy tying down between 7-8 German Panzer divisions with over 600 tanks. Caen was taken on July 19th. And he wasn't sidelined either, as he took command of Operation Plunder the Rhine crossings as well as 2 US armies in the Battle of the Bulge.
'A careful study of the verified historical record, shows that Churchills faith in Montgomery was misplaced and it shows that it was not Montgomery who defeated Rommel, but the Australian and New Zealanders.' Alamein: One Australian Division One Indian Division One New Zealand Division One South African Division Seven British Divisions
I am Australian and - if anything - possibly a little biased toward giving credit to our own troops. However, to give them the credit for winning an entire battle on their own, without regard to the other troops , or the commander who put them in the right place, at the right time, with the right commands to get the job done, is more than a little “too much”. As for Caen…. Hammering your enemy on one part of the battlefield until he becomes fixated on that sector and allocates all his reserves to it - thereby weakening his forces for your breakthrough attack - is a classic piece of military strategy that goes back as for as Alexander the Great. To make this work, the objective has to be important to the enemy, and your attack has to be heavy enough to convince him that this is your main thrust. Patton’s breakthrough was made possible by Montgomery’s repeated attacks in the Caen sector, and everything we know about Montgomery says that this was deliberate.
slappies you are be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense. Bernard was an ankle biter passing himself off as a head hunter and in fact a impediment to the war effort, a prolific braggart, a ponderous foot dragger, a malevolent drag on AMERICAN supplies. No different than MacArthur ,he would have been sacked by the Wehrmacht/Americans and shot by the Russians Monty was what he was, a fraud left in place to placate the British - he couldn't direct mice in amaze. They could have put anyone there and got the same results after 41. They were all answering to the US.
Perhaps you might read an actual, authoritive, account of Market Garden, rather than basing your opinion on a seriously flawed movie, itself based on a book by a well-meaning journalist?
@@enright13 Montgomery had been involved in an earlier, smaller scale plan, Operation Comet, which was cancelled in favour of Brereton's Market Garden.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 his involvement was limited to pretty much the idea and broad outline. His 21st AG did very little wrong. It was the airborne op that failed, and that was mainly due to the Yanks.
Arnhem was planned and executed by the air and airborne forces. These were under SHAEF jurisdiction and Montgomery had no authority over them in the planning stages. Montgomery was powerless to make any decisions for the RAF, USAAF and First Allied Airborne Army.
Il generale Inglese una Nota. MEDIOCRITÀ. Che vinceva soltanto con soverchianti forze. I vittoriosi comandanti alleati:.... MONTGOMERY la Merdaccia PATTON IL. BULLO. USA. ZUKOV IL. MAIALE STALINISTA. Ecco contro chi combattevamo durante la. WW, 2.
@@johndawes9337the only part of MG planned by Brereton and Williams was the airlift, and subsequent resupply by air, of 1st Airborne Corps (MARKET) under the Operational Control of 21st Army Group. They had nothing to do with the planning of the 2nd Army’s advance (GARDEN) which was the Main Effort of MG; moreover, as soon as 1st Airborne Corps landed in came under command of the 2nd Army’. MG as a whole was proposed by 21st Army Group, approved by Eisenhower, then commanded by 21st Army Group. I’m not sure where this position on Monty originated from; it would, it would probably come as a surprise to him. He refers to ‘my plan’ for MG in his memoirs and the operation forms part of the 21st Army Group’s scheme of manoeuvre outlined in his Operational Directive M525 dated 14th September 1944. He elaborates on this in his book ‘21 Army Group: Normandy to the Baltic’ where he writes: ‘My intention now was to establish bridgeheads over the Meuse and the Rhine in readiness for the time when we could advance eastwards to occupy the Ruhr. I ordered Second Army to secure crossings over the river obstacles in the general area Graves-Nijmegen-Arnhem. I had decided upon this thrust line after a detailed study of the possible routes in the 21 Army Group sector.’
@rioamazoco Montgomery was the PLANNER of Operation Overlord and Ground Forces Commander of all allied landing forces, Patton was just a minion following his orders from Monty.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- You should have learned your history lesson better. Patton never served under Monty. He served under Anderson in Tunisia, under Alexander in Sicily and under Bradley in France and Germany.
@@rioamazoco Nope, he was under 21st Army Group in August 1944 ( which Monty commanded from June, July, August to September as Ground Forces Commander of Operation Overlord) The senior chain of command in Normandy was like this, Dempsey and Bradley were the Army commanders who took their orders from Monty the Army group commander, who took his orders from Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied commander. Monty was Pattons boss.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Patton? Deserted the battlefield during HUSKY for headlines in in the unimpotant Palermo? He then went on to physically assault Sicilian peasants, and some of his own soldiers, and thus got himself passed over for army group command? He was sidelined until the outcome of OVERLORD was no longer in doubt, and then raced through hot air across the undefended part of France, and then made a muck of the Lorraine campaign? He then raced towards Bastogne at about one mile per day, and arrived there after the German advance Westwards had been stopped. He finished the war by instigating Task Force Baum, to rescuse his son-in-law about six before the end of the war, at a cost of 288 casualties? What a CV?.. And this from a bloke who was only in the war past the point where the Grmans could no longer win, and with the German army irretrievably commited in Russia, and with that army being increasing short of manpower, supplies, and modern equipment.
My Dad fought under Gen Montgomery in Sicily & Italy (1st Canadian Armoured Brigade - Calgary Tanks), and had NOTHING BUT PRAISE for him. I didn't hear many stories about the war, but here's a short one....
General Monty was a bit of an odd duck. He was out checking out the troops one day in Italy - where the weather was SCORCHINGLY HOT. His vehicle passed a truck doing an ammunition run, and was a bit stunned to see several Canadians either loading or unloading the truck, completely NAKED - except for their boots and ...... TOP HATS.
The next day - a General Order was issued.... "TOP HATS Will NOT be worn in the British 8th Army." 🤣
Hahahahahaha
Excellent and enlightening discussion. Thank you, BFBS.
_”Nigel Hamilton’s assessment of Montgomery as ‘Master of the Battlefield’ does not seem exaggerated then. It is in fact echoed by his subordinates and staff officers. Richardson calls Montgomery ‘without a doubt a supreme master of the battlefield’. Roberts declares bluntly that no one except Montgomery could have won either Alamein or Normandy. Leese, who incidentally saw at close quarters how both Alexander and Slim won battles, considers Montgomery ‘the greatest soldier of our age’, often ‘most difficult and even exasperating’ to his equals and superiors, yet ‘as a commander to serve under on the battlefield, it’s Monty for my money any day.’”_
- Monty's Greatest Battles 1942-1945 by Adrian Stewart
Johnny good to see you're dusting off your old accounts because no one believes this one,keep scribbling your made up rot and presenting it as the authors. Which page number so we can prove your back to to scribbling nonsense
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Read THE FULL MONTY BY Hamilton,pretty bad when your biggest fanboi outs you for a creep
Or how about this john:
SIR BRIAN HORROCKS
CORPS COMMANDER
Sidgwick & Jackson
LONDON 1977
Page 216
‘The more I studied the problem the less it liked it; without going into technical details, we were not properly balanced for this task. Whilst I was thinking it over, the telephone rang and a Staff Officer from the Twenty-first Army Group said that Field Marshall Montgomery was on his way to see me. A few minutes later he entered my caravan and said, ‘Jorrocks, I am not happy about Bremen. ‘Nor am I sir’, I replied. ‘Tell me about it’, he said. So, sitting in my map lorry I described the problem to him and made certain suggestions. He said not a word until I had finished. After a short pause while he considered the problem on the map, he said, ‘We will do A, B, C, and D. ‘These four decisions were vital - and Bremen was finished.
I have deliberately mentioned this because it was typical. Montgomery was not my immediate Commander, but he always kept in such close touch with the battle that he knew when and where ‘the shoe pinched’. He then went down to see the Commander on the spot - in this case, me - and listened to what he had to say. He then made up his mind immediately. As he drove away I knew that he had probably already forgotten about Bremen and would already be considering the next problem.
That was what made him such a superb battle commander.’
@@thevillaaston7811
Yep. I read that recently in a book by Adrian Stewart on Montgomery’s battles.
Also this by John Harding:
_’Greatly as I admired Alexander and Slim, if I had to go to war again, I would sooner go under a plan prepared and conducted by Montgomery than by anybody else who lived through either war.’_
Wonderful presentation and production. Montgomery was a born soldier. One can imagine Churchill doing many things but not Monty who was utterly single minded. Great series so far😂
My father remembered a passing-out patade at Eaton Hall, where Monty said: "we all respect leaders who are heroic: I want you to be leaders who make it unnecessary [by out-thinking the enemy]."
That’s very wise! Personally I kind of feel like the whole reason the modern Western theory of warfare even exists is basically this principle. Because it underpins everything we do.
There is supposedly a comparison made between Rommel and Montgomery… It being said that in an emergency, Rommel would always be there. Montgomery made sure that there were no emergencies.
I think the best quote I heard to sum up Monty was ''not as good as he said, but a lot better than his detractors say''.
Just that!
Monty's memoirs are the greatest work of fiction since chaste and fidelity were added to the French marriage vows
This is turning out to be a great series. Thanks BFBS!
Excellent well informed video. Thank you.
I maintain that his siege of Caen helped American forces clear the western areas of Normandy. Monty kept crack Panzer units pinned down, and unable to counter the Americans.
A true leader
I cannot imagine the effect of laying out in No-Man's Land with a serious wound, and a dead medic laying on top of him all day must have had on Monty; he must have been seriously damaged mentally.
Normandy casualties: Germany: 320,000 USA: 135,000 UK: 65,000 Canada: 18,000 France (civilians): 12,000
The figures speak for themselves I guess.
According to the National Army Museum in London, German losses in France 1944 were at least 400,000.
@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- mind blowing numbers in both world wars.
As an Australian familiar with MacArthur’s role - and behaviour - in the SW Pacific, it would be easy to see the American High Command as intensely competitive and political…. and that would go a long way to explain the American distaste for Montgomery.
He was almost as arrogant as they were. 😂
(Ok, Ike being an obvious exception. 👍)
The Australian Spitfire ace Gordon Olive fought in the Battle of Britain (his "Spitfire Ace" is a very good book, by the way). Later, when he returned to Austrlia, he disliked the attitude of the US High Command and its attitude to Australian soldiers (some of the very best of WW2). I think it's safe to say they weren't very humble.
The preparations prior to the D Day landing were amazing, done without the Germans realising which beaches were to be taken. The mine clearance, the nautical signage laid. All quietly done.
Montgomery was unquestionably the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 by some way. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander in WW2. Thus is fact.
What other rare gems have you mined for the comment section today you poltroon?
Brooke had stated many times that Monty was out selling himself to others- adrift in twaddle & nonsense. What Lincon said about McClellan applies to monty - *“If he had a million men he would swear the enemy has two million, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three.”*
You imperial peddler have an amazing capacity to talk tripe,denial it seems is a British trait. You are be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense. With out the USA or Russia monty was Dunkirked - RUNAWAY seems to be a Monty thing
Lyndon
As we all (Except Para Dave) know, Alanbrooke saw Alexander and Montgomery in the thick of it in France in 1940, already knowing that they, like him had been in action in the First World War, and therefore that they would keep their nerve when things got rough.
I wonder what the US General Marshall found out about Eisenhower, Bradley, and Devers, as they organized train loads of paper clips, a mere 3,000 miles from the nearest enemy.
@@thevillaaston7811Just for once, I'd like any Montgomery detractor to factually tell me who won more battles, took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than Montgomery, out of all the western allied ground commanders. I've yet to hear any of these muppets even begin to try and refute facts.
4,000km through 8 countries while facing dozens of quality German divisions.
Nobody even comes close.
Dunkirked RUNAWAY,better call the Yanks - you're welcome tinkerbell.Maybe Father Christmas will get burns and you out of the home for the Holidays
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(Lyndon)
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Get a life already
@@lyndoncmp5751
This General this, that General something else seems to be an American thing, judging by what can be seen and heard on TH-cam. Compare the number of TH-cam comments by Americans about Montgomery with comments by Britons on items about the likes of Eisenhower, Bradley, Bradley’s subordinate, Patton, and others.
Perhaps its all that they got in regard to the war? After all, the USA was not in the war until after Germany and Italy could longer win. Japan could never have won. Their homeland was 3,000 miles plus from any hint of danger. They have no Battle of Britain, or Stalingrad. Their troops faced danger at the front, but so did the troops of every other country involved. Britain, Canada, and Russia mobilized more of their respective populations. Even their production figures have to be set against the fact that the USA is one largest countries in the world, it has an abundance of raw materials, not a single enemy aircraft dropped a bomb on the US mainland. Relative to its circumstances, Britain’s war production effort was far more impressive. Probably, the war production figures for Canada, and of Russia, was also more impressive.
Maybe, Americans think that comparing this General to that General, and so on, somehow evens up the score? Who can say?..
How could Monty in the hour of careless talk costs lives declare,
“We are drawing the Panzer Devisions (7?,) on Caan, withdrawal then destroy.”
Why would he say that at any time?
Because it was part of the plan
They all knew the plan
It all takes time to eventually leave space for a breakout
Discretion is the better part of valour
The irony lies in the accusations of ego against a man who deliberately left himself open to criticism, because it was the right thing to do.
A reference to this hour of careless talk declaration would be much appreciated, there’s a good chap, chin chin.
@ in Bernard Montgomerys own autobiography
Thank you for asking
Glad to help anytime
I mean at the time overlord was on going
a public rebuttal, about what was happening in Caan
Wouldn’t have been a sensible thing to do
Too reveal the master plan: through careless talk; like mine
So help me
@@henrycastle1 Erhhhh WHEN did Montgomery write his biography ?
well done. Thanks. !!
Tedder was not intelligent enough as he finished his eduction with a lower second at Cambridge, Eisenhower was just a politician who had an affair with a junior officer, Leigh-Mallory was a back stabber who warned against the air drops the night before the operation was launched, Montgomery was a prima donna and lacked any personal charm, Bradley was dull and without imagination, Ramsey retired before the war and was too old and Smith was just a factotum of Eisenhower.
Yet somehow, these men planned the landing in Normandy as good as can be reasonably expected. Either the armchair generals that I’ve quoted are not very smart or they are missing the point or both.
they must have had their talents. At least Eisenhower showed it by being a great president.
@@marcel-y8c Did you read my full message? :)
Tedder rose to the top for a reason unlike your family tree or Monty
Thank you
I don't think that Monty had any choice over Arnhaim, I think that the decision to go came from Washington due to the first V2 attack. I know there is little evidence to back up my theory but Washington expected the Germans to mount, if not an atomic warhead, then a dirty warhead. Interestingly, none of the American generals blame Monty for its failure, they fall out later when Monty speaks to the press.
They fell out later because Montgomery's words in the press conference during the Bulge were heavily cherry picked and edited, and more than a few were humiliated that Montgomery had to come down and organise and command the battle for them. That was the real reason. These same people never praised or even acknowledged that Montgomery helped them tremendously.
Monty was a genius. Anyone else in human history with his tactlessness could never have remained alive more than a few minutes, but he did! No colleague of his could ever have been criticised had they shot him in anger.
I wouldn't go so far as to describe Montgomery as a 'genius.' Certainly not at the level of Marlborough, but I have never understand why commentators, predominantly American, constantly insult him for his cautious approach. Had I been on the front line at, for example, Second Alamein (as my father was), I would have been reassured by a General who made sure of his superiority in intelligence, numbers, equipment, and logistics before beginning a battle.
I appreciate that, of course, this doesn't look quite so exciting in a movie.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 I'd say Monty was good at Strategy, Logistics and Operations.
For Tactics and Manuever, the best British generals at that level were Marlborough, Wellington, Slim, O'Connor, McCreery.
@dovetonsturdee7033
Anyone who correctly predicted El Alamein to last around 2 weeks and Normandy to last around 3 months, as Montgomery did, is a genius in my view. He also correctly predicted in August 1944 the war would not be over that year after Eisenhower decided on the broad front strategy.
Montgomery has never taken a hurried step in his life. He was slow in North Africa, schooled by Patton in Sicily, dithered in Italy and recalled before embarrassing himself any further, he then got stuck for 43 days @ Caen. He moved so slow at Falaise it allowed the German forces to escape complete encirclement prolonging the war by several months. And he didn't have the cajones to show up at Market Garden - after demanding it. He planned OMG while ignoring to open up the Port of Antwerp, then disappeared when the pathetic plan unraveled. Monty was only able to win El Halfa because of the intercepted Enigma codes and the RAF/RN routing the Germans supply.
Monty was caught many times changing stories depending the out come. IKE left the decision to Monty since he pushed for this decacle. When his exulted expedition came to a screeching halt 3 miles from the start at the Belgian Border. Then only made 7 miles the 1st day, that slouching impediment Bernard ignored all sorts of intelligence, then got scarce and stayed at his mobile caravan 60 miles away. During the battle there are pictures of him playing with his bunnies, birdies & puppies - seriously. He would have been sacked in Germany and shot in Russia
Bradley,A Generals Life,Page 299 Gen Bradley wrote "the news of the German escape from the Falaise Gap was a shattering disappointment - one of my greatest of the war.a golden opportunity had truly been lost.I boiled inside,blaming Monty for the blunder".
As Omar Bradley said, "Montgomery rarely won a battle any other competent general wouldn't have won as well or better."Montgomery was not only famously insensitive and deliberately insulting to his brothers in arms, but he was capable of outright lies if he thought it would elevate him above potential rivals"
Uploaded 11 minutes ago and already two _bot_ comments.
Waiting for the American armchair generals to arrive to explain to a former Chief of Defense Staff how wrong he is in his assessment of Montgomery.
Bernard Law Montgomery - Military History - Oxford Bibliographies
"The National Army Museum conducted a poll in 2011 to determine Britain’s greatest general. Montgomery’s name was not among the finalists."
@@nickdanger3802 Erwin Rommel - "Once Monty arrived, the war in the desert stopped being a game:"
Gerd Von Rundstedt - "Generals are like race horses, they are supposed to win, and montgomery won most of the time"
Friedrich Von Mellenthin - "Montgomery is undoubtably a great tactician- circumspect and thorough in making his plans, utterly ruthless in carrying them out. He brought a new spirit to Eighth Army, and illustrated once again the vital importance of personal leadership in war.”
Günther Blumentritt - "Field Marshal Montgomery was the one general who never suffered a reverse”.
Hasso Von Manteuffel - "The operations of the American 1st Army has 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”.
@@nickdanger3802 a poll HAHAHA ..have you been polled nick. if so who polled you?
According to this video Slim was Britain’s best General. Yet:
Philip ‘Pip’ Roberts had this to say:
_’I should like to close my reminiscences with a tribute to Monty. _*_I do not believe there was anyone else at the time who could have won Alamein; I do not say that if we and lost Alamein we would have lost the war but it would certainly have prolonged it…..And then it is my view that no-one else could have won the invasion in Normandy;_*_ there were some setbacks, but the Seine was reached on the day he said it would be, and that made certain they the war in Europe would be won.’_
Slim had several failed attacks to his name. Montgomery never had a failure - never.
In November 1940 Brigadier Slim, as he then was, was instructed to capture the Sudanese frontier fort of Gallabat that had been taken by the Italians and Metemma, the corresponding Italian fort in Abyssinia. He did recapture Gallabat, but his advance on Metemma was repulsed amid some panic; the Italians then drove him out of Gallabat as well. In March 1942, Lieutenant General Slim commanded Burma Corps-two infantry divisions and an armoured brigade-opposed by a single Japanese division, but he suffered a series of defeats ending only in May with the flight of his remaining troops into India.
The Japanese were formidable soldiers. Slim called the Japanese ‘the most formidable fighting insects in the world’ and it is often assumed that they were the most dangerous of all opponents. Ronald Lewin, however, in Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story, specifically compares them with the SS formations in Normandy and rates these ‘even more formidable’. They certainly had better equipment. The soldiers advancing on
Mandalay encountered just thirteen obsolescent light tanks-promptly wiped out by anti-tank Hurricanes-but those advancing on Caen faced from 520 to 725 tanks that were far from obsolescent.
Indeed, before examining Montgomery’s offensive battles it is worth considering the difficulties he faced. He did have a superiority in numbers, though nothing like as great as that enjoyed by Slim or, for that matter, by Auchinleck in the battles of July 1942. On the other hand, he fought very capable enemies: the SS troops and parachutists in North-West Europe and Panzerarmee Afrika in the desert. He often had to overcome strong, skilfully prepared fixed defences and always had to cope with weapons of similar or superior quality; principally tanks, anti-tank guns and mortars.
In addition, Montgomery was opposed by enemy commanders of a very high standard. Slim did not have the same problem, for the best Japanese generals were not wasted on a sideshow like Burma but were in the Philippines, Iwo Jima or Okinawa.
He was up against Rommel in North Africa from Alam Halfa to Medenine and the list of his opponents in North-West Europe is an impressive one: Rommel, von Rundstedt, Model, Kesselring, Student, von Manteuffel and several others of only slightly lesser ability.
Slim’s twin victories of Kohima and Imphal really were great ones. While Fourteenth Army had fewer than 17,000 casualties, the Japanese had 53,000 that could never be replaced and so ensured a subsequent British reconquest of Burma. The Japanese, however, were very inferior in numbers of men, artillery, armour-only fifteen Japanese tanks appeared and these of inferior quality-and in the air. They were also desperately short of ammunition, medical supplies and even food. Yet the battles were won only after savage struggles of attrition lasting from early March to early July 1944 and compared by participants on both sides to the brutal conflicts of the First World War. That emphasizes the courage and tenacity displayed by British, Indians and Japanese alike-Bose’s double-deserters dishonourably excepted-but would not normally be regarded as a tribute to the generalship on either side.
Compare the generalship shown in Montgomery’s defensive battles. At Alam Halfa with the two sides nearer to an even balance than at any other time and the enemy possessing superior tanks and anti-tank guns, Montgomery won by a combination of determination and flexibility plus an admirable use of his supporting air power. The same qualities won the Ardennes Battle. Medenine, on the other hand, was a deliberate attempt to trap and destroy German armour: a new concept that a desert veteran like Kippenberger could call a ‘masterpiece’.”
Slim never carried out an amphibious landing; those in Burma were executed by Lieutenant General Christison, including the one in May 1945 that led to the capture of Rangoon before the Fourteenth Army could reach it. It can’t however however, in difficulty or importance can be ranked equal to Montgomery’s achievement as ‘NEPTUNE’s general’, as Ronald Lewin called Montgomery.
If Slim was imaginative it was clearly not in the field of strategy. In the first Burma campaign, the Japanese, having taken Rangoon, had two lines of advance into Upper Burma: the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Sittang Rivers. The former was blocked by Slim’s Burma Corps and the latter by two Chinese formations called ‘armies’, but each only equal to a British corps in manpower and vastly weaker in equipment, transport and supporting units. In addition, Slim faced only one Japanese division while the Chinese were confronted with three.
Since the Chinese understandably proved unable to hold their ground, Slim’s left flank was continually open to attack. Yet Major General James Lunt in A Hell of a Licking reports that Slim declared his ‘intention to recapture Rangoon before the monsoon broke in mid-May’. Slim’s memoirs discreetly omit this, but do confirm his constant desire to counter-attack. He never seems to have realized that the further south his counter-attacks progressed, the more chance there was of his men being cut off when his left flank gave way, and the more men who took part, the more were endangered.
Slim showed little more strategic imagination at later times. By the end of 1944, shattering Japanese defeats at Kohima and Imphal had been followed by still greater ones elsewhere, notably in October 1944 the titanic Battle of Leyte Gulf. In this the Japanese fleet was eliminated, ensuring their loss of the Philippines and the natural resources for which they had gone to war in the first place. After this, their army in Burma could not be strengthened but lost troops who were sent to the Pacific.
In these circumstances, the strategy of Slim and the theatre’s Supreme Commander, Mountbatten, was very limited: that of ‘reaching Mandalay before the monsoon’. It was Leese, after his arrival as Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces in November 1944, who urged the much more daring and successful strategy of taking Rangoon as well. As he would write to his wife, ‘When I first came out here it was never even thought of.’ Slim never acknowledged Leese’s action
never had a failure ... Operation Market-Garden?
@@philipmoores4094
Market Garden was not a defeat. It took 100km of German held ground. The Germans retreated and lost Eindhoven and Nijmegen. The allies later used Nijmegen to attack into Germany.
Only Arnhem was a defeat but technically this was an all air operation. Planned by the air forces.
Montgomery had no jurisdiction to order First Allied Airborne Army and RAF to accept his suggestions and they didn’t. Montgomery argued for double missions flown on day one, for closer drops to Arnhem and for coup de mains on the bridges. The air commanders refused all of this. Consequently, Arnhem was not Montgomery’s battle to lose technically speaking. Deep down he may have felt the same way.
It was planned mainly by the Air Force commanders, Brereton and Williams of the USAAF, though I’m not letting Hollinghurst of the RAF off here. His decision not to fly closer to Arnhem doomed 1st Airborne.
It was Bereton and Williams who:
♦ decided that there would be drops spread over three days, defeating the object of para jumps by losing all surprise, which is their major asset.
♦ rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-day on the Pegasus Bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet.
♦ chose the drop and and landing zones so far from the Bridges.
♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to take on the flak positions and attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports, thereby allowing them to bring in reinforcements with impunity.
♦Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of “possible flak.“
@@johnpeate4544 It was a defeat, but not as big as people make out, I would say it was a tactical defeat but with strategic gains ie Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Grave, Heumen, 6 bridges taken etc.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-
Arnhem wasn’t really Montgomery’s battle to loose, not technically speaking. Like I said he had no jurisdiction over the air forces and couldn’t contest their decisions though he tried.
The Allied command saw MG as partially successful I think. They took 60 miles of enemy held territory and a couple of important bridges.
From Operation Victory by MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FRANCIS DEGUINGAND, (Page 419)
_’It is interesting to consider how far we failed in this operation. It should be remembered that the Arnhem bridgehead was only a part of the whole. We had gained a great deal in spite of this local set-back. The Nijmegen bridge was ours, and it proved of immense value later on. And the brilliant advance by 30th Corps led the way to the liberation of a large part of Holland, not to speak of providing a stepping stone to the successful battles of the Rhineland.'_
General G.G. Simonds, in command of II Canadian Corps, issued a directive shortly before the Canadians moved into the Salient:
_’The Nijmegen bridgehead is the most important pieceof soil along the front of 21st Army Group. Here we hold the only bridge across the main course of the Rhine. If the Germans accept a decision west of the Rhine, the eastern face of the Nijmegen bridgehead between the Meuse and the Rhine forms a base through which an attack can be launched against the northern flank of the German battle line. If the Germans withdraw to the east bank of the Rhine, the Nijmegen bridgehead forms a base from which an assault across the Neder Rijn turns the main course of the Rhine itself._
_Military bridging of the lower course of the Rhine is a doubtful possibility under winter conditions. Therefore, the Nijmegen bridge is of the greatest importance to us and must be protected against all forms of attack.’_
The Germans never saw it as a failure. General Kurt Student, in a statement after the war actually considered the Market Garden Operation to have been proved to be a great success. At one stroke it brought the British 2nd Army into the possession of the vital bridges and valuable territory. The conquest of the Nijmegen area meant the creation of a good jumping board for the offensive which contributed to the end of the war, the Allies later using Nijmegen to launch Operation Veritable and advance into Germany.
_The loss of the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen were was a great embarrassment to us” said General von Zangen of Fifteenth Army._
_By capturing them the Allies forced us to remain on the defensive in this area in order to prevent this bulge from growing. We were never able to assemble enough troops for a serious counter-attack to retake Antwerp.’_
-Defeat in the West by Milton Shulman
The German High Command under Model regarded the allied bridgehead north of the Waal River as a severe threat. They feared that the allies could still use the area as a springboard to the north to cut off the German Fifteenth Army in the western part of Holland and threaten the plains of North-Western Germany. For Model it was imperative to recapture the ground they had lost in the Betuwe in order to restore the situation by acting quickly, before the allied front had settled. Model, therefore ordered Obergruppenführer Wilhelmina Bitterch, of II SS-Panzer Corps, to destroy the allies between the Nederrijn and Waal by coordinated armour and infantry attacks from the north and east.
Horrocks’s XXX corps (two divisions) defended the liberated area against two SS Panzerkorps and Fallschirmkorps - a total of six divisions (though understrength) - and came out victorious. 9th SS Panzer Division “Hohenstaufen” lost almost all its fighting vehicles.
Hitler, in a special Fuhrer Directive issued on 25 September, had personally ordered the destruction of the allies in the Nijmegen - Arnhem area. On the news of the failure of its destruction during its capture by the allies Hitler ordered an inquiry.
It’s strange how strategic successes like Epsom and Goodwood are written off as tactical defeats/failures while when talking about Market Garden, which took 60 miles of enemy held territory, the critics of Montgomery will never fail to point out that it failed to obtain its objective which was a bridgehead over the Rhine.
@@johnpeate4544 A partial victory I guess.
General Richards is impressive glad we are still producing generals like him
Only Allied general whom I call professional and earned every bit of respect from his subordinates and lower ranks. Whatever his personality faults and quirks and inability to socilise , he knew the army he served and commanded and got as much efficiency as he could in his operations to conclude his campaigns successfully. He was not flamboyant for public spectacle but his single minded obsession to win battles , conclude the operations he led successfully with as low casaulty as possible and finish the campaigns victoriously , even willing to oppose his superiors for those principles , are today lacking in similar higher ranks
Eclipsed by Bill Slim in Burma! Most thinking historians today realise that Slim did far more with far less than Monty - but his theatre of operations was so far from Europe both him and his men were truly the Forgotten Army! Slim deserved more recognition and many agree that he was the best General Britain produced in WW2.
@@brettcurtis5710 Both Slim and Monty shared an emphasis on training and logistics, as far back as Wellington the British Army has generally taken the attitude that the side with better logistics and better trained troops will win 9 times out of 10 and the rest of the details will take care of themselves. Although as a Tactician, Slim was probably the better of the two, but i'd say in planning and strategy they were equally matched.
The 8th army didn't need to do excersizes in the desert,they'd been fighting there 2 yrs already under better commanders O'Connor and Auchinlech
@brettcurtis5710 In his China Burma India Theater yes but in Burma , Slim was defeated twice very badly in when he lost Burma in 1942 and his Arakan Offensive collapsed on 1943. He learned from his mistakes and landed a knock out blow in Japanese Imphal - Kohima offensive which was stupidly waged and extended by Japanese generals with catastrophic Japanese losses. After that , main obstacle for Slim and his Forgotten Army was distances to cross over and geopraphy featutes like vast Irrewady river rather than Japanese resistance when main Japanese field armies were mauled in Imphal and Kohima and rest were devoid of resources and supplies and reinforcements since all were going to halt US advance in Pacific or to China for U-Go offensive. Montgomery's situation in Europe where Germans held vast and in depth defences and waged active defence and offensive operations with their main industrial bases for war production close by and Germans held main communication and transport resources for fast movement and deployment like French railways and German autobahns and a huge portion of German wartime resources and German tanks , AT tanks and operational tactics and leadership available to counter Monty and they were way better than charging Japanese. Slim never had to face those conditions since he was trained to wage war in Southeast Asia not in Africa or Europe
@@bigwoody4704 Just before his death even Gott admitted the Eighth army needed somebody 'new' A great deal of the lack of trust was down to the political interference in operational matters.
Continuation: Dorman-Smith was effectively airbrushed out of history, possibly because, at Sandhurst, he was heard to say, “Montgomery takes a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.
Really? At Sandhurst? When did he, allegedly, say that?
@ I think I read it in Dorman-Smith’s biography (possibly called “Chink”). Is there reason to doubt it? When Churchill published Montgomery’s assessment of the Auchinlek-Dorman-Smith team, Dorman Smith successfully sued him (Churchill) for libel. Part of Monty’s mission to claim all credit for himself was to discredit others, often quite unfairly. However, Monty was loved by his men, which Dorman-Smith, being less of a showman, never was.
@@colingibson7324 As far as I know, he was never at Sandhurst during the Montgomery ascendancy.
@ Possibly Montgomery was at Sandhurst on different occasions. Maybe it was said somewhere else, but it seems to me entirely believable that ‘Chink’ disparaged ‘Monty’ in this way, and that he suffered the consequences.
Dorman-Smith’s battalion commanders refused to serve under him in Italy and he was declared unfit for brigade command.
_He really was as near being a lunatic as you can get,’_ Major-General Oswald, another staff officer at divisional and then army level at the time, remarked.
The fog of war. The morale of the soldiers mattered the most. Propoganda can influence soldiers when they experience defeat after defeat. General slim had such a army and he and Mountbatten turned it around.
All those in charge recognised the supernatural element in the sucess of D Day
Montgomery. Met his
Teacher. Of what planning for what lay
ahead where as
General. Patton and
Bradley. May be looked upon. These 2
Were noted to be always out in front of
His Soldiers his speech before it was time to teach those
What a real Soldier is like.
a word salad
joehagen8854
ROTFL
The Title is in itself deceptive. Others below him, with both their experience or inexperience in warfare, may well have influenced the resulting opinion by either actions or inaction that he endorsed that were never executed.
None of these men were great commanders. Things were not equal in most battles. The side with the most forces usually won. The only thing they did great at was intelligence.
And….Logistics.
Montgomery defeated Rommel at Alam el Halfa when force ratios were more or less the same.
Did Montgomery have a good chiefs of staff? I tend to think of later armies requiring a leader and a manager, such as Napoleon and Berthier or Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Did Monty just do everything or was there a subordinate he relied on?
His Chief of Staff was Major-General Sir Francis De Guingand from 1942- 1945, who was generally acknowledged to be highly competent and liked by the US Generals.
@@Bloodnok49 Interesting - thanks!
He had an excellent Chief of Staff Freddie de Guingand who steered his chief right way and making up his mistakes whenever he made them.
@@Bloodnok49Montgomery was liked by more American generals than not. It's just that the minority whined the loudest.
At about 8:55 "Put Sir in and you can say anything" ...
not too many of us could be legends in our own mind.
Montgomery was the most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander. That's historical reality not in the mind. Montgomery even had to go down and command the American forces in the Battle of the Bulge for them.
Hardly unbeatable... Market Garden, failure to close the Fasise gap, lack of response during the Battle of the Bulge. Good officer, motivator, good with the press. He is comparable to the US General MacArthur.
@JamesBrooke-co7od Market Garden was still a better campaign than the Hurtgen Forest one.
In the Falaise Gap Bradley was more concerned that the Germans would simply roll right over Patton and flatten him if he blocked their escape from Normandy. He put it best in his memoirs preferring *"A hard shoulder at Argentan to a broken neck at Falaise"* Given that the German Army was moving units back inside the pocket to help the mob escape it was a reasonable decision. Despite that, the Germans still lost 60,000 men and 344 tanks.
Lack of response? Yet Monty took command of BOTH the US 9th and US 1st army on the Northern Flank on December 19th under Eisenhower's orders.
Market Garden was actually the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. Nearly 100km of German held ground taken in just 3 days.
Only Arnhem was a defeat but that was purely an air forces and airborne planned and executed battle. Montgomery had no jurisdiction to make the decisions for Arnhem. It was under SHAEF.
A glorious past of British empire however Hitler tried to change the geopolitical landscape. Historical facts. Azeem Baloch
What about Market Garden a Bridge too Far
what about it?
Market Garden was the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. Compare it to the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine failures at the same time.
I think Eisenhower should have planned D Day and left the Brits to jog on after them making tea. Anyone know why Eisenhower wasn’t land force commander for D Day ???
'Anyone know why Eisenhower wasn’t land force commander for D Day ???'
Perhaps because Eisenhower had made a muck of the land campaign in Tunisia, and the invasion of Italy, and because he did even have a single day of personal combat experience to his name?
Who can say?..
@ Stephen Ambrose ?
@@californiadreamin8423 Ambrose the plagiarist? The man who lied for a living? ................. Historian David Greenberg stated in 2015 that Ambrose's "wanton acts of plagiarism and the posthumous revelation that he fabricated interviews with Dwight Eisenhower have rendered his work unusable"...................yep that liar!
Eisenhower wasn't Ground Forces Commander for D-Day because Eisenhower had absolute no experiance whatsoever as a field commander at any level. He was a career staff officer who never even personally saw combat let alone command even a company in battle.
Montgomery was chosen because he the most proven winner the Western Allies had at the time. Whether you think it the right or wrong choice doesn't change the fact that there was no better qualified candidate.
@@11nytram11 My original post was tongue in cheek. After my father passed away , I continued reading widely as he had, about where he had been. I realised quickly that if I read about Montgomery and Spike Milligan, it gave me a picture of where he had been. France, Dunkerque, North Africa and Italy , with only a Red Cross armband and stretcher for defence. D-Day onwards he missed being otherwise occupied in Anzio and then the Gothic line.
The view of Montgomery, particularly in the US , nearly always appears to be about prestige, and scapegoating him, hides lots of unnecessary deaths due to …underestimating the Germans.
Monty lacked even an ounce of humility
or ability he got many men killed and didn't GAF.
@@bigwoody4704 Got many men killed? Woody slow down for a second, please just examine his casualties compared to his opponents below....
In his first performance at Dunkirk, his handling of the 3rd Infantry division during the retreat was outstanding. By the end of the campaign he had got his division back to Britain in such good order, that it was the only division from the BEF to be considered fully combat effective immediately after Dunkirk.
At Alam El Halfa, his Eighth Army took 1,700 casualties, the Afrika Corps had 2,900.
At 2nd El Alamein, his Eighth Army took 13,000 casualties, the Afrika Corps had 73,000.
At Medinine his Eighth Army lost 130 men, the Afrika Corps lost 635.
At the Mareth Line, once again his Eighth Army took less losses than the Africa Korps with 4,000 casualties compared to 7,000. In France during the Battle of Caen the British 2nd Army and 1st Canadian Army took around 50,000 casualties, the Germans took around 158,000.
In Operation Veritable, his 21st Army Group took 15,000 casualties, the Germans 44,000 casualties.
In the crossing of the Rhine in Operation Plunder his 21st Army Group took 6,700 casualties the Germans 16,000 casualties.
In Market Garden the Allies suffered 17,000 casualties, the Germans 30,000 casualties.
@@bigwoody4704 you describe patton too a tee Boy
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- I fear you are wasting you time. Woody is a Montgomery obsessive.
funny I just respond to all the same slappies blowing bernard's horn - If I'm obssessed it's with the truth, that your creeps with crown certainly don't want told
Monty,????? Slim he was the real deal, not Monty
You know this because?
because he much smarter and better read than you lil' villa
Monty could have done what Slim did. I don’t think Slim could have done what Monty did.
@@johnpeate4544 I wouldn't be so sure of that John, Slim was quite the imaginative commander. Operation Extended capital shows this.
He also installed the German "Mission Command" doctrine into his 14th Army, he would have done something similar with 21st Army Group in France I think.
Slim drafted a one-page memorandum to guide his unit's training which mentions
"There should rarely be frontal attacks and never frontal attacks on narrow fronts. Attacks should follow hooks and come in from flank or rear, while pressure holds the enemy front."
As well as emphasises the use of Infantry and tanks to recon enemy positions
"Tanks can be used in almost any country except swamp. In close country they must always have infantry with them to defend and reconnoiter for them."
He probably would have got behind Caen somehow.
@
If he was imaginative it clearly wasn’t in the field of strategy. In the first Burma campaign, the Japanese, having taken Rangoon, had two lines of advance into Upper Burma: the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Sittang Rivers. The former was blocked by Slim’s Burma Corps and the latter by two Chinese formations called ‘armies’, but each only equal to a British corps in manpower and vastly weaker in equipment, transport and supporting units. In addition, Slim faced only one Japanese division while the Chinese were confronted with three.
Since the Chinese understandably proved unable to hold their ground, Slim’s left flank was continually open to attack. Yet Major General James Lunt in A Hell of a Licking reports that Slim declared his ‘intention to recapture Rangoon before the monsoon broke in mid-May’. Slim’s memoirs discreetly omit this, but do confirm his constant desire to counter-attack. He never seems to have realized that the further south his counter-attacks progressed, the more chance there was of his men being cut off when his left flank gave way, and the more men who took part, the more were endangered.
Slim showed little more strategic imagination at later times. By the end of 1944, the massive Japanese defeats at Kohima and Imphal had been followed by still greater ones elsewhere, notably in October 1944 the titanic Battle of Leyte Gulf. In this the Japanese fleet was eliminated, ensuring their loss of the Philippines and the natural resources for which they had gone to war in the first place. After this, their army in Burma could not be strengthened but lost troops who were sent to the Pacific. In these circumstances, the strategy of Slim and the theatre’s Supreme Commander, Mountbatten, was very limited: that of ‘reaching Mandalay before the monsoon’. It was Leese, after his arrival as Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces in November 1944, who urged the much more daring and successful strategy of taking Rangoon as well. As he would write to his wife, ‘When I first came out here it was never even thought of.’ Slim never acknowledged Leese’s action”
Question: how much credit for the planning of Alam el Halfa should be given to the reviled and abrasive Colonel (?) Eric Dorman-Smith, working together with Auchinleck?
'Question: how much credit for the planning of Alam el Halfa should be given to the reviled and abrasive Colonel (?) Eric Dorman-Smith, working together with Auchinleck?'
Who can say?..
THE MEMOIRS OF FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS
CASSELL, LONDON 1962
P22
‘Recently there has been discussion whether or not General Montgomery ‘adopted’ as his own the plan evolved by his predecessor for the action that was shortly to be fought - actually within a little more than a fortnight of his taking over command - in defence of the Alamein position.
I cannot conceive that General Montgomery is likely to have been interested in other people’s ideas on how to run the desert war; and in my own conversation with General Auchinleck, before taking over command, there was certainly no hint of a defensive plan that at all resembled the pattern of the battle of Alam Halfa as it was actually fought.
…as I have already indicated, the actual pattern of the battle was exclusively Montgomery’s.’
Major General, not Colonel.
Very little
@@johnpeate4544 Actually, compare The Auk's outline for what became Alam Halfa, and the actual battle, and there are considerable similarities.
@@dovetonsturdee7033
No, not really. There was little done to fortify Alam Halfa Ridge, no mention of laying a minefield, no mention of the armour attacking Rommel’s suppply units, no proper co-operation with the Desrt Air Force and lots of talk of battle groups, tactical withdrawals and the battle becoming _’fluid and mobile.’_
Poor general.
Hence didn't get a supreme commander job for D-Day landings
@davidsedlickas8222 He got the job of taking over the Normandy Overlord plan and making it work, as well as being appointed as Commander in chief of all Allied land forces in France by Ike. Monty wasn't a poor general. Poor generals are men like Percival who lost Singapore to the Japanese or Hodges who threw men into meatgrinders like the Hurtgen Forest.
The Supreme Commander's job was always going to go to an American because Britain was running out of manpower by 1944 and America was going to be providing the majority of the soldiers from then on, so it was politically impossible for a British General to get the job and not any reflection of the individual commanders or their merits.
Unbearable, unbeatable and tremendously overrated. Without the resources available at the time he was in command he would have been no better than anyone else.
Actually worse but Churchill faffed around messing up the operations of two very accomplished British Officers O'Connor and Auchinleck.If this happened today with all the social media Churchill's mettling and Monty's misadventures could not be covered up
@@bigwoody4704 Who would you rather serve under Monty or Zhukov?
@@bigwoody4704 you have never answered the question. so i will ask again..who was a more successful general than Montgomery in the M/ETO ?
Bernard was garbage he's not studied he got schooled by Patton in Sicily. The old refrain "if the Russians had Montgomery, we'd be in Moscow"
Bernard will see you in the channel for your FULL MONTY
@@bigwoody4704 If the Russians had Monty they wouldn't have lost anywhere near as many soldiers as they did.
Zhukov lost over 300,000 men and 1,600 tanks in Operation Mars 1942 alone.
Bouica. There is no hard factual evidence that this queen existed.
Monty good in the desert but a disaster when he left the desert.
Rubbish! He won more, more significant battles against more of the enemy than ANY other Allied commander in the ETO, without ever losing a single one (despite what certain Hollywood movies might make you believe).
Really , a disaster who led Eighth Army in Opertion Husky ( planning of entire amphibious landing was his work by the way instead of shoddy Force 133 that distributed planned landings all over Sicily which Monty vetoed) and Italian Campaign till Sangro river and beyond , planned and commanded D-Day , Operation Overlord as overall Land Forces Commander victoriously and reached Seine river two weeks in advance than planned date and liberated entire Northern France and Belgium in one week , saved First US Army from encirclement at Battle of Bulge as overall northern flank commander and led 21st Army Group victoriously all the way to Rhine and Denmark in 1945 ?
Nonsense. Under Montgomery as C-in-C of all allied ground forces the allies were 400km ahead of schedule by the start of September 1944 and liberating Brussels Belgium when only Paris was supposed to be reached.
Then Eisenhower arrogantly took over Montgomery's job of C-in-C of and got the allies stalled for the next six months, with even a retreat in the Ardennes.
< 4
my granpa served under him in north africa.. lets just say he wasnt a fan.
A careful study of the verified historical record, shows that Churchills faith in Montgomery was misplaced and it shows that it was not Montgomery who defeated Rommel, but the Australian and New Zealanders. Misreporting of this led to the Australian PM withdrawing all their troops from North Africa.
On D Day Montgomery also fluffed it with his mismanagement of the British advance towards Caen which he failed to take for a month. Patton wheeled around him and the Germans retreated.
Then operation Market Garden was a complete disaster, and only 1500 troops of the 1st Airborne survived at of 12,000. Eisenhower thereafter sidelined him and never trusted him again.
@TechnikMeister2 "Patton wheeled around him and the Germans retreated.:"
They only retreated because the Germans had no reserves to hold Patton back because the British and Canadians were busy tying down between 7-8 German Panzer divisions with over 600 tanks. Caen was taken on July 19th.
And he wasn't sidelined either, as he took command of Operation Plunder the Rhine crossings as well as 2 US armies in the Battle of the Bulge.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-
Patton's Third Army was not even operational until August of 1944.
'A careful study of the verified historical record, shows that Churchills faith in Montgomery was misplaced and it shows that it was not Montgomery who defeated Rommel, but the Australian and New Zealanders.'
Alamein:
One Australian Division
One Indian Division
One New Zealand Division
One South African Division
Seven British Divisions
I am Australian and - if anything - possibly a little biased toward giving credit to our own troops. However, to give them the credit for winning an entire battle on their own, without regard to the other troops , or the commander who put them in the right place, at the right time, with the right commands to get the job done, is more than a little “too much”.
As for Caen…. Hammering your enemy on one part of the battlefield until he becomes fixated on that sector and allocates all his reserves to it - thereby weakening his forces for your breakthrough attack - is a classic piece of military strategy that goes back as for as Alexander the Great.
To make this work, the objective has to be important to the enemy, and your attack has to be heavy enough to convince him that this is your main thrust. Patton’s breakthrough was made possible by Montgomery’s repeated attacks in the Caen sector, and everything we know about Montgomery says that this was deliberate.
slappies you are be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense. Bernard was an ankle biter passing himself off as a head hunter and in fact a impediment to the war effort, a prolific braggart, a ponderous foot dragger, a malevolent drag on AMERICAN supplies. No different than MacArthur ,he would have been sacked by the Wehrmacht/Americans and shot by the Russians
Monty was what he was, a fraud left in place to placate the British - he couldn't direct mice in amaze. They could have put anyone there and got the same results after 41. They were all answering to the US.
“Unbeatable”? Tell that to 1st Para.
Perhaps you might read an actual, authoritive, account of Market Garden, rather than basing your opinion on a seriously flawed movie, itself based on a book by a well-meaning journalist?
Montgomery was in charge of 21st Army Group! 1st Para was part of First Allied Airborne Army which came under the command of Brereton.
@@enright13 Montgomery had been involved in an earlier, smaller scale plan, Operation Comet, which was cancelled in favour of Brereton's Market Garden.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 his involvement was limited to pretty much the idea and broad outline. His 21st AG did very little wrong. It was the airborne op that failed, and that was mainly due to the Yanks.
Arnhem was planned and executed by the air and airborne forces. These were under SHAEF jurisdiction and Montgomery had no authority over them in the planning stages. Montgomery was powerless to make any decisions for the RAF, USAAF and First Allied Airborne Army.
No thanks. I wasted 30 mins on Wellington.
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"speak truth to powe.."
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Il COMANDANTE MERDACCIA.
No.
Most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 by some way.
Great post romsebrell and so accurate
Il generale Inglese una Nota. MEDIOCRITÀ. Che vinceva soltanto
con soverchianti forze.
I vittoriosi comandanti alleati:....
MONTGOMERY la Merdaccia
PATTON IL. BULLO. USA.
ZUKOV IL. MAIALE STALINISTA.
Ecco contro chi combattevamo
durante la. WW, 2.
@thevillaaston7811 4,000 km of ground taken, 8 countries fought through and dozens of quality German divisions defeated.
Montgomery = El Alamein but - Operation Market Garden
MG was Ike and planned by Brereton and Williams
@@johndawes9337the only part of MG planned by Brereton and Williams was the airlift, and subsequent resupply by air, of 1st Airborne Corps (MARKET) under the Operational Control of 21st Army Group. They had nothing to do with the planning of the 2nd Army’s advance (GARDEN) which was the Main Effort of MG; moreover, as soon as 1st Airborne Corps landed in came under command of the 2nd Army’. MG as a whole was proposed by 21st Army Group, approved by Eisenhower, then commanded by 21st Army Group.
I’m not sure where this position on Monty originated from; it would, it would probably come as a surprise to him. He refers to ‘my plan’ for MG in his memoirs and the operation forms part of the 21st Army Group’s scheme of manoeuvre outlined in his Operational Directive M525 dated 14th September 1944. He elaborates on this in his book ‘21 Army Group: Normandy to the Baltic’ where he writes: ‘My intention now was to establish bridgeheads over the Meuse and the Rhine in readiness for the time when we could advance eastwards to occupy the Ruhr. I ordered Second Army to secure crossings over the river obstacles in the general area Graves-Nijmegen-Arnhem. I had decided upon this thrust line after a detailed study of the possible routes in the 21 Army Group sector.’
Montgomery? Wasn't that the guy who always finished second behind Patton?
@rioamazoco Montgomery was the PLANNER of Operation Overlord and Ground Forces Commander of all allied landing forces, Patton was just a minion following his orders from Monty.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- You should have learned your history lesson better. Patton never served under Monty. He served under Anderson in Tunisia, under Alexander in Sicily and under Bradley in France and Germany.
@@rioamazoco Nope, he was under 21st Army Group in August 1944 ( which Monty commanded from June, July, August to September as Ground Forces Commander of Operation Overlord)
The senior chain of command in Normandy was like this, Dempsey and Bradley were the Army commanders who took their orders from Monty the Army group commander, who took his orders from Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied commander. Monty was Pattons boss.
Montgomery wasn't the guy who always finished second behind Patton.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-
Patton? Deserted the battlefield during HUSKY for headlines in in the unimpotant Palermo?
He then went on to physically assault Sicilian peasants, and some of his own soldiers, and thus got himself passed over for army group command? He was sidelined until the outcome of OVERLORD was no longer in doubt, and then raced through hot air across the undefended part of France, and then made a muck of the Lorraine campaign? He then raced towards Bastogne at about one mile per day, and arrived there after the German advance Westwards had been stopped. He finished the war by instigating Task Force Baum, to rescuse his son-in-law about six before the end of the war, at a cost of 288 casualties?
What a CV?..
And this from a bloke who was only in the war past the point where the Grmans could no longer win, and with the German army irretrievably commited in Russia, and with that army being increasing short of manpower, supplies, and modern equipment.