Montgomery

You made no comment on the the remarks I made about Montgomery's exercises. I have had to read a lot about Montgomery over the last decade. One unglamorous and under appreciated quality is that he understood the importance of practice and training. I try to bear in mind one of Jonathan Bailey's comments about the need for technology, procedures and training to implement any idea.

There have been lots of discussions about the technology and in July 1941 the Western Desert Force had a reasonable quality and quantity of hardware - admittedly lacking long ranged anti tank guns.

The procedural side - doctrine. In the British army theatre commanders had considerable latitude to exercise discretion about how to use the book. Where did the May 1941 notes on handling and armoured division come from? On what body of experience was this based? Was not this doctrine largely untested in the UK until ex Bumper in Oct 1941? Had not the main armoured experience until then been from Op Compass?

Training takes time and practice. Big ideas such as combining infantry and artillery in the assult in WW1 or how to move and fight with an armoured formation was an iterative process that exposed unknowns unknowns along the war. There were all sorts of pitfalls along the way. Montgomery put his finger on the core issue in mobile warfare as being able to decentralise and recentralise at the right times. But what "the right time" look like from the Tac HQ of a brigade or divisional commander? How far away was it OK to deploy the support group as flank protection if they needed to be recalled to provide quickly to support the armour?

Would any of this work without a high standard of wireless communications - or having the right people on net. (Note that Mirrlees borrowed a radio truck in Op Compass because the CRA was not established for one)

What were the work up exercises for Op Battleaxe? Or were the units too busy sorting out the problems of getting Churchill's "Tigers" to work?

 

Absolutely. Two (or more) knowledgeable people discussing a point on which they disagree has far more intellectual value and interest than people repeating the same over and over again in mutual congratulation. Disagreement forces us to reevalute our own thoughts and analysis and do better at articulating it for the benefit of others.

I concur that it would be ideal to have doctrine flowing from a single source. The office of an Inspector General of the Army, perhaps.

For me, the latitude given for interpretation, reinterpretation or wilful dismissal of doctrine by formation and unit commanders was at the forefront (but far from exclusive) early war failures.

What you highlight here is both the dilemma in having a rigid, single source for doctrine AND the corporate group think on its (ir)relevance.

For an army aspiring to play on the global stage, formulation of doctrine has to be flexible enough to cope with widely differing contexts. If a single organization in London can handle it, all well and good. If not, whilst remaining under the remit of the London office, it makes complete sense for regional GHQs to issue guidance relevant to their theatres. Not so?

But if the rank and file officer leading his men into battle cannot motivate himself to update himself on what the brains trust has issued, what hope is there?

A doctrine existed. A doctrine which was constantly under revision and updated on the latest information.

What you are referring to is the point at which more concerted effort was made to compel people to bother to read the pamphlets and documents and actually adhere to them.

Columns were a very important component of the British effort for about 18 months. Absolutely true. They are central to any discussion of how vast tracts of land, no-mans land, could be dominated with a minimum of resources.

I do not ignore them.

Nor do I try to misrepresent their existance in discussions for which they deserve no more than a footnote mention.

I find your repeated handwaves linking what went on in 1941-42 as flowing from Hobart, Fuller and Liddell-Hart disappointing. I understand it may well be the way you explain a series of battlefield failures to yourself, but in the absence of evidence it has no more gravity than idle speculation.

No columns were certainly not the sole reason. Nor were they even the most relevant. Far from it. That is the point I am trying to get across.

Far too people obsess over "Jock Columns" and handwave those two words to explain (or excuse) battlefield failure. Your initial posts were doing exactly that. Hence my intervention.

If we are to understand BATTLEAXE, we have to get past the words "Jock Columns". That's what I want to do but only now do you seem to be willing to do so.

If we are discussing the purpose or value of columns to the British early war effort, Auchinleck's words have great bearing in helping us to understand a contemporary opinion from GHQ.

Dropped into a discussion on combined-arms, they are a distraction or a deliberate diversion and offer no help in furthering anybodys understanding of the topic at hand.

 

I didn't. For the sake of my own sanity I am dealing with the points piece by piece rather than turning my head in circles trying to cover connected but distant topics all atthe same time.

Effectively none. Time and resources didn't permit such. And unless we decide to change the strategic and political context and rewrite away the historical technical issues, it would have been no different had Montgomery be parachuted in to command WDF vice Beresford-Peirse .

 

First, I repeat my original paragraph: The 'new' doctrine for the "Handling of an Armoured Division" was issued in May 1941. The work was done in the UK and it is a matter for speculation the extent to which ME opinion and experience influenced its gestation. It was the doctrine which followed on from the post-BEF reorganization of the armoured division.

Your questions are very apt, and similar to my own thoughts, and I suspect will remain unanswered in the absence of considerable research done at Kew (and elsewhere).

Nevertheless, the document, the implication flowing from it and the thought process creating it cannot be denied. Doctrine on the handling of an armoured division provided for the support group to act either in close support of the armoured brigades or as a separate force on flank protection. It also provided for the support group to remain as a single body or to be broken up into smaller elements under other commands. This dispersion includes going down to individual infantry companies and artillery batteries/sections level.

For BATTLEAXE, the diversion from doctrine was not the creation of columns, the dispersion of support group assets nor even the role located to the support group enmasse; the diversion was the removal of a motor battalion from the armoured brigade and thus the loss of the capability that the doctrine describes as the motor battalion's "main task".

My point?

If we are to critique BATTLEAXE, we ought to critique the various elements in a more credible manner than a handwave. For example, if we decide to critque the use of the Support Group in a flank protection role, we should first consider whether the doctrine (ie the thinking of the brains trust) was flawed before we critique the commanders on the ground for choosing that option rather than an alternative. And so on...

 

The topic under discussion is Montgomery, not Battleaxe.

Montgomery was strong willed and had strong opinions about how to fight battles. He might not have gone along with the rushed timetables or adopted a simple plan that his half trained force could deliver.

 

Very true. But still I do not feel in any way compelled to respond instantly to every point.

When Montgomery was flown out to be 8th Army commander, in the latter half of 1942, everything was different to April/May 1941. The extent to which he could impose his will upon 8th Army leadership, operations and timing thereof, was simply impossible 18 months earlier. What changes he made, what decisions he made, etc, in 1942 are a matter of record. But any thought that somehow he could do the same, or even remotely similar, in advance of BREVITY/BATTLEAXE is a major stretch of the imagination.

Montgomery was Brooke's choice for the post. He was being brought in to serve under Alexander - also newly installed and also Brooke's choice for the post. Indeed, Brooke chose the pair because he knew they could work together and shared the same - and his - fundamental views. The clearout of senoir officers and commanders had already begun and was expected to continue. A major overhaul of tactics and organization had already begun. Montgomery did not arrive and perform as a maverick genius; he continued the sackings and the reforms instigated by Brooke and sanctionned by the PM who were both then on the spot.

Do you think Montgomery would have been granted the same leeway by Wavell, Dill and the PM in London in April/May 1940?

We can only speculate. But I really don't see that Montgomery being appointed in mid-April 1941 vice Beresford-Peirce changes the dynamics of the political imperatives to attack as soon as possible, the arrival times and quantities of men or materiel, nor the time ans space to conduct work-up exercises. I think the differences he would have made lie soley on the actual plans drafted and their implementation. And whilst Montgomery may have edged those two aspects if judged by a DS panel, I don't see them as being great enough to alter the outcome nor save himself from a sacking.

 

Precisely. Which beggers belief with why you initially tried to fob us off with eliptical comments tieing Savory's failure at Halfaya to Hobart.

You seem to have a bit of an obsession with tieing battfield failure to Hobart.

Do you have any evidence to support this opinion? Surely, if the causal link between Hobart and battlefield failure at Gazala is so strong and obvious, there must be plenty of contemporary documentation to show it.

 

The historical record on Montgomery is abundant; the post-war commentary on him even more so.

I have nothing to dispute the historical facts about what Montgomery did in regards to developing doctrine (authored inter-war infantry manuals etc) and training the men under his command. I do not think anybody can question the notion that he saw his role as an officer and a commander as one of doing his best to ensure success on the battlefield rather than seeing his rank and uniform as a prop to social standing.

What I do take issue with is some of the post-war narrative trying to explain why he was 'so good' and tieing that to his training regime. Being a good trainer, an imaginative trainer, is no guarantee of being a good field commander and even less so a guarantee of battlefield success. I believe there are numerous other factors that have far greater influence.

Bidwell writes of Beresford-Peirce being known for the quality of his schemes and training, but it didn't translate into success on the battlefield May-June 1941, did it?

Hobart is generally written about as having a training regime as rigorous, as inventive and as appreciated as Montgomery's. One is lauded as a precursor to winning the war, the other is used (in this very thread) to explain away early war attempt to lose the war.

My personal feeling about linking Montgomery's track record on training to battlefield outcomes is overegged and largely diverting attention away from more relevant influences and factors.

Which nicely brings me back to my previous comment regarding the context in which he arrived in the desert for it links into the discussion on doctrine too.

I do not believe "Montgomery" was the decisive factor in turning the course of war at Alamein. There was a seismic shift in the British approach to fighting the battle between Auchinleck's Alamein and Montgomery's Alamein. And that shift was principally the work of Brooke, then Alexander/McCreery and only then Montgomery.

A study of the application of doctrine up to Montgomery's Alamein is a study of inconsistancy if not outright rejection by formation commanders and below. Part of that can be explained by the specific nature in the prevailing context: huge geographical area - limited resources. But part is also explained by the corporate mindset that doing things their own way was preferred to conforming to standards.

What Brooke did was install a leadership group that were all singing from the same hymn sheet. It was not a matter of dramatically changing the existing doctrine, but introducing some tweaks annd having the principles all adher to the same methods and approach. Many of these tweaks and changes were not Montgomery's but Alexander/McCreery's.

Aligning nicely with this shift in personnel was the reality that the battlefield context now suited the ingrained British concept of warfare in that they could now organize and deliver a proper set piece battle of advancing a defined front line with adequate resources. No more trying to outmanouver the opponent through wide open spaces with minimum resources.

Montgomery was the right person for the job. But he was only right because the context had now developed into what suited his ideas and because he was part of a wider group all working to common ideas.

 

Mark, that's an interesting opinion but I've never seen much evidence of Alexander or McCreery having much of an impact on the way Eighth Army fought it's battles. Could you point us at any evidence to back up your theory?

Regards

Tom

 

I will come out of lurking to note that the idea that Eighth Army's struggle to win CRUSADER and 13 Corps' defeat in January 1942 is related to Jock Columns is abject nonsense. Yes Jock columns played a role, but it wasn't a major one.

More to the point.

Clever cherry picking, well done. What else happened in December 1941? That's right, an all-out pursuit of a beaten enemy army, and Jock columns were absolutely the right instrument to do so because they could keep the enemy off balance. If the letter had been written in November, you would have a point.

https://crusaderproject.wordpress.c...-7-support-group-for-the-pursuit-13-dec-1941/

More abject nonsense, simply wrong. Read Messervy's report on the battle.

1) There were good and unavoidable reasons for this organisation. There wasn't the administrative support to keep more than the Guards Brigade in the shop window.
2) The Jock columns were not the reason for the defeat. 2 Armoured Brigade being taken to the cleaners at Saunnu was.

All the best

Andreas

 

The reason Eighth Army failed and failed again was that in particular armoured commanders on average weren't very good at what they were doing, didn't understand combined arms, and didn't understand how to work as a team or indeed in some cases to follow plain orders. There was also an issue with e.g. the South Africans simply not pulling their weight in CRUSADER but I rate that as a contributory factor, not a root cause for the sh*tshow.

Montgomery sorted all of that out, after both Ritchie and Auchinleck were rightfully sacked over it.

All the best

Andreas

 

No idea either way, but you may find some info in WO201/2822, if you're lucky?

All the best

Andreas

 

They did fight with tanks in Flanders and France. WO165/89 "Future Organisation of the RAC" covers this discussion, noting that:
i) the structure of the armoured division was fundamentally sound; but
ii) that the failure to cooperate within the division was a doctrinal weakness compared to German all-arms co-operation.

There were different views on that, depending on who you asked. Survivors of Flanders thought the Germans were better, while 1st Armoured Div returnees considered they did just fine without unarmoured elements hindering them. The verdict was however that more integration was needed.

That seems about right, although it is also fair to note that doctrine continued to evolve, and Martel has remarks about that in his early 1943 report which covers his months-long tour of the Middle East, India etc, referring to a process that went on prior to October 1942 in which authorities in the UK and the Middle East agreed to a restructuring.

All the best

Andreas

 

Hello Tom. Long time no chat.

You know me well enough now to know that I have the courage to think for myself and not just parrot the old saws and myths.

I have not studied the topic closely enough to have a grasp of the precise impact the various parties had on the battle directly or indirectly. At this point all I'm trying to suggest is that the impact of Brooke's initial culling of the senior leadership and then Alexander/McCreery's efforts in Cairo have been massively understated. Montgomery could not have achieved what he did had he not got the support, backing and working relationship with those above and around him. He was not the author of that relationship, but one of the pieces put into place after the cage had been severely rattled.

A thorough analysis of the contemporary documentation will undoubtably shed some light on this.

But, to throw a wee bone to chomp on, study the August 1942 entries in Danchev's version of Brooke's diaries. For example:
21 August :
He and Dick McCreery came to dine. Dick has settled down to the CGS job well and should I think make a success of it. We have carried out some drastic changes while we have been out here, I feel convinced they are for the better, and do hope events will prove this the case.
23 August :
After him Alex and Dick McCreery came round to discuss their proposed organisation of the armoured and ordinary divisions. This conforms to home except for some minor differences, and is much sounder than the Auck's wild schemes.

Enjoy!

 

Very true. And paint those points onto the canvas of an army which was struggling to work out what an armoured division was supposed to do and how to go about it, and hej presto!

Another point which is worth close examination flows from your use of the word "armoured". Whilst some are very quick to point fingers soley in the direction of old RTC campaigners, how many of these armoured commanders were in reality old cavalry types? I mean, why should we assume that when the cavalry mechanized and the RAC was born, cavalry thought and ideas all just disappeared after coming under the wicked spell of Fuller, Liddell-Hart and Hobart.

Recently, I have been doing a lot of reading on the subject of british tank/armoured/mechanized thought, ideas and doctrine inter-war and how it affected things at the beginning of WW2.

There is so much to criticise the so-called "tank gurus" for. But the problems faced on the battlefields of 1940, 1941 and 1942 come from far deeper issues than a bit of bad RTC tactical dogma.

 

You're right there. And it is (dare I say it) precisely what my book is about.

 

The report also goes on to say there were "sharp" differences within the RAC about how close the armoured and unarmoured elements could cooperate. Those representing the view of the 1st Armoured Division taking the stance that close cooperation was not feasible. The 4 formation commanders of 1st Armd Division consisted of two cavalry types (Evans & McCreery), a tankie (Crocker) and a gunner (Morgan).

 

Then it is such a shame that your posts here have so far focussed on trying to explain away battlefield failure in terms of Hobart, Fuller and Liddell-Hart.

 

That’s good news, welcome back - hopefully you’ve had time to finish your book - my shelves have space for at least one more book on the war in the Desert.

Regards

Tom

 

Massively understated by Montgomery for starters!

Well, I certainly didn’t have you down as the shy, retiring type.
Thanks for the research leads, I’ll go do some squirrelling.

Regards

Tom