Montys' near sacking.

"This is one of the great untold stories of our time - that of the little band of generals entrusted with a historic task: invading and liberating Nazi-occupied Europe. They were supposed to be fighting the Germans, but some of their fiercest battles were fought against each other."

View and download John Irving's "The War Between The Generals" (1981) at http://marketgarden1944-2014.pre-jump.nl/archive.html

 

The most sad part of any "War between Generals " was the deaths of 14,000 troops at the Gothic Line in Italy when US General Clark

dis-obeyed Alex's strict orders to interfere with the retreat of TWO German Armies and turn away to "liberate " Rome - which we

didn't need anymore than we didn't need Palermo in Sicily as US General Patton had his orders "adjusted" instead of covering Monty's
left flank at Catania- too many instances such as these gave the British troops the idea that the US - at that time was avoiding

Battle - the laughable action was that Clark was given Command of both 8th and 5th Armies in Italy- too late to stop McCreery from

ending the campaign - so much for "the feather duster" McCreery as Clark was known to call him- then to be given Command in Korea

was even more laughable- and no surprise that it was a disaster there…


Cheers

 

Yes, Tom, that is the sad part. The career of the men making such costly mistakes, very often did not suffer.

I hope the freedom you fought for, remains!

 

Thanks for the replies. So reading between the lines it was possibly because he ribbed his equals and superiors up the wrong way?

The reason I ask is because I read it in some book about his possible sacking in 1944. For the life of me I can't remember what book I read it in. Had a browse around the interweb and these 3 reasons seem to be the most cited.

 

Irons

Many people wrote - or rather copied others who wrote books disparaging Monty for the very reason that he did "rib" his LESS

than professional equals - this was the main reason he fired so many Colonels as they were not up to scratch to do the job which

needed doing - a quick look at the History BEFORE Monty was given 8th Army will see what really needed doing - we hadn't many

victories - after August '42 - we never had a defeat - why …?

The man in charge of strategy - was Churchill - after Christmas '41 it was Alanbrooke and the first test of the new strategy

was at Wadi el Halfa- then El Alamein - now Monty couldn't fire Churchill but Alanbrooke kept Churchill under control - but

could only advise the Americans……who in the main - vented their dislike of being told - on Monty…

it was obvious at the end of the war that Ike and Bradley finally admitted that without Monty- we wouldn't have won the war

Cheers

 

Yes, that's his way. Whatever his position, he keeps trying to act as if he had the position immediately above him. You find the first case in Palestine in 1939, then when he is subordinate to Auchinleck in the UK etc.

So they are 2 situations when things go smoothly:
- if Brooke is his boss (ex: France, 1940). Brooke is his mentor really, and Montgomery deeply respects Brooke's professional skills. But... it's hard to name any other authority Montgomery respects. [Slim, maybe]
- When his boss just serves him and does not order / suggest / contradict with him in any way. This is what happens with Alexander in 42-43 in North Africa, and then again in Sicily.

But as much as Montgomery is unbearable to have under, as much as he is pleasant to have above. His way is "full trust or nothing". If he does not like you, he gets rid of you at the very first opportunity - you don't last more than a week. If you are still there after that, he means he trusts you: he then listens carefully to your points and your ideas. Just don't remind him these ideas where yours in the first instance.

(His distrust of peers and superiors become disastrous after the war when Brooke retires. Monty becomes CIGS and does plenty of mistakes; but there's just no one to check him, no one he could ever listen to).

 

Mori

You don't appear to fully understand the situation we were in prior to 1942 - we were LOSING the war - the only victories we had

had until Monty took over were at Taranto with the Fleet Air Arm- Cap Matapan with the Navy - and Beda Fomm with the Army

which was a bit of a fluke really against a demoralized Italian Army….something had to be done as we had many nice guys in

charge such as Wavell - O'Conner - Aukinlek - Cunningham - Ritchie - so we got lucky with TWO men taking over - Alanbrooke

the thinker - and Monty - the doer……first thing he did was to bring forth Leese - Horrocks and the Artillery expert to take

over the existing corps - he couldn't get rid of Lumsden as we didn't have an expert in Armour at that time- until Medenine

There is no doubt that he was a proper bastard - but what do you do when a Colonel tells you that the 2nd i/c looks after the

battalion training - and the 2nd i/c half an hour later that the Colonel does all the training- you fire the Colonel not for

telling lies but failing to train his battalion - that was his professionalism - and it was sadly needed as was shown at

Wadi El Halfa- and all the other Victories…


Cheers

 

Coincidentally this was repeated on BBC 2 this afternoon (Friday the 13th) and now on i-Player (sorry for those outside the UK)..Herbie the canary et al.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0527p6w/reputations-reputations

Reputations (1994).
"Revealing the bitter dispute between General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery during World War II".

best.

 

Richard

You are right as it does not play in Canada - BUT and it's big BUT IF there was any dispute over Ike it was only the fact

that Ike was NOT a field Commander - not a planner but a compromiser- whereas Monty made a plan - then turned it over to his

staff to sort out- most Americans were trained to accept their staff as the planners - not Monty's way at all and was against

it every time it came up - by anyone…

Cheers

 

To Tom and all others outside the UK, wanting to watch Iplayer:

Hola (search for on the Internet)

 

Just finished watching "Reputations" (1994) on Iplayer.

Ambrose: "Montgomery lied about what he intended" (Normandy), "Montgomery made promises (Normandy) he did not keep". Gelb: "Montgomery wanted to breakout (at Caen).

False statements, both men does not seem to have read Montgomery's directives, which is unbelievable.

View and download Montgomery's Directives http://marketgarden1944-2014.pre-jump.nl/archive.html

The misunderstanding of Montgomery continues.

 

Nijmegen

HOLA gives a lot of coverage here in Canada BUT not the BBC Iplayer

Cheers

 

I have now used it for about a week. At first is does not always SEEMS to work. Refresh the browser sometimes works. I use Firefox, and it now works (almost) flawlessly. Try, a bit more. It IS the best software for watch Iplayer outside the UK.