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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:05:19 AM EDT
[#1]
I generally agree. It became clear after a couple of years of fighting that it was only a matter of when, not if, the Allies would prevail. No need in doing something foolish to jeopardize that.
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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:07:33 AM EDT
[#2]
Market-Garden? |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:14:18 AM EDT
[#3]
Tiny sideshow, in the general scheme of things. If it had worked, it would have advanced the timetable for victory significantly. If not, well, it was worth a try. (Not denigrating the guys that were there. Just speaking in terms of overall numbers.) |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:22:41 AM EDT
[#4]
While Montgomery was cautious, he wasn't brilliant. Market Garden was dismissed by him as a distraction. Distraction? It was suppose to be the breakthrough that paved the way for the Allies into Germany. It was a dismal failure. Nor was it his first failure. Operation Goodwood was suppose to be the British breakout from Normandy. Instead he lost 300 British and Canadian tanks and Patton did the breaking out instead. Montgomery dismissed it by saying that too was a distraction to allow Patton to break out. Since when did Monty play second fiddle to Patton?
Cornell Barnett in "Desert Generals" points out that Montgomery wrongfully takes credit for the defeat of the Germans at El Alamein. The planning for that battle was by Auckinleck but the Auk wasn't there to see it carried out. Montgomery is better than McClellan. McClellan was always paranoid about the opposition having a larger army. If he couldn't win a position by manuever, he wouldn't fight. Montgomery would fight but is highly overrated. |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:27:58 AM EDT
[#5]
Don't get me going on Montgomery!
 He was an overrated pipsqeak!!!…… having said that, Churchill told Eisenhower after Montgomery's disasterous performance in Normandy he was happy to sack him, Eisenhower said 'No'… It has been said of Montgomery …"He was more interested in not losing a battle than winning one'… That just about sums him up. He was fighting WWII with WWI tactics, he never got his head around armoured warfare unlike his Generals Dempsey and Horrocks (both far better tacticians than him), who despised him for his cautiousness and indecision. ANdy |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 5:46:03 AM EDT
[#6]
Normally I would agree cautious is better, but the way he did it, men continued to die on both sides.
A British blitz before El Alamein would have reduced casualties on both sides, same in Europe. Montgomery preferred a war of attrition, victories are costlier, but chance of defeat are much less. |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:00:57 AM EDT
[#7]
My Dad fought under General Patton. He HATED Monty. Claimed he couldn't lead a bunch of first graders. Called him a "PUSSY".
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:18:10 AM EDT
[#8]
Monty was merely the "creme of the crap".
He was all Churchill had. Had he not won El Alamein, Churchill would have fired him as well. That he did win was a testament to his OVERWHELMING strength vis Rommel at that point in the war. Even so, Rommel made a good game of it for a while. Monty was overly cautious, but in all fairness, this was no doubt partly due to the fact that the Brits had taken FEARSOME losses in KIAs and MIAs and POWs to that point and later. Some Brit generals were VERY good and would have done better had they been in Monty's shoes...Slim for example. Monty's record became even more questionable later in the war. His staff was partly to blame for his innefectiveness and poor generalship and even Ike played a part sometimes when he infamously acquiesced to Monty's crazed plans. Arnhem is the most famous of Monty's failures but there were others as well. I am aware of his reticence...but NOT attacking Caen with everything in your kit bag as soon as possible meant that thousands of Allied troops, mostly Brits and Canadians died needlessly slugging it out in the hedgerows. His failure to quicly close the Falaise pocket borders on the criminal in negligence. Had he acted more quickly instead of always looking out for his image and to stuff it in Patton's face (And the Americans in general!), he might have seen the wisdom of that maneuver and closed the gap, trapping an entire German Army. As it was, he did not and those German survivors ended up killing many more Allied troops. That is not to say that all American generals were superb strategists, tacticians and decision makers. Mark Clark should have been relieved for cause after his debacle at Anzio...especially when he purposely ignored his ULTRA intel info (He like some other flag and general officers didn't like spying and didn't trust the data.). Bill Halsey likewise ought to have been canned after Leyte Gulf...and the truth is, Nimitz and King damn near did just that! King later wrote that it was just impossible to fire a hero. Anyway...Monty was a boob. 
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:19:31 AM EDT
[#9]
If I ever get to your side of the Pond, we must meet!  
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:20:31 AM EDT
[#10]
Wasn't Market Garden Montgomery's idea?
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:46:34 AM EDT
[#11]
I think, there is no better critique, than that offered up by the Brit's themselves. I think Vito's statement is the defining reply in this thread.
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:49:00 AM EDT
[#12]
Monty was our McClelland.
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Posted: 8/14/2005 6:57:16 AM EDT
[#13]
It's a deal!!! Another of Montgomery's overlooked disasters was the failure to seize the Scheldt Estuary when XXX Corp had overrun Antwerp as his Generals begged him to do. The units had enough fuel and were up against at most a few broken german regiments and could have seized it in a few days. Instead Monty called a halt and then the horrendeous Walcheran amphibious operations were needed later to open the port after the germans reinforced their postions and flooded the approaches. It is arguable that the failure of Montgomery to open Antwerp in the Summer caused the war in the west to slip into 1945 when operations slowed from a lack of supplies. This lack of supplies stopped the Allied armies chasing a defeated and demoralised German Army back across the undefended Rhine. The Germans were thus given a 'breather' were they could bring up reinforcements and strengthen their defences on the Siegfried Line which were in severe disrepair in 1944. ANdy |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 7:37:51 AM EDT
[#14]
In fairness, it should be noted that as the War went on, the Brits became increasingly short of manpower, and ever more sensitive to losses of any kind.
Perhaps Monty's tactics reflect this issue more than any innate over-cautiousness. That said, He was far from the best that the Brits (or the Empire, for that matter) had to offer. |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 7:49:31 AM EDT
[#15]
Should have given Patton command and control over the Brits.
 Should have also let Patton march into Moscow. 
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Posted: 8/14/2005 7:57:49 AM EDT
[#16]
That fiasco was the price that the Allies paid for keeping 'Monty' on the payroll. Monty's inexplicable failure to close the Falaise Pocket, thereby permitting the German 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army to escape, reportedly caused Churchill to agree on Monty's removal from any command...but events intevened...the attempted assassination of Hitler by Col. Staufenberg, et al., the wounding of General Rommel, and the rapid collapse of the German Armies in France, and elsewhere, caused the Allied High Command to believe that the end of the War was nigh. No need to publicly embarrass the General with the War drawing to a close. Eric The(Gen.PattonWasRight,AsAlways)Hun 
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Posted: 8/14/2005 8:19:54 AM EDT
[#17]
Agreed, manpower had become critical for the British by Fall 1944, however that can be blamed on the huge losses the British took in Normandy under Monty, and in hindsight they were avoidable. Churchill wanted to sack Monty after he not only bled the British Army dry in Normandy, bit more worryingly, in doing so he lost almost all the veteran battle hardened troops (especially the 8th Army from North Africa), that made up the backbone of the British Army and also wiped out nearly all the reserve forces in the process. To cap it off, he also wiped out most of the Airborne Forces in Operation Market Garden. This meant as you note that by late 1944, Britain was forced to be very cautious with it's troops. In fact by September, men in reserved War Occupations were being drafted into the Army because the manpower situation had become critical. Any British army unit that suffered heavy losses after September was disbanded and the remnants used to make up the numbers in other units in it's division. ANdy |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 8:22:38 AM EDT
[#18]
Well, if I was Ike, and had to choose between Monty and Alan Brook, his likely replacement, I'd keep Monty on, too. |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 8:46:19 AM EDT
[#19]
No!!! General Sir Alan Brooke would NOT have replaced Montogomery if he had been sacked! At the time of the Invasion, General Alan Brooke was Chief of Imperial General Staff, a rank roughly comparable with General Marshall. The natural sucessor for Montgomery if he had been sacked was General Sir Miles Dempsey, an extremely good General who fully understood armored warfare. Andy |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 9:59:26 AM EDT
[#20]
I'm well aware Brooke was C.I.G.S.. I'm also aware of his monumental ego, to which only MacArthur's could even be compared, Although your promotion of Dempsey is nominally correct, Brooke would have relished at being in on the kill, I think, and would surely have tried to wrangle the job. Of course, this is all banter and guessing. We will never know. IIRC, Marshall wanted Ike's job, but Roosevelt wouldn't let him go. |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 10:03:31 AM EDT
[#21]
Possibly maybe, he WAS offered the job of running OVERLORD but Roosevelt wanted an American to run the show. Alan Brooke was offered a number of combat roles but he always turned them down. He is on record as saying he felt it was important he stayed in London and close to Churchill to stop him making any more military mistakes. ANdy |
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Posted: 8/14/2005 2:31:26 PM EDT
[#22]
Mmmmmmmm... running Overlord (a dicey proposition) is one thing. Not surprised Hisself declined. Besides, the position was not vacant. After that, things were a bit less chancy. but again, the position was occupied.
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Posted: 8/15/2005 3:38:52 AM EDT
[#23]
And after the war, didn't Montie die penniless and alone? I also find it interesting that he never married.
There was a history channel on Montie one time that had David Eisenhower reading letters between Montie and Ike after the war. Montie came across as a little bitter man trying to salvage his reputation. Merlin |
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Posted: 8/15/2005 4:27:07 AM EDT
[#24]
You know it's very easy to line a major up as a job of tactics but in reality most of their job was politics. IMHO, this was Monty's biggest problem for he played the politics too well.
A wise man once said, "Do as I say but don't make me look stupid." In this Monty was very lacking for he tended to micro-manage even though he really had some competent commanders that given a free hand could even make a stupid idea work. Now consider a political agenda and micro-management and you have he formula for mediocrity. Patton’s latter war success was in part due to his total failure at the politics, which he realized allowing him to concentrate on the actual tactics. It’s ironic that his total failure at the general’s politics eventually led him to his ultimate success at the same politics. I also find it ironic that we didn’t learn this lesson from WWII but saw it again in Korea and Vietnam. It wasn’t till Desert Storm that the US learned to separate the two. Tj |
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Posted: 8/15/2005 4:42:52 AM EDT
[#25]
Alone, sort of, but not penniless! He became Commander in Chief of the British ARmy in the 1950's and heralded an era a great stagnation! Although he was married, but his wife died, he was a repressed and non-active homosexual who also had many very close friendships with boys. WWII Brit General is outed in new biography Second world war hero had platonic love for soldiers and boys, claims friend and biographer Sarah Hall, Guardian "T his sort of thing may be tolerated by the French, but we're British - thank God." So decreed Field Marshal Montgomery as he urged the House of Lords not to legalise gay sex and warned that the 1967 homosexuality bill would be a "charter for buggery". More than 30 years on, the gay age of consent has been equalised to 16, homosexuals are allowed to serve in the military - and Britain's most famous wartime general has been outed as a repressed homosexual who had "quasi love affairs" with boys and men, according to a new book. The Full Monty, by his official biographer, Nigel Hamilton, claims that Montgomery felt passionately about fellow soldiers and boys, some not yet in their teens. Professor Hamilton, whose official life of Montgomery was in 1981 awarded the Whitbread prize for biography, has drawn on hundreds of letters to and from Montgomery. He admits there was no proof of any physical relationship with any of the young men who wrote, but argues that any act would have been illegal and could have spelt ruin for the wartime hero. "Don't forget homosexuality was outlawed from 1885 to 1967. Those who did act on their instincts could, like Oscar Wilde, be imprisoned and ruined," he said yesterday from Boston, where he works at the University of Massachusetts. "He acted very negatively to the change in the law - calling it a 'charter for buggery'. He was extremely worried by it, and psychologically that suggests the law had been an essential crutch in his struggle with his own homosexual feelings." Rumours about the sexuality of the man who won the battle of El Alamein in 1942, turning the tide of the war in north Africa, have previously circulated. As early as 1976 - five years after his death - one earlier biographer, Lord Chalfont, noted his "predilection for the company of young men". Last night, Montgomery's only son, Viscount David Montgomery, dismissed the new claim as being "absurd, appalling, and complete psychobabble". Another biographer, Alistair Horne, author of The Lonely Leader, commented: "This sounds to me like Hamilton is rehashing his old work for a tabloid readership. "I served under Montgomery in the Middle East and I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of repressed, or any other kind, of homosexuality." Prof Hamilton, who was befriended by the field marshal at age 11 and knew him well for the last 20 years of his life, has no doubt of the nature of Monty's feelings. "These were quasi love affairs. He became really passionately involved with these young men - and then, more and more, boys, who he would call 'my sons'. They were nothing of the kind, of course, but in his own personality he would frame them in this way. "I myself have more than 100 very loving letters from him. My relationship with him wasn't sexual, in the sense that it wasn't acted upon, but I had been through enough years at British boarding schools to know what kind of enormous affection and feeling he had for me. "And I wasn't alone, this was a consistent pattern in Monty's life." One boy was Lucien Treub, Montgomery's "little Swiss friend", who met him at 12, and told Hamilton how the general would bathe him personally and rub him down so he would not catch cold. "I've interviewed him several times and he was quite clear he didn't feel there was any molesting going on, but it's a tricky area," Prof Hamilton said. Born in 1887, Montgomery was married for 10 years from 1927, but the academic described this an "an aberration" in what had otherwise been a life devoted entirely to being with men. He added that he had pondered on whether to write about Monty's sexuality when his acclaimed three-part biography was published in the 1980s, but felt that his main aim was to restore the field marshal's military reputation "at a time it was being systematically trashed: I didn't want to detract from that". http://www.q.co.za/news/2001/02/010228-outing.htm |
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Posted: 8/15/2005 4:55:54 AM EDT
[#26]
He had reason to be cautious. The slaughter of an entire generation of men during WWI was still a very recent memory.
That being said, I wonder how many lives he would have saved if he had taken advantage of certain situations instead of just waiting for more men and equipment? ETA: I liked the concept of Market Garden. I don't know who was at fault, but someone failed to identify the roads along the axis of attack were inadequate. I don't know if his staff failed to identify it or if they did and Monty just ignored it. |
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