Bernard Law Montgomery

British military leader

• Born: November 17, 1887
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: March 24, 1976
• Place of death: Alton, Hampshire, England

Montgomery was Great Britain’s best field general during World War II and one of the great military leaders of the twentieth century.

Early Life

Bernard Law Montgomery was the fourth of nine children born to Henry Montgomery and Maud Montgomery. His father was an Episcopal minister, and his mother was the daughter of Frederic Farrar, a well-known and controversial clergyman in England. When he was but two years of age, Montgomery’s family moved to Tasmania, his father having been appointed to serve as bishop in that country. The family returned to England in the summer of 1901, at which time Montgomery and his brother Donald became students at St. Paul’s School. Montgomery compiled a less than enviable academic record at St. Paul’s, developed no close friendships with his peers, and cultivated no outside interests or hobbies. Only when warned that his poor performance might preclude his pursuing a career in the military did he begin to apply himself intellectually.

Choosing the military over the church was a decision that further alienated Montgomery from his mother, with whom he had never had, nor ever would have, a satisfactory relationship. In fact, when she died in 1949, he did not even attend her funeral. He entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in January of 1907, where he felt very much out of place in this “stronghold of privilege” and social snobbery. Nevertheless, it was there that Montgomery first exhibited the rigid self-discipline and determination that would enable him to master the art of soldiering and prepare for the responsibility of command.

Life’s Work

Montgomery was graduated from Sandhurst in 1910, roughly in the middle of his class, and joined the Warwickshire Infantry, which had been assigned to duty in India. The battalion returned to England in early 1913 and, with the outbreak of World War I in August of the following year, was mobilized for war. Not having fought a major war in almost a century, the British army was in no way prepared for the type of conflict it now faced. At age twenty-seven, Montgomery got his first taste of combat during the battles of the Marne and the Aisne and later at the first Battle of Ypres. During the latter engagement, he was wounded and actually left for dead on the battlefield for some time. He recovered from his wound and returned to France in 1916, having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and holding the rank of captain. Montgomery emerged from the war convinced that the technology of modern warfare required drastic changes in strategy and tactics as well as in the training of the men who might be called on to fight such wars in the future. He did not believe that Great Britain could survive another war in which the gap between technology and tactics would be bridged by the expenditure of human life on a scale comparable to that which he had witnessed in France. These ideas fundamentally shaped Montgomery’s military thinking and undoubtedly contributed to his reputation as a very methodical, if somewhat unimaginative, field commander. By his own admission, it was only after World War I that Montgomery began seriously to apply himself to mastering all the details and skills required of his profession. He persisted, for example, in having his name included on the roster of officers selected to attend the Staff College at Camberley in 1920 and apparently did quite well during his two years there. He was obviously pleased when in 1927 he was assigned to Camberley as an instructor an appointment he regarded as “his first important advance in the military hierarchy.” Prior to returning to Camberley, Montgomery served a tour of duty in Ireland and then returned to England as a general staff officer with the Forty-ninth West Riding Division at Yorkshire. It was here that he had a fortuitous meeting with Francis de Guingand, who would later become his chief of staff in the Western Desert and in Normandy. He returned to Camberley in 1926 and, approximately a year later, married Betty Carver, the widow of an army officer who had been killed in the Gallipoli campaign. Montgomery was devoted to his wife, and the next ten years were to prove very rewarding to him, particularly insofar as his personal life was concerned. In 1928, Betty gave birth to their only child, David, who, like his father, spent very little of his early childhood in England. Montgomery served tours of duty in Palestine and Egypt in the early 1930’s and then returned to India, where, in June, 1934, he was appointed senior instructor at the Army Staff College at Quetta. When the family returned to England in the summer of 1937, Montgomery, now a brigadier general, was given command of the Ninth Infantry Brigade at Portsmouth. With Europe apparently moving inexorably toward yet another and possibly much more devastating world war, Montgomery suffered a great tragedy in his personal life. His wife died in October from septicemia following the amputation of her leg, which had become infected from the sting of an insect. He went into seclusion for a brief period of time but soon returned to duty, exhibiting as much drive and determination as ever. The magnitude of his loss manifested itself more in his personal than in his professional life. He and his son began to grow apart and were never again very close, and he never evidenced any interest in another woman throughout the rest of his life. Following another brief tour in Palestine in October, 1938, Montgomery was, in August, 1939, selected to command the Third Division one of the few combat-ready divisions in Great Britain and thus part of the British Expeditionary Force. As in World War I, however, neither the British nor the French were prepared for what Adolf Hitler had in store for them. Hitler may never have imagined, however, that among that mass of bodies that huddled along the beaches at Dunkirk in June, 1940, was the future leader of Operation Overlord. Back in England, Montgomery was elevated to corps command, and then in December, 1941, was selected to head the South-Eastern Command. In this capacity, he played a role in planning the disastrous Dieppe raid in August, 1942, though his professional career did not suffer unduly as a result. Indeed, he had been called to duty elsewhere when the ill-fated mission was carried out on August 19. On August 8, the assignment for which Montgomery had prepared himself was presented to him, albeit by a set of untoward and unfortunate circumstances. On the previous day, Lieutenant General W. H. E. Gott, who had just been named as the new commander of the British Eighth Army, had been killed, and Montgomery had been chosen as his successor. He assumed command in mid-August and continued preparations for what promised to be a decisive battle with Erwin Rommel’s famed Africa Corps. The Battle of El Alamein, which began on October 23, was the type of set-piece engagement at which Montgomery excelled. His victory there represented the crowning achievement of his military career and shattered the mythical invincibility of the German army. With his “Desert Rats” in pursuit of the “Desert Fox,” the world was soon to become familiar with the Montgomery image. Locked inside his small wiry frame was a reservoir of energy and an abundance of self-confidence that, to many, bordered on arrogance. The thin, stern-looking face, accentuated by the high cheekbones, the steely blue eyes, the rather prominent nose, and the famous black beret, were indelibly etched in the minds of those who followed Montgomery’s exploits. After the North African theater was cleared in May, 1943, Montgomery led his forces in the invasion of Sicily (July, 1943) and later in the invasion of Italy (September, 1943). During the course of the Italian campaign, however, he was recalled to England to assist in the planning of the Normandy invasion, over which he was given tactical command. He directed Allied ground forces during the Battle of Normandy and assumed command of Twenty-first Army Group in August when Dwight D. Eisenhower became operational commander of Allied forces in Europe. Such a change in command had been agreed on prior to the invasion, but Montgomery did not accept it well. Nor were his feelings assuaged by his subsequent elevation to the rank of field marshal. He became and remained personal friends with Eisenhower, but his professional relationship with the supreme commander was, to say the least, a rather stormy one. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith, probably expressed the sentiments of many individuals at Supreme Headquarters when he told Montgomery: “You may be great to serve under, difficult to serve alongside, but you sure are hell to serve over!” When the war in Europe came to an end, Montgomery was placed in charge of the British zone of occupation in Germany a post he held until February, 1946, when he succeeded General Alan Brooke as chief of the Imperial General Staff. He was in the view of some “kicked upstairs” in 1948 when he was named chair of the Western Union Commanders-in-Chief Committee and ironically found himself once again in a subordinate role to Eisenhower when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in April, 1949. Montgomery retired from active service in 1958 and became something of an international statesman, traveling to the Soviet Union, China, and South Africa. He proved to be a rather prolific writer as well. His most interesting and certainly most controversial work was The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein , which appeared in 1958. Other works included A History of Warfare (1959), An Approach to Sanity (1959), The Path to Leadership (1961), and Three Continents (1962). Montgomery withdrew from the public view in 1968. He died eight years later, on March 24, 1976, near Alton, Hampshire, at the age of eighty-eight.

Significance

In 1946, Bernard Law Montgomery was made a Peer of the British Empire. His official title was Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein, but in the hearts of most Britishers he remained simply “Monty.” He was a gifted and inspirational battlefield commander whose meticulous planning and methodical tactics, though often criticized, proved to be extremely effective in the set or prepared battle. Characterized by those who knew him as being pompous, arrogant, abrasive, and dogmatic, Montgomery was granted considerable leeway because of his significant military talents.

Opinion remains divided as to Montgomery’s place in history. It would seem safe to say that he was England’s greatest field commander in World War II, though his greatest distinction may lie in his being viewed as the last great military leader to direct the armed forces of Great Britain as a major world power.

Bibliography

Barnett, Correlli. The Desert Generals. London: William Kimber, 1960. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. A narrative portrait of five leading British generals, including Montgomery. This work takes a somewhat critical view of the latter as a battlefield commander.

Chalfont, Alun. Montgomery of Alamein. New York: Atheneum, 1976. Relying heavily on psychological factors to explain Montgomery’s personal and professional life, this work offers a very narrow view of the field marshal and fails to assess fully his contributions as a military leader.

Clark, Ronald William. Montgomery of Alamein. London: Roy, 1960. Written as part of the Living Biographies series, this work would appeal more to younger readers. It is a flattering, though not interpretive, account of Montgomery and his career.

Hamilton, Nigel. Monty: The Making of a General, 1887-1942; Master of the Battlefield: Monty’s War Years, 1942-1944; Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944-1976. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981-1986. Based largely on Montgomery’s private papers and diaries, this three-volume work is meticulously researched and well written. The definitive account of Montgomery’s life.

Lewin, Ronald. Montgomery as Military Commander. New York: Stein and Day, 1971. Lewin’s work generally supports the idea of Montgomery as a great British general despite his numerous personal shortcomings.

Montgomery, B. L. The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. New York: World, 1958. Written by Montgomery himself, this controversial study should be read for its historical value as well as for what it reveals about the character and personality of the author.

Moorehead, Alan. Montgomery. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1946. Though now dated, this work remains a useful and informative account of Montgomery’s life through the period of World War II.

Reynolds, Michael. Monty and Patton: Two Paths to Victory. Staplehurt, England: Spellmount, 2005. Compares and contrasts the personalities, lives, and military careers of Montgomery and American general George S. Patton.

Thompson, R. W. The Montgomery Legend. New York: J. C. Lippincott, 1967. Concentrating on the period between August, 1942, and December, 1943, Thompson has produced a revisionist account of Montgomery’s desert campaign. The author downplays the “crisis” situation in the desert as well as the importance of El Alamein.