Bernard Montgomery

The Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery , 1st Vicomte Montgomery of El Alamein (November 17th 1887 with London - March 24th 1976) was a Officier British Militaire during the Second world war. Called “ Monty ”, the quality of its soldiers allowed him some victories, although certain officers considered it inefficient.

Biography

Youth

Montgomery was born with Kennington with London in 1887. He was the 4th child of an Anglo-Irish family of 9 children. His/her father, the reverend Henry Montgomery was a priest Anglican. Its family moved Moville in the Comté of Donegal close to Derry in Northern Ireland to settle with New Park. Montgomery regarded itself as a native of Ireland and county of Donegal. In 1889, the Montgomery family followed the father abroad during his nomination as bishop of Tasmanie. His/her father was a man soft but not very present at the house because of his professional obligations. Mrs. Montgomery beat her children and managed the family savings in a hand of Master. Montgomery says later that it had an unhappy childhood with many conflicts with his mother. It quickly became the “black sheep” of the family.

In 1901, the Montgomery bishop became secretary of the Society for the Propagation off the Gospel (company of propagation of the Gospel) and the family went back to London. The young Bernard was sent to the school St Paul and the military royal Académie of Sandhurst. It failed to be returned following a dispute with a pupil during whom both intervants fought with incandescent Tisonnier S. It was built-in 1908 in the 1st battalion of the royal regiment of Warwickshire. It carried out its first service in India, then under British domination, in 1913.

First World War

The First World War burst in August 1914 and the same Montgomery month was sent in France with its regiment. It arrived at the time of the retirement of the Bataille of Mons during which the half of the men of its battalion were killed, wounded or made captive. With Méteren the October 13rd 1914, not far from the Belgian border, it was touched by a shooting of sniper at the time of the allied counter-offensive. Seriously wounded with the Lung right, he already was regarded as condemned and its tomb had been dug. It recovered gradually from its wounds and was built-in a brigade of drive of the Kitchener' S New Army with the beginning of the year 1915. In 1916, one returned it on the western face as a staff officer of the operations in the Somme, with Arras and Passchendaele. For this period, it was under the command of the general Herbert Plumer and dealt with the instruction of the men of the 9th body. Thanks to the drive lavished by Montgomery, with the repetitions and the combination of artillery with the infantry, the troops To pluck atteingnirent their objectives with a minimum of losses.

Montgomery took part in the Bataille of the Lily and the third battle of Aisne (battles of the Way Of the Ladies) before finishing the war with the rank of officer of level 1 general staff and chief of the staff of the 47e British division (2nd of London) with the temporary rank of Lieutenant-colonel. A photograph of 1918 watch the Montgomery lieutenant-colonel, then little known, being held upright opposite Winston Churchill during a procession.

Montgomery accepted the badge of the Ordre of the service distinguished for its effective and courageous command.

Inter-war period

After the war, the Montgomery lieutenant-colonel ordered a battalion of the British Armée with the Rhine before finding his rank of Capitaine. He wrote booklets and handbooks of drive where he announced of his experiment and lessons learned during the war. He was registered with the Staff College of Camberley before becoming major of the 17th brigade of infantry towards the end 1920. The brigade was based in the Comté of Cork during the Irish Civil war. A cousin of Montgomery had been assassinated in particular by the WILL GO in 1920 (see the Gang of Cairo). Montgomery took share with the conflict significantly. Effective, it did not employ however also expeditious and brutal methods only those of Arthur Percival. On its arrival, Montgomery required units of its brigade which them behavior is “in-beyond any reproach”. He admitted nevertheless later that the fact “of knowing the number of burned houses had not obstructed it” (referring to a governmental directive specifying that the houses of the people suspectées to belong to WILL GO or to be sympathizers are burnt). The officer of WILL GO Tom Barry known as of Montgomery which it had behaved in a “very correct way”.

Montgomery gradually realized that the conflict evolved/moved with the detriment of Great Britain and which the withdrawal of the troops appeared to be the only exit. In 1923, after the establishment of the free State of Ireland and during the Irish civil war, Montgomery wrote in Percival that “to gain a war of this type, you must be pitiless” and that democratic Great Britain of the 20th century was not ready to set up this kind of strategy. He added that the “only way (to leave itself there) was of their (Irishmen) giving a kind of government and to let them crush the rebellion themselves”.

In 1923, Montgomery joined the Territorial Army within the 49e division of infantry (West Riding). It turned over to the 1st royal regiment Warwickshire and ordered a company as a captain before becoming an instructor with Staff College of Camberley then major. It met a widow, Elizabeth Carver and Maria in 1927. In August 1928, a boy was born from their union. Montgomery became lieutenant-colonel of the 1st royal battalion of the regiment of Warwickshire in 1931. It carried out its service in Palestine, Egypt and India. Appointed colonel and instructor with the Staff College of the Indian army with Quetta in India.

As it was the case during all its career, Montgomery attracted itself the lightnings of its superiors because of his dictatorial arrogance and its manners, as for its contempt of conventions when those went against the military effectiveness. It put for example places from there a Bordel for its battalion, an establishment regularly inspected by an army medical officer, for the “horizontal cooling” of its soldiers rather than of having to force them to go in irregular brothels.

His/her father died in 1932 with Molville. In 1937, Montgomery became ordering officer of the 9th brigade of infantry. But this year was also dramatic for him. His wife was pricked by an insect whereas they were on vacation with Burnham-one-Sea. The wound was infected, it had to undergo an amputation but succumbed of the continuations of a Septicémie. Devastated by the death of his wife, the Montgomery sergeant insisted towards and against all immediately starting again his work after the funeral.

In 1938, it organized an operation amphibian combined with exercises of unloading. These demonstrations impressed the new commander-in-chief of the commander of the south, the general Archibald Wavell. Montgomery was graded with the row of major-general and was placed at the head of the 8th division of infantry to Palestine. It repressed there the Arab revolt before turning over, patient, in July 1939 to Great Britain, to take the command of the 3rd division of infantry (Iron).

Second world war

Great Britain declared the war in Germany the September 3rd 1939. The 3rd division was deployed in Belgium within the British force expeditionary (BEF). Montgomery predicts a disaster similar to that of 1914 and spent much time to involve its troops during the Drôle of war. It privileged the tactical instruction rather than the offensive operations. It was again in the middle of criticisms because of its standpoint with respect to sexuality of the soldiers. Its rigor in the drives was paying at the time the Germans began their invasion with the Netherlands the May 10th 1940. Its 3rd division advanced to the river Dyle and was withdrawn until Dunkirk with a great professionalism. The losses were very limited. During the Operation Dynamo which consisted in evacuating them: 330000 members of the force expeditionary towards Great Britain, Montgomery assumed the command of the 2nd British body.

On its return, Montgomery woke up the hostility of the War Office because of its frank opinions about the management of the force expeditionary. Relegated to the rank of commander of division, with a nomination with the Order of the Bath, it was promoted lieutenant-general in July 1940. Placed at the head of the 5th British body, it began a long quarrel with the commander-in-chief from the command of the south, Claude Auchinleck. In April 1941, it ordered the 12th body and in December 1941, it re-elected the command of south-east in army of south-east to promote the offensive spirit. During this period, it developed and applied its ideas to its soldiers, with his apogee, the Exercice Tiger in May 1942 which implied: 100000 people.

Campaigns in North Africa and Italy

In 1942, a new commander on the ground was necessary in the Middle East, theater of the operations where Auchinleck was commander-in-chief. Auchinleck had stabilized the allied positions with El-Alamein but Winston Churchill decided following a visit in August 1942, to replace it by Harold Alexander. Alan Brooke persuaded the Prime Minister to name Montgomery with the rank of commander of the 8th British army committed in the countryside in North Africa. The preferred candidate of Churchill was William Gott but the applicant was killed at the time of his return of the Cairo.

Auchinleck and its staff hardly appreciated the methods of command of Montgomery but this one succeeds in renovating the operation of the 8 {{E}} armed. It seized the command two days earlier than the date envisaged (the August 13rd 1942) and decided to reinforce immediately the strategic position of Alam Halfa. It gathered the command of the air force and ground in only one entity and ordered the destruction of all the documents and plans relative to a possible retirement. When Brooke and Alexander visited the district-general on August 19th, they were very surprised by the new environment founded by Montgomery.

Montgomery succeeds in transforming moral troops but it n the other hand had to disparage Auchinleck. It took care to appear as often as possible within the troop, while often returning visit with its units in order to make known itself. Before the arrival of Montgomery, the units of the 8th army tended to work separately and to carry out their own battles. Montgomery decided to put a term at this disorganization and made so that the units draw on the same cord.

The German commander of the Afrika Korps, Erwin Rommel, tried to encircle the 8th army at the time of the Bataille of Alam Halfa on August 31st, 1942. Work of the cryptanalystes of Ultra had confirmed the intentions of Rommel, and Montgomery had seen just by ordering the defense of the allied positions. Rommel was stopped in its offensive with very few losses but Montgomery did not attack the Germans who moved back by leaving the Egypt. He was criticized for this decision but advanced that the 8th army was not able to launching a mobile offensive on mechanized German forces, fluid and nevertheless frightening in spite of their losses. During operations in North Africa, one of its units particularly had been distinguished, the 7th armor-plated division, called “the rats of the desert”.

The reconquest of North Africa was essential to install aerodromes from which the support on Malta and the Opération Torch could be launched. Being unaware of the request for Churchill which wanted an installation fast, Montgomery conscientiously deployed the infrastructure in order to carry out the offensive under the best conditions. He did not want to launch out hastily in the combat and preferred unquestionable being to be able to gain the victory. He applied the methods which had proven reliable: accumulation of resources, pushed planning, drive of the units for the night combat and attacks with the 300 tanks Sherman as well as the psychological aspect with frequent meetings with the troop.

The Second battle of El Alamein began the October 23rd 1942 and finished 12 days later with for the first time of the war, a significant victory of Alliés against the Germans over ground. Montgomery correctly predicts the duration of the battle and the number of losses (13 500). Montgomery was anobli with the Ordre of the Bath and promoted general. The 8th army benefitted from it to advance whereas the Germans beat a retreat on hundreds of kilometers in direction of the Tunisia. The event marked a turning in North Africa and showed that the Germans were not invincible any more. Montgomery preserved the initiative by using the superiority of its army when that was necessary. It dislodged Rommel of each one of its successive positions. The March 6th 1943 within the framework of the Operation Capri, the massive attack of Rommel on one 8th very wide British army with Medenine was a failure. From March 20th to 27th, on the line of Mareth, Montgomery an opposition more constant than envisaged met. It borrowed another strategy by taking from reverse the Germans with a support of the fighter-bombers of operative RAF at low altitude. This countryside showed that the victory was exploited at the same time on the psychological level (the disease and the absenteeism were eliminated from the 8th army), the co-operative plan with the air force and the Army, on the logistic level with well thought installations and a precise planning with clear orders at the time of the operations.

The major allied attack which followed was the invasion of Sicily (Opération Husky). The notorious tensions between Montgomery and the American high-command began at this time. Montgomery questioned the plan of the allied invasion and by the force of the things, the American generals Patton and Bradley did not appreciate this incursion of the British general into their strategy. Even if they recognized qualities of Montgomery as a general, the Americans managed only with difficulty to work with its very expansive personality.

Montgomery continued to order the 8th army at the time of the unloading in Italy, but he detested the lack of coordination, the dispersion of the efforts and a tactic which he regarded as unnecessarily complicated. The December 23rd, it preferred to be withdrawn from the decisional team for the Italian countryside.

Normandy

Montgomery turned over to Great Britain to take again the command of the 21e group of the army which gathered all the allied terrestrial forces which were to take share with the Opération Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. The plans for this major operation had been prepared during two years, in particular by the staff of the allied supreme commander (COSSAC). Montgomery quickly concluded that the plan of the COSSAC was limited too much, and he pled with strength for the addition of two divisions to the three initially envisaged. Same manner that in North Africa, it often returned visit to its units to make sure of moral troops and quality of the instruction. Montgomery was the brother-in-law of Percy Hobart, military engineer British and ordering 79e division armor-plated in load of the development of the Hobart' S Funnies , a series of tanks intended for military engineering. Hobart made a demonstration of the tanks with Eisenhower and Montgomery with the beginning of the year 1944. The April 7th and the May 15th 1944, Montgomery presented to the school St Paul his strategy for the invasion. In the capacity as commander of the allied forces of terrestrial invasion, it had envisaged a 90 days battle, finishing when the troops would have reached the the Seine while swivelling around Caen taken by the Allies, with the British and Canadian armies ensuring the offensive and the American army progressing the east.

During intensive combat of the Bataille of Normandy which were spread out over two months and half, Montgomery did not manage to follow the original plan but a series of offensives impromptu and carried out under its command leads to the one of the greatest German defeats on the western face of Europe. The countryside launched by Montgomery aimed to badger and use the enemy. This strategy was followed until the middle of July. The occupation of the peninsula of the Cotentin and other offensives in the east made it possible to make safe Caen and to concentrate the German armoured tanks in this area. The Opération Cobra made it possible to bore the German lines and to encircle Wehrmacht. The thesis according to which Montgomery fixed the German armoured tanks at Caen to allow an American opening always lends to debate. It would indeed have been developed by Montgomery, itself, in order to justify its recurring failures in the catch of Caen. Moreover its responsibility is quite committed in the fact of having to too much be long in closing the Poche of Cliff, allowing part of the German troops to escape surrounding.

Advanced on the Rhine

The increasing presence of the American troops on the European theater (2 divisions out of 5 the day of the unloading, 72 out of 85 in 1945) made politically impossible an exclusively British management of the command of the terrestrial forces. At the end of the operations in Normandy, the general Eisenhower took itself charges the command with it with the terrestrial forces at the same time as the supreme role of commander. Montgomery on its side continued the command of the 21e group of army which included/understood from now on mainly British and Canadians. The general accepted only with difficulty this change of situation, even if this decision were former to the unloading. Churchill had to some extent compensated Montgomery by naming it marshal.

Montgomery succeeds in persuading Eisenhower on the operations to be carried out in Germany: a strategy based on an opening of a draft in direction of the the Ruhr in September 1944 (Operation Market Garden). If Eisenhower had adopted the cause of the marshal, George Patton had been shown much more held. This battle was one of most unusual for Montgomery: the offensive too daring and was badly planned. It was a failure with the destruction of the 1st airborne division with Arnhem and the death of several thousands of civilians Dutch. On the whole: 10000 allied soldiers perished during the operation: 8000 were captured or reported missing. The attention of the marshal being fixed on the operation in the Ruhr, it passed in the second plan the essential task which consisted in cleaning banks and the area of the the Scheldt during the capture of Antwerp. The group of Montgomery accepted the order to concentrate on this objective so that the wearing of Antwerp is open.

After the destruction of Arnhem and the evacuation of the population, the Dutch civilians had to undergo the terrible winter which followed. Although the operation Market Garden was a disaster and an appalling wasting of men, Montgomery will always refuse to recognize it. He will say even this operation that it was to 90% a success.

When the attack surprised in the the Ardennes began the December 16th 1944 with the Bataille from the Ardennes, the face of the 12th group of the American army was divided. The first American army was pushed back in the north of the German troops. The commander of the group, the general Omar Bradley was with the Luxembourg in the south of the opening and the command of the first armed became problematic. Montgomery was the commander nearest to the fire of the action and on December 20th, Eisenhower (then with Versailles) urgently transferred the command from the 1st American army (carried out by Courtney Hodges) and the 9th American army (ordered by William Hood Simpson) to Montgomery. Bradley was indignant at this decision for nationalist reasons.

Montgomery benefitted from the occasion and returned visit to the commanders of the various units. It set up a communication network and allotted a role of reserve to the 30e British body. American defenses were reorganized in the north of the face, and it ordered the evacuation of Saint-Vith. The German commander of the 5th army of Panzer S, Hasso von Manteuffel known as:

The operations of the American armed 1^ère had been concretized by a series of individual actions. The contribution of Montgomery to correct the situation was to transform these series of actions isolated into a coherent battle according to a clear and well defined plan. It is its refusal to engage in premature and iterative counter-attacks which made it possible to the Americans to gather their reserves and to frustrate the Germans in their attempts at extension of the opening

Eisenhower had required of Montgomery to launch the offensive on January 1st in order to meet the army of Patton coming from the south and to trap the Germans. But Montgomery refused to launch the infantry, which he regarded as insufficiently trained, in a snowstorm and a zone which appeared not very interesting to him from the strategic point of view. It did not launch the attack before the January 3rd, date on which the German troops had already succeeded in escaping. A major part of the American soldiers thought that it would have better done to send the troops but everyone knew that the marshal exécrait the unwise offensives. After the battle, the 1st American army turned over in the 12th group of the army. As for 9th American army, it remained in the 21e group of Montgomery until it crosses the Rhine.

Its group advanced to the Rhine with the operations Veritable and Grenade in February 1945. After the Operation Plunder (the crossing of the Rhine) carefully carried out the March 24th and the surrounding of the group B of the German army in the the Ruhr, the role of Montgomery consisted in ensuring the side of the American projection. This vision was worked over again to precede the Soviet troops which moved towards the Denmark. The 21e group accepted the order to occupy Hamburg and Rostock, thus preventing the Red Army from seizing the Danish peninsula.

The May 4th 1945, with Lünenburg, Montgomery accepted the German delegation bringing the official capitulation of the forces of 3rd Reich to Germany of north, in Denmark and to Holland. The event took place in a tent without any particular ceremony.

Post-war period

After the world war in 1946, Montgomery accepted off the title of Vicomte Montgomery Alamein . It was chief of the imperial general staff of 1946 with 1948 but this function was not appropriate to him since it was politicized. Montgomery continued to maintain the bonds with the royal regiment, and was high with the honorary rank of colonel of the regiment in 1947. His/her mother died in 1949 but Montgomery did not go to its burial because it was “too occupied”.

Appointed supreme commander or president of the committee of the union of the Western commander-in-chiefs, he was an effective inspector-general and set up useful exercises but was exceeded by the political dimension of this mandate. Montgomery became assistant with the supreme commander of the Atlantic forces in Europe of 1951 to 1958, a function which it provided the sides of Eisenhower and which made it possible to set up NATO. It took its retirement in 1958.

Between 1951 and 1966, Montgomery was president of the vice-chancellorship of the school St John to Leatherhead, Surrey. In 1953, the Hamilton Board off Education with Hamilton with the Canada wrote to the Montgomery marshal to ask for the permission to him of name a new school in the east of city in its honor. The project of the Viscount Montgomery Elementary arised as the most modern school of North America when the first stone was posed the March 14th 1951. The school was inaugurated the April 18th 1953, with Montgomery in the public of: 10000 people. He declared at the time of his speech: “Keep Well”, referring to the motto blazon of its family. Montgomery said this establishment which it was its “beloved school” and visit returned to him on 5 occasions, the last time in 1960. During its last appearance, Montgomery called to the students:

Let us make of Viscount Montgomery School the best of the Hamilton, best in Ontario, best of Canada. I do not join something which is not good. It is due only to you to see all that is well in this school. It is due only to the students to be not only the best at the school but also from their behavior apart from Viscount. Education is not only one thing which will enable you to pass your examinations and to make you take down a work, but also to develop your brain so that it can learn how to you to gather the facts and to carry out things.

Controversies

Before its retirement, the frank opinions of Montgomery on certain subjects, like the races, were often officially censured. After it was withdrawn from the military businesses, these declarations became public, which affected its reputation. Its memories were considered to be arrogant and being used only to sit its personality and its acts. He criticized many companions whom he had côtoyé during the war according to very hard terms, including Eisenhower that he showed inter alia to have prolonged the one year old war because of his incompetence. These charges reflect a term with their friendship. Montgomery also applauds the Apartheid and the mode of Mao Zedong. He pled against the legalization of homosexuality to the the United Kingdom, advancing that the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 was a “charter for the bougrery” and that “this kind of thing was perhaps tolerated in France, but we are Britanniques, God thank you! ”.

Perhaps partly because of the scandals, Montgomery was never anobli “ earldom ” (contrary to its contemporaries like Harold Alexander, Louis Mountbatten and Archibald Wavell). An official task that he wanted absolutely to honor during his last years was that of the port of the Sword off State (literally “the sword of the state”) during the opening of the Parliament. Newcomer at a advanced age, some wondered whether it were really able to remain upright during long periods with such a heavy weapon. These fears were confirmed when he disappears during the ceremony in 1968. It definitively ceased its public activities following this incident.

End-of-life

The British press had found in Montgomery an ideal subject. The journalists photographed the former marshal touching his pension at the local office of the social security. Because of its notoriety, much thought that Montgomery was with the shelter of the need and that it wasted the public money. In fact, Montgomery had always been a modest man and it was wounded that the public opinion does not judge it like tel.

Its residence was also burglarized. In spite of its appearance on television to ask for the return of its goods, primarily of sentimental value, these objects were never found.

He died in 1976 in his residence of Alton in the Hampshire and was buried with the cemetery of Holy Cross with Binsted after national funeral with the Saint-George vault of Windsor.

References

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