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Montgomery liked Eisenhower personally ("a very nice chap"), but regarded him professionally as "probably quite good on the political side . . . [but] he knows nothing whatever about how to make war or to fight battles; he should be kept away from all that business if we want to win this war."¹⁸

From the outset Montgomery’s relationship with Eisenhower was unpredictable. Both sprung from humble roots, but that was not enough for their relationship to ever have gelled. Fundamentally, Eisenhower disliked Monty the person but respected him as a soldier. In 1943, it is doubtful if Eisenhower fully appreciated Montgomery’s matchless abilities as a military trainer, a trait he shared with Patton. Nor is it likely he recognized that his affiliation with Montgomery was no more difficult than the Eighth Army commander’s often-contentious relationships with other British and Commonwealth officers. Thus, the unfortunate outcome of their early interchanges was that neither man ever really understood the other. Over time, their differences would only intensify.

Typically, Montgomery found unique means of irritating Eisenhower. A case in point was the infamous B-17 incident, which greatly embarrassed Eisenhower. Montgomery was fond of betting small sums on practically anything. The unwary that visited his field headquarters invariably found their names in his betting book and their wallets open. Montgomery’s best known victim was Ike’s Chief of Staff, Bedell Smith who foolishly agreed to provide him with a B-17 Flying Fortress, complete with an American crew, if his Eighth Army captured Sfax by April 15, 1943. Sfax fell on April 10 and a joyful Montgomery cabled a mystified Eisenhower demanding immediate delivery in payment of Smith’s bet. Unable to contain his glee, he sent a follow-up cable several hours later. Smith was unaware he had been hoodwinked until Montgomery began peppering Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) with demands the bet be honored immediately. Both Eisenhower and Smith were acutely embarrassed. Montgomery not only received his Flying Fortress, but a blistering rebuke from Brooke who had seen its negative impact on Anglo-American relations. Although Eisenhower never again brought up the matter after complaining to Brooke, the incident, which the CIGS described as "crass stupidity" in his diary, was the forerunner of future misunderstandings of a more serious nature. Montgomery viewed the incident as a delightful gambol in which he had tricked the Americans out of an aircraft he could just as easily had merely by asking for it.¹⁹ Bedell Smith may have summed it up best when he once said to Monty: "You may be great to serve under, difficult to serve alongside, but you sure are hell to serve over."²⁰

In turn, Eisenhower was not above using Montgomery’s vanity to his own ends. At the end of the Tunisian campaign in May 1943 he wrote to Monty to request two Luger pistols as souvenirs captured from Rommel, "the only loot I want take back from this war." Montgomery happily complied. Years later Eisenhower merrily told an interviewer, "Oh, hell, I could have had a warehouse full of Lugers if I wanted them. I was just trying to set up Monty a little. I figured he would be pleased as Punch to give me such a gift, and I was right. You would have thought he was bringing me the Holy Grail. I gave the pistols to an aide."²¹

Ultimately, notes Stephen Ambrose, "Eisenhower was a twentieth century general, managing a huge organization and concentrating on getting all the parts to function smoothly. Montgomery was a throwback, a general born to command who scorned the committee and led by inspiration, making his decisions alone."²²

Historians of World War II have proven remarkably incapable of judging Montgomery on his merits. From Alexander the Great to Napoleon, history records that most successful military commanders were ruthless bastards. Montgomery was merely the latest in this long lineage. He has been bashed and castigated with equal fervor by British and Americans unable to separate his professional virtues from his personal faults, of which there were indeed many. As his official biographer writes, "the very virtues which gave his leadership its inspiring quality – absolute conviction, insistence on proper planning, ruthless professionalism – made him an infuriatingly opinionated and stubborn ally."²³

Historians Williamson Murray and Alan Millett have come the closest in recent years to an accurate assessment of the most controversial British soldier of the war. Describing him as "one of the great field commanders of World War II," they note that, "He was not a nice person; dogged, conceited, vain, completely sure of his own abilities, and incapable of understanding other human beings, Montgomery also possessed the attributes of a great general . . . he was a first-class trainer; and he understood the mind and stomach of the common soldiers." Montgomery also understood better than any other that, "He must fight his battles within the limitations imposed by the weaknesses of the forces under his command . . . he refused to fight the Germans in a war of mobility but instead forced them fight on his terms – with firepower and sheer numbers."²⁴

What I hope this article has conveyed is that superficial judgments based on one’s personality are meaningless, and in the case of Montgomery, have been, more often than not, dead wrong. Generalship must be judged on overall performance, in his case, on the basis of the entire war. No successful military commander is without hits and misses, enormous successes like Alam Halfa and Alamein, and disasters such as the Operation Market-Garden are not unusual.

One does not have to "like" Monty in order to appreciate both his generalship and his place in military history. Was he a "nice chap"? Of course not. He was no more likeable than controversial baseball slugger Barry Bonds. The revelation of his steroid use has tainted and obscured the fact that despite this enormous failing the man is still one of the greatest to ever play the game of baseball, and someday he is still likely to enter the baseball Hall of Fame. Honest and fair assessments of men like Bonds and Bernard Montgomery are hard to come by yet are vital if we are to truly understand these men.

[Reminder: This is part 1 of a three-part article. Next month's web article will assess Monty's generalship in Sicily and Italy in 1943. In addition to the Eisenhower-Montgomery relationship, the article will also examine his association with Gen. George S. Patton. That can be found here.]

References – Monty: World War II’s Most Misunderstood General

¹ Alastair Horne with David Montgomery, Monty: The Lonely Leader, 1944-1945 (New York, HarperCollins, 1994), 37.
² John Laffin, Links of Leadership (London, 1970), 257.
³ A point made to the author by Colonel Douglas MacGregor, USA, April 2001.
⁴ C.E. Lucas Phillips, Alamein, (London, 1965), 56.
⁵ Diary of Lt. Col. Chester B. Hansen, July 20, 1944, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA.
⁶ A fuller portrait of Montgomery is in Chap. 4 of the author’s Bitter Victory: The Battle for Sicily, 1943. (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1988).
⁷ John Gunther, D Day (New York, Harper & Bros., 1943), 90.
⁸ Sir Michael Howard, quoted in "Scholarship on World War II: Present and Future," The Journal of Military History, July 1991.
⁹ Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief, (New York, Harper & Row, 1987), 498.
¹⁰ Noel Annan, Changing Enemies (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1997), 55.
¹¹ Bryant, Turn of the Tide, 239.
¹² Quoted in Colin F. Baxter, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887-1976: A Selected Bibliography (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1999), 5.
¹³ Related to Patton by Bedell Smith, Patton diary, May 5, 1943, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
¹⁴ Nigel Hamilton, The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein, 1887-1942 (London, Allen Lane, 2001), 559.
¹⁵ E.J. Kingston-McCloughry, The Direction of War (New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1955), 159.
¹⁶ Shelford Bidwell, "Monty, Master of the Battlefield or Most Overrated General," RUSI Journal, June 1984.
¹⁷ Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell, Coalitions, Politicians and Generals, (London, Brassey’s, 1993), 193.
¹⁸ Letter, Montgomery to Brooke, Apr. 4, 1943, Montgomery Papers, Imperial War Museum, London.
¹⁹ Alanbrooke diary, June 3, 1943, Alanbrooke Papers, Kings College, London.
²⁰ Hamilton, Monty: Master of the Battlefield, 1942-1944, xxv.
²¹ Eisenhower to Montgomery, May 12, 1943, The Eisenhower Papers, vol. II, 1124, and Stephen E. Ambrose, "Interviewing Ike," American History Illustrated, Oct. 1970.
²² Stephen E. Ambrose, "Eisenhower as Commander," essay in The Eisenhower Papers, Vol. V, 40.
²³ Nigel Hamilton, Monty: Master of the Battlefield, 1942-1944 (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1983), xxv.
²⁴ Williamson Murray and Alan Millett, A War To Be Won, (The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 2000), 270.

Images from National Archives (in order of appearance):

Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery circa 1944 in Normandy.

Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery (21st Army Group) confers with Major General J. Lawton Collins (VII Corps – left) and Major General Matthew B. Ridgeway (XVIII Airborne Corps – right). Photo taken at VII Corps command post on 26 December 1944.

Lieutenant General Bernard L. Montgomery confers with the commander of the Desert Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Coningham.

General Eisenhower congratulates Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery after presenting him with the Distinguished Service Medal at SHAEF headquarters in June 1945.

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