[Note: This is Part 1 of a scheduled three-part analysis of Montgomery's leadership and battlefield performance in World War II. Part 2 can be found here ^[1]. Part 3 can be found here ^[2].]

Love him or detest him, there has rarely been a middle-ground when it comes to opinions about one of World War II’s most controversial and misunderstood generals: Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery. He has been the subject of gossip, endless articles and a number of biographies, as well as portraits and assessments in books about the battles, campaigns and theaters of war in which he served. Overall, historians have been unkind to Montgomery. In this article I intend to make the case that these judgments are mostly superficial and as often as not, wrong. He had a personality we love to hate and a record of accomplishment few could claim.

Monty was married to the British Army and was a dedicated officer whose entire existence was geared to preparing for war and to fighting that war to win. To that end, he demanded the highest standards of conduct, training and performance. Those who failed to live up to his standards were ruthlessly replaced by men who could. In the disastrous wake of Dunkirk in 1940 Montgomery began training the men under his command with both relish and a hardnosed insistence on performance. "His first priority was fitness," notes historian Alastair Horne, "’physical and mental,’ quoting with relish his favorite lines from Kipling;

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Nations have passed away and left no trace,
And history gives the naked cause of it -
One single, simple reason in all cases;
They fell because their peoples were not fit.¹

The relevance of Montgomery’s insistence on fitness has a modern day parallel. In the July 4, 2005 edition of The Boston Globe the Associated Press reported that, "Besides terrorists, germ warfare, and nuclear weapons, military officials increasingly worry about a different kind of threat – troops too fat too fight. Weight issues plague all branches of the military, from elite Marines to the Air Force . . . ‘This is quickly becoming a national security issue for us,’" noted one colonel. During World War II, this was a problem quickly solved by Montgomery: the unfit or those overweight were quickly weeded out. In his command even staff officers ran weekly seven-mile runs. These doctrines were among those he brought to each of his wartime commands. This is but one example of a general who was ahead of his time.

Like that of his adversary, Erwin Rommel, and his ally George S. Patton, Montgomery’s reputation was exemplified by his forceful personality, a trait possessed by all successful battlefield commanders. Like "Ike," Montgomery was instantly recognizable by the single nickname – "Monty." The British soldier had a reassuring sense that their commanding general not only knew what he was doing but would look out for their welfare, and, most important of all – their lives. Rommel, Patton, and Montgomery made such a deep impression upon their men that they, in turn, felt a bond with their commander that all would be well as long as he led them. All three made their presence felt by personal visits to their troops to motivate in times of uncertainty. A British writer has described such men as "characters." "Soldiers love a character, whether he happens to be their platoon commander, C.O., or commander-in-chief. Montgomery was a genuine character, a born exhibitionist with a sense of the dramatic and with tremendous confidence in himself."²

Fearless, and occasionally foolhardy in his public and private utterances, Montgomery was thoroughly disliked by many of his contemporaries for the usual reasons: jealousy and rivalry. However, right or wrong, Montgomery was scrupulously honest in his opinions which, combined with his rasping personality, attracted legions of detractors, both during the war and since, especially some American historians who have been unable or unwilling to judge him fairly. Yet, as was said of Admiral Ernie King’s appointment by FDR, Montgomery was not picked for high command because he was pleasant or a gentleman. In fact, what separated Montgomery from his peers was that he was unafraid to be unpopular.³ In short, neither Monty’s personality nor his sexuality is the criteria by which he should have been judged – then or now.

He was a consummate professional soldier at a time when Britain was desperate for competent battlefield commanders, not chivalry. Indeed, one of the ills of the British Army was that it was staffed with far too many "nice chaps." No one ever referred to Bernard Law Montgomery as a "nice chap."

An accomplished student of war like Patton and Eisenhower, Montgomery spent the interwar years studying, writing and preparing for the world war he too was convinced would one day occur. At first sight, Montgomery neither inspired nor intimidated. "He had not [Gen. Sir Claude] Auchinleck’s impressive presence, nor the handsome, martial bearing of Alexander, nor the rugged, bulldog features of Wavell."⁴ Habitually dressed in a nondescript uniform of his own design, Montgomery’s five foot seven inch frame, hawk-like features, thinning hair, high-pitched voice and, although born an Ulsterman, his English accent, all added to the impression far more reminiscent of a faceless civil servant than a general. Indeed, Omar Bradley’s aide once described Montgomery, "with his corduroy trousers, his enormous loose fitting gabardine coat and his beret" as resembling "a poorly tailored bohemian painter."⁵

Those who misjudged him on the basis of first impressions were soon disabused of their lapse. Montgomery’s most striking feature was his penetrating grey-blue eyes, which literally flashed with authority and determination and exuded the air of authority characteristic of all great commanders.⁶ Correspondent John Gunther thought he possessed, "the most piercing and luminous blue eyes I have ever seen."⁷ Montgomery’s lack of physical presence was more than compensated for by the magnetism with which he dominated the British Eighth Army. Other than [Field Marshal Sir Alan] Brooke [the Chief of the Imperial General Staff], whom he both respected and rather feared, no one intimidated Montgomery, not even Churchill with whom he maintained a spirited professional relationship that was devoid of the warmth and intimacy the prime minister enjoyed with men like Eisenhower and Alexander. Thus, while Montgomery seemed to have had Churchill’s ear, he never seemed to have had his heart. Churchill once said of him that he was "indomitable in retreat; invincible in advance; insufferable in victory!"

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Perhaps the most controversial of the Allied World War II battlefield generals, Montgomery became a lightning rod of controversy both for his perceived arrogance and, all too often, for simply being right. He was one of the few to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the British Army of World War II which, as historian Sir Michael (Lord) Howard, a veteran of the desert war and holder of a Military Cross for valor, has observed, "was not very good."⁸ During the interwar years its leadership had failed to develop a common doctrine of employment for the infantry, and its use of armor proved unimaginative and ineffective on the sands of the Libyan desert.

Historian Eric Larrabee has written that, "The prewar British army was idea-resistant to a degree . . . and it had no George Marshall to weed out deadwood and nurture the gifted. The strategy of poking at the perimeter of Europe and hoping for the best was not sophisticated, it was merely the acceptance of the inability to do anything else."⁹

To the dismay of professionals like Brooke, the British Army chain of command was rife with far too many "good old boys" whose chief qualification for their rank and position was by virtue of their social class rather than their proficiency as soldiers. The higher ranks of the British Army were populated with men Brooke wanted desperately to remove but could not because there were no qualified men to replace them. As Lord Noel Annan notes, "The British officer between the wars was not the professional he is today. The Army provided him with a life in which hunting, shooting and playing games was almost considered to be part of his work . . . He knew the points of a horse, not of a tank. He cared for his men, but his horizon rarely rose above the regimental mess."¹⁰

Moreover, too many of Britain’s future generals had died as promising young officers during World War I which had claimed the lives of a million men whose crosses filled the cemeteries that sprouted like mushrooms in the war’s aftermath. During the dark days in Britain after the humiliation of Dunkirk, Brooke lamented, "How poor we are in Army and Corps commanders. We ought to remove several but heaven knows where we shall find anything very much better."¹¹

Like Eisenhower, Montgomery sprang from the relative obscurity of the middle ranks of the Regular officer corps and despite an impressive record during World War I; he too languished during the interwar years. In a tradition-filled army where being a "nice chap" was considered de rigueur, Montgomery, the outsider, wore his nonconformity as a badge of honor and refused to respect such constraints. New Zealand’s General Sir Bernard Freyberg, holder of the Victoria Cross, who once called Montgomery a "little bastard" also proclaimed, "If Montgomery is a cad, it’s a great pity that the British Army doesn’t have a few more bounders."¹²

Monty’s character traits intensely annoyed the old guard of the British Army. An example of its absurd class-consciousness was a remark by [Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur, later Lord] Tedder that, "the trouble with Monty was that he was anything but a ‘nice chap,’" and another by Field Marshal Lord Gort that: "In dealing with him one must remember that he is not quite a gentleman."¹³

In the hidebound, élitist British Army, Montgomery was the ultimate outsider, an anti-authoritarian, black sheep "Colonial" in an exclusive old-boy’s club where one’s lineage and social standing counted for more than one’s ability. His official biographer, Nigel Hamilton, notes, "Monty’s genius – as Rommel’s – would be to see, instinctively and in a manner that had eluded the callous commanders of World War I, that great military leadership in a people’s century could still be achieved, despite the mechanical, inhumane nature of ‘total war’ . . ."¹⁴ Montgomery was the first British general to openly signal his rebellion and his disdain for membership in this exclusive club by his refusal to wear conventional military dress. What counted was only that his troops received his message loud and clear.

Possessed of a priceless asset in the same stubborn, bulldog-like traits as Churchill, little ever daunted him. It took far more than another "nice chap" in September 1942 when Montgomery assumed command of a beaten and dispirited Eighth Army which had been pushed all over the western desert and humiliated by Rommel. "The bad old days are over," he said, "a new era has dawned." Issuing perhaps his most famous order, Montgomery threw down the gauntlet by ordering all previous plans for retreat to be burned. "We will fight the enemy where we now stand; there will be no withdrawal and no surrender. If we cannot stay here alive, then let us stay here dead!" The impact was electric.

Montgomery shrewdly recognized his army’s limitations and never asked them to carry out missions for which they were not capable. As a senior RAF officer, Air Vice-Marshal E.J. Kingston-McCloughry, has written," It was sheer leadership, character, courage, self-confidence, showmanship and ‘drama’ . . ."¹⁵

It was his traits of outrageous behavior and showmanship that catapulted Montgomery to fame. Churchill not only condoned but also encouraged individualism, which mirrored his own eccentric behavior. Once, when a critic complained that Montgomery was wearing unauthorized badges on his bush hat, Churchill retorted, "If I thought that badges would make my other generals as good as Monty I would order them all to wear badges."¹⁶

Monty’s relations with Dwight Eisenhower during the last two years of the war were often difficult and thoroughly tested Ike’s patience. Although Ike disdained men with mammoth egos, the two men had more in common than either realized. Both were driven by a passionate hatred of the evils of Nazism and a fierce desire to smite their common enemy on the field of battle. And, both were unsparingly candid in their private, often critical, opinions of their fellow professional soldiers.

The most significant difference between the two men was what historians Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell called Monty’s fundamentalism. "Nothing would induce him to compromise between what he considered militarily sound and the politically desirable,"¹⁷ whereas Eisenhower frequently sought compromise, if for no other reason than to assuage the demands of having to answer to too many masters. What Montgomery saw as black and white was to Eisenhower a multi-hued color. Unconcerned with anything but what he deemed militarily sound, Monty’s candor and refusal to compromise was both a strength and a source of friction with Eisenhower and others. Outspoken to a fault, where others would sugarcoat, Montgomery would publicly lambaste. A modern day counterpart that comes to mind is Senator John McCain of Arizona.

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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 ^[1].]

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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