SckizoBoy said:
See, I despise Montgomery for what he did to Auchinleck. Monty only got his position by politically sucking up to Churchill and the timely death of William Gott, who probably would've handled the situation better, and credited the Auk where it was due and acted with a great deal more contrition. He only won the Second el Alamein thanks to Auchinleck's planning and only won the larger campaign because he got all the materiel he wanted while Rommel got (by comparison) sweet fuck all.
Moreover, Montgomery's handling of OpMktGdn really rankles at me, especially his attitude towards the Dutch Royal Family, his idiotic level of influence on SHAEF and belittling of Patton and Eisenhower.
Yeah, you can tell I (really) don't like him...
1 - Montgomery did not get his position by politically sucking up to Churchill. Churchill couldn't stand Montgomery on a personal level because Monty, not to put to fine a point on it, was an arsehole and Churchill wouldn't have allowed him to command if he had a viable alternative but he didn't once his own pick, Strafer Gott, died. Montgomery's adovocate and patron was Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke.
Alanbrooke had been impressed by Monty as a trainer in the BEF and by the exemplorary conduct of the 3rd "Iron" Division during the battle of France under Monty's direction and had been futher impressed by Monty's organizational skill in command of South-East Command in the home nations. All of this convinced Alanbrooke that Monty was a man of high military ability but Brookie bemoaned the fact that Monty was an arsehole who couldn't keep his opinions to himself and found himself having to repromand Monty on a number of occaisons - and he was the only many who could do so because he was the only man Monty respected.
2 - The Auk had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the planning or execution of the battle of 2nd El Alamein. He did create a plan for the Battle of Alam el Halfa but it was completely different to the plan Montgomery used.
The Auk's plan for Alam el Halfa was to arrange his army into three different lines of defense with the main line centering on the Alam el Halfa ridge, when Rommel attacked the Auk would use a series of counter-attacks to blunt the German offensive and throw it back however when making his plans known to his subordinates he was completely ineffectual in getting his point across and none of the corps or divisions commander had any idea of what they were supposed to be doing - as both Freddie de Guingand and Bernard Freyberg explained to Montgomery upon his arrival - and the only man who seems to have had a clear picture of what was supposed to happen was Eric Dorman Smith (and both he and Basil Liddel-Hart waxed lyrical about the genius of the Auk's plans post war ignoring completely the confusion they caused amungst the 8th Army).
Monty's plan for the defense of Alam el Halfa was to drastically simplify the plan from a three line mobile defense to a single line static defense focused on the Alam el Halfa ridge - this being the dominant geographical feature of the line. He would lay a large minfield to the south of the ridge, dig in his artillery and tanks on the ridge and send false information through the lines to insure that Rommel attacked exactly where he wanted him to, when Rommel attacked and got bogged down in the minefield Monty would release his airforce to assault the Panzer Army from the air and send a few of his more powerful tanks to assault the Panzer Army from the flank and rear. Monty's plan was different the Auk's at a base level and Rommel fell for it completely and was swatted away like a fly.
Furthermore Monty had a number of attributes that the Auk lacked which made him a better commander. The Auk found it difficult to make his intentions know to his subordinates which often resulted in confusion during battle where as Monty possessed a god given gift of being able to explain even the most complicted of things in the simplest of terms, the Auk couldn't pick a good subordinate to save his life where as Monty's picks generally proved to be adequet if nothing else, and the Auk in command of the 8th Army failed to create a working relationship between army and airforce and left his artillery, infantry and armour to work almost independent of each other where as Monty's whole philisophy as a general was focused on combined arms, on the need to have every element of his forces working together cohesively.
3 - The critism of Monty's victory at 2nd El Alamein that he had a vast material advantage over his enemy is supfluous. Having to opportunity to amass a vast material superiorty over your enemy and taking it then using that material superiority to decisively defeat that enemy is not something that a commander can be criticised for. In fact Montgomery would have been a fool not to take that opportunity.
Rommel's bad supply situation was his own fault. He didn't have to attack into Egypt, he didn't have to stay at the El Alamein line - for those who say Hitler forced him to stay I will point out that Rommel retreated from the Egyptian border to El Agheila before in the Desert Campaign and Hitler did nothing to stop him nor punish him - yet Rommel stayed well beyond the furthest extent of his supply line, starving his own army into submission. It was a similar situation to Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, Rommel got so caught up in his own legend and the legend of his army that felt it would be a stain of their honor if he were to pull his army back and away from the battle that was to come.
Additionally, the Panzer Army's defensive line was very strong at El Alamein. They couldn't be flanked because of the Mediterranean protecting their nothern flank and Qattara Depression protecting their Southern flank, their troops and artillery were well placed and dug in, the strongest Tanks were free and mobile and available to be deployed against any attempted break through and the largest minefield of the war was laid between the two armies - and the only way for the 8th Army to break through that minefield was to find the mines with bayonets and remove them by hand because the minesweeping devices didn't work. Given the strenght of the position there could be quite a strong argument to be had that if Rommel hadn't been in Germany on sick leave and had Stumme not died of a heart attack in the initial bombardment then the 8th Army's attack could have been stopped in the minefield, which would have at least made the battle longer and bloodier for the British even if it did not lead to victory for the Axis forces.
4 - There is a lot of fault to be found in Montgomery's handling of Market Garden, not least the fact that he didn't really handle it at all. Once he had recieved the go ahead for the operation he uncharacteristically delegated the planning of the operation to other people - leaving it in the hands of Frederick Browning and Louis Brereton - then when the operation was put into effect he didn't exersize command, in stead he left that in the hands of subordinates - Browning, Brereton and Miles Dempsey - and did not put any real pressure on them to get things moving - I believe it was Pip Roberts who commented on how unusual it was that Monty wasn't breathing down Brian Horrock neck to get a move on. Instead of taking command Montgomery spent the period sulking in his HQ about not being the Allied Land Forces Commander anymore and complaining about Eisenhower's handling of the western front and thus he was criminally neglegent in his duties where this operation is concerned.
However Montgomery's failing in this operation do not excuse Eisenhower's failings nor Bradley and Patton's selfishness. Eisenhower promised Montgomery total support for Market Garden, the use of supplies and transportation earmarked for Bradley's 12th Army Group and the right to talk directly to Courtney Hodges about coordinating their operations however he failed to keep this promise. Bradley met Eisenhower only a day or so after Eisenhower promised Monty total support and convinced him that there was no need for 12th Army Group to stop or transfer anything to 21st Army Group for Market Garden, that 12th Army Group could continue to attack at the same time and that he could get Eisenhower exactly the same thing Monty was aiming for - if not a Rhine crossing then a clear approach to a Rhine crossing - by attacking through the Hurtgen Forrest - this naturally prevented Hodges coordinating with Monty, this and the fact that Bradley demanded all communication with Hodges pass through his HQ. Further once Patton learnt of Eisenhower's decision to support Market Garden at 12th Army Group's expense he said Monty could go to hell and he would tie up all his forces in combat so that no halt order could be followed and more material would have to be transfered to him. All this resulted in both Market Garden recieving much less support than had been promised it and 12th Army Group stretching its front across the Ardennes following two full out offensives at opposite ends of its own line. All because Eisenhower was totally unable to choose which advance was most important to him and give it the proper support and because Bradley and Patton would not stand to see American units halted for even a week or two so a primarilly British offensive could forward.
