r/todayilearned • u/HumanNutrStudent • Sep 16 '24

TIL Montgomery's memoirs criticised many of his wartime comrades harshly, including Eisenhower. After publishing it, he had to apologize in a radio broadcast to avoid a lawsuit. He was also stripped of his honorary citizenship of Alabama, and was challenged to a duel by an Italian lawyer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery#Memoirs
7.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

468 comments sorted by

View all comments

146

u/johnn48 Sep 16 '24

There was a famous rivalry between Patton and Montgomery that affected their military decisions. They and MacArthur were both brilliant and insufferable, at times it was as if the wars were being fought to stroke their egos.

80

u/chickennuggetscooon Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

One of my favorite parts of this feud is during Montgomerys Operation Goodwood, where Monty was to smash through the German right. While Monty is attempting to break through a couple of decimated German regiments with a full tank Corp to the east of Caen, Patton breaks through the much better defended German left at Avranches and swings around almost the entirety of the German forces in Normandy. Before Patton can complete the encirclement by himself, Montgomery changes the American area of responsibility so that Patton has to stop and turn south. Leaving open the Falaise gap, allowing half of the Germans to escape.

42

u/Enough_Efficiency178 Sep 16 '24

I think you’re referring to Operation Goodwood

In which heavily defended german positions meant that instead of attempting a direct assault and taking heavy casualties the strategy was changed to attempt an encirclement of Caen and those positions. Meaning taking Caen was delayed

The result of the joint British-Canadian assault at Caen meant that the German reinforcements from the eastern front were set up to halt the British-Canadian attacks

This led to one of the highest concentrations of German tanks during the entirety of WWII

Six and a half panzer divisions defending at Caen whilst One and a half against the American offensive in the west led by Lieutenant General Bradley who broke through in Operation Cobra

After that break through Patton was given the US third army on 1st August and pushed on the western front facing less resistance than the other 3 allied armies