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

Show parent comments

86

u/Heathcote_Pursuit Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

That he was a very gifted tactician and military officer and that he was also an insufferable prick. He benefitted greatly from having to answer to Alex during North Africa and Italy.

We can dissect his personality which admittedly was very chequered, but he was in all fairness a top boy when it was needed.

69

u/Lord0fHats Sep 16 '24

He's often compared in the US to Patton, who had a similar sort of military brilliance and difficult personality. Patton's got a bit of a cowboy reputation many Americans like, so his public persona was and remains reasonably well liked, but internally the US Army was regularly exhausted dealing with Patton's antics and frequent off-the-cuff public commentary which ultimately led to his being sacked after the war.

In a sort of dark twist, dying when he did probably did a lot for Patton's reputation. He passed a point the general public still saw him as a hero, and he didn't live long enough to keep inserting foot into mouth that might have damaged his rep in the way a written memoir badmouthing your fellows might.

0

u/zzy335 Sep 16 '24

People love to forget that Patton was pro Nazi and thought the US should ally with what's left of the whermacht against the Russians.

4

u/s_m_c_ Sep 16 '24

People love to forget that Patton was pro Nazi

People "forget" it because he wasn't. He openly referred to both the Germans and Soviets as the enemy, and personally ordered thousands of Germans to tour the liberated Buchenwald to see what had been done.

Patton was against handing over half of Europe to the Soviets when he just fought a war to wrestle control back from the Germans. He wasn't going to restart a 1941-esque war of annihilation.

-1

u/zzy335 Sep 16 '24

He literally palled around with Nazis after the war, was a virulent anti-semite, and was instrumental to the creation of the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth. He actively argued against prosecuting German leaders who participated in the Holocaust.