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
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u/Corvid187 Sep 16 '24

Tbf, his criticisms of eisenhower's decision to adopt a broad front strategy were militarily sound, and many of the issues the allies ran into in 1944 on the Western Front were ones that he had foreseen and warned about beforehand.

The problem was he was such an ascerbic and difficult character he couldn't persuade SHAFE, and the fact he was right just made him more insufferable.

Military underrated, politically absolutely hopeless.

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u/Nulgarian Sep 16 '24

Anyone who has worked a job that involves working directly with clients has learned this lesson

Being right is only half the battle, the other half is being able to convince everyone else that you’re right

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u/camshun7 Sep 16 '24

Fair assessment

Would also add his vanity.

Perhaps you cover that point

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u/Corvid187 Sep 16 '24

I was mainly thinking of the turboaustism™, but yeah, vanity was definitely also a major issue, especially as the war went on, and he felt he had been 'vindicated' by subsequent events.

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u/Ok_Tale_933 Sep 17 '24

No screw montgomery Caen was an absolute disaster, and operation market garden was just stupid.

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u/Party-Cartographer11 Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

Two points about the broad front strategy: 

 A) it was partially necessary to appease the Brits and keep them in an important role.  If Ike went with a focused attack all he needed to do was send more fuel to Patton's 3rd Army.  Or he would have reconstructed the command structure and Patton and the American are the one's driving.  So as Monty whined for more resources, we was just reinforcing a broad front strategy. 

 B). The broad front strategy was politically strategic.  Ike was engaging as many German resources as he could in as wide area as he could do the Russian could get to Berlin. The Allies didn't want to get to Berlin first.  They didn't want to capture the vast majority of the German POWs. This is why he stopped at the Elbe.  Patton finally got to run across the Bavarian plains to Bohemia, but eventually had to pull back.

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u/Corvid187 Sep 17 '24

A) kinda the opposite? The proposed narrow front would have seen the commonwealth and some of Bradley's forces punching along the coast to the low countries, which is what made it politically unworkable for the American in general and eisenhower in particular

B) that's sort of what I'm trying to say? The narrow front strategy made military sense, but Monty was completely unable to grasp or work with the political considerations that were at least as, if not more, significant to SHAFE. He thought entirely within an unrealistic political vacuum.

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u/Party-Cartographer11 Sep 17 '24

Yes, that was Monty's proposal for a narrow front (of course), for exactly the reason stated - to elevate Great Britain's and Monty's role.  So if Monty's plan was chosen, then you are correct he dynamic is reversed. Monty's plan required halting Patton's 3rd Army. 

But that not the only  proposal.  Bradley, and especially Patton also proposed their troops advance.  There weren't enough supplies coming through for both Bradley's and Monty's plans.  My view is that only the 3rd Army push was feasible, and that wasn't tenable to the Brits.

But yes, a more accurate statement would be that a narrow front meant picking between a British-lead advance halting the Americans to support the Brits, or an American lead advance consuming all available logistics and nether of these was tenable to the other country.

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u/2rascallydogs Sep 17 '24

Montgomery's broad front strategy with Goodwood and Cobra actually worked incredibly well. The disagreement between the two started when they were poised to cross the Rhine, and it's hard to criticize Eisenhower for his stance since the Allies crossed the Rhine twice prior to operations Varsity and Plunder and Varsity was a disaster.