Bernard Law Montgomery (Military History)

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One of the most colorful and controversial commanders of World War II, Bernard Law Montgomery commanded Allied armies in two of the decisive battles of the war: El Alamein and Normandy. In 1942 few people outside the British Army had heard of him. His victory at El Alamein against German and Italian forces commanded by the Field Marshal Erwin Rommel made his name a household word among millions, and a public figure approaching the wartime popularity of Churchill in Britain, Roosevelt in America, and Stalin in Russia. Two years later, Montgomery commanded Allied ground forces in the pivotal battle of Normandy. In between these two decisive battles, the British general fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. In 1946 the field marshal was raised to the peerage as Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. Opinions on Montgomery, among contemporaries and historians alike, have differed widely. A maverick and outspoken to a fault, he did not conform to the stereotype of a British general: physically large, “a nice chap,” and modest. At his most casual, he wore baggy corduroy trousers, a grey turtleneck sweater, and the famous non-regulation black beret with two badges. When asked to name the three greatest generals in history, Montgomery replied, quite seriously, “The other two were Alexander the Great and Napoleon.” His critics have been legion: American historian Martin Blumenson once called him “the most overrated general of World War II.” His official British biographer, Nigel Hamilton, however, considered him a “Master of the Battlefield.” In a new century, the American military historian Carlo D’Este would write “Monty: World War II’s Most Misunderstood General.” German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt observed that generals were like race horses—that they were supposed to win—and Montgomery won most of the time. The British public, however, remains unaware of Montgomery’s accomplishments, and opinion polls conducted by Britain’s National Army Museum reflect a lack of historical perspective. In a 2011 poll to determine “Britain’s Greatest General,” Montgomery’s name was not among the finalists! In a 2013 online poll to determine Britain’s greatest battles, El Alamein was not even among the top five “Greatest British Battles.” Between El Alamein and Normandy, Montgomery fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He commanded British, Canadian, and Polish forces in the Northwest Europe campaign, receiving the surrender of the German northern armies at Lüneberg Heath on 4 May 1945. He was raised to the peerage as Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in 1946. This bibliography makes no claim to be exhaustive or definitive, and consists of printed English-language sources.

General Overviews

Chester Wilmot, an Australian war correspondent for the BBC, wrote the first outstanding military narrative of Allied operations in northwest Europe, Wilmot 1952. Wilmot had seen Montgomery close-up, and he was later given access to some of Monty’s papers. The “desert war” fought in Libya and Egypt, in which Montgomery won his world fame, is dismissed by John Ellis, one of Britain’s most provocative historians on World War II, as not worthy of a footnote (see Ellis 1990). Ellis argues that Allied victory in World War II was inevitable, given their industrial superiority. Overy 1996 provides an important corrective to the view that the Allies won primarily because of their larger population and production resources. Many of the debates over military operations that have dominated the writings of World War II military historians are superbly reappraised in Murray and Millett 2000. Weinberg 1994 is a breathtaking global history of World War II, based on exhaustive archival research. A new view of the global history of World War II is provided by Mawdsley 2009. Concisely written and offering a unique assessment of the war’s multiple theaters and fronts, it is especially useful for undergraduate students studying World War II. A printed primary source from which to examine Montgomery views as commander of the British Eighth Army are the papers edited by Stephen Brooks (Brooks 1991), and those for the battle of Normandy edited by the same author (Brooks 2008, cited under Battle of Normandy). Another essential source is the Eisenhower papers (see Chandler 1970).

Brooks, Stephen, ed. Montgomery and the Eighth Army: A Selection from the Diaries, Correspondence and Other Papers of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, August 1942 to December 1943. London: Bodley Head, 1991.
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Brooks spent four years cataloguing the Montgomery papers at the Imperial War Museum, London, and this work was published for the Army Records Society. Students and researchers will find correspondence relating to Montgomery in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, London (the depository for the Alanbrooke and de Guingand papers; General Sir Francis de Guingand had been Monty’s chief of staff), among others, and the Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge, England. Government records are deposited in the National Archives (for Public Records Office), Kew, England.
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Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., ed. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years. 5 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970.
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On the great debatable issues, such as the single-thrust versus the broad front approach, or whether the Allies should have tried to beat the Russians to Berlin, there are ample details in these papers.
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Ellis, John. Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War. New York: Viking, 1990.
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Ellis argues that because Allied victory was the inevitable result of industrial superiority, Allied commanders were vastly overrated. Ellis rates Montgomery’s incompetence the highest.
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Mawdsley, Evan. World War II: A New History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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In his references to Montgomery, the author presents a fair and balanced treatment of the field marshal.
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Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2000.
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This is a serious analytical study full of fresh insights and a good read. Montgomery is fairly assessed militarily and not on the basis of his personality.
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Overy, David. Why the Allies Won. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
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In retrospect, writes Overy, Allied victory looks almost predetermined, but the overriding theme in his book is that Allied manpower and industrial superiority did not make victory a foregone conclusion. While not denying the importance of those factors, he includes the elements of combat prowess and leadership in explaining Allied victory. In that context, he gives Monty high marks for generalship in the battle of Normandy.
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Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Weinberg is on firmer ground when dealing with grand strategy, but less so on operational history. Beginning with the Normandy campaign, he begins a series of attacks on Montgomery’s generalship.
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Wilmot, Chester. The Struggle for Europe. London: Collins, 1952.
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Though many of his judgments have been challenged and others demolished, Wilmot’s book remains a thought-provoking read.
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Nigel Hamilton

The publication of the official biography by Montgomery’s close friend and admirer Nigel Hamilton was a landmark event in the historiography of the British field marshal (see Hamilton 1981). The son of Denis Hamilton, the author was the first researcher to have full access to all of the Montgomery papers, which are now deposited in the Imperial War Museum, London, and that, in combination with the author’s personal knowledge of the man, aided him in writing a tour de force biography, and an indispensable treasure-trove of information on the subject. Almost an adopted son of Montgomery, Hamilton is not unbiased in this official biography—he does consider Montgomery a great commander—but neither is he uncritical of his subject. Critics have considered the work comprehensive and illuminating, especially on Monty’s character, but biased hagiography when it comes to analyzing his battles. On the centennial of Monty’s birth in 1887, Hamilton published an illustrated volume on Montgomery (Hamilton 1987). To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day and the battle of Normandy, Nigel Hamilton revised and condensed his official biography into a single volume (Hamilton 1994). Hamilton’s The Full Monty (Hamilton 2001) is not a story of unemployed men turned strippers but a speculative account of Montgomery’s sexual nature. Intended for the general reader and military expert alike, Hamilton’s Montgomery: D-Day Commander (Hamilton 2007) offers the general reader a concise and readable view of its subject.

Hamilton, Nigel. Monty. Vol. 1, The Making of a General 1887–1942. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981.
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Hamilton’s official biography continues in Volume 2, Master of the Battlefield 1942–1944 (1983) and Volume 3, Final Years of the Field Marshal 1944–1976 (1986). The Montgomery papers are deposited in the Imperial War Museum, London, together with the oral interviews conducted by Hamilton during the research for the official biography. All of the papers are now accessible to the public.
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Hamilton, Nigel. Monty: The Man Behind the Legend. Wheathampstead, UK: Lennard, 1987.
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The book includes photographs and commentary. A BBC documentary, Monty: In Love and War, directed by Jeremy Bennett, accompanied the book.
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Hamilton, Nigel. Monty: The Battles of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994.
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Written ten years after the trilogy and focusing on Montgomery’s battles, this work shows more understanding of Eisenhower’s responsibilities as a coalition leader and skills as a military diplomat.
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Hamilton, Nigel. The Full Monty. Vol. 1, Montgomery of Alamein, 1887–1942. London. Allen Lane, 2001.
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This controversial and highly speculative account delves into Montgomery’s sexual nature, with implications of homosexuality. No evidence has been forthcoming to support this claim (see Lamb 1983, cited under Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower).
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Hamilton, Nigel. Montgomery: D-Day Commander. Washington, DC: Potomac, 2007.
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In the preface, series (Military Profiles) editor Dennis Showalter observes that Montgomery has had poor posthumous press coverage in America, and that in Britain itself, Monty’s reputation remains controversial. The author remains the foremost authority on the British field marshal.
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Memoirs

First titled “The Sparks Fly Upward,” Montgomery’s own Memoirs (Montgomery 2007; originally published in 1958) is an indispensable primary source on World War II and reveals, a good deal about the personality of the author. Sometimes misleading and disingenuous, they are at other times refreshingly outspoken and forthright. With his usual directness, he begins, “I was born in London, in St. Mark’s Vicarage, Kennington Oval, on 17 November 1887.” Of Anglo-Irish ancestry, his boyhood was spent in Tasmania, Australia, where his father served as the Anglican bishop. One of nine children, Bernard was the “bad boy” of the family. He declared that his childhood had been unhappy because of “the clash of wills between my mother and myself.” An excellent account of Montgomery’s childhood relationship with his mother is found in Hamilton 1981 (cited under Nigel Hamilton). A more cautious view regarding the alleged loathing between mother and son may be found in Horne and Montgomery 1994 (coauthored by Monty’s son). Bernard was 13 when the family returned to England, where he attended St. Paul’s School, London. He excelled in sports but did practically no school work. He entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1907, standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 138 pounds. In 1908 he was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and posted to India. In World War I he was lucky to survive his wounds, including a bullet through his right lung. The war made it clear to him that the profession of arms was a life study. After attending the Staff College, Camberley, he became a brilliant teacher and trainer. He served in Ireland, India (Staff College, Quetta, in what is now Pakistan), Egypt, and Palestine. With the outbreak of World War II, he commanded the Third Division in France, culminating in Dunkirk. On his return to England, he commanded in succession the Fifth and Twelfth Corps (removing officers he considered “useless” and holding constant training exercises), and finally, the South-Eastern Command (the most controversial event was the Dieppe Raid, discussed by Smith 2010). His life before World War II is delightfully described by his youngest brother Brian in Montgomery 1973. Montgomery married Betty (née Hobart) Carver, a widow with two sons, in 1927. Their own son, David (the current viscount of Alamein), was born in 1928. His wife’s premature death in 1937 was a devastating loss to him. Montgomery’s human side is also revealed in Carver 2001. Besides Monty’s own Memoirs, the Alanbrooke diaries (Alanbrooke 2001) provide a unique perspective from the man who was Montgomery’s mentor. Montgomery’s wartime chief of staff provides an invaluable perspective in de Guingand 1947.

Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord. War Diaries, 1939–1945. Edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.
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Alanbrooke was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS). He was the only man from whom Monty was willing to take a stinging rebuke and he required several. Monty was in awe of “Brookie,” as he was called by his protégé.
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Carver, Tom. Where the Hell Have You Been? London: Short Books, 2001.
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The author’s father, Richard Carver, was Montgomery’s stepson. Richard Carver remembered Bernard as a fun-loving and engaged parent. After escaping from a prisoner of war camp in Italy and making a 400-mile journey through occupied enemy territory, Carver reached Monty’s headquarters to his stepfather’s greeting: “Where the hell have you been?” Monty then grinned and gave his stepson an affectionate slap on the back.
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de Guingand, Francis Wilfred. Operation Victory. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947.
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De Guingand served as Montgomery’s chief of staff throughout World War II. His comments are particularly important, since he had previously served on Auchlinleck’s staff and liked him very much.
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Horne, Alistair, and David Montgomery. The Lonely Leader: Monty 1944–1945. London: Macmillan, 1994.
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Published on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, chapter 1, “The Making of a Soldier,” is especially helpful in understanding Montgomery’s private life and career before 1939. On the outbreak of war, he was rewarded with command of the famous Third Infantry Division (nicknamed the Iron Division), which he commanded with distinction in France. Following the Dunkirk evacuation, he commanded first the V Corps, followed by the XII Corps, then the South-Eastern Army. In these commands he abolished unnecessary ceremonial parades in favor of realistic training exercises in preparation for all-weather combat. He also weeded out those officers he considered to be “useless,” annoying many, but the majority of his men liked a colorful and eccentric leader who prepared them for real fighting.
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Montgomery, Bernard Law. The Memoirs of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2007.
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Originally published in 1958 (London: Collins), the Memoirs caused a sensation. Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck threatened legal action, and Monty’s harsh criticism of former Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower ended their friendship. Montgomery’s desire not to write a colorless memoir succeeded, but at the cost of obscuring his immense wartime achievement.
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Montgomery, Brian. A Field Marshal in the Family: A Personal Biography of Montgomery of Alamein. London: Constable, 1973.
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A revealing and amusing portrait of the author’s famous older brother. In his late thirties, before he had met Betty Carver, Montgomery became infatuated with a girl twenty years his junior. His marriage proposal was rejected. During their walks along the beach, Monty would draw pictures in the sand to illustrate his ideas on war.
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Smith, Adrian. Mountbatten: Apprentice War Lord. London: I. B. Tauris, 2010.
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Smith had access to the Mountbatten papers. He observes that Monty was too busy building an army to become immersed in the Dieppe project.
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Biographies

The first attempt to tell the full story of Montgomery’s life was a biography by the Australian war correspondent Alan Moorehead (Moorehead 1946). Although Monty was now a national icon and world figure, Moorehead’s biography avoided hagiography and hero worship. The author knew Montgomery and his staff firsthand, and he presents a vivid image of Montgomery as a human being. Montgomery never lacked for critics, some justified, while others simply had a personal axe to grind. Blumenson 1962 expresses the view of American critics who believed that Monty had the inflated reputation of a halfway competent general. The very basis of Monty’s reputation, his victory at El Alamein, came under direct attack from the British revisionist historian Correlli Barnett (see Barnett 1960, cited under Battle of El Alamein). Barnett’s “demythologizing” account rejects what the author termed the “Montgomery myth” and set off a firestorm of controversy. The first book devoted exclusively to debunking the “Montgomery myth” was Thompson 1967. At the time of Montgomery’s death, Alun Chalfont’s biography (Chalfont 1976) appeared, outraging Montgomery’s supporters with its implication of a wartime homosexual relationship between Montgomery and one of his liaison officers. In the belief that the historical pendulum had already swung too much against Montgomery, Ronald Lewin had already written an excellent and even-handed biography (Lewin 1971). In the 1970s, British government documents relating to World War II were opened to the public and researchers. Beginning in 1981, the first volume of Nigel Hamilton’s official biography of Montgomery appeared, based on Hamilton’s prior access to the Montgomery papers (see Hamilton 1981, under Nigel Hamilton). Royle 2010 is a concise, friendly, yet balanced view of Montgomery, aimed at the general reader. The foreword is written by retired General Wesley K. Clark. D’Este 2005, a three-part series on the Armchair General website, challenges the cardboard stereotypes of Montgomery and offers intelligent judgments of his generalship. The BBC website on World War II, Barr 2013 (cited under Patton and Rommel), includes a short perfunctory biography of Montgomery that overlooks his major accomplishments.

Blumenson, Martin. “The Most Over-Rated General of World War II.” Armor (May–June 1962): 4–10.
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Blumenson is a distinguished official US Army historian, editor of The Patton Papers, and the author of works on World War II. In his later years, Blumenson modified his earlier hostility toward Montgomery.
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Chalfont, Alun. Montgomery of Alamein. London. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976.
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Chalfont, a former career army officer, former defense correspondent for The Times (London), and foreign secretary, caused a tempest in a teacup with his controversial psychological biography.
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D’Este, Carlo. Monty: World War II’s Most Misunderstood General. Armchair General. 2005.
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D’Este’s judgments of Montgomery’s generalship are fair-minded.
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Lewin, Ronald. Montgomery as Military Commander. London. Batsford, 1971.
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A fair-minded study of Monty. The chapter titled “The Most Over-Rated General?” is an effective reply to Blumenson’s earlier criticism (see Blumenson 1962). Lewin judged Montgomery as the first British general of World War II to be mentally and technically equipped to tackle modern material warfare. Monty had every right to be considered Wellington’s heir, in Lewin’s well-qualified opinion.
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Moorehead, Alan. Montgomery: A Biography. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1946.
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Montgomery allowed Moorehead to examine his files. In the author’s opinion, Monty most resembled the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, in that both men were convinced that what they said and did was absolutely right. This pioneering biography, though now dated, is a first-rate introduction to Monty for the general reader.
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Royle, Trevor. Montgomery: Lessons in Leadership. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
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With a foreword by the US general Wesley Clark, Royle’s book confirms Montgomery place as Britain’s greatest modern field commander. An inspirational leader, Monty inspired and sustained the morale of his citizen-soldier army, even as Britain’s power ebbed.
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Thompson, R. W. The Montgomery Legend. London: Allen and Unwin, 1967.
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The author, pro-Auchinleck, echoes Barnett’s earlier criticism of Montgomery (see Barnett 1960, cited under Battle of El Alamein). Thompson mistakenly regarded Montgomery as a creation of Churchill (Monty was not Churchill’s first choice to command the British Eighth Army; only when General William “Strafer” Gott, his first choice, was killed unexpectedly did Alanbrooke finally convince Churchill to appoint Montgomery). Thompson covers the period when Montgomery commanded the British Eighth Army from the summer of 1942 until Christmas 1943.
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Patton and Rommel

Like that of his German adversary Rommel and his American ally Patton, Montgomery’s reputation was exemplified by his forceful personality, a trait possessed by all successful battlefield commanders. The lives of all three of these men were intertwined, and they will always be associated with one another. Although the self-promoting Rommel was a fervent admirer of Hitler until the Führer was losing the war, Rommel has been admired as an officer and gentleman (unlike Monty), and best known for his duel with Montgomery in the desert. In the House of Commons in January 1942, Churchill referred to Rommel as “a great general.” The Rommel papers were edited and printed in Liddell Hart 1953. The best and most scholarly biography of Patton is D’Este 1995. The complexity and gusto of Patton are evident in the Patton papers, available in Blumenson 1974. Always the competitor, Patton wanted the world to know in 1945 that his Third Army had crossed the Rhine before Monty. The lives of Montgomery and Patton are compared in the well-written study Reynolds 2010. All three commanders are discussed in Brighton 2009. An excellent essay on Rommel can be found on the BBC website Barr 2013. A controversial film about Rommel was shown on German television in 2012 (Stein 2012).

Blumenson, Martin. The Patton Papers 1940–1945. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
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Includes copious quotations from Patton’s diary and his correspondence, as well as Patton’s private opinions, sometimes savage, of his fellow commanders, including Monty.
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Barr, Niall. “Rommel in the Desert.” BBC, 2013.
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Rommel’s position in the German army was entirely dependent on Hitler’s patronage. He had never attended staff college, and the normal professional route to high command was not open to him.
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Brighton, Terry. Patton, Montgomery, Rommel: Masters of War. New York: Crown, 2009.
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An entertaining book intended for the general reader.
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D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
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After Kasserine Pass, Patton did for the US II Corps what Montgomery had done earlier for the British Eighth Army. Neither general would tolerate amateurism.
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Liddell Hart, B.H., ed. The Rommel Papers. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953.
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Manfred Rommel (the field marshal’s son) would say many years later that his father little respected Montgomery. However, eight months after El Alamein, Rommel wrote, “The war in the desert ceased to be a game when Montgomery took over” (see Latimer 2002, cited under Battle of El Alamein, p. 315). Rommel’s papers contain disparaging remarks about Montgomery. He blamed his defeat on matériel.
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Reynolds, Michael Frank. Monty and Patton: Two Paths to Victory. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2010.
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A fair (their mistakes are mentioned) and sympathetic account of two celebrated commanders who shared many similar traits, but none more so than their commitment to military professionalism and defeating Hitler.
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Stein, Niki, dir. Rommel. Ludwigsburg, Germany: Teamworx, 2012.
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Broadcast on German public television channel ARD as the 70th anniversary of the battle of El Alamein was commemorated in 2012. The film received an angry response from Rommel’s 82-year-old son, Manfred, his daughter-in-law, and his grandchildren. German historian Soenke Neitzel commented about Rommel, “Mostly, he was interested in his career.”
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Battle of El Alamein

For the British, the summer of 1942 witnessed the nadir of their military fortunes in the Desert War, first suffering a humiliating defeat at Gazala (26 May to 20 June), followed by the loss of Tobruk on 21 June, and a 400-mile headlong retreat back into Egypt. These defeats shocked Britain’s friends throughout the world. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, newly promoted to that rank by Hitler, choked at the leash to lead his German-Italian Panzerarmee Afrika army eastward to the Nile. The Middle East itself seemed open to Axis conquest. The British defensive line stretched for nearly 40 miles to El Alamein, a tiny railway stop on the Mediterranean coast. The key to the whole line was the Alam Halfa Ridge which anchored the British desert flank. Prime Minister Churchill replaced General Auchinleck with General Harold Alexander as commander-in-chief of the Middle East; General Bernard Montgomery was simultaneously appointed to command the British Eighth Army (following the unexpected death of General “Strafer” Gott), a multinational, multiethnic force, which uneasily awaited the legendary Rommel’s next blow to fall at the last defensible position in Egypt. Montgomery arrived in Cairo on 12 August 1942 and took command of the Eighth Army the very next day. Only a day after his arrival in the desert, Montgomery reconnoitered the virtually undefended Alam Halfa Ridge, and at once asked for and got a division to hold the vital ridge. Ordering all plans for withdrawal to be burned, Montgomery informed his troops that, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, there would be no retreat and no surrender. Rommel’s attack on 31 August was repulsed and Montgomery prepared for his own offensive which began on 23 October 1942 with a massive artillery barrage and ended with the decisive defeat of Panzerarmee Afrika on 4 November. Churchill said of the victory, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” For an eyewitness description of Montgomery’s dramatic assumption of command, see de Guingand 1947 (cited under Memoirs). Three issues have largely dominated the literature on Monty and El Alamein: (1) the debate between the Montgomery and Auchinleck camps, (2) the question of whether or not the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion, and (3) the question of Monty’s generalship. Barnett 1960 challenges Montgomery’s postwar iconic status with a revisionist account of the desert war. On the twentieth anniversary of El Alamein, two books appeared that were written by veterans of El Alamein: Carver 1962 and Phillips 1962. Neither of these writers, however, had access to the full range of official documents that were available on the sixtieth anniversary of the battle (Bierman and Smith 2002 and Latimer 2002). Barr 2004 is another important addition to these studies. The important issue of British Army morale before and after El Alamein is addressed in Fennell 2011. A German view of Monty may be found in the postwar account of Rommel’s intelligence officer, Mellenthin 1956. On the 70th anniversary of El Alamein appeared the fashionably anti-Montgomery account by Hammond 2012.

Barnett, Correlli. The Desert Generals. London: Kimber, 1960.
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Barnett argues that Auchinleck’s actions in July were the “first Alamein” and “the true turning-point,” and not Monty’s second battle of Alamein, 23 October–4 November 1942. He claims that “Second Alamein” was “an unnecessary battle,” since the Anglo-American landings in French North Africa would have forced Rommel to retreat without it.
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Barr, Niall. Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein. London: Jonathan Cape, 2004.
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Barr’s well-researched history of the Eighth Army does not accept the revisionist thesis that victory at El Alamein was a foregone conclusion. Nor does Barr accept the derision heaped on Montgomery’s head for the failure to prevent Rommel’s escape. In contrast to Rommel’s hasty logistic improvisations for his invasion of Egypt, the supply of the Eighth Army during its rapid pursuit of the remnants of the Panzerarmee was a “masterpiece of forward planning” (p. 407). Forward British elements entered Tobruk (a distance of 376 miles) in ten days.
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Bierman, John, and Colin Smith. The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II. New York: Viking, 2002.
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A fast-paced, fascinating account of the battle of El Alamein. The author notes that by placing all of his chips on a win-or-lose battle, Montgomery made a bold decision for a general frequently labeled as overly cautious. Also discussed are Montgomery’s subsequent African battles of Medenine, Mareth, Wadi Akarit, and Enfidaville.
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Carver, Michael. El Alamein. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
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Carver, a future field marshal, was a participant in the battle, and he is a shrewd commentator on it. Carver shows that Monty frequently changed his point of attack during Operation Lightfoot, his initial plan for the battle of El Alamein, to avoid units being pushed to the point of destruction.
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Fennell, Jonathan. Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign: The Eighth Army and the Path to El Alamein. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Based on new sources, notably the Army’s censorship summaries of soldiers’ mail. By early August, a censorship report noted that the soldiers’ mail had shown an increase in writers who were “browned off” after the battle of Gazala, the loss of Tobruk, and retreat to El Alamein. By late August, the new leadership provided by Monty contributed to a dramatic improvement in the morale of Eighth Army troops.
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Hammond, Bryn. El Alamein: The Battle that Turned the Tide of the Second World War. Oxford: Osprey, 2012.
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The author claims that the “Auk” had “decisively beaten Rommel during the fighting around Alamein in early July” (p. 104). Hammond thinks that the victory at El Alamein has been “exaggerated” (p. 277). However, to expose to the reader the horrifying sights and sounds of the battle, Hammond makes excellent use of the memoirs and interviews of the participants. Regrettably, the author’s overly critical attitude toward Montgomery has led him to short-change the very real accomplishments of Montgomery. Referring to Montgomery’s speech in the desert, “if we can’t stay here alive, then let us stay here dead,” Hammond states cynically, “Strategically, this approach was ridiculous” (p. 107).
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Latimer, Jon. Alamein. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
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Latimer denies the existence of a morale problem before El Alamein, calling it a “legend.” On the issue of whether or not Montgomery won because of overwhelming superiority in men and material, Latimer does not accept Ellis’s “brute force” explanation of Montgomery’s victory (see Ellis 1990, cited under General Overviews).
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Mellenthin, F. W. von. Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. New York: Ballantine, 1956.
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Von Mellenthin served as Rommel’s intelligence officer and considered Montgomery to be a great tactician and utterly ruthless in carrying out his plans.
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Phillips, C. E. Lucas. Alamein. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.
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While in the Monty camp, the author does not overstate his case by claiming that the Eighth Army was a defeated rabble that sprang to life only with Montgomery’s arrival.
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Ultra

Once thought likely to damage Montgomery’s military reputation more than that of any other Allied commander, the revelation in 1974 that the Allies had broken the German military codes sent by the Enigma machine has not done so. Instead, the decoded German radio messages, called “Ultra” by the British, have illuminated both Monty’s strengths and his weaknesses. The landmark study is Bennett 1989. The British also began to make better use of Ultra to attack Rommel’s shipping. Canadian historian John Ferris reviewed Bennett’s account in Ferris 1991. Hinsley, the official historian of British intelligence in World War II, is highly critical of Montgomery in Hinsley 1981. The Ultra disclosures did renew the charge that Montgomery had failed to prevent Rommel’s escape at El Alamein. Based on his own reading of Ultra, an impatient Churchill urged Monty to speed up his pursuit of Rommel. His signal had no effect, however, and he did not press the issue.

Bennett, Ralph Francis. Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: William Morrow, 1989.
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The author spent the war at the intelligence center at Bletchley Park, where enemy signals sent on the Enigma machine were decoded. Within hours of his arrival in the desert, Monty had appreciated the vital importance to the defense of the El Alamein line of the virtually undefended Alam Halfa Ridge, and asked for the British Forty-Fourth Division in Cairo to strengthen the ridge. Rommel had also recognized the importance of the ridge, and informed Berlin that Alam Halfa would be his point of attack. Rommel’s message was intercepted, and Ultra confirmed that Monty’s decision was the right one. The battle of Alam Halfa was Monty’s first victory against Rommel.
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Ferris, John. “Ralph Bennett and the Study of Ultra.” Intelligence and National Security 6.2 (April 1991): 473–486.
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In this important review, Canadian historian John Ferris wrote that Bennett 1989 “nails shut the coffin which encloses the earthly remains of The Desert Generals, R.I.P.” After reading the Ultra decrypt, Bennett concluded that they did not support the view of Barnett 1960 (cited under Battle of El Alamein) that Montgomery’s predecessor had defeated Rommel in July 1942 at what Barnett called “first Alamein.” Ultra supported the view that Rommel’s forces simply ran out of steam.
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Hinsley, F. H. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. History of the Second World War 2.6. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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The official historian claimed that Montgomery had inherited his plans from his predecessor, General Auchinleck. Bennett’s study on Ultra (Bennett 1989) led him to flatly state that Hinsley had mishandled the Ultra evidence when he implied that Montgomery had simply taken over his predecessor’s operational plan. Personal bias, often in reaction to Montgomery’s overweening self-confidence, has marred much of the literature, including official histories.
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Sicily and Italy

The invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) was the most ambitious large-scale landing on a hostile shore until the Normandy landings in June 1944. Early in the campaign, Eighth Army progress led Monty to believe that he would be in Catania only three days after the start of the invasion. Instead, the twenty-three-day battle for the plain of Catania would be one of the bitterest fought by British troops during the war. D’Este 1991 provides a riveting account of the battle for Sicily. With typical candor, Montgomery described the planning for Husky as “a hopeless mess” and “a dog’s breakfast” (p. 422). The invasion commanders were Montgomery and Patton. The invasion began on 10 July 1943 and ended by mid-August. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini fell from power on 25 July, and the cease-fire of Italian forces occurred on 8 September 1943. The 1970 motion picture Patton depicted Montgomery as a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac. The edited volume Montgomery and the Eighth Army (Brooks 1991, cited under General Overviews) cites Monty’s proposal to Alanbrooke in late 1942 that, at the conclusion of the North African campaign, “suddenly about June 1943 we [the Allies] nip across the Channel” (p. 96). Alanbrooke replied to his protégé in no uncertain terms, letting him know that his cross-Channel suggestion was, to quote Alanbrooke, “NOT quite in accordance with future possibilities owing to your NOT being in possession of full picture” (p. 107). To Montgomery, Italy seemed to lead nowhere. Montgomery considered the planning and conduct of the Italian campaign even worse than those for Sicily. Graham and Bidwell 1986 demolished two myths: (1) that Montgomery’s Eighth Army saved Mark Clark’s Fifth Army at the battle of Salerno, and (2), that Monty dawdled instead of racing to aid Clark at Salerno. Monty’s time in Italy ended when winter rains and mud forced him to halt operations along the Sangro River. He returned to England to take command of Allied ground forces for the cross-Channel invasion of Normandy. The amphibious landing at Anzio remains as controversial now as it ever was, and the tragic campaign is described superbly in Clark 2006.

Clark, Lloyd. Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome—1944. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 2006.
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While Churchill championed Operation “Shingle,” Clark singles out General Harold Alexander (Commander, Allied 15th Army Group) and General Mark W. Clark (Commander, US Fifth Army) for particular criticism. According to Clark, the Anzio operation was an under-resourced, highly risky amphibious operation with over-optimistic aims.
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D’Este, Carlo. Bitter Victory: The Battle for Sicily, 1943. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
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This story of the Sicilian campaign marked Carlo D’Este as one of the foremost historians of World War II. D’Este gives Monty full credit for exposing the chaos in planning at the top, both before and during the invasion of Sicily. He presented a revised plan to Walter Bedell Smith (Eisenhower’s chief of staff) in a lavatory in Algiers. The “race to Messina,” as depicted in the film Patton, is regarded as fantasy by the author.
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Graham, Dominick, and Shelford Bidwell. Tug of War: The Battle for Italy, 1943–1945. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.
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Graham and Bidwell are former army officers turned historians. Though critical of Monty’s at times patronizing and insufferable behavior, the authors praise his understanding of the primary importance of administrative and logistical planning before operations.
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Battle of Normandy

After D-Day, 6 June 1944, when the battlefront, in the words of Monty, “glue-ed” up, the apparent stalemate resulted in controversy, with Montgomery at its center. In his Memoirs (see Montgomery 2007, cited under Memoirs), Montgomery asserted, “I never once had cause or reason to alter my master plan” (p. 254), which called for the Second Army (British and Canadian) to engage the bulk of German armor on the eastern flank, thus enabling the main breakout to occur on the western flank, where General Omar Bradley commanded the US First Army. In his own memoir, Bradley declared that Monty’s plan had called for the Caen and the eastern flank to be a pivot, and the Americans to wheel first southward then eastward to the Seine and Paris (see Bradley 1951). On the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the landmark study D’Este 1983 appeared. In this, his first book, D’Este echoes the words of Basil Liddell Hart that there had been too much glorification and too little investigation of the battle of Normandy. D’Este’s focus is on Montgomery as ground commander for the Normandy campaign, and on the British effort in the operation. A reviewer for The Economist commented that the account was surprisingly pro-Monty for a work by a retired American army officer. If there was renewed appreciation of Monty’s generalship, the British and Allied armies came under severe criticism. Hastings 1984 (cited under The Air Marshals) declares that the democratic soldier of the West was found wanting in Normandy. Hastings holds up the German soldier for emulation. The argument that Montgomery wielded a flawed weapon in Normandy is continued in Horne and Montgomery 1994 (cited under Memoirs). In contrast to Monty’s soldiers, Rommel’s were Trojans, according to Horne. Hart 2001 agrees with the critics of the lackluster Allied combat performance in Normandy. French 2000 is the first modern work to seriously analyze the British Army in World War II. The Allied combat performance in Normandy is the subject of Neillands 2002. Hart 2000 skillfully reevaluates Montgomery’s generalship and finds his methods highly successful. Beevor 2009 echoes the charge of a poor Allied performance in Normandy. Many of Montgomery’s documents pertaining to the Normandy campaign may be found in Brooks 2008. The sixtieth anniversary of the Normandy campaign saw the release of Buckley 2006, a collection of essays by leading military historians, who present and comment upon the most up-to-date research.

Beevor, Antony. D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. New York: Viking, 2009.
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Repeated are revisionist criticisms of the Allied combat performance in Normandy, while vastly overrating that of the Wehrmacht. Beevor refers to Montgomery’s “puerile pride” and implies that the Allied bombing of Caen came close to a war crime.
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Bradley, Omar Nelson. A Soldier’s Story. New York: Henry Holt, 1951.
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Bradley wrote that Montgomery exercised his Allied authority in Normandy with “wisdom, forbearance, and restraint. . . . I could not have wanted a more tolerant or judicious commander.” Bradley’s sensitivities, however, were aroused to fury during the Battle of the Bulge when Eisenhower temporarily placed the US First and Ninth Armies in the northern half of the Bulge under the command of Montgomery, leaving only Patton’s Third Army under Bradley’s command.
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Brooks, Stephen, ed. Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy: A Selection from the Diaries, Correspondence and Other Papers of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, January to August 1944. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2008.
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Brooks catalogued the Montgomery papers. These documents provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at operations through Montgomery’s writings at the time.
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Buckley, John, ed. The Normandy Campaign 1944: Sixty Years On. New York: Routledge, 2006.
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The editor’s introduction and contributory chapter are outstanding. The essays provide readers with a fresh look at the battle of Normandy.
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D’Este, Carlo. Decision in Normandy. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1983.
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The most widely read book on the Normandy campaign. D’Este argues that before D-Day, Montgomery had called for bold and deep armored penetrations. Just as he had done at El Alamein, when the original plan faltered, Monty adapted to the new situation. His generalship displayed far greater flexibility than he would ever admit to at the time or later.
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French, David. Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany, 1919–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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French’s work challenges the relatively well-established critical interpretation of the British and Allied armies in Normandy. He demonstrates that the British Army recovered well and fought effectively in the second half of World War II.
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Hart, Russell A. Clash of Arms: How the Allies Won in Normandy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001.
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The author agrees with critics (Liddell Hart, Hastings, Ellis, and others) that the Anglo-Canadian and American combat performance in Normandy was lackluster.
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Hart, Stephen Ashley. Montgomery and “Colossal Cracks”: The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944–45. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000.
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This fresh study adds depth to our understanding of the limitations under which Montgomery fought and won his battles. Hart argues that it was perfectly logical for Montgomery to use massive firepower (“colossal cracks”), winning at a manageable cost in casualties, and with the morale of his citizen soldiers intact.
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Neillands, Robin. The Battle of Normandy 1944. London: Cassell, 2002.
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The author rejects the revisionist criticism of the Allied combat performance in Normandy and concludes that there was not much difference between the various armies.
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The Air Marshals

Remarkably, going into the climactic Allied invasion of Normandy, there was a serious lack of air-ground cooperation, a weakness that would plague operations in Normandy. Montgomery, a firm believer in close Army-RAF relations, had foreseen a problem before Operation Overlord, observing that a gulf existed between the armies and their supporting air forces. Among the most bitter and dangerous controversies was that between Monty and Air Marshals Arthur Tedder, the deputy Allied supreme commander under Eisenhower, and Arthur “Mary” Coningham (“Mary” derived from “Maori,” indicating his New Zealand background), commander of the Second Tactical Air Force. Tedder disliked Montgomery, and Coningham (Tedder’s protégé) loathed him. Neither airman believed in close air support for ground troops, or in the use of heavy bombers to support ground offensives. The question of whether earlier and wholehearted direct ground support for the armies might have proven decisive for the ground offensives is raised in Hastings 1984. The deputy supreme commander’s position is made clear in his memoir, Tedder 1966. Coningham’s perspective is presented in Orange 1990. A pro-Tedder-Coningham and anti-Monty and army position is provided in Terraine 1985. Tedder’s hostility toward Monty came to a head in July after Operation Goodwood, which was preceded by carpet-bombing, failed to achieve a breakthrough. As a result, Tedder urged Eisenhower to remove Montgomery from command. A balanced discussion of the Goodwood bombing may be found in Gooderson 1998.

Gooderson, Ian. Air Power at the Battlefront: Allied Close Air Support in Europe, 1943–45. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
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Gooderson observes that, given the RAF High Command’s fundamental opposition to the role of close air support and an army unaccustomed to utilizing air support, it is not surprising that poor targeting and timing ensured that the strategic bombing of Caen did little to assist the attack on German strongpoints.
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Hastings, Max. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle of Normandy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.
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Hastings takes issue with what he terms the “historical cliché” and “half-truth” that air power was decisive in Normandy. He claims that if it had not been for the efforts of Air Vice-Marshal Harry Broadhurst, the commander of Eighty-third Group, Royal Air Force, the British tactical air team would have been nonexistent in Normandy. Another airman committed to assisting the hard-pressed British Army was Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory.
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Orange, Vincent. Coningham: A Biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham. London: Methuen, 1990.
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A week after D-Day, Coningham described the situation in Normandy as near crisis, declaring that Montgomery’s plan had failed.
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Tedder, Arthur William. With Prejudice: The War Memoirs of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder. Boston: Little Brown, 1966.
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Tedder viewed the army’s call for direct air support as a sign of loss of fighting spirit. Tedder and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal (head of the RAF) shared the view that heavy bomber support to the ground troops, in an effort to reduce casualties, had demoralized and reduced the army’s fighting spirit.
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Terraine, John. A Time for Courage: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939–1945. New York: Macmillan, 1985.
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Terraine argued that the poor fighting quality of the British Army threw an increasing burden on the airmen.
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The Falaise Gap

One of the most debated aspects of the battle of Normandy was the failed Allied attempt to cut off the German forces that began to retreat from Normandy in August 1944. This would lead to endless “what ifs” and much postwar controversy. Montgomery was blamed by his critics for allowing many German troops to escape through the Falaise Gap. In the Patton papers (Blumenson 1974, cited under Patton and Rommel), Patton mistakenly blames Montgomery for the order to stop his advance, when in fact it was Bradley who had decided to stop Patton’s forces from closing the Falaise Gap (or Pocket). Blumenson 1993 makes this clear. Blumenson’s account is a scathing indictment of Bradley’s indecisive generalship at the end of the Normandy campaign. Not until 19 August did the Polish First Armored Division (the II Canadian Corps had also met savage resistance in its drive to Falaise) and the US Ninetieth Division join forces at Chambois to officially seal the Falaise Pocket. Of the fifty German divisions in action in June, only ten could now be called fighting units. The battle of Normandy ensured that Nazi Germany would ultimately lose the war. The Falaise Gap issue is discussed in D’Este 1995, a first-rate biography of Patton. A balanced and objective narrative and analysis is found in Hart 2004. Also recommended is Latawski 2012.

Blumenson, Martin. The Battle of the Generals: The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket—The Campaign That Should Have Won World War II. New York: William Morrow, 1993.
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In an exercise in counterfactual history, Blumenson speculates that without the presence of Bradley, Patton and Montgomery would have made a good team that might have trapped the Germans west of the Seine through a wide envelopment, and brought about an earlier end to the war in Europe.
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D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
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Neither Montgomery nor Patton had great enthusiasm for Bradley’s so-called short hook. They both preferred a “long envelopment”—a drive to the Seine by the Allies to establish blocking forces to prevent the mass escape of the Germans from Normandy.
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Hart, Stephen. The Road to Falaise: Battle Zone Normandy. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2004.
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Details the operations launched by the Canadians to capture Falaise. It is also an excellent source for battlefield touring information.
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Latawski, Paul C. D-Day Landings: The Falaise Pocket: Defeating the German Army in Normandy. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2012.
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An excellent guide to the Normandy battlefield.
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Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower

History seemed to be repeating itself in 1944. After their overwhelming defeat in Normandy, the German armies appeared to be in worse shape than those in 1918, when the Kaiser’s regime collapsed at the end of World War I. The euphoria that prevailed among the Allies in early September 1944 was shared by Montgomery, who favored a single, forty-division thrust around the northern end of the Siegfried Line, while Eisenhower favored a two-pronged advance, one by Monty’s Twenty-First Army Group along the northern flank of the Ardennes, and the other by Bradley’s American Twelfth Army Group aimed due eastward, to the south of the Ardennes. The debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower over the question of a “single thrust” as opposed to a “broad front” has been one of the most passionately debated issues of World War II. The issue is evenhandedly presented in Lewin 1971 (cited under Biographies). The debate is also discussed in D’Este 2002. Neither Montgomery or Eisenhower, however, acted to seize control of the banks along the Scheldt estuary, which led the to the great Belgian port of Antwerp. In August, many at all levels of authority believed the war to all intents and purposes won, and attention was focused on advancing toward Germany rather than the Scheldt estuary. The question of Antwerp is discussed in the official British history volume Ellis 1968. Montgomery’s single-thrust argument is forcefully supported in Hamilton 1987 (cited under Nigel Hamilton). Liddell Hart 1970 also argues that the single-thrust strategy could have ended the war in September 1944. That judgment was based, in part, on the author’s postwar interviews with senior German commanders, which were published in Liddell Hart 1948. At the same time that the second volume of Nigel Hamilton’s admiring official biography of Montgomery appeared in 1983 (see Hamilton 1981, cited under Nigel Hamilton), a distinctly different interpretation on Monty’s career in the last two years of the war was published in Lamb 1983. An evenhanded summary of the broad front versus single front debate is presented in Weigley 1981.

D’Este, Carlo. Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life. New York: Henry Holt, 2002.
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Eisenhower’s life was inextricably interwoven with that of Montgomery, and this superb reappraisal of Ike’s wartime years is indispensable reading.
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Ellis, E. F. Victory in the West. Vol. 2, The Defeat of Germany. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1968.
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In his examination of the logistical problem of overstretched supply lines, the official British historian blames both Montgomery and Eisenhower for their slowness in grasping the need to open the Scheldt estuary leading to Antwerp.
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Lamb, Richard. Montgomery in Europe, 1943–1945: Success or Failure? London: Buchan & Enright, 1983.
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In truth, Montgomery encountered both success and failure. The author considered Operation Market Garden to be Montgomery’s greatest mistake.
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Liddell Hart, B. H. The German Generals Talk. New York: William Morrow, 1948.
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The German generals were anxious to separate themselves from Hitler and the Nazi regime. Their conversations were an apologia for losing the war.
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Liddell Hart, B. H. History of the Second World War. New York: Putnam, 1970.
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An excellent single-volume history of the war by a renowned military historian and thinker. However, the book must be used with caution, since the author relied heavily on his postwar interviews with self-serving German generals.
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Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany 1944–1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
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An outstanding book by an eminent scholar of the American army. Weigley weaves together high-level command decisions with the details of ground and air operations. Drew Middleton, the veteran military correspondent for the New York Times (see Middleton 1976, cited under Postwar Career), considered Weigley too critical of Montgomery.
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Operation Market Garden

In any event, Montgomery proposed and Eisenhower supported what Weigley called the most “refreshingly daring” plan, which became known as Operation Market Garden (see Weigley 1981, cited under Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower). No one had foreseen the stunning end to the Normandy campaign at the end of August 1944. At the height of Allied optimism following the epic victory in Normandy, Montgomery proposed a bold and audacious airborne and ground operation to outflank the heavily defended Siegfried Line and drive to the industrial Ruhr region. If successful, “Market Garden” might have shortened the war and changed the postwar map of Europe. Dozens of books and articles have dissected and assigned or implied blame for the failure of Operation Market Garden, which began on 17 September as elements of the 1st British, 82nd and 101st US Airborne Divisions were dropped behind German lines to capture 8 bridges and spanned the rivers and canals on the Dutch-German border. Pogue 1954 made it clear that both General George C. Marshall and General Henry “Hap” Arnold were impatient to employ the First Allied Airborne Army in a major operation. British armor had to break through to the last bridge at Arnhem by traveling along the 65-mile, single-lane causeway leading to Arnhem. By far the most popular account of Market Garden is that of Ryan 1974. The book was the basis for the 1977 film of the same name (Attenborough 1998). On the 50th anniversary of Market Garden appeared the account Middlebrook 1994. The memoir by Montgomery’s own chief of staff, De Guingand, appeared in 1947 (de Guingand 1964). Bennett 2008 argued that no one made an issue of seizing the Scheldt Estuary, which led to Antwerp, in September 1944. McManus 2012 seeks to rectify what the author terms the “relatively short shift” that Ryan gave to the American aspect of Market Garden. Less favorable to General Gavin of the US 82nd Airborne is Poulussen 2011. Fielder 2013 describes the battle of Arnhem on the BBC battlefield website. A new and controversial interpretation of Market Garden is offered by Lynch 2011. A balanced account is found in Clark 2009. Current orthodox thinking about Market Garden is challenged by Ritchie 2011.

Attenborough, Richard, dir. A Bridge Too Far, 1977. DVD. Santa Monica, CA: MGM Home Entertainment, 1998.
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The film was based on the Ryan 1974 book. Screenplay by William Goldman. Directed by Richard Attenborough. Montgomery is unseen in the film. Montgomery and General Frederick “Boy” Browning (Deputy Allied Airborne Army Commander) are held responsible for the failure of the operation. Both men had died by the time the film opened in 1977.
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Bennett, David. A Magnificent Disaster: The Failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944. Philadelphia: Casemate, 2008.
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Canadian Bennett blames “the usual suspects,” namely, Browning and Horrocks, for the failure of Market Garden. All would have gone well, he argues, if only they had driven on in a “Pattonesque manner”!
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Clark, Lloyd. Crossing the Rhine: Breaking into Nazi Germany, 1944 and 1945—The Greatest Airborne Battles in History. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 2009.
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The author’s highly readable account recognizes that Operation Market Garden, being inter-service and inter-army, was an extremely complex and massive risk, yet he believes that it was a risk worth taking.
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de Guingand, Sir Francis. Generals at War. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964.
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De Guingand, Montgomery’s chief of staff, who was in Britain undergoing medical treatment, opposed the risky operation.
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Fielder, Mark. “The Battle of Arnhem (Operation Market Garden).” BBC, 2013.
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The author speculates that if events had turned out differently, the war could have been shortened by six months.
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Lamb, Richard. Montgomery in Europe, 1943–1945: Success or Failure? London: Buchan & Enright, 1983.
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Lamb considered Market Garden to be the greatest mistake of Montgomery’s career.
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Lynch, Tim. Operation Market Garden: The Legend of the Waal Crossings. Stroud, UK: Spellmount, 2011.
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The author views Market Garden as a catalogue of errors, but he argues that the failure of capture Nijmegen bridge left Arnhem isolated. He defends the Guards Armored Division of the British XXX Corps against critics who have blamed it for failing to push on to Arnhem after the capture of the Nijmegen bridge.
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McManus, John C. September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far. New York: NAL Caliber, 2012.
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McManus provides a fitting tribute for the Americans of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. To take the Nijmegen bridge, paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne crossed the Waal River in flimsy boats in the face of dug-in German troops. The author places ultimate blame for the failure of Market Garden on General Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s decision to support Montgomery’s plan was “his worst decision of the war.”
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Middlebrook, Martin. Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17–26 September. London: Viking, 1994.
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The author was critical of RAF Air Vice Marshal L. N. Hollinghurst’s decision on the drop zone for the 1st Airborne Division, which was 8 miles from the Arnhem bridge, thus abandoning the Airborne’s most valuable asset of surprise.
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Pogue, Forrest C. The Supreme Command. The United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1954.
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This “Green Book” volume includes the decisions, debates, controversies, and compromises that led to Allied victory. Discussion and argument there was, but also teamwork. Reprinted in 1978 and 1989.
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Poulussen, R. G. Lost at Nijmegen: A Rethink on Operation “Market Garden.” Nijmegen, The Netherlands: R. G. Poulussen, 2011.
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The author argues that the three-day delay in capturing the Nijmegen bridge contributed to the failure of Market Garden.
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Ritchie, Sebastian. Arnhem: Myth and Reality. London: Robert Hale, 2011.
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Official historian of the Air Historical Branch (RAF) in the Ministry of Defense, Ritchie demolishes the assertion that Market Garden could have ended the war by Christmas. This is a refreshing and different view of the events of September 1944.
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Ryan, Cornelius. A Bridge Too Far. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.
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The account is unfair to many of the participants in Operation Market Garden, including Montgomery.
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Battle of the Bulge

In December 1944 Hitler launched his counteroffensive from the Ardennes with the objective of retaking Antwerp and cutting the supply lines to the American and British forces north of Antwerp. On 16 December 1944, achieving complete surprise, thirty German divisions attacked five American divisions on a 50-mile front. Opinions have run the gamut from praise to condemnation regarding Field Marshal Montgomery’s role (promoted 1 September 1944) role in the Battle of the Bulge (or Ardennes). During the “Bulge” crisis, Eisenhower asked Montgomery to take command of the First and Ninth US Armies on the north side of the threatened Ardennes breakthrough. Ambrose 1997 accuses Montgomery of getting in everyone’s way and botching the counterattack. Weinberg 1994 (cited under General Overviews) claims that Monty, in a “complete panic,” called for vast withdrawals (p. 768). Montgomery looms large in the important reappraisal of American generals in the Bulge in Morelock 1994. Weigley 1981 (cited under Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower) provides a balanced account of the Bulge. General J. Lawton Collins (commander, US VII Corps) defended Eisenhower’s decision in placing Montgomery temporarily in command of all troops on the northern side of the Bulge. Merriam 1978 is an important account that exploded a number of myths that were winning their way into popular belief. At the height of what many consider Monty’s finest hour, he ruined any chance of improving relations with Eisenhower by continuing to raise the question of the command of Allied ground forces. Driven to distraction, Eisenhower came near to sending a signal asking the Combined Chiefs of Staff to choose between him and Monty. The command issue is discussed in D’Este 2002 (cited under Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower) and Eisenhower 1969. On 7 January 1945 the infamous press conference occurred in which Monty gave the impression that he had saved the day for the Americans. Eisenhower discussed the press conference in his memoir, Eisenhower 1948. Eisenhower’s decision not to take Berlin would lead to postwar second-guessing and hindsight. Montgomery was stunned that Berlin would be left to the Russians. Defenders of Eisenhower’s decision believe that to have taken Berlin would have cost casualties, only to be followed by American withdrawal to already predetermined lines. The issue is discussed in Weigley 1981 (cited under Debate between Montgomery and Eisenhower). In Eisenhower 1969, John Eisenhower (General Eisenhower’s son) explains how Montgomery’s press conference was misinterpreted. On 4 May 1945, at Luneburg Heath, Germany, over 1,100 miles from Normandy, Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Holland, Denmark, and northwest Germany. That night, he was persuaded to drink a glass of champagne at dinner.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944–May 7, 1945. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
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Ambrose celebrates the combat experiences of the American soldier: the captains, sergeants, and privates—not the generals. Indirectly, he raises questions about the German army’s genius for war. Montgomery was the author’s bête noire.
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Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. New York: Doubleday, 1948.
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Eisenhower wrote that the press conference incident caused him more distress and worry than did any similar one in the war. Montgomery was outraged by many of Eisenhower’s comments in the book. Ten years later, Montgomery wrote his own memoir (see Montgomery 2007, originally published in 1958, cited under Memoirs).
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Eisenhower, John S. D. The Bitter Woods. New York: Putnam, 1969.
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Like his famous father, the author looks at both sides of a question. A useful history of the Battle of the Bulge.
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Merriam, Robert E. The Battle of the Bulge. New York: Ballantine, 1978.
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The author, who had been a combat historian attached to the US Seventh Armored Division and had a front row seat on the battle, strongly defends Monty’s tactics during the Bulge. This is an abridged version of Merriam’s 1947 Dark December, The Full Account of the Battle of the Bulge (Chicago: Ziff-Davis).
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Morelock, J. D. Generals of the Ardennes: American Leadership in the Battle of the Bulge. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1994.
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During the Bulge crisis, Eisenhower appointed Monty to command all American forces north of the Ardennes. The author believes the decision proved Eisenhower’s greatness as an Allied commander. However, Generals Bradley and Patton were furious. Lower-level American commanders, who were fighting desperately to stop Hitler’s counteroffensive, welcomed Montgomery’s timely assumption of command.
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Postwar Career

After the war, Montgomery held many high military commands, including Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) (1946–1948) and deputy supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949–1958), serving once again under his old chief, Eisenhower. In 1946 Montgomery was raised to the peerage, taking the title of Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. Churchill was indignant that Montgomery had selected the name “Alamein,” since he felt it belonged to his favorite general, Field Marshal Harold Alexander. In his Memoirs (see Montgomery 2007, cited under Memoirs), Montgomery recognized that he had been something less than an unqualified success as CIGS, admitting that it was not “my sort of battle.” He called the chapter on his time as CIGS, “I Make Myself a Nuisance in Whitehall.” By 1947 the British had lost control of its Palestine Mandate, and Montgomery’s attempts as CIGS to restore, in his words, the “King’s Peace,” were unsuccessful. The British Army’s problems in Palestine are discussed in Charters 1989. Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee admired Montgomery, and his assessment appears in the edited collection Field 2009. Viscount Montgomery of Alamein was outspoken on many issues discussed in the House of Lords. In 1965, speaking against the Homosexual Reform Bill, he declared, “I myself am a rising 78, and the great thing is that at that age one has the old-age pension to pay for any blackmail which may come along.” In the 1960s, until Churchill’s death, Montgomery was a frequent visitor to Chartwell. Clementine became fond of him, although she would not allow any “Montyish” misbehavior. The collection of her parents’ letters by Mary Soames (their youngest daughter), Soames 1999, is a tour de force that includes hilarious examples of “Montyish” misbehavior. On 24 March 1976 Montgomery died at his home, Isington Mill, Hampshire, England. New York Times correspondent Drew Middleton would write in Monty’s obituary (Middleton 1976), “He had that single-mindedness of all the great captains, and the inspiring simplicity of a Grant or a Wellington. ‘Win?’ he would say in surprise, ’Of course we’ll win. It’s how and at what cost that counts.’”

Charters, David A. The British Army and Jewish Insurgency in Palestine, 1945–47. London: Macmillan, 1989.
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A thoroughly researched and evenhanded account of the Palestine crisis before the creation of the State of Israel. Montgomery had urged all-out war against the Irgun and Stern gangs.
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Field, Frank, ed. Attlee’s Great Contemporaries: The Politics of Character. New York: Continuum, 2009.
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Field was a Labour member of Parliament, and his collection includes thirty essays written by Attlee in 1955. Attlee was prime minister from 1945 to 1951. He wrote that Monty was great fun, with a wonderful sense of humor. But on one occasion, Attlee was so annoyed with him that he refused to accept phone calls from Montgomery or meet with him for three months.
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Middleton, Drew. “Montgomery, Hard to Like or Ignore.” New York Times, 25 March 1976.
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Middleton was a World War II correspondent for the New York Times and later served as the newspaper’s military correspondent.
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Soames, Mary, ed. Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
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Clementine Churchill was one of the few people who could master Montgomery, though she became fond of him. When he announced that all politicians were dishonest, Clementine said that if that was how he felt, then he should leave Chartwell at once. She would arrange to have his bags packed. Monty apologized profusely and stayed.