Bernard Law Montgomery
Bernard Law Montgomery, 1.er Viscount Montgomery of El-Alamein (London, November 17, 1887 - Alton, Hampshire, March 24, 1976), nicknamed "Monty" or the "Spartan General" , was a British soldier with the rank of Field Marshal who played a prominent role in World War II.
He saw action as an officer in the First World War with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. In the town of Méteren, near the Belgian border at Bailleul, he was shot through the right lung by a sniper during the First Battle of Ypres in late 1914. He returned to the front as a staff officer and took part in the Battle of Arras (1917) and also in the Battle of Passchendaele at the end of 1917. At the end of the war he was chief of staff of the 47th Division.
Between the wars he commanded 17th Battalion Royal Fusiliers and later 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, after which he was appointed commander of 9th Infantry Brigade and later an officer commanding general of the 8th Infantry Division.
During World War II he commanded the British Eighth Army from August 1942 in the Western Desert Campaign until the final Allied victory in the Tunisia Campaign. In this period he defeated the German general Erwin Rommel in the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein, a turning point in the North African campaign. He later led the Eighth Army during the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy. In 1944 he was appointed commander of all ground forces during Operation Overlord from the initial landings until after the Battle of Normandy. For the remainder of the war, he commanded 21st Army Group during the advance into Germany, during which he was the main commander of the failed airborne operation called Market Garden in the Dutch town of Arnhem, and also in the crossing of the Rhine. On May 4, 1945, he accepted the unconditional German surrender in the Lüneburg Heath, north of Germany.
After the war, Montgomery became commander of the British Army of the Rhine in Germany and from 1946 to 1948 was chief of the Imperial General Staff. Until 1951 he held the chairmanship of the Western Union Commanders-in-Chief Committee. From that year until his retirement in 1958 he served as NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Early Years
Bernard L. Montgomery was born in Kennington, London, in 1887, the fourth child of nine children. His parents were an Anglican bishop, Henry Hutchinson Montgomery, and Maud Farrar. His father was the son of Sir Robert Montgomery and a descendant of Gabriel, Count of Montgomery, murderer by accident of Henry II of France. His father was assigned to Tasmania and there he spent a very difficult childhood amid strict Victorian family customs, in which physical punishment prevailed for the slightest mistake made, which added to the lack of warmth at home, meant that Bernard will become a rebellious young man.
The family returned to London in 1897, and the young Montgomery attended King's School, Canterbury and St. Paul's School. He entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, from which he was almost expelled for his conduct. On graduation he joined the First Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. In September 1908 he was promoted to second lieutenant and was posted to India until 1913. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1910.
World War I
At the start of World War I, Montgomery was transferred to France with his regiment, which suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Mons.
In Méteren, he was seriously wounded in the chest on October 13, 1914 by a persistent sniper's shot while he was leading a group to start a counter-offensive. If it weren't for the fact that the sergeant who came to his aid was killed by the same enemy covering Montgomery with his body, surely he would have died riddled with bullets. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.
In 1916 he returned to the front and in 1918 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 47th Division, in which he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Interwar Period
After the war ended he was appointed commander of the Royal Rifle Regiment. He carried out missions in the Army of the Rhine, Ireland and Palestine. One of his relatives, Hugh Montgomery, was assassinated by elements of the IRA in 1920. Bernard Montgomery participated in the establishment of the Free State of Ireland in 1923, carrying out harsh reprisals against the rebels in the Irish Civil War.
In 1927, he married Elizabeth Carver, who bore him their only child, David, born in 1928.
He served in India in command of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, where he caused discomfort to his superiors by the puritanical way in which he applied discipline to his soldiers.
In June 1937, while serving as commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade in Quetta, India, his wife Elizabeth was bitten by a poisonous insect causing septicemia, and she died despite medical efforts. This loss was overwhelming and only by working hard in the martial field could he bear the shock of this sensitive death.
In 1938, he organized an amphibious landing exercise that impressed the new commander-in-chief of Southern Command, General Wavell. He was promoted to major general in October 1938 and took command of the 8th Infantry Division in Palestine. There he put down an Arab revolt before returning to Britain in July 1939. He was promoted to Major General in 1938.
World War II
After the outbreak of World War II, he was assigned to France, where he fought under the command of the II Corps until they withdrew in the so-called Dunkirk Disaster. Between July 1940 and April 1941 he was commander of V Corps, and commander of XII Corps between April and December 1941.
In 1942, he took command of the British Eighth Army, replacing General Claude Auchinleck, in North Africa. He faced General Erwin Rommel in the battles of El Alamein, First Battle of El Alamein and Second Battle of El Alamein. The British army was superior in equipment and manpower. However, Montgomery conducted the battle cautiously, preferring safety to the brilliance of triumph.
During the war, British intelligence, aware of repeated German efforts to kill him by bombing, covered him up with a lookalike named Clifton James in order to confuse the Germans and who appeared at some ceremonies and demonstrations. minor public. Clifton James had studied all of his gestures and deceived enemy intelligence on more than one occasion.
The Second Battle of El Alamein began on October 23, 1942 with an artillery bombardment of the German positions. The attack could not have come at a worse time for the Germans, as Marshal Rommel was convalescing in Austria, and the acting German commander, Georg Stumme, died of a heart attack at the start of the British attack. Finally, Rommel arrived, the Germans held their positions and on the 27th they counter-attacked, being stopped by the Australian 9th Division.
Montgomery attacked again on November 1, 1942. Rommel and his men resisted the attacks, but by November 4 he ordered his troops to withdraw at the risk of being surrounded by the British.
After the fall of Tunisia, he landed in Sicily and Italy. He had a bitter competition during the liberation of Italy with the American general, George S. Patton. He led the British wing during Operation Overlord in Normandy. He was promoted to marshal during the French campaign.
He planned and convinced Eisenhower to carry out the disastrous Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, whose tactical objective was to conquer a series of bridges over the main rivers of the Netherlands (under German occupation) and to establish a corridor through which the forces Allied forces could cross the Rhine River, the last natural barrier before entering Germany. The planning, the development of this operation and its consequences resulted in a defeat, with the important cost in elite soldiers that it meant for the Allies. These facts are still questioned in his biographies and are the plot of the film A Bridge Too Far .
End Life
At the end of the war he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British troops on the Rhine and a member of the Allied Council. In 1946 he was appointed 1. er Viscount Montgomery of El-Alamein and that same year he succeeded Alan Brooke as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Marshal Montgomery died of unknown causes on March 24, 1976, at his home in Isington near Alton, Hampshire, at the age of 88. After a funeral ceremony at St George's Chapel, Windsor, he was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Binsted.
Personality
Although somewhat stubborn and stubborn to see the errors in his plans, he was considered a good strategist (though not "brilliant" like some of his rivals) and, above all, an organizer of operations. His best virtues were on the battlefield itself, from where he gained ascendancy before his soldiers for his tactical ability and his good character, with great self-confidence but usually modest. In addition, he was very rigorous with the application of military discipline.
Awards
- Partner of the Distinguished Services Order, United Kingdom. 1914
- Croix de Guerre, France. 1919
- Silver Cross of the Virturi Militari, Poland. 1944
- Great diner of the Order of George I, Kingdom of Greece. 1944
- Order of Victory, 1945
- Great cross of the Legion of Honor, France. 1945
- Knight of the Order of the Elephant, Denmark 1945
- Big Cross Knight of the Order of Bathroom, United Kingdom. 1946
- Knight of the Order of the High School, United Kingdom. 1946
- Grand Officer of the Order of Leopoldo II, Belgium. 1947
- Great Cross of the Order of the White Lion, Czechoslovakia. 1947
- Commander of the Merit Legion, United States. 1947
- Medal of the Distinguished Services Order, United States. 1947
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Dutch Lion, Netherlands. 1947
- Member of the Order of Victory, USSR. 1947
- Great Cord of the Order of the Seal of Solomon, Ethiopian Empire. 1949
- Big Knight of the Order of Saint Olaf, Norway. 1951
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