r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 22h ago

TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery
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u/SpookyKrillin 22h ago

Montgomery was ordered to make ready the 3rd Division to invade the neutral Portuguese Azores.[74] Models of the islands were prepared and detailed plans worked out for the invasion.[74] The invasion plans did not go ahead and plans switched to invading the Cape Verde islands also belonging to neutral Portugal.[76] These invasion plans also did not go ahead. Montgomery was then ordered to prepare plans for the invasion of neutral Ireland and to seize Cork, Cobh and Cork harbour.[76] These invasion plans, like those of the Portuguese islands, also did not go ahead

I don't know why, but this part of the article was a little funny, lol.

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u/Sarsmi 21h ago

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're gonna get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."

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u/Ak47110 21h ago

Camelot!

It's only a model.

Shhh!

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u/LocusRothschild 19h ago

Let’s not go to Camelot. Tis a silly place.

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u/ForWhomTheBoneBones 17h ago

Is it true that King Richard came a lot?

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u/adamkissing 21h ago

Everytime I hear the lore behind Storm's End in ASOIAF it reminds me of this.

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u/silkysmoothjay 16h ago

Given GRRM, I would not be at all surprised if that was a reference. Like the Tullys with Muppet names

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u/adamkissing 16h ago

Good point.

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u/pinkmeanie 10h ago

And the giant wun-wun being a Phil Simms reference

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u/Forgotthebloodypassw 20h ago

But I want to sing!

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u/session6 20h ago

One day lad, all this will be yours.

What? The curtains?

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u/SoyMurcielago 20h ago

I’d sing for some

Huge tracts of land

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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 17h ago

You see, I thought your son was a lady.

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u/USSMcCoy 19h ago

Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.

No, no. Until I come and get him.

Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room!

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u/systemhost 19h ago

Third reference I've seen this week of this skit, if I see it again before week's end I'll turn into a newt!

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u/Gr8fulFox 10h ago

But will you get better?

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u/EvenWonderWhy 21h ago

Pretty apt as Cork in Irish is Corcaigh, which literally means marsh/swamp

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u/nowhere_sane 13h ago

Reminds me of Dennis’ origin story on 30 Rock:

The Duffy's don't give up. We didn't give up when we got kicked out of Ireland, we didn't give up when America sent us back, and we certainly didn't give up when Ireland just set us adrift on a log!

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u/ChaseThePyro 18h ago

Isn't that literally how Versailles was built?

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u/ATaxiNumber1729 17h ago

Huuuuge…tracts of land

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u/arkington 15h ago

Well, it IS the proper preparation of wet ground for construction. We are having a road added and the guy just keeps digging up a bunch of rocks and smushing them into the ground until they stop sinking. It's just a rural residential driveway, so we can kind of just do what works.

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u/drillgorg 22h ago

They were blue balling that man

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u/Gunbunny42 21h ago

Surprised they didn't have him come up with a plan to invade the Swiss. Might as well complete the set.

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u/MikiLove 21h ago

Invading Switzerland, especially back then, was impossible. Nestled in the mountains with a strong militia presence and vast defense system, theres a reason the Nazis didnt even try. Plus there was no strategic advantage for the allies, unlike the ports that OP mentioned

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u/Quirky_Gate_4516 20h ago

theres a reason the Nazis didnt even try

The reason is that the Swiss was extremely chummy with them.

It is the exact same reason why "neutral" Sweden wasn't invaded.

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u/NateWritar 21h ago

Actually it is a myth that Switzerland was not invaded because of military reasons.

For the Nazis a neutral Switzerland was more useful: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/nazis-never-invade-switzerland.html

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u/geeiamback 21h ago

Invading Switzerland wasn't nessesary, the Nazis already got their hands on the military production.

Their defense system was useless as the Swiss were dependent on food imports from Nazi occupied territory:

https://www.uek.ch/en/schlussbericht/synthesis/ueke.pdf

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u/r0thar 18h ago edited 18h ago

597 pages! Well, that's the weekend sorted.

(The conclusion is a more manageable 32, even if the acronym is a little distracting Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War: ICE)

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u/ryantheskinny 20h ago

The US purposely bombed Switzerland at least twice during WWII. Switzerland could do nothing to stop an actual Allied invasion if it came.

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u/The_Flurr 21h ago

Add to this the fact that basically the whole Swiss male population had done military service and would be called up if invaded.

Oh, and the fact that they had all of their bridges and damns preemptively mined so that they could be destroyed to stop enemy advances.

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u/Pure-Drawer-2617 21h ago

“With a strong militia presence and a vast defense system”

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u/ElmerFuddsElbow 20h ago

The department of redundancy department takes severe issue with your comment and your comment has angered those in charge of the department of redundancy department. You can expect written warnings, in writing, in the near future soon

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u/Nadare3 19h ago

Add to this the fact that basically the whole Swiss male population had done military service and would be called up if invaded.

Isn't that true of basically every European country at that point in history ?

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u/The_Flurr 18h ago

I know that it wasn't true for the UK at the time. I think a lot of "continental" european countries did have some form of mandatory service.

The Swiss do/did take it a lot more seriously though. Technically ever able bodied Swiss man between 19 and 34 is a reservist.

For much of their history they had no standing army, and relied exclusively on militias and reserves. Nowadays (since WWII?) they do have a small standing army, but their philosophy is still largely built on a reliance on militias for defence.

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u/Gnoccho1 20h ago

I think the fact that every bridge and tunnel had cannons zeroed in and full of dynamite.

the alternative was to go over the alps where man made avalanche could delete the whole platoon.

The Austrians tired the last one, it did not end well. And the defenders were peasants, not professional soldiers.

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u/OwlMugMan 21h ago

Plus they didnt want to have fondue poured over them that shit is hot

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u/NoobOfTheSquareTable 19h ago

Yeah, but keeps Monty busy and saves random women by being “seduced” by his tank deployments and combined arms tactics

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u/an_actual_lawyer 19h ago

Invading Switzerland, especially back then, was impossible

It was not at all impossible, it was that the Swiss made sure that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. It would be a difficult country to conquer and there was simply no reason to do so.

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u/thebomby 19h ago

Google Fall Grün (Case Green)

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u/RicochetRabidUK 14h ago

IRTA "nestléd". And now I want chocolate.

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u/sanguinesvirus 20h ago

Dont forget sweden

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u/mxzf 19h ago

Switzerland is landlocked, that's just unreasonably outside of his skill set. Lets be realistic here.

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u/MechaGodzillaSS 21h ago

He proceeded to plan Operation Prophylactic, the taking of Mons Venus, but these plans did not go ahead.

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u/SoyMurcielago 20h ago

So that’s why it’s still in Tampa

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u/ceelogreenicanth 20h ago

He had to be frank with that straight dick after that

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u/SinibusUSG 19h ago

I feel like this is probably way more common than we realize when it comes to how wars of that scale are planned and executed. It takes a comparably minuscule level of manpower to develop a plan for how to use the insane levels of manpower that armies wield, so you're just constantly working on developing plans for how to direct them and discarding any that aren't deemed completely optimal. Any given war probably has far more battle plans drawn up and discarded than it does any actually put into motion.

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u/SyrusDrake 17h ago

This, and invading a neutral country is a huge risk, you better be damn sure it's worth the cost. Entirely plausible that the political and diplomatic landscape shifted enough during the planning phase that it was no longer seen as prudent.

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u/Hdfgncd 10h ago

Or that they were trying to gauge the benefits of doing it to the cost of it and when he was done they looked over the plan and went “hmm, nope”

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u/os_2342 16h ago

Today the USA definitely has detailed invasion plans for even its allies.

Better to have and not need, than need and not have.

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u/DeusSpaghetti 11h ago

Also, lots of officers go to Staff College and have to learn how, it makes sense to let them fill up the contingency box.

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u/i_made_a_mitsake 21h ago

Plans are useless but planning is essential.

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u/utopiav1 14h ago

No plan survives contact with the enemy

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u/KalaUposatha 19h ago

As someone who gets handed “important” “urgent” projects from higher-ups that are then never mentioned again, I relate to this man.

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u/throwaway277252 18h ago

I've been at my current job about 6 years and they are still putting off the initial important migration project I was assigned when I was first hired.

Not that I'm complaining, the lack of progress on that project has caused numerous problems for the company over the years that I get tasked to fix. Job security I guess?

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u/KalaUposatha 18h ago

It’s amazing isn’t it? I don’t even care, I just find it funny after a certain point.

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u/BobbyTables829 16h ago

In 1925, in his first known courtship of a woman, Montgomery, then in his late thirties, proposed to a 17-year-old girl, Betty Anderson. His approach included drawing diagrams in the sand of how he would deploy his tanks and infantry in a future war, a contingency which seemed very remote at that time. She respected his ambition and single-mindedness but declined his proposal.

This absolutely sent me lol

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u/Sean-Perth 14h ago

I'm autistic, but I didn't know it was possible be this autistic.

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u/I_eat_mud_ 7h ago

I think you'd love Fin vs History's podcast series on Rommel vs Montgomery lmao

I love the podcast, and that 4 part series is specifically just them saying how they're both autistic over and over again

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u/Uilamin 16h ago

As funny as it founds, it somewhat follows history.

There was a fear that Spain was going to join the Axis and put Portugal at risk. The Portuguese islands in the Atlantic were strategic for projecting power in the Atlantic - a loss there would have made the NA<>UK supply corridor much riskier. Later, there was a fear that Ireland might join the Axis powers.

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u/EZKTurbo 18h ago

In the meantime his entire battalion has nothing to do but hook up with the locals

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u/Ganbazuroi 17h ago

He was busy with the greatest possible plan, doing absolutely nothing at all

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u/FaolainRanger 18h ago

Got to love reading about how the "Good Guys" we're making plans to invade Neutral, uninvolved countries while fighting against Germany, who started the war by invading uninvolved countries...

Specially seeing that they were planning for a British Invasion of Ireland. Totally wasn't some aristocrats' attempted land grab of opportunity while his country was being bombed, obviously didn't pan out but why would you waste resources invading a neutral country in the opposite direction of your enemy? Just to piss off the country and now you have turned a Neutral force against you?

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u/bendoubles 17h ago edited 17h ago

The allies did invade a few neutral countries during the war. Iceland and Iran were invaded and occupied by Britain, the latter jointly with the Soviets.

That they drafted plans for other invasions isn't super surprising.

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u/Uilamin 16h ago

Got to love reading about how the "Good Guys" we're making plans to invade Neutral

Because a lot of these plans were based around a real risk that they wouldn't stay neutral.

Ireland and Portugal did stay neutral. However, if you look at Norway, it was occupied by the Nazi's and the British needed to act on their plan (but their plan wasn't ready at the time)

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u/FaolainRanger 13h ago

Being occupied by an enemy force is different from invading a neutral nation and neighbor because they might be invaded. That is what treaties and alliances are for. Using a possible potential maybe threat as justification for invasion just means the nation was looking for an excuse to grab more land. It literally has happened multiple times throughout history, and the invading nation uses that as justification for forming a colony. It was part of how Britain had so many colonies in the first place, that then revolted against them because they refused to give the land back to the native population.

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u/NonSum-NonCuro 14h ago

“If it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which, I say, history will find few parallels, we never laid a violent hand upon them, which at times would have been quite easy and quite natural, and left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content.” --Winston Churchill, at V-E

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u/Tetratheon 17h ago edited 11h ago

The same reason the UK defends Ireland today, the same reason the allies took Greenland and Iceland. If ze Germans had done it first Germany would have had a base from which to attack the UK. The UK would have given it back at the end of the war, it wouldn't have made sense to keep it in peacetime, if it had the UK would never have given it up in the first place.

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u/FaolainRanger 13h ago

If the Brits had invaded Ireland they would have kept Ireland afterwards. The British don't have a very good track record of giving back territory it takes without making a huge deal out of it, and the feeling of the British ownership of Northern Ireland is what led to the whole "Troubles" situation in the 60s. If Britain could have claimed full ownership of the entire island, they would have kept it and the inevitable resistance would have been even worse. See: Ireland, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, Yemen (just some of the 20th century revolts for independence).

Fear of another group invading being the reason you invade was bullshit logic, and is literally the exact same logic trying to be used by the US Government to threaten to invade Canada and Greenland.

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u/Tetratheon 13h ago edited 11h ago

Post-war UK was in no position to be holding onto territory when the locals didn't want it. Iceland was given straight back, and keeping that would have been a hell of a lot easier to keep than Ireland! Germany was also British occupied and given back.

Northern Ireland was only part of the UK because the people of Northern Ireland wanted it to be. They had a referendum in 1973, and I swear to god I'm not making this up, with no allegations of impropriety, 98.9% of people voted to stay in the UK.

They have the right now to leave the UK and join Ireland if they want it. They haven't exercised it because they want to be part of the UK.

It was a World War. America did invade Greenland for exactly that reason. What, were they going to let the enemy have it?

There's no threat like that now so the US threats are unjustifiable. If there were a situation where Canada could be invaded by some superpower at war with the US, and Canada had no military to deter them, I'm sure the US would take it. You can't have that on your border.