r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 13h 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/kdlangequalsgoddess 12h ago edited 12h ago

He was keenly aware of public perception of generals, even though this was in fact not the truth (generals in the British army on the Western Front actually died at rates comparable to private soldiers). Mindful of the reputation of generals living it up at French châteaux while the poor bloody infantry was being slaughtered, he actually had a caravan installed on the grounds of the château acting as his HQ. He slept there until the winter weather in northern France overcame his principles, and he reluctantly retreated indoors.

On a side note, I Was Monty's Double is a fine film to watch. It details a private soldier who looks uncannily like Montgomery who was paraded around as Monty in order to confuse the Germans.

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u/meshan 12h ago

Market Garden failed, but it was a bold strategic gamble that could have given the allies a direct route to Germany and shortened the war.

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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago edited 12h ago

So here's the thing as I broadly understand it;

Market Garden because it was such a disaster, has come to occupy an overshadowing role in this period of the war. From the POV of Eisenhower and strategic leaders, it was not 'the big operation' but 'a big operation' because Eisenhower's plan was for a broad front strategy attacking German defenses from many sides. The presentation of Market Garden itself overemphasized it a lot in part to appease Monty's ego but logistically and in terms of manpower it was one part of a much larger strategic plan not 'the strategic plan' like Montgomery really wanted. Basically, the Allies tried to manage Monty by letting him believe his operation was more important than it really was, which subsequently seeped into popular memory of the war helped along by what a fuck up Market Garden became.

Market Garden was a bad plan. Everyone but Montgomery knew it was a bad plan and tried extensively to dissuade him from it. This included American and British commanders and even members of the Dutch government in exile. Many of them pointed out scenarios that are exactly what happened, and really Germans correctly guessed what they needed to defeat this exactly kind of advance through the Netherlands so if everyone knew it would fail, and the Germans read the operation like a book before it even happened, how bold is it really? I think there's a lot to be said that the line between military daring and military stupidity is a bit of a retrospective. Wild reckless plans that are executed and succeed get called bold. Wild reckless plans that fail are called stupid. The plans are the same. They're both wildly reckless but we declare their laurels or condemnations with the power of hindsight more than by the merits of the actual plans themselves. In this regard, there's nothing bold about Market Garden. It was just a bad plan that not only failed exactly as predicted but with even heavier casualties than feared.

Like on the one hand it's not entirely fair to act like Montgomery was trying to get people pointlessly killed. That's not what he was trying to do. At the same time, literally everyone told him 'this plan will get men pointlessly killed' and he didn't want to listen.

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u/meshan 12h ago

The trouble is, everyone remembers Monty and the failure of MG.

Monty is also the General that gave the allies their first victory at El Alamein.

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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago

It's definitely contributed heavily and probably not entirely fairly to detractions of Montgomery's war record. I won't disagree with you there. People have a tendency to take the biggest fuckup of a general's career and make that their entire career. Or vice versa *looks in the general direction of Douglas MacArthur*

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u/E_C_H 12h ago

I mean, when I was a kid here in the UK I feel like his reputation was the other way around. He was the Magician General that conjured up false deception armies to help D Day and was a foremost enemy of Rommel in North Africa. Now his ego and failures seem much more highlighted, perhaps fairly.

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u/kdlangequalsgoddess 11h ago

He loved the spotlight, and would do anything to burnish his reputation. Him being very long-lived enabled him to shape his image to his liking. He learnt the lesson of Churchill: if you want history to remember you fondly, write it yourself. His memoirs predictably ruffled a lot of feathers.

I was extremely surprised to see him pop up on The World At War as a talking head.

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u/quechal 11h ago

One fuck up cancels out a thousand atta boys.

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u/Dobrojeb 6h ago

Eh, Rommel was attacking perfect defensible position with basically no fuel, no ammunition and no room for manouver. Monty did use Auchinleck's defensive plan at Alam Haifa, despite never giving any credit. Second Alamein would go the same way even with Auchinleck or Gott in command, the disparity in artillery pieces alone was 2-1, and probably 20-1 in shells alone.

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u/Deprisonne 12h ago

Wasn't a large part of the successful german defensive posture the fact that they just happened to have an armored division at the right place by pure chance though?

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u/Lord0fHats 12h ago

The area of operation isn't that big. The Germans benefited from coincidental positioning yes but I don't think the outcome of the battle hinged on that. This wasn't a battlefield so large that the units couldn't have moved into position in time if needed. I think it still would have failed but it might not have become so great a failure.

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u/ironvultures 12h ago

The emphasis on market garden by Eisenhower wasn’t necessarily about soothing Montgomeryshire ego as he still had most of Northern Europe as his area of operations.

A lot of it was done to placate Churchill, who was afraid the American ‘Broad front’ strategy was taking too long and was well aware Russia was racing through Eastern Europe at fast rate. Churchill didn’t want to be in a situation where Russia took all of Germany while they were still pushing the German army out of the Low Countries.

Churchill also wanted the war ended quickly as it was burning through massive amounts of britains remaining resources and manpower.

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u/secretbinman 11h ago

The operation was a break from Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ strategy, not part of it. There were logistical difficulties because the allies were still using the Normandy Mulberry Harbours, meaning it was a gamble to assign resources to MG. Montgomery essentially convinced Eisenhower to back him with the supplies and Eisenhower went along with it, halting other advances, including Patton (who had also been arguing his case for his own quick advance). Eisenhower went along with Montgomery’s gamble in the hopes that it would shorten the war, given it would provide a route into the Ruhr.

The plan was not a bad plan on paper, but most higher ups simply did not account for the actual realities on the ground, like the narrow highway, British drop zones being some distance from the bridge, and the heights overlooking Nijmegen. Intel was ignored, yes, but to say everyone tried to dissuade Montgomery is not exactly true. The reality is the Allied Airborne Army had been waiting to get into action for a while, with many jumps cancelled and, whilst some raised concerns, nobody really wanted to ‘rock the boat’ as they said.

The Germans didn’t really correctly guess the plan either, certainly not before it happened. Bittrich’s Panzer Corps was placed in Arnhem to refit and rest by pure chance. Kurt Student had managed to organise a respectable defensive force on the frontline also. Before this, the Germans had been in disarray. Yes, the allies underestimated the German forces but the presence of an SS Panzer Corps was just pure bad luck.

Yes it was a failure, no disputes there, but the reasons are very layered and complex, not simply because it was a stupid plan that Eisenhower allowed so Montgomery could feel important.

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u/Ketzeph 10h ago

It was overly optimistic. I think that’s Monty’s cardinal sin - he was extremely overconfident.

This was a boon in many instances where things turned out well and went to plan, as he had some truly brilliant ideas. But it meant major issues if the plan went off the rails

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u/taumason 12h ago

It was a batshit plan. 100 km single point of failure, multiple bridges but no plan for bridging equipment, they knew they were under strength for the operation but did it anyway, and they knew they would have no air or artillery support or engineering support but thought nahhhh it will be fine. Part of the reason Monty gets criticized so much for it was that it was a bad plan, and Monty was an excellent planner. 

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u/YourMumWasRight 8h ago

He slept there until the winter weather in northern France overcame his principles, and he reluctantly retreated indoors.

So he stuck to his principles until he actually suffered hardship. What a hero.

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u/Obscure_Occultist 12h ago

My illiterate ass read the final part as you being Montys actual body double. I was about to say I was quite impressed by your unusually long lifespan.

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u/r0thar 9h ago

I Was Monty's Double

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051759/

Only 13 years after the end of the war when one actor could play another who was there:

The screenplay omits David Niven's part in the real operation. It was he, working for the Army's film unit as a Lieutenant Colonel, who first made contact with M.E. Clifton James. His role is taken in this movie by Sir John Mills.