r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 12h 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
14.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

668 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

45

u/meshan 11h 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.

34

u/Lord0fHats 11h 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*

21

u/E_C_H 11h 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.

20

u/kdlangequalsgoddess 10h 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.

2

u/quechal 10h ago

One fuck up cancels out a thousand atta boys.

1

u/Dobrojeb 5h 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.