(First Paragraph) The stated goal of Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy is to  bring together the most important Bernard Montgomery documents for the period 1 January to 20 August 1944, reproduce each of the chosen documents in full and arrange them in a straightforward chronological order  (p. x). It is fair to say this volume achieves this goal, even though a batch of Montgomery documents already reproduced in full in other volumes was not included here

Koch, James V.

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Old Dominion University

Old Dominion UniversityODU Digital CommonsEconomics Faculty Publications Department of Economics8-2010Review of Brooks, Stephen, ed., Montgomery andthe Battle of Normandy: A Selection from theDiaries, Correspondence and Other Papers of FieldMarshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein,January to August 1944James V. KochOld Dominion UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/economics_facpubsPart of the Economics Commons, History Commons, and the Leadership Studies CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Economics at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Economics Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@odu.edu.Repository CitationKoch, James V., "Review of 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" (2010).Economics Faculty Publications. 11.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/economics_facpubs/11Original Publication CitationKoch, J. V. (2014). Review of 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. H-Net Reviews,1-4.Stephen Brooks, 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. Army Records Society, 27. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2008. xvi +384 pp. $32.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7509-5123-4.Reviewed by James V. Koch (Old Dominion University)Published on H-German (August, 2010)Commissioned by Benita BlessingBernard Montgomery, History (Re)writerThe stated goal of Montgomery and the Battle of Nor-mandy is to “bring together the most important BernardMontgomery documents for the period 1 January to 20August 1944, reproduce each of the chosen documents infull and arrange them in a straightforward chronologi-cal order” (p. x). It is fair to say this volume achievesthis goal, even though a batch ofMontgomery documentsalready reproduced in full in other volumes was not in-cluded here.The precise selection of a much larger set of availabledocuments (the diaries, letters, and speeches of Mont-gomery) that appear here is the result of culling and eval-uation by Stephen Brooks, who previously performeda similar task for Montgomery’s North African papers.Brooks provides some evaluative commentary relating tothe documents (primarily in footnotes) and often guidesreaders to other sources on issues of dispute that arise.Overall, his treatment of “Monty” is gentle and, in con-trast to recent histories of the Normandy campaign, hegenerally resists skeweringMontgomery’s interpretationof events.On occasion, he lets Montgomery off the hook rathereasily in his commentary in the 650 valuable footnotes.Illustrations include British failures to take Caen early onand Monty’s inability to close the Falaise gap in August1944. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to conclude thatthis collection of 211 Montgomery documents is a viewof Montgomery through rose-colored glasses. For exam-ple, although Brooks opines that “the documents showMontgomery as a brilliant communicator,” he also cat-alogs Montgomery’s many spats with a wide variety ofmilitary and political figures (p. 2).Six generalizations emerge from these documents.First, Montgomery was a skillful, meticulous, determinedorganizer who was very good at organizing, mounting,supporting, and operating an army, even if subsequentlyhe was not always the optimal decision maker in com-bat conditions. Second, Montgomery, when he wished tobe, could be both charming and charismatic and evincedthe ability to inspire confidence and increase moraleamong his charges. Third, an egotist, Montgomery wasconfident he possessed distinctive, superior knowledgeand understanding of the military, how wars should befought, and, in particular, how to defeat the Germans. Heregarded the defeat of the Germans in Normandy as ev-idence of this. Fourth, Montgomery seldom shied awayfrom the opportunity to criticize or denigrate all but afew other military leaders and political figures. Fifth, hisscathing comments about his military colleagues of ev-ery nationality betray either a brimming self-confidenceof Pattonesque magnitude, or a lurking inferiority com-plex that motivated him to attempt to cut down numer-ous contemporaries. Montgomery frequently was un-able to admit his own errors or shortcomings. Finally,Montgomery’s diary appears to have been written with1H-Net Revie in the Humanities & Social H-Net Reviewsan eye to postwar historical analysis. Montgomery seemsto have deliberately shaded his diary comments, and per-haps even revised his views on matters with future his-torians in mind. When “facts” did not fit his desired nar-rative, he often revised his story, and soon claimed thatthe new version was what he had predicted all along.Montgomery’s consistent criticism of nearly everyother military and political leader stands out in thesedocuments. At the top, he laid wood to individualssuch as Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D.Eisenhower, Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Arthur Tedder,Arthur Coningham, Bernard Law Alexander, and HenryCrerar. Churchill is painted as an interfering pain-in-the-neck. General de Gaulle, admittedly a difficult figure,struckMontgomery as an individual whowas “a poor fishand gives out no inspiration” (p. 144). Montgomery por-trayed Eisenhower as a loud, though amiable individualof limited talent whose “ignorance as to how to run a waris absolute and complete” (p. 298).Air Chief Marshall Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, aircommander for the Normandy invasion, “is definitelyabove his ceiling in his present job and is not goodenough for the job we are on” (p. 58). Monty addedthat Leigh-Mallory was “a gutless bugger” and summa-rized, “I have no use for him” (p. 135). Of Air MarshallArthur Tedder, the deputy commander of the entire in-vasion force, Montgomery opined, “he is very weak” (p.167).Montgomery’s most revealing and pungent com-ments usually appear in his personal letters, which of-ten were dispatched to Alan Brooke, chief of the Im-perial General Staff. For example, Montgomery toldBrooke that Air Marshall Sir Arthur Coningham, whowas in charge of tactical air support for the invasion, is“a bad man, not genuine, and terribly jealous” (p. 166).General Harold Alexander, who commanded the British15th Army Group in Italy and who had originally beenproposed by Eisenhower to lead all Normandy invasionforces, was castigated by Monty as “definitely third classas a high commander. It will be interesting to see whenthe P.M., and others, discover that Alexander is no good”(p. 104). Apparently they did not come to that realiza-tion, since Alexander was made a field marshall in 1945and elevated to a peerage in 1946.Of General Henry Crerar, the senior Canadian com-mander, Montgomery complained, “I fear very much thatHarry Crerar will be quite unfit to command any Army….He is very prosy and stodgy, and he is very definitelynot a commander” (p. 185). Crerar, averred Monty, “isa very poor soldier, and has much to learn” (p. 244). Itis hardly an accident that Antony Beevor, the most re-cent major historian of the Normandy battle, observes,“Senior Canadian officers detected a supercilious attitudetoward them.”[1] Such an attitude appears to have comenaturally to Montgomery.On occasions, Montgomery’s arrows were aimed atlarger groups such as the British War Office, whereMonty lamented that “there is no one in the War Of-fice who is a really good soldier” (p. 94). In this vein,he decided (correctly) that he had to recast the entireNormandy invasion plan after he took command of theinvasion ground forces in January 1944. In a Febru-ary 24, 1944 letter to Admiral Louis Montbatten, Montylamented, “Here in England, I found everything and ev-eryone was just drifting along. Rather pathetic really. Itall had to be changed” (p. 54). In an April 1 diary entry,he minced no words: “The original plan for Overlord waswrong … many changes had to be made quickly. But thejob has been done; Overlord is now properly ’teed up’and the plan is good” (p. 65). Monty motivated thosechanges by purging the ranks of the invasion plannershe inherited and bringing in more than a hundred of hisown people. He summarized, “We found we had to recastthe operational plan, the administrative plan, and in factpractically everything” (p. 133). Virtually the only fig-ures of consequence who avoided Montgomery’s rhetor-ical scythe were Alan Brooke and American 1st Armycommander Omar Bradley, although the latter fell intothe category of those Monty classified as unknowledge-able, but willing to learn from the master.As the battle in Normandy progressed, it became ap-parent that Montgomery was a risk-averting comman-der, at least where British and Commonwealth forceswere concerned. By August 11, 1944, British and Cana-dian forces had sustained 68,000 casualties, but the Amer-icans 102,000. Only 18,000 German prisoners had beencaptured by the British and Canadians by that date, but92,000 by the Americans. What was Monty’s reaction tofrequent charges that the Commonwealth forces he ledwere too cautious? “The bigger American casualties aredue to their lack of skill in fighting” (p. 223). He is fortu-nate that this comment did not come to light at the time;the pressure to sack himmight have become overwhelm-ing.Montgomery’s public stance in response to criti-cism that he was too timid a general was to promiseEisenhower repeatedly that the British and Canadianswould undertake sustained offensives, though his own2H-Net Reviewsprivate orders consistently undercut that goal. Given thehigh level of Commonwealth casualties in World WarI, Monty’s approach was understandable, but came at acost to his own reputation. As Beevor has noted, “SeniorAmerican officers were becoming scornful of what theysaw as an inexcusable caution on the British front.”[2]Montgomery acknowledged in his diaries that Eisen-hower had prodded him several times to become moreaggressive. His July 22 diary entry states, “Eisenhowerwrote me a letter which expressed concern at my stop-ping operations on the eastern flank” (p. 233). Severaldays later, Eisenhower came to visit: “He talked a gooddeal about public opinion in America and … the feel-ing that the U.S. troops were doing more than the Britishtroops” (p. 239).Montgomery’s response was to assert repeatedly thateverything was going according to his long-standingplan. Representative is his August 4 diary entry (seem-ingly written with future historians in mind): “If we ex-amine the map I used in England when expounding toall General officers the development of the land battle inNormandy, it will be seen that the battle has followedalmost exactly the course prescribed” (p. 269). How-ever, Monty’s own maps belie this statement, for exam-ple, with respect to his failure to capture Caen within thefirst few days of the invasion.One explanation for the slow progress of Common-wealth forces against the Germans was Montgomery’sclaim that his eastern flank of Allied forces frequentlyfaced the cream of German armored divisions (oftentrue). Unable to dislodge the Germans, Monty soon be-gan to argue that he had deliberately sought out this ar-rangement. “My broad policy, oncewe had secured a firmlodgment area, has always been to draw the main enemyforces into the battle on our eastern flank, and to fightthem there, so that our affairs on the western flank couldproceed the easier” (p. 174). Thus, he flexibly adjusted hisrhetoric and “his plans” to reflect reality. He also firedseveral generals to counterattack the claim that he didnot push Commonwealth forces hard enough.Retrospectively, however, it was the failure of Mont-gomery to close the Falaise gap in early August 1944 andthereby trap the great bulk of German ground forces inNormandy that has subjected him to more criticism thanany other of his Normandy decisions. German forces hadundertaken a high-stakes offensive gamble in the formof a tank thrust to the Atlantic coast, designed to cutAllied forces in two. At least partially because of Ul-tra code-breaking (an advantage that Montgomery neveracknowledged that he benefited from, either there or inNorth Africa), U.S. forces were able to repel this attack.This situation meant that German forces were overex-tended and plagued by highly vulnerable flanks. WithCanadians and Poles under Monty’s command comingfrom the north, and Americans under Patton’s commandcoming from the south, the Germans could be cut off anddevastated.The Falaise gap eventually was closed, but not be-fore many Germans escaped to fight another day. Mosthistorians believe that Montgomery’s lukewarm orders,his decision to have the Americans stop short of clos-ing the gap, and his failure to supply reinforcements ina timely fashion were at fault. Antony Beevor concludedthat this episode “would be disastrous for Montgomery’sreputation and credibility”[3]. Monty fought such assess-ments after the war by authoring eight books, four ofwhich dealt specifically with his war experiences. In sev-eral, he reasserted his summer 1944 Normandy claim that“present operations are absolutely as planned” (p. 263);however, the weight of historical opinion has not comedown in his favor in this regard.The picture of Montgomery painted by these docu-ments (and especially his own letters and diary entries)is one of a highly knowledgeable and skilled organizer ofmilitary activity. Monty understood command structure,the importance of supply and the need for coordination,and the intricacies of reporting relationships. He was acapable, sometimes even inspiring, speech-maker and of-ten elicited strong, iconic loyalty from his subordinates.Even so, he was a man of great self-esteem and pre-tense who as early as February 19, 1944 wrote that “thenation is beginning to look to me to lead them to vic-tory. The whole of England know me as ’Monty,’ and Iam recognized at once by every man, woman and child,in the land” (p. 46). Perhaps this self–perception waswhy in spring 1944 he proposed a “Public Hallowing ofthe Armed Forces of the Crown” at St. Paul’s Cathedraland suggested that coronation regalia be utilized in theceremony. Not surprisingly, this attempt to evoke thewhiff of royalty inside the senior military hierarchy didnot fly.Bernard Montgomery was a successful military com-mander and his mode of operation minimized Britishcasualties–an argument that is nonetheless debatable.The reality is that Monty harbored few doubts; he be-lieved his view of military affairs was the gospel. Con-sequently, he stood ready to belittle anyone who did notagree with what he perceived to be his superior analyt-3H-Net Reviewsical intellect, unless of course they acquiesced to “learn”from him.With respect to Montgomery’s Normandy decisionmaking, Beevor sums Monty up well: “The problem wasthat Montgomery, partly for reasons of morale and partlyout of puerile pride, could not admit that any of his planshad gone wrong.”[4] This issue dims an otherwise illus-trious military career.Should you read the originalMontgomery documentsStephen Brooks has provided? Yes, if you wish to inspectthe historical basis for the critical reviews of Monty’sleadership that have appeared in most recent Normandyhistories. For most scholars, however, it will be enoughto know that a documentary basis for such conclusionsexists, and on the whole, Monty has not been dealt withunfairly.Notes[1]. Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy(New York: Penguin Group, 2009), 185.[2]. Ibid, 264.[3] Ibid., 306.[4] Ibid, 185.If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:https://networks.h-net.org/h-germanCitation: James V. Koch. Review of Brooks, Stephen, ed., Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy: A Selection fromthe Diaries, Correspondence and Other Papers of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, January to August1944. H-German, H-Net Reviews. August, 2010.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30543This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.4

Review of 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

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Review of 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

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