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Originally Posted by Panther Al
Due to my, admittedly rather odd, upbringing I always found myself in the middle on Monty. Americans think that he was horrid, yet the English thinks that he was outstanding. To be honest, with the exception of operation "what the hell was I thinking-garden" he, once he went on the offensive, did rather well. But that is the catch- once he went on the offensive. He had the tendency to be the ACW General (I know who it is but for the life of me I can't get the name right - sigh) that was asked by Abe "if you are not using the army, could I borrow it?" I feel that whilst he did not win the war for England, he did build the army that did so- under lower but much better -fighting- leadership.
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Monty always leaves one with mixed feelings.
To give him credit, he did propose to increase the D-day force from 3 to 5 divisions. But where he gets caught was in an early briefing in which he told the assembled allied generals of his intention of have British armored in Caen on D-day. When it turned out that the Germans held Caen, he then writes of it always having been his intention that the Americans being the breakout force. When you read his book, the entire war progressed, just like he had predicted it would and if only Eisenhower had pulles his head out of his ass and made Monty ground forces commander, the war would have been...tra la tra la tra la........
The main problem with Monty is that he believed his own press. He should have been relieved after Market-Garden for his insubordination to Eisenhower. God knows Brooks would have supported the ouster. Even Churchill admitted that a relief was the correct decision to make. But Eisenhower gave Monty another chance. And the old poison pen came out after the war!