OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[Raellus]

I enjoyed his Battle of Arnhem.

Yeah, there seems to pretty broad consensus among modern WW2 historians (Beevor, Hastings, Atkinson, to name a few) that Monty was pretty good at set-piece battles as long as they unfolded according to plan, but pretty shit when it came to operating on the fly. If a plan didn't work as intended, as in the case of Market Garden (and Epsom, and Goodwood), he couldn't adjust and improvise his way to victory.

His baffling failure to clear the Scheldt Estuary and thereby in actuality to open the port of Antwerp arguably delayed the Allied victory, and allowed the Soviets to reach Berlin first.

Monty was indeed an egomaniac, who would take credit for any success, could never admit to making a mistake, and believed that he alone was qualified to lead the Allied armies in the field. Most of his men loved him, but most of his fellow field officers- American and British- couldn't stand the guy.

He was probably the British Empire's most overrated general of WW2 (if not of all time), and is a strong candidate for most overrated general of all of the Allied armies during the war.