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Field Marshal The Right Honourable Bernard Law
Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein,
Order of the Garter|KG, Order of the Bath|GCB,
Distinguished Service Order|DSO (17 November
1887–24 March 1976) was a British Army
officer, most noted for his involvement in World
War II and often referred to as "Monty".

==Early life and World War I service==

Montgomery was born in London in 1887.  After
graduating from St Paul's School and the Royal
Military College at Sandhurst, he joined the 1st
Battalion, The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers|The
Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908, first seeing
service in British India|India. The First World
War began in August 1914 and he moved to France
with his regiment that month. He saw service
during the retreat from Battle of Mons|Mons and
was severely wounded during the First Battle of
Ypres on 13 October 1914 while taking part in an
attack against the German-held village of Meteren.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order|DSO
for his actions. After recovering in early 1915,
he was promoted to Brigade Major and returned to
the Western Front in early 1916, taking part in,
among others, the Battle of the Somme
(1916)|Battle of the Somme. He  participated in a
number of other engagements throughout the war,
eventually finishing the war, after a number of
other appointments, as General Staff Officer 1,
ranked as a colonel, in the British 47th (2nd
London) Division|47th (2nd London) Division. 

In 1921 Montgomery was appointed as a staff
officer to a brigade stationed in County
Cork|Cork, the most bitterly contested region in
the Anglo-Irish War. A cousin of Montgomery's had
been killed by the
Irish_Republican_Army#The_Old_IRA|IRA in 1920 and
his family estate was located in County Donegal,
an area also affected by the conflict. He did not
try and exact revenge however and his methods were
never as brutal as those of his contemporary in
Cork, Arthur Percival. On his arrival in Cork he
urged units of his brigade that their "behaviour
must be beyond reproach" although later, after
futile attempts to locate and destroy IRA units,
he stated that it "never bothered me a bit how
many houses were burnt". Despite this he earned
the respect of his enemies and the IRA officer Tom
Barry said that he "behaved with great
correctness". Montgomery increasingly came to see
the conflict as one that could not be won, and
withdrawal of British forces as the only feasible
solution. In 1923 Montgomery wrote that "the only
way way therefore was to give them (the Irish)
some form of self-government and let them squash
the rebellion themselves".

After the First World War ended, many promising
young officers who had gained higher Brevet
(military)|brevet rank during the war were reduced
to their substantive ranks, and Montgomery
returned to the 1st Royal Warwickshires in 1925 as
a company commander, or captain. Montgomery now
had to rise up the ranks once more. He married
Elizabeth Carver in 1927 and eventually became
Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Royal Warwickshires
battalion in 1931, seeing service in British
Mandate of Palestine|Palestine, Egypt, and India.
He was promoted to Colonel and became an
instructor at the British Indian Army|Indian Army
Staff College in Quetta, India. Montgomery did, as
was usual, maintain links with the Royal
Warwickshires, taking up the honorary position of
Colonel-of-the-Regiment in 1947. He became
commanding officer of the 9th Brigade in 1937. The
year also saw tragedy for him when his wife,
Elizabeth Carver, died after contracting an
illness. He was promoted to Major-General the
following year, taking command of the British 8th
Division|8th Division in Palestine.

==World War II==

Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September
1939, two days after Hitler had Polish September
Campaign|invaded Poland. At the time, Montgomery
had only just recently taken command of the
British 3rd Infantry Division|3rd Division and he
and his division deployed to Belgium as part of
the British Expeditionary Force. The Germans began
their invasion of the Low Countries on 8 May 1940
and the BEF eventually withdrew to Dunkirk,
France|Dunkirk where Operation Dynamo -- the
evacuation of the BEF and French forces to Britain
-- began on 26 May. Montgomery was placed in
command of British II Corps|II Corps during the
evacuation and he was part of over 330,000 British
and French troops that were successfully evacuated
from Dunkirk by the time the operation ended on 4
June.

===North Africa and Italy===  
He was promoted Lieutenant-General shortly after
his return to Britain, and after a number of
appointments, Prime Minister Winston Churchill
appointed Montgomery commander of the British
Eighth Army in the North African campaign in
August 1942. He successfully pushed back Erwin
Rommel, forcing him to retreat from Egypt after
the Second Battle of El Alamein. 

Montgomery successfully led the Allied invasion of
Sicily in 1943 under the command of Dwight
Eisenhower|Eisenhower. A feature of the Sicily
campaign was Montgomery's clash of personality
with the American officer leading US Seventh
Army|Seventh Army, General George Patton. Both had
enormous egos and desired to be the centre of
attention when it came to coverage of the
campaign.

Montgomery continued to command Eighth Army during
the landings on the mainland of Italy itself.
Shortly thereafter he was recalled to the United
Kingdom|UK to take part in planning Operation
Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. Montgomery
assumed command of British 21st Army Group|21st
Army Group before the Normandy invasion and
commanded that formation for the rest of the war
in Europe.

===Normandy===
During the Battle of Normandy|D-Day invasion, and
for several months afterwards, Montgomery
commanded all allied ground forces: British,
Canadian and American. British troops became
bogged down in the northern sector of his command
outside the French town of Caen. Montgomery's
original plan had him taking Caen within days of
the invasion, but it actually took him many weeks
to capture this crucial town. This provoked
criticism from some Americans but Montgomery had
deliberately placed his experienced British and
Canadian troops up against the bulk of the armor,
including most of the Waffen SS Panzer divisions
that were present on the Western Front. Many of
the US troops, in contrast, were straight off the
boat from training in America, having just
completed an Atlantic crossing to be then landed
on the Omaha and Utah beaches. Montgomery's
persistence, intentionally or not, did manage to
pin down the bulk of the German armour around
Caen, allowing U.S. General George Patton's 3rd
American Army to sweep West then North, capturing
many retreating German troops at the 'Falaise
Gap'.

Montgomery's performance during the Battle of
Normandy|Normandy landings was criticised by many
who considered his plans unimaginative and too
rigid (which is strange considering the D-Day
ground invasion plan was largely of his devising);
he was, however, among the few Allied officers
aware of Ultra throughout World War II (The
British did not give Americans the decoding
secrets until 1943) and would have been in
possesion of high-level intelligence not known to
his critics. Often he would receive decoded German
signals before the intended recipent did. The
German Wehrmacht high command viewed him as a less
dangerous threat as a commander than Patton,
considering him habit-ridden and overly cautious. 
He was most successful with well planned attacks
with overwhelming forces, such as at El Alamein. 
Montgomery's defenders put his caution down that
fact that he commanded, for the most part, British
and Canadian forces.  He was acutely aware that
these forces were limited in number and not easily
replaced.  He could not afford to sacrifice them
needlessly.  His American counterparts, Bradley
and Patton, in contrast, could call upon almost
inexhaustible supplies of manpower from the
States.

===Removal as Ground Forces Commander===
Eventually the preponderance of American troops in
the European theatre made it a political
impossibility for the Ground Forces Commander to
be British.  Eisenhower himself took over Ground
Forces Command while continuing as Supreme
Commander, with Montgomery reverting to command of
21st Army Group.  Montgomery bitterly resented
this change, even though it had been agreed before
the D-Day invasion.  Winston Churchill had
Montgomery promoted to Field Marshal by way of
compensation.

Montgomery's tempestuous personality and
tactlessness throughout the war nearly led to
fissures in the Allied high command.  The most
notable of these led to adoption by Eisenhower of
his strategy of a single thrust to the Ruhr
area|Ruhr, which manifested itself in Operation
Market Garden. Operation Market Garden led to the
defeat of the British 1st Airborne Division|1st
Airborne Division outside Arnhem. When first shown
the plans the British Lieutenant General Frederick
Browning said, "I think we might be going A Bridge
Too Far|a bridge too far."

Montgomery was capable of inspiring great loyalty
among his staff.  These men defended him with
great passion even after the war, as the British
historian Richard Holmes (military
historian)|Richard Holmes discovered when he was
critical of Montgomery.  

On January 7, 1945 Montgomery held a press
conference in which he downplayed the role of the
American generals  in the Allied victory at the
Battle of the Bulge. This caused some degree of
controversy, and resentment from Americans who
felt that Montgomery held back his forces too
long.

==Later life and controversy==
After the war, Montgomery was created 1st Viscount
Montgomery of Alamein in 1946.  His reputation was
tarnished over two decades after his death by
evidence of racism with the 1999 revelation of
previously secret papers from 1947-1948 when he
held the position of Chief of the Imperial General
Staff. During that period he was strictly enjoined
to silence about his views, which were contrary to
British policy, and agents were assigned to vet
his public appearances for compliance.

Montgomery died in 1976 and was interred in the
Holy Cross Churchyard, Binstead, Hampshire.  His
portrait (by Frank O. Salisbury, 1945) is in the
National Portrait Gallery.

==See Also==
*Famous military commanders

==Quotations==

"The U.S. has broken the second rule of war. That
is, don't go fighting with your land army on the
mainland of Asia. Rule One is don't march on
Moscow. I developed these two rules myself."
:(spoken of the US approach to the Vietnam War)
Quoted in Alun Chalfont|Chalfont's Montgomery of
Alamein.

start box
succession box | title=Chief of the Imperial
General Staff | before=Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount
Alanbrooke|The Lord Alanbrooke | after=William
Slim, 1st Viscount Slim|Sir William Slim |
years=1946–1948
end box
start box
succession box | title=Viscount Montgomery of
Alamein | years= | before=New Creation |
after=David Bernard Montgomery, 2nd Viscount
Montgomery|David Bernard Montgomery
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