On this Memorial Day I was watching the great movie Patton with my ignorant cousin. In the movie Patton says something like 'Hell, I know I’m a Prima Donna Brad, but so is Monty, only he wouldn’t admit it. - or something like that. Well, this quote caused some debate among myself and my ignorant relation. Question to those pledged since 1973 to fight ignorance — who was in fact the ‘biggest Prima Donna’ - Patton or Bernard Montgomery, and why.
As part of my duty — change “among” to “between” —
Monty. Not only was he a prima donna, but he was a class-A asshole. In the North Africa campaign, he viewed the natives with more scorn than the Nazis did (granted, the Afrika Korps was hardly as bad as the SS).
I forget the name of the chap who was in charge of the Brits in Africa before Monty… Aldesomething? Something like that. Anyway, he ran the army better than Monty.
Thanks Zagadka but didn’t Patton say that wanted the war to continue so that he could make a name for himself? Doesn’t that trump racial indifference or antagonism where it comes to war time Prima Donnaism? Note – I’m no historian so I could be very wrong here –
Yea, well, at least Patton led from the front (or relatively close to it). Well, on the other hand, that IS one of his qualifications for prima donna-ness.
I think the difference is that Patton acknowledged it, which I say counts for something.
Move vote is that Monty was more of a ‘Prima Donna’, with certain qualifiers.
I don’t think that Monty was a particularily good commander. He was far too conservative most of the time, and when he took a gamble, lots of paratroopers died. His tactics hardly warranted as much personal ‘flair’ as he seemed to want to exude.
Patton, on the other hand, was a hell-bent-for-leather American proponent of the blitzkrieg. And it worked, when he was given free reign. I know, I know, different circumstances from what Monty faced, but if a commander is going to be a cocky little asshole prima donna, they damned well better back it up with some pretty spectactular talent on the battlefield. Patton did just that, whereas Monty just strikes me as being a bit of a prick. So run all that through a filter, and I think Monty was more of a true ‘prima donna’, whereas Patton had ‘style’.
All IMO, of course.
A veteran recalled how Alexander would stop his car and hand out cigarettes to the troops, while Montgomery would fling them out on the ground. Also, the professionals were exceedingly miffed at Monty’s wearing two regimental cap badges, something viewed as being worse than bigamy.
But still I’d still say that Patton displayed more arrogance by far when he slapped the soldier for '“cowardice” (actually, the soldier had malaria, but somehow the possibility of an army in Italy suffering malaria eluded Patton, even though he was supposedly a flawless history buff). Montgomery didn’t pull anything like that, even though the gulf between officer and enlisted is greater in the British army. The U.S. army has a tradition to uphold of a free nation willingly sending its sons to defend its freedom, and won’t tolerate little tin gods abusing them.
Of course for true overweaning, morale-sucking arrogance, you can always count on a Marine, namely Chesty Puller, who once opened an officers call with the demand to know how many of the outfit’s first lieutenants had been killed, then announced that it was too few and must thereby denote a lack of aggression.
I’m sorry Slithy Tove, but Alexander was Monty’s boss in the desert (he later became the equivalent of Ike for the Mediterranean theater). The chap who was in charge before Monty was Sir Claude Auchinleck.
THANK YOU. Man, that has been driving me nuts. By all accounts, a much better commander than Monty.
Hmm, not sure I agree, depending on your definition of “better”. Monty was the right man at the right time at El Alamein, resisting Churchill’s usual pressure to attack too early, and we’re all lucky the Great Auk wasn’t in charge then.
From then on you are right in a lot of ways and Monty was far too cautious in chasing Rommel to Tunisia, and in the advance up Sicily. In fact had they put Monty in charge of the Americans in Algeria/Tunisia and Patton in charge of the 8th Army in Egypt, both sides would have been better off 
But then Hitler probably wouldn’t have been able to get 250,000 men and their equipment into Tunisia to get captured, so sometimes caution pays off unexpectedly.
Monty probably wins out on the prima donna contest, if simply due to his inability to admit that operations he commanded hadn’t gone exactly according to plan. For all of the criticism of his excessive caution, he was however a very good commander, though he was little loved by most American and a number of British generals. For example, his plan for the invasion of Sicily wasn’t so much an attempt to grab the glory for himself and Eight Army as it was a reaction to the poor plans that had so far been developed – the original plans called for a series of small landings spread along 600 miles of the Sicilian coast which could have been defeated very easily due the dilution of effort, “penny-packets” as he referred to it. He was also very willing to allow Patton to take up the main effort after his drive along the coast towards Messina stalled. Much of the race to Messina between Patton and Montgomery occurred in Patton’s head. The competing marches through Messina in the movie are a Hollywood creation.
The movie Patton is a great movie, but it doesn’t do real justice to Patton the man. For example, Patton’s actual voice was very high pitched, something he disliked intensely, not the deep gravely tone of George C. Scott. Something else to note is that the military advisor to the film was Omar Bradley, and much of the film was based on Bradley’s autobiography A Soldier’s Story. Bradley disliked Patton, and the movie is somewhat a portrayal of Patton as seen by Bradley – who was also portrayed as the unflawed hero of the movie.
I know nothing about the topic, but I have to say that this is one of the better thread titles in recent memory.
From Slithy Tove
What a preposterous story.
Montgomery was a teetotaller, a strict non smoker and demanded a high standard of physical fitness from his troops. The only person who dared to smoke around him was Winston Churchill. Not that Montgomery forbade his troops to smoke but he did made it clear that he thought it was an unhealthy habit.
As far as I know, no general in any army has ever comported himself like an old style cigarette girl. Not even during Christmas dinner. British Generals usually exempted themselves from serving the meal to the troops. That was a task mainly for Captains and below, including NCO’s.
The veteran under reference is the standard BS artist deployed at the rate of at least one per platoon in any army. It’s amazing he didn’t end up on the cutting room floor unless, of course, it was a US Army documentary.
As for two badges in Montgomery’s beret, it looked no worse than Patton’s two non standard issue pearl handled revolvers and silvered helmet.
FromAndrewT
As far as the slowness of the Eighth Army’s advance is concerned, after a 12 day battle at Alamein concluding on 3 November 1942, where Rommel suffered the second of his three defeats against Montgomery, (the first being Alam Halfa, the third being Medenine), the Eighth Army advanced to Enfidaville reaching it by 20 April 1943, a distance of almost 1800 miles in about 170 days. Repairing demolished seaports on the way, without which supplies could not be received to maintain the advance, and clearing mines on the mostly single road system, as well as engaging rearguards of the enemy forces which could not put up serious attempt to attack the Eighth Army until Medenine on 6 March 1943.
On the subject of the Patton movie where during some battle in North Africa, going well for the US, he said something like: “Goddam you Rommel, I read your book”. Or words to that effect, in fact Patton never did meet up with forces commanded by Field Marshall Rommel at any time during the war, so the movie lied on that point.
Oops. I neglected to answer the OP.
Patton, by a huge margin, is the biggest prima donna.
That silvered helmet is over the top.
Watch the movie again. In the very next scene, Patton is disappointed to discover that Rommel had not, in fact, been commanding the army he had just defeated. He consoles himself by saying that the guy he just beat must have studied under Rommel, so it was basically just as good.
P.S. I just want to add that prima donna wise, neither of them could bear a candle to Douglas MacArthur (who I admire immensely).
I watched that “Ike” program on A&E last night, and they both came off as obnoxious pricks. I’m sure someone will be along to clear up the accuracy (or lack of) of the facts, but either way, I think they’re running neck and neck in the Jerk Dept…Except I think Patton could kick Monty’s ass (and I’d almost pay to see it!).
From Alessan
When I saw that scene, I walked out to the backyard in disgust, topped up my glass of red, and didn’t go back for some time after, so I missed the outcome you described and took very little notice of the rest of the movie.
The reality was that all of the Allied High Command knew exactly when Rommel had left North Africa permanently (shortly after his Medenine defeat) but could not reveal or give any hint about it as this would compromise the intelligence provided from ULTRA.
I’ll concede I might have done the movie a slight injustice on the day, but I also believe that what actually happened is sometimes more interesting than Hollywood’s notion of “interesting”.
Just a couple of small things:
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The handle of Patton’s pistol was made of ivory, not pearl. IIRC, there’s a line in the movie referring to this, and this website agrees.
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In real life Patton was involved in two soldier-slapping incidents during the Sicilian campaign, although only one is depicted in the movie. Can’t find a good net cite offhand, but see Paul Fussell’s *Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War * for more detials.
Georgie Patton is the man.
Vowed to piss in the Rhine, and did
General Patton’s speech to the Third Army.
The movie version is sanitized.
Here’s the real thing: http://www.thetroubleshooters.com/history025.html