Was General Bernard Montgomery worth a shit?

[paul.teague]

@The_Second_Stone

I don’t see that there is any evidence that Montgomery was as bad as the movie Patton and popular American opinion make him out to be. Any competent general could have filled in. But the fact is that the Brits were not long on competent generals. Market Garden was a failure. Dieppe was a failure and was awfully planned, but that was Mountbatten’s fault. Market Garden was well worth a try, but not by troops as cautious as Montgomery’s were used to being. I’m not impressed that he was better than competent. The whole “Monty” is a hero thing I suppose was necessary for the Brits, but when someone mentions to me that “Monty” was important and changed the world, frankly I think of the Pythons, who really were brilliant. Montgomery was adequate to the task assigned, but as I mentioned, his tying up Rommel for another year rather than having him flee to France a year earlier was his “clever bit”.

Mountbatten was in overall command of the raid on Dieppe, however as the Southeast Area Commander, Montgomery was responsible for developing the ground plan for this operation. This he did, it consisted of a frontal assault on Dieppe. Mountbatten’s original plan, which Montgomery changed, called for attacks on the flanks of Dieppe. Monty was reassigned to Egypt before the raid took place. But it was his plan that failed and led to the terrible casualties.

[Mk_VII]

Montgomery was wholly opposed to remounting RUTTER as JUBILEE, but his views were ignored and thereafter he was kept out of the loop.