I have no problems with those who have differing opinions. I do not claim that Montgomery was 100% perfect and right in every way but no doubt I will be seen that way. The knee-jerk ‘Monty did everthing wrong’ majority attitude here is not an argument based on facts. Indeed what struck me was the absolute ignorance of most of the Monty-bashers. They have but a passing aquaintance with the facts and the level of their comprehension as to the most basic sequence events astounds me. To be blunt their attitude smacks of the 'Team USA ’ version of history where there is no room for anyone else to share in the glory they feel they alone so richly deserve. Mindless nationalistic claptrap.
Do you disagree with the statement that ‘stopping for tea’ is a way of disparaging UK troops in ww2?
It is no good pretending you do not realise the full implications of the ‘tea’ jibe. It is leveled by mainly US based posters and its intent is perfectly clear to those on the recieving end. It may be meant as a jokey remark but that does not dettract from the false impression that lies behind it. I may be one of the awkward squad who won’t let it pass but I am not the only one who thinks it an insult. Now you are aware as to how it will be recieved you can better judge the advisability of using it in the future.
See here how a UK author (Robin Neillands) snaps after one too many ‘Tea’ jibes (from a Mr. Briskin) on a History Board:
**General Montgomery and the matter of tea. **
The British drink tea. So too do the Americans; today iced or hot, historically like the British—has Mr. Briskin never heard of the Boston Tea Party?
To really enjoy a cup of British Army tea, Mr. Briskin might like to try the following. Load up with sixty to eighty pounds of kit, plus a personal weapon, a couple of grenades, some mortar bombs and two hundred rounds of rifle ammunition. Then march twenty miles over rough country, preferably at night. It should be raining, but snow or a tropical downpour will do. Someone ought to be shooting at him—I could do that—but at least there should be sporadic shelling. Then, when all this has been going on for far too long, some hero hands Mr. Briskin a pint of tea, piping hot, sweet and full of condensed milk. I venture to suggest that Mr. Briskin would find that mixture, at that time, close to nectar and ambrosia.
I have before me an account from a Guards officer who found a young American lady dispensing hot coffee to U.S. troops close to the Volterno river in Italy in 1944. In a previous book I heard of U.S. troops getting coffee and doughnuts, served by “a real American girl,” close to the front in North West Europe in 1945.
When I tell that to British veterans their reaction is “Good luck to them” or “We wouldn’t have minded a bit of that ourselves.” Unlike Mr. Briskin, they do not see their American comrades enjoying a hot drink as an excuse for cheap sneers. *
And he then goes on to the root of the problem:
*And so to General Montgomery. Could someone please explain the reasons for this on-going hostility among U.S. historians to Monty? Montgomery only commanded U.S. troops for ninety days in a six-year war—well, three and a half for the U.S.A.—during the Battle of Normandy and then at one remove, General Bradley being the First Army commander. And yet we have had nearly sixty years of continuous denigration of this senior Allied Commander, almost exclusively from the U.S.A. What exactly is the problem here?
During the Second World War Montgomery commanded Australian, British, Canadian, French, Greek, Indian, New Zealand, Polish—even Italian soldiers. For my current work, a history of Eighth Army, I have contacted soldiers from all these nations. They are united in their praise of this commander but from the U.S.A. we get nothing but this on-going whine, all too often based on a careful selection of the facts.
For example, why is it that when Bradley’s First Army took a month to cover the last five miles to St. Lô this is attributed (correctly) to the bocage and the enemy but when the British Second Army took as long to cover the six miles into Caen that is attributed to Monty’s “timidity,” “caution,” and “slowness”? The presence of seven German panzer divisions in front of Caen is usually left out of this equation.
It is said that Monty was vain; so he was, but that accusation might be balanced in the U.S.A. by thinking of those three blushing, retiring, American violets, Generals Patton, Clark, and MacArthur, men not noted for modesty though all three had much to be modest about. The implication that only Monty had a super-ego is at variance with the facts.
It is alleged that Monty tried to hog the credit for the defeat of the Germans in the Bulge, an allegation based on his speech to the press on 7 January 1945. The evidence here is scanty and partial. The full text of that speech gives ample praise to the “fighting qualities of the American soldier,” and to “the captain of our team, General Eisenhower” but this speech was picked up by the Germans, edited, and rebroadcast to the Allies. This edited, propaganda version has been used ever since to smear Monty; when it comes to denigrating Monty—and the British—even Dr. Goebbels comes in useful.
It would be possible to go on but surely the point is made? No one is obliged to like the British—there are times when I am not too keen on them myself—and no army is above criticism but the rampaging Anglophobia that permeates Mr. Briskin’s letter should be seen for what it is. Nor is he alone in this, as anyone reading U.S. accounts of Allied affairs in the Second World War soon becomes aware; Anglophobia is rife. I can confidently assert that Mr. Briskin and his ilk will loathe my current book on the Battle of Normandy which disputes many popular allegations and examines closely the actions of all the Allied Armies in Normandy, not just the British. *
