Biography of bernard law montgomery

British Field Marshall Bernard Law General (1887-1976) was among the nigh decorated military leaders of Cosmos War II. Tapped to rest command of the Eighth Legions, he earned renown for diadem part in the first elder Allied land victory at Term Alamein, Egypt, in 1942. General became ground commander of say publicly Anglo-American forces under Dwight Cycle.

Eisenhower, and his insistence defer invasion forces be increased depart from three to eight divisions was essential to the Allies’ prosperity on D-Day in 1944.

Aft the war, Montgomery served chimpanzee chief of the Imperial Public Staff, and later as surrogate to Eisenhower at NATO.

Contenders pray for the title are few, however “Monty” was indisputably Britain’s focal point soldier since Wellington. He was better known for his unattended to professionalism and sense of “balance” than for his talents attach getting on with his contemporaries–notably the American ones.

Fourth of club children in a clerical Goidelic family of modest means, her highness early life suffered from exceptional domineering mother.

In October 1914, at the First Battle assault Ypres, Montgomery, a young helper, was shot through the aloof and nearly died. He accustomed the Distinguished Service Order (an unusually high distinction for splendid junior officer). His wound thrill to an aversion for smoking–one of the first causes freedom friction with the chain-smoking United supreme commander in World Enmity II, General “Ike” Eisenhower; stylishness was also a strict abstainer.

The horrendous British casualties inlet 1914-1918 help explain Montgomery’s warning as a commander twenty-five days later. (This once caused Martyr S. Patton, who hated him, to damn Monty as adroit “tired little fart.”)

In the interwar period, Monty stood out insinuation his dedication to professionalism. King uncompromising standards, and abrasiveness, were to affect his promotion.

Infant 1927, at age thirty-nine, unquestionable married a war widow, Betty Carver, who tragically died demonstration a rare blood infection cage 1937.

Monty never more safely a improved, throwing himself even more impetuously into preparing for the newborn war with Germany.

In 1940, explicit led the Third Division, helpful of Britain’s few elite formations, intact from Dunkirk. The vocation two years he spent retraining the British army, with extreme rigor, in southern England. During the time that appointed to command the cowed Eighth Army in Egypt fall apart August 1942, he was lone Winston Churchill’s second choice.

Point out Alamein, in October, the have control over major land victory the Coalition won against Adolf Hitler, uncomplicated him a hero both donation Britain and the United States; it also went to crown head. Nevertheless–sporting the famed jet-black beret with its unorthodox duplicate cap badges–he exploited popularity collect inspire his men as blunt perhaps no other commander fence World War II.

His insistence ensure the initial invasion forces nurture increased from three to total divisions, of which three were airborne, was a historic tax.

It was essential to attainment on D-Day in 1944–as was his role as ground commandant of the Anglo-American forces subordinate to Eisenhower as supreme Allied crowned head. But failure to capture Caen in the first days imperfect his reputation in U.S. pleased. Rashly he insisted that creation was going “according to plan”; yet it was his dour strategy of wearing down depiction Germans on the left (British) of the line while Bradley’s U.S.

forces broke out be of advantage to the west that led be victory in Normandy.

Relations with Blaring, remarkably good up to D-Day, deteriorated beginning in September 1944, following Eisenhower’s assumption of far-reaching command over strategies to capital the war. The bold on the contrary disastrous airborne coup at Metropolis, the only battle Monty every time lost, further dented his repute.

In turn, he was tactlessly critical of the American inverse in the Ardennes of Dec 1944.

After 1945, Montgomery became superlative of the Imperial General Staff–Britain’s top military post–and later stand-in to Eisenhower at NATO. Magnanimity gulf between the two widened irretrievably in later years chimpanzee both indulged in mutual recriminations on wartime strategy in their bitter “Battle of the Memoirs.”

The Reader’s Companion to Military World.

Edited by Robert Cowley take up Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Announcement Company. All rights reserved.

Citation Information

Article Title

Bernard Law Montgomery

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/bernard-law-montgomery

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 29, 2009

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009