Rommel was no doubt one of the best generals, along with von Manstein and Guderian, Patton learned some tank tactics from Rommel’s book, as he acknolewdged at that time, he was the best american general,
Rommel was a master commanding panzer forces in the dessert, many times british didn’t find another solution but try to kill him. That’s history.
And Montgomery…what can I say, with such material superiority not even him could have lost at El Alamein, read the numbers and forget fake patriotism. While Germany was figthing the russians in a huge front, british just have that narrow front at El Alamein and with american support, just in case.
The merit in any case was for Auchinleck, he managed to stop Rommel there and gain precious time for the british.
For sure Montgomery makes some mistakes and lacks the aggressiveness tipical of his enemy like Rommerl or his ally like Patton, Bradley and Patton don’t like to have him like their superior but they respect Montgomery as good general. Sure a motivation for his succesfull leadership of Allies is the always present numerical advantage. And in the battle of El Alaimein he doesn’t take all the correct choises.
Anyway he is a good general that, especially in Nord Africa when desperatly needed, his qualities grant to him the capability of infuse a good esprit-de-corps in English soldiers, frustrated from bad leadership of Auchinleck. He is a fine stratega and in different battles he wins because he was able to outguess the moves of his enemies. A man able to outguess Rommel’s moves is a good one i think.
Gen. Patton wasn’t even considered the best American general by his fellow American generals. He didn’t really learn that much from Rommel, he probably learned more about mobile warfare during the Punitive Expedition into Mexico chasing Pancho Villa in 1916. The British in North Africa had a far more complex logistics chain to defend and to interdict in the case of their enemy that the Soviets did. Also, the British, and later the Americans, were also providing aid to the USSR…
I’ll give you some clues about this issue of Auchinleck, have you heard about Eric Dorman-Smith? ,do some reading different than the official War Propaganda sources. It seem’s to me that spectacular ignorance is on someone else side:
The First battle of Alamein was in many respects more important, once again Auchinleck stopped Rommel (as he did during Operation Crusader) One of the war’s greatest generals, he is little know outside Great Britain and was shabbily treated by Churchill - if Rommel had not been stopped at First Alamein, there would have been no Second Alamein and Rommel’s DAK would have seized the Delta and cut the Suez canal - it was however the ‘turning point’ It should be noted that much of the planning for Second Alamein was Auchinleck’s - he was the architect of Victory in the Desert
There is much nonsense written and spoken about the Battles of El Alamein. The planning for the three battles (inc. Alam Halfa) was undertaken by Auchinleck and his Chief of Staff, Eric Dorman-Smith (later changed to O’Gowan). Montgomery took the plans and presented them as his own, he also waited until he had all the armour and reinforcements which were denied to his more skilful predecessors. Montgomery was a cautious, plodding general who had a succession of abject failures but could not be replaced as propaganda had presented him as a hero. He outnumbered Rommel 10 to 1 in tanks at Alamein yet could not catch him before Tunis, where a much better general (Patton) boxed him in. Strangely, all three British generals mentioned were born in Ireland within a few miles of each other. Montgomery went on to fail at Sicily and at Caen and be rescued by Patton again. His execution of Market Garden is an example of military lunacy, many died for his ego. Both Churchill and Montgomery hated Dorman Smith who was regarded as the most brilliant general staff officer of his time, but had the nasty habit of not bowing down to Churchill
Most people nowadays have heard of both of them, modest though many of their achievements were, albeit glorified in self-promotion at the time and later in film ‘based on a true story’ compared with many unheard-of generals who just did the hard grind which won the war without the publicity.
The same people would look at you dumbfounded if you mentioned Bradley, Clark, let alone lesser-known lights such as Eichelberger.
One should not ignore generals in the army air force, notably Le May but also some lesser lights who just ground away with useful effect such as Kenney in the SWPA.
Then there are a few oddities, notably Stilwell who managed to piss off most of the people he was supposed to work with from various nations - including his own and all its Allies - but who also managed to demonstrate a type of leadership which inspired his men. An uneven man with uneven achievements, but also one who had early command of the CBI theatre with political, geographic, logisitical and just about every other type of problem which was absent for Allied - and Axis - generals in Western Europe and North Africa. Patton and Rommel never had even to begin to confront the many problems Stilwell had, and both of them would have found their armour an impediment rather than an advantage in the country Stilwell had to operate in.
At a higher level George Marshall created the opportunities for many of these generals to shine, and to win the war.
At a lower level, where the action was in a theatre where the likes of Patton and Rommel would have ground to a halt soon after the remnants of their machines and troops hit the beach, there are people like Vendegrift and his staff who went on to bigger things http://www.nps.gov/archive/wapa/indepth/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003117-00/sec2c.htm
That’s nice, but I prefer facts to clues. This isn’t a ‘Throw your own murder mystery night’.
Yes.
That alters what?
Which official War Propaganda sources would they be?
I must have missed them in my reading.
Terribly sorry to have deprived you of the benefit of that ill-judged barb, old chap.
No, it’s entirely on your side, being the unacknowledged morons you quote in support of your silly claims.
Your post bears sufficient resemblance to - indeed identity with - old grumpy’s post to get you kicked out of any self-respecting, or even one with almost no self-respect, tertiary institution anywhere in the civilised world.
There is much nonsense written and spoken about the Battles of El Alamein. The planning for the three battles (inc. Alam Halfa) was undertaken by Auchinleck and his Chief of Staff, Eric Dorman-Smith (later changed to O’Gowan). Montgomery took the plans and presented them as his own, he also waited until he had all the armour and reinforcements which were denied to his more skilful predecessors. Montgomery was a cautious, plodding general who had a succession of abject failures but could not be replaced as propaganda had presented him as a hero. He outnumbered Rommel 10 to 1 in tanks at Alamein yet could not catch him before Tunis, where a much better general (Patton) boxed him in. Strangely, all three British generals mentioned were born in Ireland within a few miles of each other. Montgomery went on to fail at Sicily and at Caen and be rescued by Patton again. His execution of Market Garden is an example of military lunacy, many died for his ego. Both Churchill and Montgomery hated Dorman Smith who was regarded as the most brilliant general staff officer of his time, but had the nasty habit of not bowing down to Churchill.
old grumpy 13/7/2009 at http://www.historychannel.com.au/community/topic.aspx?topic=17
Maybe I should run Turnitin http://turnitin.com/static/index.html over some of your earlier posts to see if you have any original thoughts. Assuming I could be bothered using my university’s scarce funds to prove such pathetically pedestrian plagiarism by such an obvious troll, knob or f uckwit.
Any more plagiarism and I’ll boot you out of the forum.
This ain’t a university and I’m not bound by rules of natural justice or any of the other bureaucratic crap that interferes with applying summary justice to f uckwits.
And if you want to argue that point, I’ll boot you out. This is a military forum, not a f ucking conference of feel good counsellors playing with their ****s for the good of all.
I’m far from a Monty-apologist or fanboi. But Monty was an exceptional planner (even Patton thought so). He had good reason to be a bit more cautious because he didn’t have the manpower resources of the Germans (initially) or the Americans and had to keep casualties down. He also rebuilt the morale and re-instituted much better training for the Eighth Army which led to their victories later. I do think Auchinleck deserves a bit more credit, but he was certainly not as popular of a leader. And one of the reasons he outnumbered the Germans 10-to-1 in tanks is his forces destroyed a lot of German armor and his air generals, such as Tedder, gained control of the air and instituted excellent tactical air-support doctrine-…
Official Propaganda Source like Frederick Taylor on Dresden, which ended in a ludicrous claim about the fight between “good and evil”
There is another moron’s quote on Dorman Smith:
Basil Liddell Hart called Dorman-Smith, “…the outstanding soldier of his generation.”
plagiarism about an anonim participant in a forum?,
Why don’t you analize the arguments instead of looking failures in the legal aspect of quoting.
It’s a lie that Montgomery just keep on with the plans that Auchinleck and his staff devised previously?
It’s a lie that he embarrased british armies at Caen?
It’s a lie about Market Garden stupidity?
He’s one of those sad characters whose positive features and achievements could have made him as much of a historical figure as Monty, if he hadn’t been the architect of his own downfall by his negative features and their consequences.
I have a degree of sympathy for him in being sacked when he wasn’t totally useless and had earlier successes, but he brought it upon himself by his own conduct and failures, the worst of which was probably interfering in the operational command of the commanders he had appointed.
If you delegate, you have to trust your delegates or sack them. He did neither.
I was talking about anonimity of the autor on History Channel thread, how can I quote an email address?
but the facts are true and this is not a court room dear sir,
keep it just between people who believes in your official version, “good vs. evil” cartoon history
