Originally Posted by melkor the first

The mark of a great general is not invinceability or we would not include any German Generals at all, so it is not just the results of the battles fought that are used to find the measure of the great commanders. I've seen Max Hastings' Overlord mentioned butI want to quote Armageddon by the same author "He possessed a shrewd understanding of what could,and could not be realistically demanded of a British citizen army.But he had done nothing on the battlefield to suggest that his talents,or indeed those of his troops, deserved eulogy. The British had fought workmanlike campaigns in North Africa, Italy and France since their victory at El Alamein in November 1942. But their generals had nowhere shown the genius displayed by Germany's commanders in France in 1940, and in many battles since(p26-7)". Montgomery has been regarded as the masterof the set-piece battle but I don't believe that holds up to scrutiny as much as Monty's defenders like to believe. His initial plan at El Alamein failed and he had to alter it (something which he was loath to admit- his battles ALWAYS went just as he planned) and the Normandy campaign was only made a successs by Bradley's breakout- not his plan. The strange inertia of the British troops who failed to capture Caen on day one- one of the key objectives- continued through the disaster of GOODWOOd and later throgh the failure to capture the Scheldt which led to MARKET-GARDEN. There can be a tendency to under-rate a general who was tended to plod and win through less than brilliant campaigning. Hastings observes that Monty's troops loved him because he did not demand of them the sacrifices that Zhukov did. It is fairly clearthat the British Army of 1944-5 was not the force that history has left us, nor could it be. This country had been bled white during the first world war and had been fighting since 1940 (well, 1939, but let's be serious).Monty's single thrust idea was ludicrous if anyone really believed that he should have led it(Liddell-Hart thought it a good idea but that Patton should have commanded). Monty was the best of the ETO British commanders and should probabaly be rated as highly as Zhukov who afterall won through attrition and overwhelming strength and had his own MARKET-GARDEN , but worse by far, in OPERATION MARS. My personal feeling about El lamein has been that,although saddled with air superiority. supplies, a numerically inferior foe and overwhelming superiority in armor as well as intelligence and fuel, Monty was still able to pull out a victory.(Oh, yeah, his main opponent wasn't there either.JWC