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Was Bernard Montgomery the offical XO general of WWII?

Montgomery was notorious for his lack of tact and diplomacy....
frum aquamarine den
  02/24/18
...
Vibrant mischievous parlor
  02/24/18
...
razzle-dazzle station
  02/24/18
he was 100% clear eyed on Vietnam at least
Ocher famous landscape painting
  02/24/18
...
frum aquamarine den
  02/27/18
No
Bossy church filthpig
  02/27/18
...
Multi-colored Chest-beating Dilemma Gay Wizard
  02/27/18
Patton, actually.
Slap-happy awkward forum
  02/27/18
...
Violent stage crotch
  02/27/18


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Date: February 24th, 2018 12:14 AM
Author: frum aquamarine den

Montgomery was notorious for his lack of tact and diplomacy. Even his "patron," the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Lord Alanbrooke, frequently mentions it in his war diaries: "he is liable to commit untold errors in lack of tact" and "I had to haul him over the coals for his usual lack of tact and egotistical outlook which prevented him from appreciating other people's feelings".[189] One incident that illustrated this occurred during the North African campaign when Montgomery bet Walter Bedell Smith that he could capture Sfax by the middle of April 1943. Smith jokingly replied that if Montgomery could do it he would give him a Flying Fortress complete with crew. Smith promptly forgot all about it, but Montgomery did not, and when Sfax was taken on 10 April he sent a message to Smith "claiming his winnings". Smith tried to laugh it off, but Montgomery was having none of it and insisted on his aircraft. It got as high as Eisenhower who, with his renowned skill in diplomacy, ensured Montgomery did get his Flying Fortress, though at a great cost in ill feeling.[190][191] Even Alanbrooke thought it "crass stupidity".[192]

In August 1945, whilst Alanbrooke, Sir Andrew Cunningham and Sir Charles Portal were discussing their possible successors as "Chiefs Of Staff", they concluded that Montgomery would be very efficient as CIGS from the Army's point of view but that he was also very unpopular with a large proportion of the Army. Despite this, Cunningham and Portal were strongly in favour of Montgomery succeeding Alanbrooke after his retirement.[193] Prime Minister Winston Churchill, by all accounts a faithful friend, is quoted as saying of Montgomery, "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."[194]

Later life[edit]

Montgomery and Soviet Marshals Zhukov and Rokossovsky with General Sokolovsky leave the Brandenburg Gate on 12 July 1945 after being decorated by Montgomery.

After the war Lord Montgomery became the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), the name given to the British Occupation Forces, and was the British member of the Allied Control Council.[195] Montgomery was also President of Portsmouth Football Club between 1944 and 1961.[196] He was created 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in 1946.[197] He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from 1946 to 1948, succeeding Alanbrooke. As CIGS, Montgomery toured Africa in 1947 and in a secret 1948 report to Prime Minister Clement Attlee's government proposed a "master plan" to exploit the raw materials of Africa, thereby counteracting the loss of British influence in Asia. Montgomery held racist views towards Africans, describing them as "complete savages" incapable of developing their own countries.[198] He was barely on speaking terms with his fellow chiefs, sending his VCIGS to attend their meetings[195] and he clashed particularly with Sir Arthur Tedder, who was by now Chief of the Air Staff (CAS). When Montgomery's term of office expired, Prime Minister Attlee appointed Sir William Slim from retirement with the rank of field marshal as his successor; when Montgomery protested that he had told his protégé, General Sir John Crocker, former commander of I Corps in the 1944–45 North-West Europe Campaign, that the job was to be his, Attlee is said to have given the memorable retort "Untell him".[199]

He was then appointed Chairman of the Western Union Defence Organization's C-in-C committee.[195] Volume 3 of Nigel Hamilton's Life of Montgomery of Alamein gives an account of the bickering between Montgomery and his land forces chief, French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, which created splits through the Union headquarters. He was thus pleased to become Eisenhower's deputy in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's European forces in 1951.[200] He would continue to serve under Eisenhower's successors, Generals Matthew Ridgway and Al Gruenther, until his retirement, aged nearly 71, in 1958.[201] His mother Maud, Lady Montgomery, died at New Park in Moville in Inishowen in 1949; she was buried alongside her husband in the 'kirkyard' behind St. Columb's Church, the small Church of Ireland church beside New Park, overlooking Lough Foyle. Lord Montgomery did not attend the funeral, claiming he was "too busy".[84]

He was chairman of the governing body of St. John's School in Leatherhead, Surrey, from 1951 to 1966, and a generous supporter. Lord Montgomery was an Honorary Member of the Winkle Club, a noted charity in Hastings, East Sussex, and introduced Sir Winston Churchill to the club in 1955.[202]

Lord Montgomery as CIGS with Lord Wavell, Viceroy of India, and Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Indian Army. Delhi 1946

Statue of Montgomery in Whitehall, London, by Oscar Nemon, unveiled in 1980.

Montgomery's memoirs (1958) criticised many of his wartime comrades in harsh terms, including Eisenhower.[203] He was threatened with legal action by Field Marshal Auchinleck for suggesting that Auchinleck had intended to retreat from the Alamein position if attacked again, and had to give a radio broadcast (20 November 1958) expressing his gratitude to Auchinleck for having stabilised the front at the First Battle of Alamein. The 1960 paperback edition of his memoirs contains a publisher's note drawing attention to that broadcast, and stating that in the publisher's view the reader might reasonably assume from Montgomery's text that Auchinleck had been planning to retreat "into the Nile Delta or beyond" and pointing out that it had been Auchinleck's intention to launch an offensive as soon as the Eighth Army was "rested and regrouped".[204] Montgomery was stripped of his honorary citizenship of Montgomery, Alabama, and was challenged to a duel by an Italian officer.[205]

In retirement he publicly supported apartheid after a visit to South Africa in 1962, and after a visit to China declared himself impressed by the Chinese leadership.[206] He spoke out against the legalisation of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, arguing that the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was a "charter for buggery"[207] and that "this sort of thing may be tolerated by the French, but we're British – thank God".[208] In the late 1940s Montgomery maintained an affectionate friendship with a 12-year-old Swiss boy;[209] one biographer called the friendship "bizarre", although not "improper", and a sign of "pitiful loneliness".[210]

He twice met Israeli general Moshe Dayan. After an initial meeting in the early 1950s, Montgomery met Dayan again in the 1960s to discuss the Vietnam War, which Dayan was studying. Montgomery was harshly critical of US strategy in Vietnam, which involved deploying large numbers of combat troops, aggressive bombing attacks, and uprooting entire village populations and forcing them into strategic hamlets. Montgomery said that the Americans' most important problem was that they had no clear-cut objective, and allowed local commanders to set military policy. At the end of their meeting, Montgomery asked Dayan to tell the Americans, in his name, that they were "insane".[211]

During a visit to the Alamein battlefields in May 1967, he bluntly told high-ranking Egyptian Army officers that they would lose any war with Israel, a warning that was shown to be justified only a few weeks later in the Six-Day War.[212]

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35475120)



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Date: February 24th, 2018 12:51 AM
Author: Vibrant mischievous parlor



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35475274)



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Date: February 24th, 2018 12:56 AM
Author: razzle-dazzle station



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35475289)



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Date: February 24th, 2018 1:03 AM
Author: Ocher famous landscape painting

he was 100% clear eyed on Vietnam at least

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35475321)



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Date: February 27th, 2018 12:16 PM
Author: frum aquamarine den



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35498385)



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Date: February 27th, 2018 12:47 PM
Author: Bossy church filthpig

No

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35498641)



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Date: February 27th, 2018 1:08 PM
Author: Multi-colored Chest-beating Dilemma Gay Wizard



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35498793)



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Date: February 27th, 2018 1:33 PM
Author: Slap-happy awkward forum

Patton, actually.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35499015)



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Date: February 27th, 2018 2:07 PM
Author: Violent stage crotch



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3902394&forum_id=2#35499261)