Montgomery better than Rommel ?

[Belisaire_]

It seems Montgomery was better since he defeated Rommel each time.

[irelandeb]

he lost every battle to rommel except for one.

[Azog 150]

Well in Rommels favour he wasn't given the materials he needed from Hitler in order to wage an effective campaign. He was working on very overstretched supplies. Monty on the other hand had the supplies and forces he needed as it was the only real British land front at the time (Excluding Burma)

They also favoured two completely different types of warfare. Monty was very cautious and would move his way carefully and systematically. Rommel favoured large sweeping manouvers and was generally more headlong.

he lost every battle to rommel except for one.

Did he? Monty wasn't even around in North Africa up until the Battle of Alam el Halfa (Which was his first victory against Rommel and which he won). Then it was the Second Battle of El Alamein (And we all know how that one went)

[pannonian]

A vs B so to the alt history forum this goes. Also, if this doesn't get any more substantial within a day (no thanks to the OP), I'm closing this.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Didnt Monty win a battle against Rommel because Rommel wasnt in Africa...

Monty failed with A Bridge too far.

[Valandur]

In all the battles where Rommel was defeated his resources and strengths in manpower were severely depleted and incomparable to the Monty's.
Look at El Alamein for example, Rommel barely had any tanks left, barely any men and Monty had everything he needed.

[{II}Sovereign]

It would have been interesting to see both facing each other at their prime, I would take Rommel over Mont every time though his approach of handling the topographical features and planning were better imho.

[hellheaven1987]

Montgomery is just like Union general McClellan - a good organizer and planner, but over-cautious and refuse to fight unless their force is over-large than their opponent.

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

Montgomery is just like Union general McClellan - a good organizer and planner, but over-cautious and refuse to fight unless their force is over-large than their opponent.

good analogy.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

Montgomery is just like Union general McClellan - a good organizer and planner, but over-cautious and refuse to fight unless their force is over-large than their opponent.

Thats true, but I think much of his caution was born out the British lack of resources (manpower especially), Britain had nothing like the industrial base or population of Germany; ever tank, plane and solider was precious.

[hellheaven1987]

Thats true, but I think much of his caution was born out the British lack of resources (manpower especially), Britain had nothing like the industrial base or population of Germany; ever tank, plane and solider was precious.

No, enough caution is good, but Montgomery was over-cautious. It might possible because him, like McClellan, had a mindset that estimated enemy force a lot larger than actual number, hence convinced both of them (Monty and McClellan) that they needed to get more reserve to outnumber enemies. Of course, it was nothing wrong for an attrition battle, but when mobility was required, a large amount of units would only slow down everything from logistic to operation, that was the problem for Operation Market Garden in 1944 and eatern campaign in ACW during 1862. Overall, a common situation about McClellan's and Montgomery's operation style is that the initial break through was brilliant, but the operations after that, particularly about chasing enemies or exploit non-preplaned situation, were poorly operated, if not completely inactive at all. They were also quite bad about alternation of plan, and very vulable if something went out of plan. In the end, it lost a lot of opportunity to deal a killing blow to enemies, hence prolong the war and caused more life lost. At worst, it might even give enemies time to recover and prepared a counter-attack.

[Azog 150]

^^Overall I would agree.

However, you mention Market Garden when that was the only major example of when Monty threw caution to the wind and just went for it- largely thanks to pressure from US commanders who criticised his cautious approach (Which had served him well in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy) after his failure to close the Falaise Pocket. He was trying to compete with Patton for resources as well as prestige and he thought his plan to end the war by Christmas would win him this (Beofre it all went tits-up)

Excessive planning usually served Monty very well as shown in all his campaigns bar Market Garden.

[hellheaven1987]

However, you mention Market Garden when that was the only major example of when Monty threw caution to the wind and just went for it- largely thanks to pressure from US commanders who criticised his cautious approach (Which had served him well in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy) after his failure to close the Falaise Pocket. He was trying to compete with Patton for resources as well as prestige and he thought his plan to end the war by Christmas would win him this (Beofre it all went tits-up)

No, Operation Market Garden was heavily criticized by American commanders because Monty, due to his over-cautious nature, concentrated too much supplies by expending Americans', paritcularly Patton, effort to exploit an undefended Rhine river (that was not in the original plan, but Patton and Bradley intended to exploit the advantages). Even worse, those supplies were never used in the actual operation of Market Garden, but stucked at the back of supplyline and rotted away, even caused logistical trouble for Monty since it made the supplyline stucked due to overnumber. If Market Garden successed, then American commanders could still overlook Monty let their precious supplies rotted in the back but refused to give them to Patton for crossing Rhine. But the operation failed, hence American commanders could not forgive Monty.

Either way, I always think Montgomery's command in France was largely because Churchill wanted to exile him, hence gave him that post. Churchill had constantly expressed (privately) that he dislike Montgomery's overcautious, and was thinking to replace him with Alexander (whom Churchill like). It probably explains that why Churchill let Alexander became the chief commander of Italy theatre, since that was a British front and France was a American front.

[Gatsby]

I personally think Rommel was way better purely because he knew how to be aggresive, which is vital when all you have is vast open plains and a mechanized force.

Monty did well in his situation though because British morale at home was quite low with the defeats so far and the bombing.
So as well as the fact that his manpower was limited, he also knew that he had to take great care to lose as few men as possible and try to only fight were victory was likely, so as to keep public spirits, and his own reputation, up.

[smithy17]

Either way, I always think Montgomery's command in France was largely because Churchill wanted to exile him, hence gave him that post. Churchill had constantly expressed (privately) that he dislike Montgomery's overcautious, and was thinking to replace him with Alexander (whom Churchill like). It probably explains that why Churchill let Alexander became the chief commander of Italy theatre, since that was a British front and France was a American front.

So you are saying that Churchill gave Montgomery the 1st or 2nd most important command in the army because he didn't think he was a good commander?

[hellheaven1987]

So you are saying that Churchill gave Montgomery the 1st or 2nd most important command in the army because he didn't think he was a good commander?

Except, in Churchill's view, France was not an important British front, and he knew thing would not go wrong there even without British since American threw so many men there.

Churchill's most important British front was Italy (he even proposed to screw Operation Overlord and continued Italy campaign), and he never change his view about that.

[Azog 150]

Thats not true. He originally proposed Italy and the Meditteranean to be the main British (And later American) point of attack. The main reason for that was because Britain alone didn't have the manpower to launch a liberation of France which is why Italy and Greece were opted instead.

However, when it was decided that Normandy would be the main focus, Churchill and Britain threw its full weight behind it. France was considered a joint front as was Italy. Remember, more then half the troops on D-Day were British and Canadian (Although the US did outnumber Commonwealth forces by the end of Overlord- with 60% of the troops being from the US).

So although he may have originally argued against Operation Overlord- once that was the decided plan of action, it became just as much a British operation as an American one. Far more British resources were poured into Overlord then into Italy. Aside from manpower, Britain developed "Herberts Funnie's" (The tanks designed specifically for operations in France- e.g. DD Tanks, Sherman Crocodiles etc), launched a massive and very successful diversionary operation, provided most of the intelligence, provided preliminary attacks of radar stations (Destroying 12 of 14- and the 2 left in tact were left in tact purposefully as part of the distraction), sent in special forces to link up with French resistance, developed Mulberry Harbours, PLUTO and finally turned the whole of Southern England into one massive military base for British and American forces.

Churchill even went so far as to propose he should come ashore with the first waves on D-Day until the King persuaded him otherwise. In the end he settled for taking a battleship over to the Normandy coast and personally firing a few shells. If that's not taking Overlord seriously then I don't know what is. Indeed a British politician famously (And very unfairly) called soldiers fighting in Italy "D-Day dodgers". From June 6th onwards, the Italian front was as forgotten as the Burmese front.

[RomanSoldier9001]

It seems Montgomery was better since he defeated Rommel each time.

He lost every battle to Rommel except one and in that time he had superior firepower,manpowers in 3 to 1 scale. So that means more men,more weapons,more planes,tanks etc and was fighing in "national ground".

[Azog 150]

Which battles did he loose to Rommel?

And he defeated Rommel more then once. His first victory over Rommel was the Battle of Alam el Halfa in which Rommel outnumbered Monty. This was followed by the Second Battle of El Alamein and from then on he chased Rommel right across Libya into Tunisia where Rommel was relieved of command.

[Magno]

Rommel was never fighting at full stregnth considering that his successes in Africa were due to his tactical brilliance since he was always outnumbered and that culminated at Alamein, which brought to light his logistical problem and how it costs him dearly, his lack of air superiority, manpower, supply, and support are what did him in. He was however able to keep the allies in Africa much longer than anyone could, and had Hitler not diverted all important materiel to the Russian front i doubt Monty would've defeated Rommel