Patton and Monty at War: Unbelieving the unbearable rivalry.
Monty is trying to steal the show and with the assistance of Divine Destiny [Eisenhower] he may do so.
- General George S. Patton, on the Sicily Campaign, private diaries 16 July 1943
So every week I play my usual game of chess over a glass of wine with one of my neighbours in my Parisian apartment building. He’s a retired army general but remains active as a military historian and speaker. He’s curmudgeonly but one warms to him quickly as he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s not a fan of women in the military but reluctantly concedes he would make an exception for me (besides who else could he play chess with?). We get on really well now because of the Covid lockdown this past year. We often have long discussions about military history and current politics until the bottle of wine is completely drained.
On one occasion he invited me to watch the 1969 classic war film, Patton, about the life of one of America’s greatest iconic World War Two generals, George S. Patton. It’s been years since I’ve seen it and I almost had forgotten how great the movie is with George C. Scott as Patton and Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley. We watched it in English and then discussed many things that came out of the film.
Hollywood and history usually do not mix. It is quite common for filmmakers to take a historical subject and to distort it for their purposes and to dumb it down for entertainment purposes. In the case of the movie, Patton, there was no real attempt to distort the story of Patton. It was a fantastic and stirring Hollywood movie. Moreover it was an excellent study in character given Oscar worthy heft by the great George C. Scott as the crusty General George S. Patton. Francis Ford Coppola’s script was severely under-rated.
However there remain glaring inaccuracies such as Patton’s opening speech in the movie - admittedly a an iconic bit of cinema - but even this was based on his statements and captured the character of the man, something even acknowledged by the Generals’ family.
Much of the details of his role in the defeat of Germany are true. The only real omission was the lack of focus on Patton’s Lorraine Campaign, where he distinguished himself. There are some exaggerations in the movie and some minor distortions such as in the weather-prayer scene. In general, the movie managed to produce a great overview portrayal of the character and career of an extraordinary American leader.
The film does accurately relate the leading role played by Patton in the liberation of Sicily. His daring use of armour was crucial in the defeat of the German army on the island.
However long after the film had ended I did think about one thing that irked me. And this was how the movie seemed to linger on the belief Patton was motivated by the desire to do better than General Montgomery, the victor at El Alamein. Indeed the film probably reinforced the accepted conventional wisdom that these two driven and ambitious men hated each other.
There was a great personal rivalry between the two men. They were both driven and wildly ambitious. The movie suggests that the rivalry between Montgomery and Patton was the main feature of the Sicilian Allied campaign and was perhaps a factor in why it ended so quickly with a decisive Allied victory.
The rivalry was not as intense as the motion picture suggests and the two men worked together when needed for the good of the Allied cause.
Born two years apart, both were commissioned within a year of each other and both were wounded in France in the First World War. Both men encompassed very different but very valuable characteristics in combat: Monty-careful and meticulous, Patton-dashing and diplomatic. Despite the differences, both generals demonstrated striking similarities: commitment to their careers, a ruthless egotism, interesting when you consider neither held superior command. This did not impede their desire for the limelight and fame in warfare, arrogance and the manipulation of colleagues in high places to advance their careers. Both were machiavellian in their own affairs and self-interested in their own personal progression.
The great rivalries amongst the Allies that made a real imact were Marshall and Brooke over war policy, Nimitz and MacArthur over resources, Eisenhower and Montgomery over strategy; and then between Percival and MacArthur for incompetence, Patton and O'Connor for aggressiveness, MacArthur and Clarke for vainglory, (and possibly Clarke and Wavell for the stupidity of letting defeated enemies escape), were the issues that defined the war for the Western allies.
The idea that a competition between Patton and Montgomery was more important is cute, but naive. I am not even sure where the idea comes from.
Much is made of the bet between Patton and Montgomery over reaching Palermo in Sicily first, but in practical terms that was the only time in the war that Patton ever appeared on Montgomery's radar.
For the rest of the war Monty was so much higher up the food chain than Patton that he was unaware, or disinterested in Patton's opinions. Montgomery was, by 1944, an experienced general who very successfully fought extensively in both combat and staff roles for 4 years throughout World War One. (Patton got a combat command for a few weeks when the Germans were already collapsing.) Montgomery led a division very successfully through the Battle of France, and a corps through the crucial Battle of Britain training and rebuilding years. He led an army in combat for two years, through many successful battles both on defense and in attack.
By 1944 Patton had led a corps for a few months, and an army for a few weeks. For the very brief period of the Sicily compaign they were theoretically equals in command, but probably only in Patton's mind. Montgomery saw Patton as an enthusiastic if amateurish old man but respected his aggressive boldness. Montgomery saw his HQ 'betting book' as a bit of fun (and was delighted when bet a B17 by someone who should have known better).
When he and Patton met and co-ordinated the Sicilian campaign Alexander seemed not interested in co-ordinating, Monty saw Palermo as a similar bit of fun to pursue, no bigger or smaller than the hundreds of other bets in the book.
Patton saw it, as he saw anything relating to his persona, as the most vitally important challenge of his whole life...up until the next one. Montgomery lost a bet and moved on to the next challenge. Patton won but didn't. (Or at least that is what bad writers have tried to suggest. I think he moved straight on to the next challenge anyway.)
That was the last time Monty and Patton were in direct competition, no matter what revisionists or romantics would say.
The next time Patton was allowed in the field he was one of half a dozen army commanders in Monty's Normandy army group, and, familiarly, he did not arrive until the Germans in Normandy were already collapsing. Very soon afterwards Eisenhower split off Bradley's army group, and Monty had no control, nor much interest, in what Patton was up to thereafter.
The romantics like to suggest that thereafter Monty railed against Patton's supplies, and that Patton railed against Montgomery's caution. The truth is less foolish for both of them. In fact Montgomery railed against Eisenhower's broad front strategy regardless of which of the other sub-commanders was benifitting (to the point of Montgomery making an offer to serve under Bradley as long as someone got single control to pursue a single strategy). He railed against the diversion of resources anywhere not at the main point where a thrust might have achieved early victory.
Leaving aside whether that victory could have happened, Montgomery's beef was with Eisenhower first, his appalling chief of supply Lee second, fellow Army Group Commanders who couldn't control the excesses of their subordinates like Bradley (and to a lesser extent) Devers third, and only then with the several army commanders who each tried to do their own thing.
In practical terms Montgomery seemed more appalled by the negative effects of the incompetence of Hodges (1st US Army,) and the obnoxiousness of General De Gaulle's orders to 'his' army (French First Army), and perhaps even the ineffectiveness of his own subordinate Crerar (Canadian 1st army) , than he did by Patton's enthusiasms. There is hardly a mention of Patton in his diaries through this period, compared to several comments on Bradley and De Gualle, and endless ones on Eisenhower.
Patton too is being maligned by the pretense that his war was taken up with a vain competition with Montgomery. Patton, like Montgomery, was totally concerned with the main issue of defeating Germany. But unlike Montgomery, he did not have Brooke - the Chief of Imperial General Staff - to rely on for support against Eisenhower's broad front strategy.
Patton too was convinced that this was the wrong way to go, but to get his version of a thrust (with him at the front) happening, he had to be a bit more manipulative than Montgomery.
Every word Patton used to wheedle and manipulate support, or at least a blind eye to what he was doing, was designed to get more resources from his superiors. Indeed, if he couldn't get them from Eisenhower, he was willing to steal them wherever he could, and then get Bradley to pretend to not know what he was doing. In this he was quite willing to encourage Bradley's inferiority complex in relation to Montgomery, and to happily manipulate Bradley into tantrums to get what they both wanted, but it seems likely that Patton was more interested in getting his way by making his superiors compete with Montgomery, than in competing with Montgomery himself.
Patton is actually a more complex and clever character than the romantics give him credit for. His 'kill them even if they try to surrender' speeches in Sicily were part of his stage management of troops, not part of his innate personality. HIs 'us against the world' propaganda was more manipulative, not so much like Bradley's inferiority complex. He wanted to win, and he would use anything to get what he needed to win, even ramping up his superiors to distrust their allies. But his genuine competitiveness with Montgomery at this stage was less about him and Montgomery, and more about him and how he could maneouvre others to support him. He would have shown the same level of competitiveness, and the same willingness to undermine, any competitor at this point, British, French, Russian or even American.
Montgomery on the other hand only saw Patton as one more junior general syphoning supplies from an inadequate source. Montgomery was in competition with Eisenhower for control, and possibly with Bradley for resources. Minor army commanders in other people's army groups only registered on his horizon if he could get their armies assigned to his army group.
Just for amusement, it might be fun to consider how Montgomery and Patton might have worked together?
Montgomery was notoriously superb to serve under, no matter what your nationality. British, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Indian, Canadian, French, Polish, and American troops who served under him were all very happy to do so. So were their generals. Bradley certainly learned more about being a field commander from a few months of Montgomery's distant mentoring than from anything Eisenhower ever did for him in their much closer relationship.
There is no doubt that Montgomery preferred effective subordinates to ineffective ones, and it seems possible that Patton would have made a preferable subordinate to Crerar or Bradley in his mind.
As for Patton, he would have served anyone who got him what he wanted. Had Montgomery offered him the chance to spearhead the attack into Germany, there is virtually no doubt that Patton would have jumped at the chance.
Patton was not the racist that Bradley or Eisenhower were, and was happy to have black troops. He was not the American supremacist that Roosevelt or MacArthur were, and worked well with others (as long as they let him have enough lime light).
Had Montgomery been left as land forces commander, there is little doubt that he would have used Patton's aggression in a way that would have made Patton much happier than Eisenhower's broad front strategy ever allowed.
It is fun to imagine Montgomery as land forces commander using Patton's 3rd Army in conjunction with British 2nd to leapfrog ahead at top speed into Germany. The best British tactics were never the broad front strategy that the worst American's like Marshall and Eisenhower fancied. They were always the 'hold the enemy, crumble the enemy, breakthrough the enemy, and pursue with as much force as fast and far as possible' skills that had worked since the development of mechanised warfare in 1918. (As demonstrated by the Germans in Poland and France and Russia, the British and Germans in North Africa, the Japanese and British in Asia, and the Russians in Eastern Europe.)
Montgomery would have used his traditional two corps up, one back, one resting deployment, adapted to armies, to keep up the momentum. Patton's preferred tactics were almost exactly the same, and he and his 3rd Army would have fit it like a glove into Montgomery's thrust strategy.
Personally I think that the limited reality behind their competitiveness paid trumps in Sicily, and I wish that it had been repeated in France. Patton could not have been a worse Army group commander than Bradley was, and would almost certainly have been better.
It is amusing to think of Patton and Montgomery effectively conspiring to destroy the broad front strategy while they got on with winning the war in the best spirit of competition. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that one of Patton's biographers was right to suggest that by 1945 he had suffered a few too many hits on the head, there is little doubt that he would have been almost as valuable to the Allied cause in Bradley's place against Eisenhower's policies directly, as he would have under Montgomery's army group. That might have been a useful version of rivalry.
Obsessive behaviour gained intelligent Commanders reputations as martinets. Allenby (Third Army) was notorious for haranguing a dead body for not wearing a helmet;' Gough (Fifth Army) went round the
trenches spotting dirty rifles;' and Hunter-Weston (VIII Corps) inspected the latrines whenever he visited a unit.
Simon Robbins “British Generalship on the Western Front”
Hey SLAL, what are your thoughts on Ambrose Burnside?
Follow Up to the Burnside question: What’s up with generals being so eccentric??
Answered my thoughts on Burnside here.
As for why generals are so eccentric, well, there’s a lot of ego that goes into generalship. There’s a lot of responsibility too, generals make decisions that have casualties, even when they succeed. So you figure a strong ego already, dealing with the stress of command, and it isn’t surprising to see quirks bubble their way to the surface.
The biggest boost to morale was the burly man who came to talk to the assembled battalion…it was unforgettable. Slim was like that: the only man I've ever seen who had a force that came out of him...British soldiers don't love their commanders much less worship them; Fourteenth Army trusted Slim and thought of him as one of themselves, and perhaps his real secret was that the feeling was mutual....I see him clear, with that robber-baron face under that Gurkha hat, and his carbine slung, looking like a rather scruffy private with a general's tabs, which of course is what he was.
- George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels
Field Marshal William Slim is best known for commanding Fourteenth Army in Burma during the Second World War (1939-45). He inherited a disastrous situation which, with pragmatic skill and quiet charisma, he turned to ultimate victory. He was one of the unsung heroes of the Second World War whose leadership was responsible for defeating the invincibility of the Japanese in the Far East.
The British Fourteenth Army was a multi-national force comprising units from Commonwealth countries during World War II. As well as British Army units, many of its units were from the Indian Army and there were also significant contributions from West and East African divisions within the British Army.
It was often referred to as the "Forgotten Army" because its operations in the Burma Campaign were overlooked by the contemporary press, and remained more obscure than those of the corresponding formations in Europe for long after the war. For most of the Army's existence, it was commanded by the then Lieutenant-General William Slim.
Slim emphasised the need for jungle warfare training and the use of more aggressive tactics, including the formation of defensive 'boxes' by surrounded units that were supplied by air. He understood logistics and made some of the most rapid advances of the war – forgotten by many.
But perhaps his greatest contribution was that of talking to soldiers and restoring their morale. He was able to assemble a mix of British, Australian, Indian and African troops, and make them work together. His equipment was outdated and pretty sparse. And with all of that, they performed brilliantly under his command. Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck said of Slim in 1946, “One of Slim’s chief characteristics was his quite outstanding determination and inability to admit defeat or the possibility of it: also his exceptional ability to gain and retain the confidence of those under him and with him, without any resort to panache. Success did not inflate him or misfortune depress him.”
He was a fine manager of men and able to get them to do his bidding. In return, Slim's men saw him as one of them. He was above all a soldiers’ soldier. This is not surprising as he rose from the ranks all the way to field marshal and came from a provincial lower middle class background. He trusted his subordinates. He had to manage relations with military idiots and Anglophobes such as the American General Stillwell but when he came to write his memoirs, you find not an unkind word about them.
Mountbatten considered him the finest general world war two produced - even above more charismatic Allied generals like MacArthur, Bradley, Patton, Montgomery, O’Connor, or Alexander.
This book by Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini was written in 1838. This version was translated by Capt. G. H. Mendell and Lt. W. P. Craighill of the US Army in 1862. You can read it for free here and here. Jomini served under Napoleon in the French army and appointed himself as a theorist of Napoleonic tactics and strategy.
He begins by telling us, “The art of war, as generally considered, consists…
“How many commanders have we produced who, like General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, could stand alone wrapped in a British Warm at a cross‐roads to watch a brigade of infantry go by? It may have looked like wasted time to the staff but his sole question to a passing young company commander (who did not realize that he was being addressed by his Army Chief) “How are your men’s feet?” went through…
“What troops and subordinate commanders appreciate is that a general should be constantly in personal contact with them, and should but see everything simply through the eyes of his staff.”
Field Marshal A.P. Wavell (1883 to 1950)
Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, in full Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (of Eritrea and of Winchester), Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and of…
Between the Troops… “I will give you two simple rules which every general should observe: first, never to try to do his own staff work; and secondly, never to let his staff get between him and his troops.”
