Patton and Montgomery
Generals Montgomery and Patton shake hands. The laughing faces of the two man can be deceiving–two heroes of the WWII didn’t get along very well at all. Two massives egos and two different opinions of how to defeat the germans meant they were always arguing. Montgomery was pompous, Patton reckless–this prevented both men from leading the Allied Land Invasion of Europe.
They turned natural rivalry into deadly competition to see who would or could get to Berlin first. In Sicily, both recklessly pushed their man to get of Massena first (After two weeks of fighting, Monty arrived just two hours after Patton relieved the city). On their push towards Berlin, Monty complained that he had been fighting harder than Patton whereas Patton complained that Montgomery’s 21st Army group got priority on the supplies. Both overlooked the fact that Monty was leading the main thrust (although both thought each other’s army was doing main thrust).
The caption to the photograph is a little misleading regarding the advance on Berlin. The counterpart to Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was Bradley’s 12th Army Group. Patton’s Third Army was part of Bradley’s army group. Neither army group was tasked to capture Berlin. The politicians agreed to leave that to the Soviets.
An unfortunate press conference by Montgomery after the Battle of the Bulge contributed more than anything to the ill will between these officers. Incidently, after that press conference Eisenhower and Bradley were inclined to get rid of Montgomery as a field commander but cooler heads prevailed.
JB
May 24, 2011 at 3:54 am