Commander of the Allied ground forces in Normandy
At a Normandy briefing on 12 June 1944, he told the troops: “We have got to go off and do a job together very soon now.”
Bernard Montgomery was a British field marshal shaped by First World War experience and an intense commitment to troop training. In the Second World War he rebuilt the Eighth Army before leading it at El Alamein, then commanded Allied operations in Sicily and Italy. Recalled to Britain for the Normandy invasion, he commanded the 21st Army Group and all Allied ground forces in the opening phase, pressing to enlarge the initial assault and secure a broad lodgement. His methodical, tightly controlled style reduced some risks but also drew criticism for slowing operations and accepting costly battles.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1908Commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- 1914–1918Served on the Western Front; chief of staff, 47th London Division
- 1942–1943Commander, Eighth Army; led at El Alamein
- 1943Commander, Eighth Army; led the Sicily and Italy invasions
- 1944Commander, 21st Army Group; led Allied ground forces in the opening of Normandy
- 1944–1945Commander, 21st Army Group, north-western Europe campaign
- 1946–1948Chief of the Imperial General Staff
- 1951–1958Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe
Related historical events
- 1941–1944The Second Front and the Normandy LandingsCommander of the 21st Army GroupHe expanded the ground forces plan for Normandy and led the concept of the beachhead.
- 1943–1945The Italian Campaign and the Fall of MussoliniCommander of Allied operations in ItalyAs commander of the Eighth Army, he led the invasions of Sicily and Italy.
Post-war integration into the Western defence system, 1948-1958
After the war Montgomery commanded the British Army of the Rhine and then served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1946 to 1948, having been created Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in January 1946. From 1948 to 1951 he chaired the Commanders-in-Chief Committee of the Western Union, the Brussels Treaty defence organisation, where he helped shape the military core of Western Europe's anti-communist defence structure and of NATO's predecessor. In 1951 he was appointed the first Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe at SHAPE, a post he held until his retirement in 1958. His career thus shifted from wartime field command to leadership within a Cold War military bloc: the committees he chaired and the command he served were instruments for organising the capitalist camp militarily on both sides of the Atlantic, not positions within the workers' movement. At the same time, documentary accounts record his friction with alliance politics in the later 1950s over defence budgets, conscription and standing-force levels, and command arrangements within NATO. Those disputes should be examined on their own terms, separately from the character of his battlefield achievements. He published The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery in 1958, the year he retired.