It’s not so much that he beat the “Eye-Ties”, but the manner in which he did it, especially the cut accross the middle of Eritrea with his armor, and the way he cut off tghe Italians who stayed on the coast road. He seems to have had a feel for armor, and was one of the few who used armor and infantry together in his operations.
As for Caen, that’s Monty’s screw up,and, I think the beginning of Eisenhower’s realization of what a twit Monty was. It was supposed to be taken on D-Day. Didn’t happen, and Monty kept embroidering the truth about the operations there to the point where Ike [and Tedder] didn’t believe him anymore. Aside from that,I study the Caen A/O because it gave Wittmann a chance to let his Tiger play.
I totally agree that was Monty’s screw up. The only time Monty showed any initiative at all was in Operation MARKET GARDEN and that was a poor plan that was poorly implemented getting a lot of men needlessly killed. Other than that the Brit was timid and often too slow to react to the situation around him. I think the only things that kept him around so long was his first success against an over-extended Rommel and the need by the British people to have a hero.