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like Lord Montgomery of Alamein, Grant was not imaginative or dramatically innovative on the battlefield -- he was simply bulldog tenacious.

Generally concur with your post but Montgomery was/is the most overrated general of all times.

His "Victory" at El Alamein came against a foe whom he outnumbered 2-1 in manpower 4-1 in tanks, 3-1 in planes, and 10-1 in artillery -- and the Axis forces ran out of gas!

In Normandy, the inability of his forces to achieve their D-day objectives brought on a bloody battle of attrition where he was losing three men to each German casualty. His Operation Goodwood resulted in the loss of 470 tanks in four days for little gain after tremendous aerial bombardment.

The one thing Montgomery was master of was spin control. He pretended that all of what was happening was his plan (as if getting the British in a WWI type battle of attrition was a good plan); unfortunately for Montgomery's memory the paper trail is not there to back up his ex post facto claims.

See "Churchill and the Montgomery Myth" by R.W. Thompson where Thompson suggests that Montgomery's ideas didn't advance one whit from 1918 until the day he died.

Not meaning to bust your chops; Montgomery and his apologists are a sore point with me.

Walt

Well, far be it from me to defend Monty, but I believe in giving the devil his due. Monty pursued the Afrika Corps across Northern Africa for a year (from mid-42 until the Germans started their withdrawal in March of 43, surrendering to the allies in mid-43), destroying the myth of Rommel the Invincible and permanently ending Hitler's drive to get mid-eastern oil. The British 8th army carried on while green Americans were taking a licking at Kasserine Pass.

Monty's performance in France in 1944 is certainly less than stellar, but I blame Ike for that, not Monty. When Patton broke out of the bocage in August of 44, Ike should have opportunistically supported the drive of the Third Army across the mid-section of France. He could have used Monty as a "pivot point" and surrounded the entire German army (the Schlieffen Plan -- in reverse!). Monty could always be counted on to not give any territory -- he just couldn't be counted on to take any, at least in a timely manner.

Anyway, I'm glad Monty held the numerical and material edge over Rommel in 1942 -- if he hadn't, things in Africa might have gotten quite sticky indeed.

Generally concur with your post but Montgomery was/is the most overrated general of all times. His "Victory" at El Alamein came against a foe whom he outnumbered 2-1 in manpower 4-1 in tanks, 3-1 in planes, and 10-1 in artillery -- and the Axis forces ran out of gas!

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In that battle over a 30 mile front Montgomery had 1,000 new tanks to the Germans' 500. That's a new tank every 150 feet along a frontal attack. The Germans were hard up for fuel. Due to Hitler's mistake, the Germans had just had 360,000 gallons of desperately needed fuel sunk on its way to Africa. Furthermore, the lost British tanks were being replenished by American tanks. Replenishment of ten tanks a day would result in massive superiority.

Still, the Germans managed to take out 500 of Mongomery's tanks, which is as much as the Germans had to start with.

With 10,000 more gallons of fuel and 100 more tanks, Mongomery would have been wiped out.