What do you think of this man?

Clearly inferior to Rommelf

>Montgomery flew to Brussels that afternoon to meet Eisenhower. Montgomery requested Eisenhower's Chief Administrative Officer to leave the meeting but insisted on his own remaining. He then tore a file of Eisenhower's messages to shreds in front of him and argued for a concentrated northern thrust, simultaneously demanding priority of supply.

>So fierce and unrestrained was Montgomery's language that Eisenhower suddenly reached out, patted Montgomery's knee and told him, "Steady, Monty! You can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss." Eisenhower told Montgomery why the British general's "single thrust" to Berlin was not going to be accepted. "What you're proposing is this - if I give you all the supplies you want, you could go straight to Berlin - right straight (500 miles) to Berlin? Monty, you're nuts. You can't do it. What the hell. If you try a long column like that in a single thrust you'd have to throw off division after division to protect your flanks from attack.

>Eisenhower, convinced that German forces faced imminent collapse, was equally adamant that advance on a broad front was correct. However, he consented to Operation Market Garden, giving it "limited priority" in terms of supplies but as part of his advance on a broad front. Eisenhower promised that allied aircraft and American trucks would deliver 1,000 tons of supplies per day. In vain, Montgomery complained about this to the Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London, Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye.

No Patton?

Manstein, Kesselring, Von Balck, Zhukov, Koniev, Rokossovsky (sp?) Yamashita, Slim and Devers would be my personal list. I'm only counting ground commanders with this list, by the way. If you want admirals as well, we'd have to expand it a bit.

Patton was good at executing Bradley's plans, but that's about it. Bradley-Patton are probably the best tag team in modern warfare.

>inb4 rommel as number 1

Not him, but Patton is a lot like Rommel; a mediocre commander hyped to hell and back because he was dashing and aggressive and a publicity whore.

>Eisenhower: We should advance along a broad front!
>Alanbrooke: I concur, old chap.
>Monty: [autistic screeching]

That just seems contrarian to me

Bill Slim for the UK too

What about Normandy? Changed the course of the war

Eisenhower not monty.

Seriously though, how the fuck did he expect to push 500 miles to Berlin? That's the most retarded plan I've ever heard.

He thought that once the allies took the Ruhr, Germany would fall apart.

>Eisenhower suddenly reached out, patted >Montgomery's knee and told him, "Steady, Monty! You can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss."
>[...]
>In vain, Montgomery complained about this to the Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London, Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye.

Goddamn. They're engaging in the second largest military confrontation in history and directing the movements of literally millions of men and millions of tons of equipment, yet the Supreme Commander still has to treat Monty like a fucking baby because he won't stop bitching.

That's not wrong though.

It was wrong. Most of the German industry had alread moved underground out of the Ruhr because the allies kept bombing it.

For 'amazing' rather than just 'good' or even 'great':

Murika:
>Marshall (underrated as fuck)
>Nimitz (most likely their best)
>Bradley
>Spaatz
>LeMay

Britain
>Park
>Slim

Germany
>Manstein
>Guderian
>Model
>Hitler (unironically made great strategic choices up until 1944)

USSR
>Chuikov
>Rokossovsky
>Vasilevsky

Don't be obtuse. Put yourself for a second in Monty's shoes. He's a great commander for one of the most significant Empires in history (even if its disintegration is imminent), steeped in a rich tradition of being top dog and taking military matters very seriously. On top of an ancient culture in general.

You can imagine how he might not feel himself quite the inferior to some bloody Yank who appeared from afar at the 11th hour to save the day. Even if he was outranked, I expect he felt himself at liberty to be very candid and forceful to the interests he was trying to protect. The Nazis were a much more present threat for the Brits than they were for the Americans, don't forget.

It's not a simple as him being a bitchy prima donna.

>>Hitler (unironically made great strategic choices up until 1944)
So much so that everyone ridiculed him as the "GröFaZ".

Yeah, no. His "great strategic choices" were foolish gambles that he happened to win - until his luck eventually ran out and the poor choices lead to the poor results expected on average.

I like your choices apart from Hitler, and Guderian would agree. The encirclement at Kiev destroyed the German chances at moscow (which were already extremely unlikely) By wasting valuable time between raputitsas and winter. Guderian regularly clashed with Hitler and Hitler hated all prussian aristocratic generals that wouldn't behave as his lapdog. (I don't have time to flesh out what I mean but im trying to add to your comment because it is a good list, sorry)

>as him being a bitchy prima donna
Everyone called him a bitchy prima donna.

In demanding the reduction of the Kursk salient without providing for a reserve while we were still reeling from Kharkov, GröFaZ totally fucked us over. - Manstein: Lost Victories

best allied general on the western front, should have been retained as ground forces commander post normandy campaign, with eisenhower as supreme commander doing the glad handing and admin while monty planned the actual fighting.

his north african campaign was well executed and effective, he masterminded the normandy campaign very well, handled the bulge and the approach to the rhine very well indeed, his only failure was market garden and even that is over emphasised in comparison to pattons failure at metz bradley and hodges failures in the bulge and hodges further failure at the hurtgen forest.

he did a very good job of running his battles less good a job dealing with the press

Hi Lindy. Took you a while to get here.

and no Bradley if they have any sense

you have park but no dowding? the man designed the british fighter command system, and commanded the battle of britain,

also wheres andrew cunningham? dude whipped the italian navy and controlled the med despite numerical inferiority and presence of enemy airpower, Taranto raid alone was genius

>It's not a simple as him being a bitchy prima donna.

he was, but in a sense more akin to the original usage, he was the best they had and knew it, sure he was high strung at times but he was right more often than wrong

no actual refutation then?

thought not

>his north african campaign was well executed and effective
It wasn't and required American reinforcements to bail him out despite fighting a vastly inferior an undersupplied enemy.

>he masterminded the normandy campaign very well
He didn't mastermind shit and actually caused a failure during Cobra by being a shit. The Germans never should have been allowed to escape the Falaise Pocket.

>his only failure was market garden
Untrue.

>even that is over emphasised in comparison to pattons failure at metz
Pattons "failure" at Metz didn't drag out the war by several months and didn't take resources away from where they were actually needed.

>bradley and hodges failures in the bulge
??? You mean their inability to maneuver effectively because Monty refused to budge until Eisenhower gave him command over the situation?

Monty was a fucking prima donna hack, Lindy. Fuck off back to Youtube, cretin.

>Pattons "failure" at Metz didn't drag out the war by several months and didn't take resources away from where they were actually needed.

neither did market garden, it too resources for a corps level assault and some airborne troops who werent doing any other drops at that point. it didnt cause the whole front to slow down, Patton on the other hand was stymied for 3 months, a delay which allowed the germans to redeploy and reinforce the line.

>It wasn't and required American reinforcements to bail him out despite fighting a vastly inferior an undersupplied enemy.
those same americans who needed to be bailed out by the british to take their part of the front. monty was chasing a enemy notorious for turning to ambush pursuers across most of north africa, at the end of spotty supply lines himself, the american troops were sent instead of british troops to give the americans much needed combat experience before invading mainland europe.

>He didn't mastermind shit and actually caused a failure during Cobra by being a shit. The Germans never should have been allowed to escape the Falaise Pocket

He planned the entire campaign including Cobra , pinning most of the german armor at Caen and giving the americans only a thinner line to punch through, and falaise wasnt Montys fault, indeed he thought the encirclement there a little risky and would have prefered and had planned to encircle the germans a bit further up into france on the lines of the seine and loire rivers, bradley suggested the falaise plan instead and with eisenhower and bradley pushing it and patton sharing his misgivings agreed to it, ultimately the failure was as much bradley and pattons as it was monty and crerars

>He planned the entire campaign including Cobra
Uh, no.

>The originator of the idea for Operation Cobra is disputed, according to Montgomery's official biographer, the foundation of Operation Cobra was laid on 13 June.[32][33]

>and falaise wasnt Montys fault
The guy who refused to close the pocket despite having the forces to do so isn't Monty's fault? Are you fucking shitting me, right now?

>??? You mean their inability to maneuver effectively because Monty refused to budge until Eisenhower gave him command over the situation?

no i mean their failure to manuver at all in the face of a massive attack in their command area, note their command area not montys, he was given command when it became clear that hodges communications werent working, until that time his only interference with the fighting had been to transfer XXX corps south to cover the river meuse crossings - without orders from higher command and in recognition of what the germans were aiming at.

the germans incidently said the following regarding his contribution

'The operations of the American 1st Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough'

Hasso von Manteuffel commander of 5th panzer army

What about King for America?

>Uh, no
uh yeah, he planned both the original plan and the backup version 'hold the germans at Caen and force them to concentrate there while drawing down their armored strength, then flank them with the american army.'

>The guy who refused to close the pocket despite having the forces to do so isn't Monty's fault? Are you fucking shitting me, right now?

given that that was bradley, and that the plan was bradleys that monty was reluctantly persuaded to agree to then yeah it wasnt montys fault, it was bradleys, he held back because he didnt think patton could hold the gap closed with what he had available and the northern pincer was still being slowed by the german reisistance

Although Patton might have spun a line across the narrow neck, I doubted his ability to hold it. Nineteen German divisions were now stampeding to escape the trap. Meanwhile, with four divisions George was already blocking three principal escape routes through Alencon, Sees and Argentan. Had he stretched that line to include Falaise, he would have extended his roadblock a distance of 40 miles (64 km). The enemy could not only have broken through, but he might have trampled Patton's position in the onrush. I much preferred a solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a broken neck at Falaise.
Bradley, in his own memoirs.

there is also the fact that by the time the americans had taken argetan the forces had already linked up at Chambois.

the fault lay with bradley, he was probably correct in his belief that patton couldnt hold the gap, but his fault lies in pushing the falaise pocket against monty and pattons advice when the proposed encirclement at the rivers had a very high likelihood of success

>he planned both the original plan and the backup version
>and that the plan was bradleys that monty was reluctantly persuaded to agree to
So which is it, you lying fuck? Did Monty plan it or did Bradley? FUCK

he planned overlord and cobra, and was reluctantly persuaded to ok Bradleys plan to encircle at falaise rather than further east.

he planned the campaign, the invasion of normandy and the break out, things started going wrong when he let Bradley talk him into changing his plan and encircling at falaise