In August 1942, Montgomery, then still British Army commander in southern England, was invited by General Paget, the British Home Forces commander, to join him on a visit to Scotland to observe a major training exercise in progress there. Soon after he arrived in Scotland, he was instructed to return to London immediately. He was to assume command of the British First Army, which was to take part with the Americans in the invasion and conquest of French North Africa to be launched in the fall.
Montgomery was informed that the War Office was dissatisfied with the way Operation Torch was developing. Time was passing and, though Eisenhower was its commander, no one seemed to know what was going on. The Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee of the two countries had not yet even issued a directive for Torch outlining its objective. Without such a directive, there could be no idea of what forces would be committed and how they would proceed with their mission. 'The whole thing" did not sound good to him; "a big invasion in North Africa in three month's time, and no plan yet." He believed his first task in his new assignment would be to press
Eisenhower to devise a satisfactory, comprehensive plan for organizing and implementing the operation.
Montgomery had previously had little to do with Americans. He had met the man he was to serve under only briefly and wondered how he would get on with him. Not till later would he be given a chance to find out. He had barely returned to London before he received word that his orders had been changed. Instead of participating in Operation Torch, he was to fly immediately to Cairo to take command of the Eighth Army in the Egyptian desert.
A seesaw struggle had been going on in the North African desert for two years. It had originally been started by the Italians, who had entered the war against Britain as Germany's ally in June 1940. That was just after the British Expeditionary Force had been driven out of Europe at Dunkirk and a few days before France capitulated to Hitler. With the Western democracies either crushed or reeling from defeat, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini believed he could construct a new Roman Empire without exposing himself or his forces to great risk. While the British were bracing themselves for a German invasion of their homeland, Mussolini ordered Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, the commander of his forces in the Italian colony of Libya, to seize the British protectorate of Egypt.
Though the forces at Graziani's disposal were far greater than those of General Sir Archibald Wavell, the British commander in the Middle East, an Italian attack in September 1940 was quickly beaten back by the British defenders, who went on to push the Italians far back across the sands of northern Libya. They might have achieved a conclusive victory had Churchill not diverted some of Wavell's divisions to Greece in a hopeless attempt to block a German advance there.
In February 1941 the Germans came to the aid of the floundering Italians. General Erwin Rommel, once head of Hitler's personal military security guard, arrived in Libya with his Afrika Korps to take command of Axis operations in North Africa. Officially, Rommel came under Italian command. In fact, he answered to Berlin. Hitler quickly had reason to be pleased with him. Soon after his arrival in North Africa, and
Even before his forces were up to strength, the man who came to be known as the Desert Fox launched a surprise attack on the British in Libya. Within weeks he had pushed them back almost to the Egyptian border.
To retrieve the situation, Churchill dispatched General Au-chinleck, who had been Montgomery's commander in southern England, to replace Wavell as Commander-in-Chief, Middle East. Auchinleck set about rebuilding and restructuring his forces. He brought in fresh divisions to replace some of those that had been clobbered under the withering desert sun by Rommel's newly named German-Italian Panzer Army. General Sir Neil Ritchie was appointed to serve under him, commanding the British Eight Army.
Toward the end of 1941, Ritchie drove Rommel back again across northern Libya. Churchill was visiting Washington for the Arcadia conference at the time, and the Eighth Army's desert success initially helped him promote his disputed proposal for the operation against French North Africa. If the Allies captured Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia while the British Eighth Army continued to press westward across Libya, Rommel's forces would be trapped and doomed, the entire southern Mediterranean shore would be under Allied control, and Axis mastery of the Mediterranean would be ended.
But British momentum in Libya soon petered out. As the Arcadia conference was drawing to a close in Washington in January 1942, Rommel went on the offensive. In the next few weeks, he drove the Eighth Army back over most of the territory it had regained, convincing some American generals that Churchill, with his grandiose proposals, lived in a world of fantasy. The British were unable to stop the Axis offensive until it had carried Rommel's forces just short of the fortified Libyan port of Tobruk. There the front temporarily stabilized.
But five months later, in June 1942, when Churchill was again in Washington, this time to tell Roosevelt that the U. S. War Department's strategy of an early invasion of France was unacceptable, Rommel resumed his advance. His Panzer Army overran Tobruk and drove on into Egypt. The fall of Tobruk, of which Churchill was informed while conferring with Roosevelt
At the White House, wa& a humiliation for the prime minister. He complained bitterly that ''seasoned soldiers had laid down their arms to perhaps one-half their number" and despaired about what could be done if his troops "won't fight."
The Eighth Army had earlier held out at Tobruk while under prolonged seige. Its defense had become a symbol of British vigor, courage, and defiance. Now its fall appeared to be proof of impotence and lack of will to win. Churchill later said the fall of Tobruk was the greatest blow he suffered in the war. Communiques previously issued in London had boasted of British successes in the North African desert and the superiority of British forces there. Now the possibility of disaster loomed on the only battlefield where British troops had produced impressive, if inconclusive, successes.
No excuse seemed valid, not that the new British Crusader tank left much to be desired nor that the Eighth Army was short of armor-piercing shells. Rommel was seen in London as simply being the better soldier—a tactician and leader of men far superior to any general Britain could send into the field. Churchill conceded as much when explaining to Parliament the setbacks in North Africa: "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us." People began to mutter about Auchinleck's apparent incompetence.
The enemy was within a few days' march of Cairo. At the British embassy and military headquarters in the Egyptian capital, clerks burned classified documents. Throngs of people fled the city for safety elsewhere. Egypt, gateway to the precious oilfields of the Middle East, appeared about to fall. If that happened, the Germans would be in a position to advance even further east, overrun Persia, and link up with the Japanese, who were advancing westward through Burma.
But that threat was greatly exaggerated. The experience of relentless defeat had cowed British information services into failing to point out to the public that Rommel was running out of steam. Not even the British high command fully appreciated how costly in men and material the German commander's offensive had been to the Axis. His line of communications was overextended. He had failed to receive promised reinforce-
Ments, his great losses in tanks had not been made good, and he was desperately short of supplies. He was also ill.
Auchinleck left his headquarters in Cairo to assume direct command of the Eighth Army and start to whip it back into shape. He forced Rommel to halt his forward momentum just short of the Egyptian town of El Alamein, where the line once more stabilized. However, that achievement, and the fear that it was temporary, failed to satisfy a craving in London for a dramatic victory to dispel growing war weariness and despondency at home. Questions were asked in Parliament and by ordinary people about what was wrong with the army command. British morale was not helped by the announcement from Berlin, reported in the London press, that Rommel, the conqueror, the hammer of the British, had been made a field marshal.
But the situation was being transformed. Under Auchinleck's direct command, the Eighth Army skirmished with Rommel's forces and gradually geared up to launch a major offensive. Longing desperately for a decisive reversal of fortunes, Churchill pressed Auchinleck not to delay launching that attack. But the general wasn't ready. The Eighth Army was made up of British divisions and divisions from other countries of the British Empire, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. Command problems had to be sorted out. Morale problems had to be addressed for troops who had for so long been required to fight with inferior equipment. The army was still being reequipped and reinforced. Auchinleck informed the War Office at the end of July that "... in present circumstances renewal of efforts to break enemy front or turn his southern flank not feasible owing to lack of resources and effective consolidation of his positions by enemy. Opportunity for resumption of offensive operations unlikely to arise before middle September."
Churchill was not willing to wait. He angered Brooke by insisting on the offensive "before Auchinleck can possibly get ready." Churchill's impatience was a reaction to the problems with which he himself had to deal. Not long before, he had been forced to defend himself for the second time that year
Against a parliamentary motion of censure over his direction of the war. The motion had been defeated, but confidence in the prime minister's leadership continued to erode. He felt "a load of calamity on my shoulders." As leader of the British people, he was held responsible by many for the failure of the British armed forces to produce a convincing victory over the enemy aside from the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the RAF in the Battle of Britain two years before.
Diplomatic as well as political pressure on him was intense. The Soviets were making momentous efforts in their struggle against the German invaders, but they continued to sustain horrific losses. Stalin, whom Churchill had just visited in Moscow, was demanding evidence of greater combat commitment by the Western Allies. The Americans, whose generals felt they had been steamrolled by Britain into agreeing to the invasion of French North Africa, had to be given grounds for greater faith in British battlefield achievement. In addition, Churchill, failing to appreciate to what extent Rommel's forces were already much weakened, was obsessed with the seeming invincibility of the German desert commander. "Rommel, Rommel, Rommel, Rommel, Rommel," he moaned. "What else matters but beating him?"
On a visit to Cairo he was brought up to date on the situation and realized that comparative strengths in the desert meant that the enemy was certain to be decisively beaten once battle there was joined. Advisers assured him that Auchinleck was bringing the situation under control. But exasperated by the general's refusal to attack before he was ready, Churchill insisted on a shakeup in the British Middle East command. "I must emphasize," he said, "the need of a new start and vehement action to animate the whole of this vast but baffled and somewhat unhinged organization."
General Alexander, removed from the Operation Torch role to which he had just been assigned, was brought in to take over as Commander-in-Chief, Middle East. General William Gott was chosen to serve under him as commander of the Eighth Army. However, Gott was almost immediately killed in an enemy air attack and Montgomery, also removed from his new
Posting to Torch, was ordered to Egypt to take his place. Victory in the desert had for the moment become Britain's top priority.
Montgomery was delighted with the assignment. Commanding an army in the field was what his life had been directed toward. So many of his lectures and writings had dealt with the specific challenges involved. It was for this role that he had honed his command skills ever since his time in India. He was pleased to be serving under Alexander, who had been a student of his at Staff College. He was certain he could control him. And he looked forward to matching wits with Rommel, whom the British military establishment had come to fear was unbeatable. He was confident "of being able to handle any job successfully if I was allowed to put into practice the ideas and methods that had become my military creed."
Churchill later recounted a story told about what Montgomery had to say about his prospects in the desert as he was being driven, in the company of General Ismay, to the airport for his flight to Cairo.
Montgomery [Churchill wrote] spoke of the trials and hazards of a soldier's career. He gave his whole life to his profession, and lived long years of study and self-restraint. Presently fortune smiled, there came a gleam of success, he gained advancement, opportunity presented itself, he had a great command. He won a victory, he became world-famous, his name was on every lip. Then the luck changed. At one stroke all his life's work flashed away, perhaps through no fault of his own, and he was flung into the endless catalogue of military failures. "But," expostulated Ismay, "you ought not to take it so badly as all that. A very fine army is gathering in the Middle East. It may well be that you are not going to disaster." "What!" cried Montgomery, sitting up in the car. "What do you mean? I was talking about Rommel!"
Montgomery later denied he had said any such thing. But the tale indicated the sort of reputation he was to acquire. Hopeful now that the tide was turning in Africa and in his personal political fortunes, Churchill instructed the Ministry of Informa-
Tion in London to brief British newspaper publishers and editors on the importance of what was about to happen.
Montgomery left England for Cairo by way of Gibraltar on August 10, 1942. He did not take personal leave of his young son. He considered himself too busy for that. Instead, he asked the headmaster of the preparatory school that David attended to look after the boy until he returned, and departed for Egypt before receiving a reply. As for his own mother living in Northern Ireland, she appeared not even to be in his thoughts when he set out to take on a task that had wrecked the careers of two other generals.
World History
