From the film Churchill (2017) staring Brian Cox. Churchill out now on Blu Ray & DVD. www.churchillfi... Actors Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, John Slattery, Ella Purnell, James Purefoy Director Jonathan Teplitzky Cohen Media Group
Very gifted actor, He can master any roll. I like him in the movie about the sinking of the RMS Laconia where he was Captain of the doomed ship. @@daveslark
@Who am I Really But an Asshole, fought knowing he COULDN'T rely on having replacement manpower (like Soviet and US generals did)but who still turned the tide in North africa, responsible for all land planning & operations on D-day until day 48(1 day ahead of schedule)when Ike took over to steal the Credit for another mans work, and Saved the US's ass at the Battle of the Bulge - when Ike ran away and hid. I'll fight for an asshole like like that,
@@farmerned6 The men who fought and died at the Battle of the Bulge are the only ones responsible for defeat or victory, not some pencil pushing desk jockey.
I don't get why so many people are pointing to Gallipoli as evidence for Churchill "not caring about casualties." It was that disastrous campaign that _made_ him so worried about casualties at D-day. The exact _opposite_ effect of what you people are saying.
Churchill was responsible for the mess in Gallipoli because being a staunch imperialist; he didn't believe Ottomans could possibly defeat British troops (i.e. Whites couldn't lose to browns). He also withdrew troops from North Africa when they were on the verge of finishing off the Italians and sent them to Greece when the Greeks had already repelled the Greek invasion. The Germans sent the Afrika Korp to North Africa where the weakened British forces were driven back all the way Egypt and the Germans also worried about British forces in Greece being able to threaten the Romanian oilfields, so they reinforced the Italians in Greece and threw the British out. The author Roald Dahl found himself one of only seventeen fighters in the whole of Greece versus hundreds and hundreds of German aircraft. Churchill also advocated invading mainland Italy, calling it the 'Soft underbelly of Europe' despite the terrain favouring the defenders. An American general would later call it 'One tough gut'. Every military decision Churchill ever made resulted in disaster. He was an armchair general who got where he did because of his famous military ancestors; not because of any genuine skill.
@@godofcodu13itch, Rommel credits the Ozzies defending Tubruk as long as they did for his defeat in North Africa. If they hadn't held there, the British wouldn't have had time to reinforce Egypt after Churchill stripped its forces for Greece. If the ANZACs hadn't fought as fiercely as they did at Gallipoli, as you say it would have been even more of a disaster.
@@DomWeasel yeah its a pity so many great people had to die on all sides, but now Australia is 1/4 born overseas we lost the bravest generation's and when i look around i haven't the foggiest idea why.
Exactly so. Churchill pushed hard for a landing in Gallipoli but was not involved in the planning or execution of the operation, which as we all know was a disaster. It is still taught at Sandhurst as a textbook case of how not to carry out a seaborne landing.
FOR ALL TRUE HISTORY BUFFS. Churchill was the first, after Eisenhower, to feel the confidence and enthusiasm that now radiated from Montgomery. Arriving at 6 o’clock on the evening of 31 December in Marrakesh, Monty found Churchill ‘in bed reading a copy of OVERLOARD’ flown out specially in its latest edition from Morgan in London. Churchill was ‘recovering from his recent illness and did not look very fit,’ Monty noted in his diary. He (Churchill) said I (Monty) was to read OVERLORD and give him my (Monty) opinion about it. I (Monty) replied that I was not his military adviser. He (Churchill) then said he was very anxious to have my (Monty) first impressions of OVERLORD, which I (Monty) had never seen. So I (Monty) said I would read it through and would give him my ‘first impressions’ in the morning. The next morning, sitting besides Churchill in his car on the two-hour drive that had been planned to the Atlas mountains, Monty went over the ‘Overlord’ plan with the Prime Minister, and declared it to be ‘impracticable’. Not only was the size of the invasion force too small, but it committed the assaulting army to the same error that had doomed the Allies at Salemo, and would so again, despite the approval of Eisenhower, Bedell Smith, Alexander, Clark, Wilson, Tedder and Admiral John Cunningham (who had succeeded Sir Andrew Cunningham as Navel C-in-C, Mediterranean) at Anzio: namely the confinement of the invasion to one easily contained beachhead. Worse still, in terms of subsequent build-up, was the attempt to land too many formations, both on D-Day and the succeeding days, acrross the same beaches - beaches that would become fatally congested. By D+12 a total of 16 Divisions have been landed on the same beaches as were used in the initial landings. This would lead to the most appalling confusion on the beaches, and the smooth development of the land battle would be made extremely difficult -if not impossible. He (Monty) told Churchill. The answer, by contrast, was simple to land on a broad enough front to ensure that each succeeding wave of reinforcing divisions was fed straight into their respective Corps which had landed on D-Day. (a) The initial landings must be made on the widest possible front. (b) Corps must be able to develop their operations from their own beaches, and other Corps must NOT land though these beaches. (c) British and American areas of landing must be kept seperate. (d) After the initial landings, the operations must be developed in such a way that a good port is secured quickly for the British and American forces. Each should have its own port or group of ports. Monty’s idea was that ‘if such a thing was possible there would be many advantages in putting the armies on shore in such a way’ the British should secure the whole of Caen-Cherbourg coast, while the Americans took the west side of the Cherbourg peninsula, securing St Malo, St Nazaire and Brest. Above all, ‘air battle must be won before the operation is launched. We must then aim at succeess in the land battle by the speed and violence of our operations. Once again, as in the Egyptian desert, Churchill was won over by the clarity and authority of the new commander he has only reluctantly appointed. ‘Evidently he was a firm believer in the operation,’ Churchill recorded almost incredulously,’ and I was pleased at this.’ When Churchill suggested they drive up to a favorite panoramic viewpoint in the mountains, Monty ‘got out and walked straight up the hill “to keep himself in training” as he put it. I (Churchill) warned him (Monty) not to waste his vigour, considering what was coming...that athletics was one thing and strategy another. These admonitions were in vain,’ Churchill recalled with amusement. ‘The General was in the highest spirits; he leaped about the rocks like an antelope, and I (Churchill) felt a strong reassurance that all would be well.’ Churchill’s ‘admonitions’ wre reciprocated by Montgomery. Aware that the Morgan plan was hopeless, Monty was consumed by vexation at the way - as in ‘Husky’ and as in Italy - major military operations were planned on paper and handed over to their commanders too late for them to make alterations that would ensure their success: ‘I impressed on him the need to get experienced fighting commanders “in” on any future operational plans early; if left too late it might not always be possible to change the layout of the operation; in every operation which I have been brought into in this war, changes in plan have been necessary and there has been all too little time, e.g. HUSKY in May, 1943, and now OVRLORD did not look good.’ That Monty would ‘grip the show’ was clear to Churchill, as it became, too, for the second time, to Eisenhower who stopped in Marrakesh briefly on his way back to Washington and had a secret meeting with Monty - a meeting he neglected to mention in his war memoirs. Monty, however, remembered the occasion very well, as he recalled when reading Eisenhower’s book in 1948: ‘Montgomery met Eisenhower in Marrakesh quite by accident, and took the opportunity to explain to him the tactical faults in the COSSAC plan. On having these faults pointed out, Eisenhower asked Montgomery to examine the whole plan in England, and gave him the necessary authority to do so. Churchill and Eisenhower might respond positively to Monty’s ‘grip’. Not all were happy about this, though - particularly thos who, like Harold Nicolson, resent Monty’s growing fame in Britain. ‘Montgomery today is the second most popular figure in England,’ Nicolson noted with distaste in his diary on 5 January 1944. Note: This extract is taken from Nigel Hamilton’s book, “Monty Master of The Battlefield 1942 - 1944.
A great book about an under appreciated military genius and great man. He was for the British Army what Admiral Fisher had been for the Navy, THE modernizer and professional! More than that while insisting on victory he spared no effort to minimize deaths and illness!
Monty liked to make himself look good, the ego maniac. However actual history contradicts his memoirs. Montgomery did not convince Eisenhower to expand the invasion to a broad front. Eisenhower already favored it. Eisenhower was designated Supreme Commander & Monty his deputy. They got the original plans for Overlord in December 43. The North Africa meetings in Casablanca with a stopover in Marrakech for US & UK political leaders to/from Casablanca was in January 43 so Monty couldn’t convince anyone of anything regarding Overlord planning. He hadn’t seen it & wouldn’t for about 11 months. Eisenhower didn’t mention it in his memoirs because it didn’t happen. When they got the plans (AT THE SAME TIME) Eisenhower & Monty BOTH saw that the invasion was too small with too few troops. They JOINTLY expanded the invasion plans. The original plans given to Eisenhower & Monty had 3 divisions with 2 in support-100% seaborne troops. No airborne. They JOINTLY expanded it to 5 seaborne divisions and 3 airborne divisions. They wanted a broader front and it would make the capture of the Cherbourg port quicker. Leave it to Monty & his ego to suggest he alone came up with the final plans & convinced everyone else to do it his way that he was right & everyone else was wrong. By reading his memoirs you’d think he singlehandedly won the war.
This was one of the most well documented and interesting periods in history and yet we have scenes in films like this which are complete fantasy. There is also another scene with Churchill arguing with Eisenhower which did not happen. And, the sad thing is, for a lot of people, this is the only history they are exposed to is fiction.
It smacks of hit job. The demonization of Montgomery seems only exceeded by the demonization of MacArthur. The idea of Churchill giving advice about amphibious operations is stunning. I just would have replied to Churchill, " how did that Gallipoli thing work out for you? "
@@WALTERBROADDUS Yes, agreed. Montgomery, Patton, MacArthur all get a bad rap. However, as I remember, Montgomery was very well respected up to his death in 1976 and this demonization has come about by films such as this which simply invent the narrative for dramatic effect.
A career soldier talking back to his commander. I don't believe this ever happened. Or that monty called winston by his name instead of "sir" or "mr prime minister".
the british were and still are very status and rank conscious.since Britain is/was ruled effectively by civilians,churchill was montgomerys superior by at least two ranks in british society and the military .as a general/field marshal,,montgomery also had a military boss... the Chief of the general/imperial staff who reported directly to Churchill.therefore theres no way he couldn address the prime minister as in the movie.the PM can also move to have the general replaced /fired as he/she heads the defence council.
@@TheLoyalOfficer Nothing in my reading would indicate they had that sort of relationship. In fact, I NEVER saw two English gentlemen display anger in that manner.
@@capnbobretired Exactly. Tension between Churchill and Monty was minimal. Monty generally deferred to Churchill, which is one of the reasons why Churchill liked and kept him.
@@phoenixwolff8103 as of 1 sept 1944. Well deserved and earned. Bradley was pissed that he did not get his 4th star until 2 weeks before ve day. He got it along most senior generals in the eto.
This film is really painful to watch. Like the 2001 Pearl Harbor film, it looks like it was written by someone with a high school history education. British actors speaking like Brits in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Subordinates cursing and swearing at their commanders. Fouling up the historical record for major historical events.The Churchill-Ike scene also was a painful joke to watch. After watching this film I had the same queasy feeling after Afflack's awful Pearl Harbor (except for John Voigt in that film -- he was very good as FDR).
Agree completely. Gary Oldman was a better Churchill in ,"The Darkest Hour" and this film here is unreal. Tora Tora Tora was a much better film than poor junk Pearl Harbor as well.
@@cirrus1964 Don't try to be a smartass. What do you think the odds are that a 2017 popcorn flick was more accurate in its portrayal of history then 70 years of reliably accredited documentation and personal accounts written by those who were there or those who directly interviewed those who were there. Also, where and were aren't interchangeable, dumbass.
@Heuckepeucke Borserian That ridiculously unprofessional exchanges like this would have taken place between Churchill and Montgomery, especially over D-Day.
Churchill knew very little about military operations, especially logistics. Monty, was an experienced General who planned the entire operation, and got the job done with a minimum of casualties.
Churchill was lord of the admiralty during WW1 and knew the dangers in a failed landing, having organized Gallipoli. Don’t say such dumb things when you don’t know what your talking about.
Churchill was terrified because of the memories of his service on western front and the gallipoli campaign. In the D-day plans he saw every possible negative. But its hard to fault him after considering his history. Its why he preferred the idea of landings in vichy/southern France where there were no such defences first.
to this day I still don't know get what was the point of making a movie dramatizing (and exaggerating) Churchill's fears and doubts about Operation Overlord. Ignore this film. Read a book about it if you are truly interested.
I think it was because with the First World War centenary, Gallipoli was brought back into the public consciousness and they were trying to paint Churchill as more conscientious than he ever was.
The Russians defeated the Nazis. I still don't know why we didn't just let the Soviets take all of Germany. Would they have stopped there or gone all the way and taken France? Capitalism vs Communism. I guess the red tide would have spread all the way to the English Channel if we hadn't landed on Normandy. I guess it was necessary. There was more going on then just defeating the Nazis.
If you want to see a more accurate account of this scene watch the awesome film - Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004) starring Tom Selleck. It's a great film.
I'm a history buff in general, deeply interested in WW2 as well, but even I don't care if, in reality, this confrontation never happened. It's one helluva damn fine scene!
I don't know if this really happned between the 2 but the Normandy Invasion went very well as we had the best crucial edges of naval an air superiority.
@John Cornell agreed on the liberation of Paris, but i was speaking more about the Normandy campaign. By D-Day +35, the allied should have reach the Loire river, liberated half of Britanny. In reallity, the americans were slowly advancing in the bocage, and the Anglo-canadians were blocked in front of Caen. by the way, nice to see someone who knows is subject, even on yiutube comment section ^^
Hard to believe Ike would act the way he did but Monty. Im gonna be honest I can see it. Commander in chief or no Churchill was a millitary dinosaur and Monty was a genius but also egotistical. I doubt he would have been too pleased to be sidelined by Winston
huh surprising amount of comments annoyed at this scene due to it being incredibly unlikely it happened (although I will say something very similar happened between Monty and Ike and may well be the inspiration for showing Monty like this) movies tend to do this though, take frustrations and tense relationships between figures and concentrate it into one scene for a movie
We can debate who should have done what when , but when it comes down to it both our countries lost one too many brave American and British boys in that horrible war .
I know this is a movie and doesn’t need to be 100% accurate, but I’d like to add that Montgomery never thought there was a serous squabble. In his memoirs he writes: ”It has been written that I had a row with the Prime Minister shortly before D-Day, and even threatened to resign. This is untrue. I would like to tell the true story. Here it is. For some time before D-day the P.M. had not been satisfied that we had the right balance between fighting troops and vehicles for the initial landing on the Normandy beaches. He reckoned there were not enough men with rifles and bayonets, and too many lorries, radio vehicles, and so on. He gave out that he would come to my Head-quarters near Portsmouth and investigate the matter with my staff. On that, I invited him to dinner to meet my senior staff officers. He came on 19th May 1944. The photograph reproduced facing page 224 was taken on his arrival. I asked him to come to my study for a short talk before meeting the others. Having got him comfortable seated I said ’I understand, sir, that you want to discuss with my staff the proportion of soldiers to vehicles landing on the beaches in the first flights. I cannot allow you to do so. My staff advise me and I give the final decision; then they do what I tell them. 'That final devision has been given. In any case I could never allow you to harass my staff at this time and possible shake their confidence in me. They have had a terrific job preparing the invasion; that work is now completed, and all over England the troops are beginning to move towards the assembly areas, prior to embarkation. You can argue with me but not with my staff. In any case it is too late to change anything. I consider that what we have done is right; that will be proven on D-day. If you think it is wrong, that can only mean you have lost confidence in me’” Then he explains how he quickly led Churchill to meet his staff after an awkward silence, and they chatted nicely and later had a friendly dinner. So this means 2 things: 1. The film is wrong in what Churchill was worried about; it was actually ratio of men and vehicles, not distance between Utah and Sword or gas attacks. 2. Churchill and Montgomery were not in a heated argument, and it was resolved relatively quickly. I am, however, a bit confused by the lack of response from Churchill. It seems he did not push the subject further, or maybe Monty just didn’t care to talk too much about it in his memoirs. I can’t say for sure. I might also add that this is one mans perspective, and is undoubtedly biased. I have no idea to what extent, though. Perhaps he is hiding the fact that he was rude to the Prime Minister, for is own agenda. Many people seem to dislike Montgomery. I personally see few reasons other than Market Garden, but to be fair I haven’t read into the man that much. I have not read or heard Churchill's view on what happened that day, and it might be useful to conclude roughly how heated their argument was, and what really went down, but if anyone else knows what his perspective was, please reply to my comment.
There is no way a General would have spoken to Churchill like that. Smuts was a South African Field Marshal and a personal friend of Churchill. He would never have stood by if pushed or witnessed a LT Gen speaking to The PM in such a manner.
I don't know that Monty ever had this exchange, but Ike and Alan Brook certainly would have. Churchill balked at the invasion to the very last. He wanted to dither around the Greek Islands. And then what would he have done when the -1s and V2s started landing ?
People are going to rip on you, but, it need be remembered that at this point, the relationship between Churchill and his generals was very frayed..The Generals were wanting to open the front and were sick of Churchills machinations to continually delay, the generals were sick and tired of it
Absolutely correct. Thank god Alan brooke was CIGS and talked him out of his many hare brained schemes. Hell.... winnies ideas would have caused millions of deaths until germany got nukes many times in the summer and fall 1945. Plus.... using nukes on germany has implications on executeIng the invasion of japan.
I don't believe a word of it. Montgomery wouldn't have spoken like that to Churchill. In any event, by the time the plans got to this stage, Eisenhower was in charge and he would have been explaining the plans to Churchill, not Montgomery. Also, why could they not find an actor who actually looked like Montgomery? This fellow looks like Monty with an extra thirty pounds.
oh yes like this actually happened. Monty calling the PM by his surname and then pushing Smuts out of the way in order to berate him. What a load of bollox
I seriously doubt Mountie would have confronted Churchill like and calling him by his last name. Very bad. Remember Mountie had to back down apologize to Ike and he was just a fellow officer, not a head of State.
How historically accurate is this scene? The movie makes it look like he was mainly worried about not getting men killed than destroying the Nazis and liberate Europe. Anyone?
Montgomery could fight men, his weakness was his own personality. He tended to rub everyone the wrong way. He was at time overly cautious however as the British commander he new the loss his country had suffered in men and the need to conserve what he had.
He didn't favour a cautious strategy as Normandy was winding down. He argued for a strong powerful concentrated northern thrust to the Ruhr then beyond. It was Eisenhower who favoured the more cautious broad front, which tippy toed towards Germany and got nowhere for six months. Montgomery wanted a battering ram. Eisenhower went for a door knocker.
@@lyndoncmp5751 You are forgetting the underlying political issues involving the Soviets, allowing them to get to Berlin. The battering ram would've had to stop at the Elbe anyway and would've cost more Allied lives.
@@solomongrundy4905 No this was in August 1944 when Montgomery proposed the strategy, long before it was established that the Soviets would be taking Berlin. In August 1944, Berlin was very much still an Anglo-American objective.
@@lyndoncmp5751 Except the London Protocol (signed Sept 12, 1944 by the EAC) already divided up Germany and it was clear that the Soviets would get much of central and eastern Germany, with Berlin being divided. Why would the Allies risk lives trying to get to Berlin first if they knew the Russians would get most of the territory west of the city anyway? Nevertheless, Monty wanted to drive into Germany! He was in idiot of class A level!
@@solomongrundy4905 1. Montgomery's proposal was laid down in August 1944. 2. Berlin was not really the issue. The issue was Montgomerys concentrated northern thrust vs Eisenhowers broad front. Berlin was at the end of both advance options so it wasn't really the main issue. The main issue was how to get into then across Germany. Montgomery favoured all allied armies being concentrated together in the north as one huge powerful unstoppable force. Eisenhower favoured dispersal of force across 500km of front. This ended up weakening the allied advance, blunting it's offensive power and getting sucked into pointless secondary campaigns for months on end such as the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine and Alsace/Vosges. If Montgomery had his way there wouldnt have been any pointless campaigns in the Lorraine and Alsace. 3. Montgomery was the most savvy and most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2 by some way. It was desk man Eisenhower, completely inexperienced as a battle strategist, who didn't know what he was doing. Eisenhower even ignored Montgomery's warning on November 28th 1944 that the American front line in front of the Ardennes was too thinly held and needed strengthening. Montgomery advised him to strengthen it. Eisenhower didn't listen, the Germans attacked there 3 weeks later and caused nearly 100,000 American casualties. Ironically, Eisenhower had to turn to Montgomery to bail him out.
I don't think this ever happened; also, while I understand Churchill's concerns about repeat of Gallipoli, Montgomery's idea materialized also during Market-Garden... and we all know how well that went.
Now maybe my standards are ridiculously high but I feel like I’m watching three re-eanctors doing what they read in an article online somewhere. Badly.
I was stunned at how bad this movie was. They portrayed one of the greatest men of all times as a certified schizophrenic in perpetual temper tantrums. What a disgrace.
Very inaccurate. It should have been Ike that Churchill would have argued the D Day plans not Montgomery. In fact, in private, Churchill did voice his objections and Concerns to Ike.
I don't understand this scene, even if it is total fantasy and these two never argued like this. It seemed at the start, that the argument was over the size of the beachhead, with the PM thinking it needed to be wider than 50km, but... neither talked about that, and what they did say, I don't get it, the scene made it seem like the PM did not want to invade France, and just wanted to keep the men safe, which, ummmm....huh?
The idea that Montgomery ever, EVER addressed Winston Churchill in this way is just an absolute travesty. Whoever made this movie hated Churchill - and the truth.
No way Monty spoke to Churchill like that. Would have surely addressed him as Prime Minister for a start. Winston would have insisted on it, or threaten to fire him. Even Ike was on the brink of firing him for speaking out of line and Monty had to back pedal pretty fast on order to keep his job.
@@crumpetcommandos779 Below is from Nigel Hamilton in _Monty, Master of the Battlefield 1942-1944:_ Brooke, however, was worried that he had not completely stopped the rot, and the next morning penned a long letter to Monty warning him of Eisenhower’s ‘mischief-making’: _My dear Monty The trouble between you and the P.M. has been satisfactorily settled for the present, but the other trouble I spoke to you about is looming large still and wants watching very carefully. Ike lunched with P.M. again this week and as a result I was sent for by P.M. and told that Ike was worried at the outlook taken by the American Press that the British were not taking their share of the fighting and of the casualties._ _There seems to be more in it than that and Ike himself seemed to consider that the British Army could and should be more offensive. The P.M. asked me to meet Ike at dinner with him which I did last night, Beddel was there also. It is quite clear that Ike considers that Dempsey should be doing more than he does; it is equally clear that_ *_Ike has the very vaguest conception of war!_* _I drew attention to what your basic strategy had been, i.e. to hold with your left and draw the Germans onto the flank while you pushed with your right. I explained how in my mind this conception was being carried out, that the bulk of the Armour had continuously been kept against the British. He could not refute these arguments, and then asked whether I did not consider that we were in a position to launch major offensives on each Army front simultaneously. I told him that in view of the fact that the German density in Normandy is 2 ½ times that on the Russian front, whilst our superiority in strength was only in the nature of some 25% as compared to 300% on the Russian superiority on the Eastern front, I did not consider that we were in a position to launch an all out offensive along the whole front._ _Such a procedure would definitely not fit in with our strategy of opening up Brest by swinging forward Western Flank.’_ To Brooke, Monty’s strategy was so clear that he could not understand Eisenhower’s apparent obsession with side issues, such as accusations in the American press that the British were leaving all the fighting up to the Americans: ’The strategy of the Normandy landing is quite straight-forward. The British (on the left) must hold and draw Germans on to themselves off the western flank whilst Americans swing up to open Brest peninsular,’ Brooke noted in his diary.
If anything Montgomery was overly cautious of the lives of his men. He was a deeply cautions commander or at least was so til Arnhem when I suspect he allowed the insinuations of others force him to recklessness. The idea that he was callously indifferent to loss is simply wrong. He was and is a vastly overrated general but he was no wastrel of lives.
These movies never point out the grave mistake of the Hedgerows...They were perfect for defense and the Allies landed right in front of them. Apparently the Allies never sent black opps people into the area behind the beaches to inspect the interior terrain for an armoured advance. This cost the lives of ten, twenty, thousand?...and stopped the advance cold for a month. Proving piss poor planning leads to piss poor results.
If the real-life Montgomery had ever shown that much energy on the battlefield as the fictional portrayal does in this scene, he probably would've won more victories without having to repeatedly rely upon Patton to pull his chestnuts out of the fire on more than one occasion... I mean, sure, he was the big hero at El-Alamein, but after that? Psh...not so much.
It was Monty that pulled Patton out of the fire at El Guettar when the Eighth army attacked the Germans from the rear at Wadi Akarit while patton was stalled.
@@saxonwarrior3736 Nope, sorry, you're wrong. Don't know where you got your revisionist "history" from but the facts don't support that rather fanciful & inventive (not to mention Anglocentric) "interpretation" of events at all.
@@MrPGC137 Is that so? ''On 6 April, the British 8th Army once again overran the Axis lines at the Battle of Wadi Akarit, and a full retreat started. On the morning of 7 April, Benson Force moved through the positions held by the 1st and 9th divisions, and raced down the abandoned El Guettar-Gabès road, where it met the lead elements of the 8th Army at 17:00. With the last Axis line of defense in the south of Tunisia broken, the remaining forces made a run to join the other Axis forces in the north. Tunis fell to the Allies in early May."
I love how so many comments say this moment is either inaccurate or a fantasy which never took place. It is not at all inaccurate. This is truly how it happened. But people have been taught to believe completely in a dream of things now, which is a shame, because the actual reality is so much more interesting, and juicy.
That's total bull. Monty talking out of his ass and daring to speak like that to Churchill??? Not believable a sec. We know Monty had an ego larger than Everest and he'd never had dared such behaviour at the risk of being dismissed on the spot for unsubordination by a man like Churchill who'd never stand for that. It's all fiction.
The reason the Germans never used gas was simple: they depended on horses for supply and even to pull artillery. Ever try and fit a horse with a gas mask and then keep it on?
D-Day was way ahead of schedule at d-day+90, with 20% less casualties than predicated. Montgomery destroyed over 90% of German armour in the west. *Monty never suffered a reverse moving 1,000 miles through nine countries from Egypt to Denmark taking all in his path.* He was a general over generals. Montgomery was by far most successful western allied commander of WW2. Monty fought more battles, took more ground and engaged more elite German divisions than any other general. Monty commanded *all* the Normandy ground forces, being the man the Americans ran to in the Ardennes offensive. No other general in the western allied armies possessed his experience in dealing with the Germans or his expertise. Monty stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him. ♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa ♦ October 1942 - El Alamein ♦ March 1943 - Medenine ♦ June 1944 - Normandy ♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - Holland ♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge Not on one occasion were Monty's ground armies, including US armies under his control, pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. *Eisenhower:* ‘General Montgomery is a very able, dynamic type of army commander’. *Eisenhower on D-Day and Normandy:* 'He got us there and he kept us there'. *General Günther Blumentritt:* ‘Field Marshall Montgomery was the one general who never suffered a reverse’ *Genral Hasso von Manteuffel on the Bulge:* ‘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’. *Patton on Monty:* 'small,very alert, wonderfully conceited, and the best soldier - or so it seems - I have met in this war’. *American Major General Matt Ridgway commander of the US XVIII Airborne Corps, 17 Jan 1945* "It has been an honored privilege and a very great personal pleasure to have served, even so briefly, under your distinguished leadership [Montgomery]. To the gifted professional guidance you at once gave me, was added to your own consummate courtesy and consideration. I am deeply grateful for both. My warm and sincere good wishes will follow you and with them the hope of again serving with you in pursuit of a common goal".
Monty was overrated. He delayed the advance in Sicily trying to gain glory for himself, when Patton could have done it faster. It took a bit of insubordination by Patton's flanking maneuver to Palermo to end that campaign. In Holland, Monty clearly tried to gain more than was was capable. Had the supplies been given priority to Patton, the war would have been over far sooner. Monty was good, but not the best.
@@elfhighmage8240 "the war would have been over far sooner. Monty was good, but not the best." The war was both decided and ended in the East. Period. By the time the allies landed in France the Wehrmacht had already been on the retreat from the eastern front for a year and were at this stage close to the borders of Poland. Operation Bagration broke the back of the German army and utterly destroyed Army Group Centre. Stalin decided to seize as much of Europe as he could and therefore decided to take Romania and Hungary and if he could most of the Balkans (which he nearly did). He could have gone straight for Berlin rather than the rather costly campaign of Romania (you know there are a LOT of Romanians in the Axis too). "Had the supplies been given priority to Patton, the war would have been over far sooner" *What reality* do you live in?? Videogame reality? Eisenhower's plan was the broad front attack stretching the German defenses thin. That's what little the Germans had in France in the first place. The allies had thoroughly destroyed the French railway networks in order to prevent the Germans from using them. However when the allies were in France themselves they couldn't use the very same railroads for themselves. This meant using trucks for logistics. Given the poor roads of the time, much of France being in rubble, locals not understanding a single word of English, and this "tiny detail" of the allies still trying to clear and rebuild destroyed French harbors to ship in fuel and equipment it goes without saying that the *main problem* were the logistics. Despite American factories running around the clock producing trucks this still was barely enough to feed the troops spread out over the front. Now, in *what reality* does Eisenhower suddenly have a change of mind and decides to let Patton go at it *on his own* leaving *all others* (not just Monty mind you) completely depleted? Again, gung-ho videogame reality? The war couldn't have been over "far sooner". Not unless you somehow magically solve the logistical problems the allies faced, the rapidly oncoming winter, the Germans retreating to the Siegfried line and digging in, the natural barriers (rivers and forests) bordering to Germany and the limited capacity of the damaged French harbors the Germans made sure the allies wouldn't be able to use properly for a while. Patton's "flanking maneuver in Sicily". Again, what did the Germans have in Sicily at the time?? Didn't take much risk or ingenious thinking to attempt that did it? What are you implying, this was some sort of tactical brilliance on the level of Napoleon at Austerlitz or Alexander the great at Gaugamela? Patton never faced many Germans, certainly not the quality and quantity of 1940-1942. I'd like to see how well he would have done against Heinz Guderian facing the brutal realities on the eastern front. Say what you will about Monty but he remembered the horrors of World War One and the huge British losses. He certainly didn't want to be remembered as another Douglas "butcher" Haig. He saw the horrors of Passchendaele in 1917. Patton had no such qualms. First of all the American losses during WWI were light (the late entry and the British and French armies both being larger during the 100 Days Offensive were the main reasons) with 50,000 dead in a war that killed 10 million wasn't that high a price to pay. 50,000 dead in a nation of 103 millions (1918) is quite acceptable - even more so when you come home to a completely intact country. Monty didn't have that luxury neither in WWI nor in WWII. He could ill-afford to be brash. Definitely not when the British were still tied down all over the world and holding on to their Empire. He had to think long-term. Patton cared not about casualties only winning. He was lucky the Wehrmacht didn't have more divisions facing him and faced a dire fuel situation meaning they were forced into static warfare being out of options. Despite this he earned the not-to-flattering nick name "Old Blood'n guts" by his own troops knowing he'd gladly sacrifice quite the number of them for "glory". And if you think he was just ordered to stay in Britain to command ghost divisions just for slapping a private for cowardice you're wrong. Eisenhower was obviously worried he might become more a liability than an asset for the allies with some of his blunders in Italy - most of which his gung-ho propagators conveniently forget or ignore as "mere hick-ups". And whoever believed that re-arming totally war-tired and depleted German forces and starting another huge war with the war economy already going into a critical phase by 1945 to march to Moscow has no business being called a "great leader". More like a vigilante who benefited hugely from facing an enemy a mere shadow of its former self and mostly being tied down on the Eastern Front anyway. 192 German divisions on the Eastern Front in June 1944. 66 in France. Let's just say that the Germans had their priorities clear what they needed to focus on. Last of all. It's a Hollywood myth and your die-hard gung-ho urban history that claims Patton was feared by the Germans. They barely mentioned him in their strategic meetings and were far more worried about the number of planes and ships the allies had. You can't just magically conjure up precious minerals, metals and oil and other commodities you don't have out of the blue can you? Nazi Germany was aware of this even before the war. Believe what you will but the truly great ones are judged against other greats in comparable conditions. Greats have a wide variety of qualities. Adaptability. Long-term insight. Above all connection with reality. A let-me-at-em' rogue trying to play the loudest song at a party that has been going on for a while before his arrival isn't. Next you'll be trying to convince us Patton would be able to magically cut down all the dense landscape of Normandie and magically coax up roads, harbors and extra logistics the allies didn't have - despite being well ahead of the Germans in this regard. Yeah, he would have beaten the Germans in half the time had he just been in Normandie himself. Right.
@@elfhighmage8240 What US historian Harry Yeide wrote of what the Germans thought of Patton: ♦ for most of the war the Germans barely took notice [of Patton]. ♦ on March 23 at the Battle of El Guettar-the first American victory against the experienced Germans. Patton’s momentum, however, was short-lived: Axis troops held him to virtually no gain until April 7, when they withdrew under threat from British Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth Army. ♦ There is no indication in the surviving German military records-which include intelligence reports at the theater, army, and division levels-that Patton’s enemies had any idea who he was at the time. Likewise, the immediate postwar accounts of the German commanders in Tunisia, written for the U.S. Army’s History Division, ignore Patton. Those reports show that ground commanders considered II Corps’s attacks under Patton to have been hesitant, and to have missed great opportunities. ♦ In mid-June [1943], another detachment report described Patton as “an energetic and responsibility-loving command personality”-a passing comment on one of the numerous Allied commanders. Patton simply had not yet done anything particularly noteworthy in their eyes. ♦ But his race to Palermo through country they had already abandoned left the commanders unimpressed. Major General Eberhard Rodt, who led the 15th Panzergrenadier Division against Patton’s troops during the Allied push toward Messina, thought the American Seventh Army fought hesitantly and predictably. He wrote in an immediate postwar report on Sicily, “The enemy very often conducted his movements systematically, and only attacked after a heavy artillery preparation when he believed he had broken our resistance. This kept him regularly from exploiting the weakness of our situation and gave me the opportunity to consolidate dangerous situations.” Once again, Patton finished a campaign without impressing his opponents. ♦ General Hermann Balck, who took command of Army Group G in September, thus did not think highly of Patton-or any other opposing commanders-during this time. Balck wrote to his commander, Runstedt, on October 10, “I have never been in command of such irregularly assembled and ill-equipped troops. The fact that we have been able to straighten out the situation again…can only be attributed to the bad and hesitating command of the Americans” Looking back on his battles against Patton throughout the autumn, in 1979 Balck recalled, “Within my zone, the Americans never once exploited a success. Often [General Friedrich Wilhelm von] Mellenthin, my chief of staff, and I would stand in front of the map and say, ‘Patton is helping us; he failed to exploit another success.’” ♦ The commander of the Fifth Panzer Army, Hasso von Manteuffel, aimed a dismissive, indirect critique at Patton’s efforts at Bastogne, writing in his memoirs that the Americans did not “strike with full élan.” The commanders who fought against Patton in his last two mobile campaigns in the Saar-Palatinate and east of the Rhine already knew they could not win; their losses from this point forward were inevitable, regardless of the commanding Allied opponent. ♦ the Germans offered Patton faint praise during and immediately after the war. ♦ posterity deserves fact and not myth. The Germans did not track Patton’s movements as the key to Allied intentions. Hitler does not appear to have thought often of Patton, if at all. The Germans considered Patton a hesitant commanding general in the scrum of position warfare. They never raised his name in the context of worthy strategists.
Churchill? WINSTON?! Yeah, calling the prime minister by his first & last name?! Who the HELL wrote the script to this movie?! Monty WAS a coincided, ego maniac but I HIGHLY doubt he ever disrespected Churchill like that! At least not to his face!
It seems as if Churchill feared another Gallipolli fiasco. Not sure why. He was chiefly responsible for Gallipolli by being the First Lord of the Admiralty and proposing the attack on the Dardanelles in 1915. This time however the responsibility of a failed invasion would be on Eisenhower. That being said I have good reason to believe he was far more optimistic in reality. You see by the summer 1944 the Wehrmacht had been on the retreat from the Eastern Front for a year and the Soviets had driven them back close to the borders of Poland. While it may have not been known at the time a whopping 192 German divisions were tied down from Finland in the north to Romania in the south trying to hold a long eastern front. Only 66 German divisions were in France in June 1944. Compare that to the 210 German divisions in France 1940. *There would be a whole lot less Germans to fight this time* . Most of the Germans in France were concentrated around Calais because everything pointed it to being the place of the allied invasion. Allied bombing intensified around Calais to convince the Germans that was indeed their target. Counterespionage fed double-agents false information Calais was to be the landing area. It made the most sense too since the distance was the shortest, the beaches were ideal for invasion and the harbor, railroads and roads highly useful for the allies. Since nobody in the German high command believed Normandie would be the landing area they had the beaches manned by secondary units, shanghaied foreigners (everything from Tatars to Koreans) and older men. Anyways, Churchill couldn't be certain the Germans had fallen for the allied ruse. They had time and time again during the last years of the war though. Operation Mincemeat had been a brilliant deception the Germans swallowed line, hook and sinker. Some facts they knew or were fairly certain of. The allied bombing had reduced the French railway network nigh on useless for the Germans. Without it the Germans would be unable to move troops and equipment sufficiently fast. The allies enjoyed an air superiority which became distinctly more clear every week in 1944. The superiority of the Luftwaffe in 1940 was one of the main reasons the French couldn't organize an effective defense - after all their forces were being strafed and bombed almost at will by the Luftwaffe. This time it would be allies that had all the air-cover and the Germans getting strafed almost at will. The German fuel situation was getting dire in 1944. Needless to say the logistic chain to the Eastern Front and all the tank forces there ate up a lot of fuel. If not for the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti they'd throw in towel in a month. This seems like a bad made-for-tv drama though. Monty would never have addressed his prime minister in such a manner.
Churchill voted against D Day in June against Roosevelt and Stalin. This scene, however inaccurate it might be, shows his reaction to the sidelining of Britain in WW2 and his own irrelevance, onl to be full shown a year later when he lost the general elections to Labour.
Sorry Churchill, I'm afraid Monty is right on this one. They really had the element of surprise and by concentrating forces on those beaches at Normandy gave the Allies a small foothold. The beaches however wasn't the problem despite Omaha beach being a slaughterhouse. It was the Hedgegrow country of Normandy that made it into a Vietnam style quagmire. Perfect for Defence against infantry and tanks. More would die taking Normandy inland Than on the beaches
I wouldnt worry guys. Even if DDay is a total failure, as 1. The Soviets have got the Germans on the run in the East and will be in Berlin within the year and 2. The atomic bomb will be available by August 1945 to drop on Germany which would have ended the war anyway. So D Day and the rest only shorted the war by 3 months, at the cost of how many allied lives? Saved western Europe falling into Soviet hands though, but at a terrible price.
Did not see the movie, am sure it was not accurate, but Churchill was so completely opposed to D-Day..He was constantly arguing to put it off, is why the British started terror bombings, he wanted to delay the second front to try to preserve what was left of the empire, he probably did have these arguments
@John Cornell no, he came around to it because Roosevelt and his own people were pushing it, he was out of options, he no longer had a choice, so yes, maybe once he saw he had choice, he may have been more enthusiastic
@John Cornell What convinced him was that it was clear that unless he finally agreed to open the 2nd front, both Roosevelt and his own generals would turn on him, possibly costing him being Prime Minister
To state that Churchill was constantly arguing to put it off because he was opposed to D-Day is nonsense. Long before D-Day planners knew that the invasion of Europe would be the largest amphibious landing in history and without adequate supplies of fuel, ammunition and weapons any advance would grind to a halt. Dieppe proved that heavily defended ports could not be taken without crippling losses. As early as 1941 plans were drawn up to build transportable harbours and in the late summer of 1943 the Mulberry harbours were still under construction with the winter looming. PLUTO was also under construction and didn't become operational until a month after D-Day. The timing of D-Day was factored around many things but certainly not around Churchill having a notion of preserving "what was left of the empire".
@@dougie1943 Spoken like a person who has no idea what they are talking about.Firebombing was developed and carried out in hopes that it would be perceived as the 2nd front..Churchill so often put off planning D-Day so he could pursue the soft underbelly strategy in the Mediterranean that his own military was arguing with him over it..Churchill wanted to preserve the empire and English influence..
Churchill certainly had reservations about across channel invasion he didn't see the need for it as we'd already invaded Italy but the Italian campaign it becomes stagnant and the Americans never saw the war being won from Italy they were always gonna go across the channel eventually Churchill put his reservations aside and completely supported the operation by then the Americans were dominating the war anyway in Britain had become a junior partner it is unlikely certainly the Montgomery and Churchill would ever have had such a confrontation and Monty would certainly never have called the prime minister a trader if we had he would certainly have lost his job
