Montgomery, the Nemesis of the Desert Fox, a cautious and thoughtful British general, of course, he is far less famous than his opponent, Rommel, whose tactics are also the same, but he can defeat the cunning Rommel many times in North Africa.
When people talk about the North African campaign, they tend to regret Rommel's defeat. But Montgomery was not incompetent, and his appearance turned the tide of the War in North Africa for the Anglo-American Allies and successfully broke the Axis strategic goal of seizing African oil.
Rommel and Montgomery first met in September 1942, when the Situation in North Africa was arguably very bad, with the famous General Wellwell being beaten to the teeth by Rommel, and the successor British General Auchin lakeke barely stabilizing the situation, but unable to defeat the Axis forces.
So British Prime Minister Winston Churchill came up with his last killer, appointing the scheming Harold Acrylica as commander of the Afrika Korps, and the grumpy new general William Gott commanded the 8th Army, and they went to kill the nasty "Desert Fox".
This appointment showed Churchill's intention to break the net with Rommel and not drive the Axis out of Africa, and the Allies would never have peace in North Africa.
However, Churchill received the news of the death of General Gort on August 8, it turned out that the unlucky Gott was attacked by German fighters when he was flying to Cairo, and the pilot successfully forced a landing when both engines were turned off, but the German pilots disregarded the interception of the British fighters and fired wildly at the British transport planes that were forced to land, and finally General Gott was unfortunately killed.
In desperation, Churchill could only use Montgomery, which had served in India and Pakistan for a long time, and it is worth mentioning that Montgomery, in addition to his experience in desert environment warfare and World War I, mainly fought some security wars in India throughout the 30s. If there is a merit to be made of this general, it is to make caution his motto.
Montgomery is said to have said when he was commissioned: "After an easy war, things have become more difficult." His colleagues thought he was frightened and tried to persuade him to cheer himself up, but Montgomery told his colleagues, "I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about Rommel!" ”。
Montgomery took up his post in North Africa, and his first task after taking over the 8th Army was to stabilize the Alam Halfa Heights, and his opponent was none other than Rommel!
Rommel opened a huge encirclement net here, the Italian army launched an attack on the British left flank, the German army launched an attack on the right flank of the British army, this is the classic blitzkrieg - pincer offensive tactics, if the British do not want to be surrounded, they can only choose to retreat, and the German army can drive the retreating British army to destroy them one by one.
Montgomery made one of the most difficult decisions of his life in the face of a major crisis, ordering the retreat of his troops strictly forbidden, reinforcing his defenses on the spot to block the Nazi offensive, and asking Alexander for reinforcements. He blocked all hopes that the Germans would attack the heights, rather than imposing a full encirclement of the heights.
At that time, all the senior British generals thought Montgomery was crazy, but Montgomery won the bet, and the Axis army did not fully implement the encirclement, but turned the offensive to launch an attack on the heights, and the originally deployed mines played a role, and the British resisted the attack.
The existence of the minefield completely exceeded Rommel's expectations, he did not expect that the British army would deploy a large minefield, and as a result, the German and Italian armies lost a lot of tanks and vehicles, and had to withdraw from the battle. If Montgomery had attacked at this time, he would have been able to annihilate the retreating Germans and Italians, who had the numerical superiority.
But he did not attack, and Montgomery explained afterwards that a hasty counterattack would only lead to failure, and it was impossible to judge whether Rommel was luring the enemy, so it was safer to wait for the large army to assemble and then launch a counterattack.
From this, it can be seen that Rommel is more inclined to take risks and play cards according to common sense, commanding troops flexibly, although always unexpected, but not always lucky, and sometimes accidentally adding to his own troubles, such as suddenly rushing into the minefield deployed by the British army.
Montgomery, on the other hand, was a steady, cautious general who did not seek merit but no fault, and he tended to avoid unnecessary risks and reduce casualties.
In the first round, Rommel lost the attack, and Montgomery won. Next, we moved on to the second round of battle, the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Montgomery's forces at the Battle of El Alamein were still overwhelmingly superior, with nearly 200,000 troops and 1,029 tanks. Rommel, on the other hand, had only about 110,000 men and 547 tanks. The difference in the number of artillery pieces between the two sides was also very large, montgomery had more than 900 guns of various types, and Rommel had less than 600 guns combined. It can be said that the gap between the two sides is very different, and Rommel has almost no chance of winning the battle.
At the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein, Rommel himself was recuperating in Germany, commanded by his deputy, General Stumm. The general was not very good-tempered, and his long-term combat spirit in North Africa was highly nervous, and since Rommel was gone, all the heavy responsibilities were pressed on his shoulders, and his body was in a state of exhaustion.
When the news of Montgomery's attack reached the German Afrika Korps Command, General Stump, not knowing whether he was overly excited or too frightened, had a heart attack, rolled his eyes, stomped on his legs, and gasped. Still recuperating, Rommel was dragged straight out of the hospital by Hitler and had to fly back to North Africa in a hurry to direct the battle.
As soon as Rommel landed, he was dumbfounded, the British Eighth Army launched an all-out attack completely based on its absolute superiority in troops, a group of British boys followed the tanks to launch a fierce attack on the German positions, the British artillery fire was also very fierce, and the bombers patronized the German positions from time to time.
Rommel managed to launch a flanking counterattack against the British Eighth Army in the hope of containing the enemy's offensive, but the counterattack was unsuccessful, and he had to lead his troops to retreat to the Italian-controlled Mares Line before being encircled. Montgomery's forces pursued them desperately, and the British Air Force pursued Rommel desperately. The Germans tried their best to break through the blockade 8 times, and finally managed to escape back to the Maress Line.
The last time Rommel and Montgomery fought was at the Battle of Catherine Pass, in which Rommel seized the shortcomings of the first official confrontation between the American army and the German army, most of the troops were impatient and arrogant and lacked actual combat experience, and implemented a one-by-one breakdown tactic against the American army, pressing the US First Panzer Division to the ground and rubbing, and also seized the US front line base and multiple supply positions, turning the situation around for a time seemed to be victory in sight.
Montgomery saw through Rommel's next attack and lured himself into the Mares Line, so he ordered his troops to immediately lay mines to build anti-tank positions and use anti-aircraft guns against German tanks.
Sure enough, the German armored forces quickly killed the British, and as a result, they plunged into the anti-tank fire network of the British minefield, and the German armored division responsible for luring the enemy lost 50 tanks and more than 600 officers and men in an instant, and had to retreat in a panic.
In the end, he could only reluctantly withdraw from North Africa under Hitler's scolding, but Montgomery's deployment attracted the attention of Rommel, who was responsible for building the French part of the Atlantic Defense Line, and built a large area of deep minefields, causing considerable losses to the Allies.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
As far as the records of the two sides are concerned, although Montgomery defeated Rommel several times, he could not put the Axis North African cluster to death, and several victories were won by absolute superiority in strength. If the strength of the two sides is equal, perhaps the victory will be Rommel. But it is worth affirming that Montgomery showed great composure and calmness in North Africa, dealing with various surprise attacks by Rommel with no change, and finally turning the allied war situation in North Africa.
bibliography:
The Biography of Montgomery
The Story of Montgomery and the Allies
A Line in the Desert: Montgomery