He clashed with Eisenhower again over how to proceed through Germany. Montgomery energetically advocated a narrow push, a ‘pencil-thrust’, but Eisenhower’s preference for a broad thrust prevailed. Montgomery’s carefully planned airborne assault on Arnhem in 1944 ended disastrously, and was again costly, but his efforts in relieving the beleaguered Americans during the Battle of the Bulge helped restore his reputation.
Montgomery resented Eisenhower being given the responsibility of land operations for the push into Germany. He believed Eisenhower’s ‘ignorance as to how to run a war is absolute and complete’. On 4 May 1945, at Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony, Montgomery formally accepted the surrender of all German forces in North-western Europe.
Post-war, Montgomery worked as Chief of the Imperial General Staff until, in 1951, he joined the newly formed NATO, becoming Deputy Supreme Commander, a post he retained until his retirement seven years later.
When, during his retirement, he was asked to name the three greatest generals in history, he replied, ‘The other two were Alexander the Great and Napoleon.’ He wrote his memoirs in which he criticized many of his former colleagues and commanders.
Bernard Montgomery died on 24 March 1976, aged 88.
ERWIN ROMMEL (1891–1944)
Erwin Rommel
‘We have a very daring and skilful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.’ Winston Churchill on Erwin Rommel.
Born on 15 November 1891, Erwin Rommel was, among the Nazi High Command, one of the few deemed worthy of some admiration. As Churchill suggests, he was respected as a master tactician; the supreme strategist who, in 1940, helped defeat France and the Low Countries and then found lasting fame when sent by Hitler to North Africa where, commanding the Afrika Korps, he earned the sobriquet ‘the Desert Fox’. Germany, his nation, adored him, his troops loved him, Hitler treasured him and his enemies respected him. His Afrika Korps was never charged with any war crimes and prisoners-of-war were treated humanely. When his only son, Manfred, proposed joining the Waffen SS, Rommel forbade it.
In June 1944, Rommel was sent to northern France to help co-ordinate defences against the expected Allied Normandy invasion but was wounded a month later when one of the RAF planes strafed his car. Rommel returned home to Germany to convalesce.
On 20 July 1944, Hitler survived the ‘July Bomb Plot’, the attempt on his life by disaffected Nazi officers. Rommel, although not involved and actively against any plan to assassinate Hitler, did support the idea of having him removed from power. Once his association with the plotters, however tenuous, came to light, his downfall was inevitable and swift.
On 14 October 1944, Hitler dispatched two generals to Rommel’s home to offer the fallen field marshal a bleak choice. Manfred, aged 15, was at home with his mother when the call came. He waited nervously as the three men talked in private, and then as his father went upstairs to speak to his mother. Finally Rommel spoke to his son and told him of Hitler’s deal.
Writing after the war, Manfred, who died in November 2013, described the scene as his father said,
‘I have just had to tell your mother that I shall be dead in a quarter of an hour… The house is surrounded and Hitler is charging me with high treason. In view of my services in Africa I am to have the chance of dying by poison. The two generals have brought it with them. It’s fatal in three seconds. If I accept, none of the usual steps will be taken against my family, that is against you.’
‘Do you believe it?’ asked Manfred.
‘Yes, I believe it. It is very much in their interest to see that the affair does not come out into the open. By the way, I have been charged to put you under a promise of the strictest silence. If a single word of this comes out, they will no longer feel themselves bound by the agreement.’
Manfred continued,
‘The car stood ready. The SS driver swung the door open and stood to attention. My father pushed his Marshal’s baton under his left arm, and with his face calm, gave Aldinger (Rommel’s aide) and me his hand once more before getting in the car… My father did not turn again as the car drove quickly off up the hill and disappeared round a bend in the road. When it had gone Aldinger and I turned and walked silently back into the house.
‘Twenty minutes later the telephone rang. Aldinger lifted the receiver and my father’s death was duly reported.’
Having died from ‘the injuries sustained during the RAF attack in France’, Erwin Rommel was, as promised, buried with full military honours, accorded an official day of mourning, and his family pensioned off.
Writing after the war, Churchill wrote that Rommel was deserving of ‘our respect, because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life.’
CHARLES DE GAULLE (1890–1970)
Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle fought with great distinction during the First World War, and was thrice wounded. At the Battle of Verdun he served under Philippe Pétain, whom he greatly admired and who was to become his mentor. During the battle, on 2 March 1916, de Gaulle was taken prisoner by the Germans. He tried unsuccessfully to escape five times and was only released following the armistice in November 1918.
Following the First World War, he served in Poland, Germany and the Middle East. He became convinced that future wars should rely on tanks and aircraft, thus avoiding the static stalemate of the previous war. Indeed, de Gaulle’s belief in mobile warfare, which he espoused in a number of books, won him many enemies within the French High Command, not least from his old friend, Pétain, and may have been the cause for the lack of further promotion within the army.
With the German invasion of France in 1940, the prime minister, Paul Reynard, appointed de Gaulle to the ministry of war, thus de Gaulle’s military career abruptly gave way to politics.
Having served just ten days in Reynard’s government, de Gaulle fled to England shortly before his country’s surrender to Germany. On his arrival in London, Churchill recognized him as the ‘leader of all free Frenchmen, wherever they may be’.
On 17 June, Reynard was replaced by the 88-year-old Philippe Pétain. Pétain immediately sought an armistice with the Germans, labelled de Gaulle a traitor, had him stripped of his rank and ordered him executed in absentia.
On 18 June, in a broadcast from London, de Gaulle extolled his countrymen to continue the fight, asserting that France was not alone. ‘The flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.’ His words soon spread and became the battle cry of the Free French movement.
De Gaulle became the self-appointed leader of the ‘Free French’. In May 1943, de Gaulle moved to Algiers, a French colony, and there established the French Committee for National Liberation (FCNL). A year later, the ever-confident de Gaulle renamed the FCNL the Provisional Government of the French Republic with him as its president.
Churchill considered de Gaulle a ‘man of destiny’ but their relationship was never an easy one. De Gaulle’s relationship with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt was even worse, the president refusing to acknowledge de Gaulle’s self-appointed political title.
Roosevelt had instructed Churchill to exclude de Gaulle from having any input into the planned invasion of France. On the eve of the invasion, however, Churchill decided that de Gaulle had to be informed. De Gaulle had been angered by Roosevelt’s insistence that come liberation, he planned to install, not a provisional government headed by de Gaulle, but a provisional Allied military government. When Churchill urged de Gaulle to seek a rapprochement with Roosevelt, de Gaulle responded angrily, ‘Why should I lodge my candidacy for power in France with Roosevelt? The French government already exists.’
De Gaulle was asked to broadcast a message to the Free French. But on reading Eisenhower’s speech, due to be delivered before his, de Gaulle was furious that the American made n
o mention of him or the Free French. Finally, however, de Gaulle made his speech.
De Gaulle wanted to return to France at the first possible opportunity. Churchill refused permission until a week after D-Day. On 14 June, almost four years to the day since leaving, de Gaulle set foot on French soil, and, visiting the recently liberated town of Bayeux, was greeted with much enthusiasm.
Two months later, on 25 August, Paris was liberated. The following day, de Gaulle made his triumphant return. In his speech, he proclaimed, ‘Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated! By herself, liberated by her own people, with the help of the whole of France!’
On 10 September 1944, the Provisional Government of the French Republic was formed. At its head as prime minister was Charles de Gaulle. In October, his administration was finally officially recognized by the Allies but de Gaulle was deeply offended that France was not invited to the ‘Big Three’ conferences at Yalta and Potsdam with Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.
On 13 November 1945, following elections, de Gaulle was confirmed in his post as provisional head. However, he didn’t last long. Disillusioned with coalition politics, de Gaulle resigned in January 1946.
Later, in 1958, de Gaulle was elected president and served until his resignation in April 1969.
He died of a heart attack on 9 November 1970, two weeks short of his eightieth birthday. Upon his decease, Georges Pompidou, the new president, announced his predecessor’s death with the words, ‘General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow.’
Appendix 2: Timeline
1939
1 September
Germany invades Poland.
3 September
Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
1940
10 May
Germany invades Western Europe.
26 May
Start of the Allied evacuation from France at Dunkirk.
14 June
German forces occupy Paris.
18 June
Charles de Gaulle broadcasts his ‘Appeal of 18 June’ from London urging the French to continue the fight against the Nazi invaders.
22 June
France surrenders.
11 July
Philippe Pétain, already prime minister, becomes president of the French Vichy government.
1941
22 June
Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.
7 December
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
11 December
War declared on the USA by Germany (and Italy).
1942
23 March
Hitler issues his Führer Directive No. 40, ordering the construction of what became known as the ‘Atlantic Wall’.
19 August
The Allies’ ill-fated Dieppe Raid.
1943
14–24 January
Casablanca Conference at which Churchill and Roosevelt agree that a cross-Channel invasion is a necessity.
March
Frederick Morgan, given the title Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), is charged with the initial planning stages of a cross-Channel invasion, codenamed Overlord.
June
The Allies launch Operation Pointblank, the strategic bombing of Germany by the USAAF and the RAF.
10 July
Allied forces land in Sicily.
August
The Quadrant Conference held in Quebec accepts Morgan’s plans, prioritizes the defeat of Germany over that of Japan, and sets 1 May 1944 as D-Day.
December
General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed the Supreme Commander for the planned invasion of France, and his team, the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) is assembled.
1944
February
Hitler appoints Erwin Rommel to oversee the defence of France.
March
The Allies launch Operation Transportation, the strategic bombing of German facilities in occupied France.
27–8 April
US troops training at Slapton Sands in Devon for the landing at Utah beach are fired upon by friendly fire and a German patrol. Nine hundred and forty-six American servicemen are killed.
May
D-Day is postponed to 5 June.
2 June
The first warships set sail for Normandy from their ports within Britain.
3 June
Rommel, believing poor weather would rule out an invasion, returns home to Germany.
3–4 June
Lancaster bombers destroy the radar station at Urville-Hague near Cherbourg, the Germans’ primary listening station in Normandy.
4 June
Eisenhower postpones D-Day by twenty-four hours. Ships already out at sea are recalled.
At 9.45 p.m., Eisenhower issues his three-word order launching the invasion of Normandy, ‘OK, we’ll go.’
5 June
Eisenhower visits US troops about to embark for the invasion.
US general, Mark Clark, leads the Allied liberation of Rome.
D-Day, 6 June
00:16 hours
British and American gliders and paratroopers drop behind enemy lines into Normandy.
00:35
Pegasus and Horsa bridges secured by British airborne troops.
02:00
First wave of bombers are launched, attacking German targets in France.
03:30
Assault troops begin boarding landing craft.
04:30
British troops capture Merville Battery.
05:30
Allies begin bombardment of the beaches.
06:30
H-Hour on Omaha and Utah beaches.
07:00
The first landing wave on Omaha beach becomes pinned down under heavy enemy fire.
07:30
H-Hour on Sword and Gold beaches.
07:45
H-Hour on Juno beach. On Utah beach, American troops begin advancing inland.
10:15
Rommel is informed of the Allied invasion and hastens back to France.
13:30
On Omaha beach, American troops advance inland.
16:30
The German 21st Panzer Division assaults the Allies at the Sword beachhead.
18:00
British advance towards Caen held back.
23:59
All five Allied beachheads have been secured.
Post D-Day
7 June
British troops capture Bayeux.
10 June
SS soldiers murder inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane.
12 June
Allied troops link up their positions over the five beaches.
13 June
Germany launches the first V-1 attack against London.
19 June
Severe gales destroy the American Mulberry Harbour and damage the British one.
22 June
Stalin launches Operation Bagration, the Soviet Union’s counteroffensive against Germany.
27 June
US troops capture Cherbourg.
2 July
Hitler replaces Karl Gerd von Rundstedt with Günther von Kluge.
9 July
British troops capture Caen.
17 July
Rommel is injured by a British fighter plane and is invalided back to Germany.
20 July
Hitler survives the ‘July Bomb Plot’ assassination attempt at his Wolf’s Lair.
25 July
US Operation Cobra launched.
30 July
American troops capture Avranches.
7 August
German counterattack launched.
12 August
First PLUTO pipeline, running from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, becomes operational.
15 August
Secondary Allied attack, Operation Dragoon, lands in the south of France.
/> 17 August
Kluge commits suicide.
20 August
Falaise Pocket closed.
25 August
Paris liberated.
26 August
De Gaulle returns to Paris.
3 September
Brussels liberated.
8 September
Germany launches the first V-2 against London.
17 September
Start of Operation Market Garden.
14 October
Rommel forced into committing suicide.
21 October
US troops capture Aachen, the first German city to fall into Allied hands.
23 October
The Allies recognize General de Gaulle as the head of France’s provisional government.
2 November
Canadian troops capture Zeebrugge; Belgium is now entirely liberated.
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