Battle of El Alamein: A look at the life of one of Britain’s greatest generals

With his jaunty beret and plucky spirit, he was an iconic figure in Britain’s brave struggle to defeat Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

It’s 75 years since General Bernard Montgomery, better known as “Monty ”, led the Eighth Army to triumph at the Battle of El Alamein.

The decisive victory, in the desert campaign of North Africa, helped turn the tide of the conflict against Hitler, raising morale at home and making Monty a national hero.

Standing 5ft 7in tall, weighing 10 stone and with a somewhat squeaky voice, Monty did not fit the stereotypical mould of military leaders.

Yet he would become one of Britain’s most feted commanders to rank alongside the likes of the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Lord Nelson.

Born in 1887, in Kennington, Surrey, he endured what he described as an “unhappy ” childhood.

Much of the first 13 years of his life were spent in Australia where his father Henry had been made Bishop of Tasmania.

Monty recalled that his mother Maud was a tyrant who would regularly beat him.

But from those early days Montgomery showed the strong will, defiance of authority and unconventional thinking that would come to characterise his later career.

When the family moved back to Britain he was dubbed “monkey ” for his unusual tactics on the school sports field where he excelled.

And after winning a place at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst he was almost ejected for setting light to another cadet’s shirt tails.

In 1908 he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a second lieutenant and while he was stationed in India he sometimes annoyed his superiors.

On one occasion he defied orders not to embarrass the crew of a visiting German cruiser in a friendly football match, instead fielding the best team he could find and defeating the opposition 40-nil.

However, Monty was obsessed by soldiering and when the First World War broke out he quickly distinguished himself on the battlefield, being awarded the DSO for gallant leadership. 

In October 1914 during an action in Belgium he was shot through the right lung by a sniper.

A soldier ran to help but was immediately shot dead, collapsing on top of Monty.

After several hours lying injured in no-man’s land he was eventually retrieved but his chances of survival were initially considered to be so poor that his grave was dug.

Having eventually recover ed he went on to serve at the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, finishing the war with the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel.

The conflict had shaped Monty’s view of how an army should be run. He wrote that the “frightful casualties appalled me” and felt that the senior commanders were out of touch with their troops.

Yet he determinedly continued his rapid progress through the ranks, working as an army instructor and rewriting the infantry training manual, as well as serving in Palestine.

Monty, who shunned alcohol and cigarettes, had also appeared to show little interest in the opposite sex until, aged 38, he fell for the charms of a blonde 17-year-old while on a seaside holiday in France.

His courtship tactics, which included drawing pictures in the sand of how he would employ his tanks in battle, unfortunately failed to win her over.

But in 1927 Monty married a widow and mother of two, Betty Carver, and the pair had a son together, David.

Tragically, his wife was to die a decade later after an insect bite became infected.

A heartbroken Monty threw himself into his army career with even greater zeal.

When the Second World War broke out he won praise for overseeing the evacuation of troops at Dunkirk and was given a post helping to prepare Britain’s home defence forces.

Already considered a maverick, Prime Minister Winston Churchill described him as “a little man on the make” but admired Monty’s energy.

By August 1942, the threat of invasion had receded but the PM was desperate for a significant military victory on land.

German and Italian forces under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – the Desert Fox – had pushed the Allied armies back eastwards across the North African desert threatening Cairo and the Suez Canal.

And although their advance had been halted at the village of El Alamein, Churchill ordered a shakeup of command.

Monty landed the job of leading the Eighth Army.

Now a lieutenant-general he quickly announced a reversal of his predecessor’s strategy, declaring: “If we are attacked then there will be no retreat. If we cannot stay here alive then we will stay here dead.”

Monty then set about raising morale by visiting the troops, distributing cigarettes and exuding confidence as he reassured them that “the bad times are over ”.

He further endeared himself to his men by trading his officer’s cap for the black beret of the Royal Tank Regiment, which was to become his trademark.

Unorthodox and eccentric, legend has it that the expression “Full Monty” came from his insistence on eating a full English breakfast each morning on campaign.

He would even name his dogs Rommel and Hitler.

That autumn Monty began planning to go on the offensive vowing to “hit Rommel for six right out of Africa ”.

But to “guarantee success” he waited, demanding extra training and bolstering his forces with reinforcements and new equipment.

By the start of the action on October 23 , Monty’s forces numbered 200,000 men and 1,300 tanks which ensured the British forces outnumber ed the enemy by nearly two to one.

They also had air superiority . Battle began with a huge Allied bombardment using 900 guns, followed by an infantry advance and mine-clearing to make way for his armoured divisions – the famous Desert Rats.

After 12 days of intensely fierce fighting the Allies had taken 13,000 casualties but the Axis had suffered more than 50,000 and began to retreat.

It was a knockout blow from which the Afrika Korps never really recovered.

Churchill ordered that church bells should be rung across Britain, heralding the victory as the “end of the beginning”.

Monty was then made a full general and subsequently knighted.

He went on to help mastermind the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 and also took command of the land forces in Normandy following D-Day in 1944.

Monty tussled with his boss, US General Dwight Eisenhower, but the American admired his military abilities and the devotion accorded to him by his men.

However, Montgomery’s reputation took a dent when Operation Market Garden, a plan to shorten the war by using airborne forces to seize key bridges, faltered.

But as Field Marshal he would continue the push across the Rhine and take the surrender of German forces at Lüneberg in May 1945.

Today it seems strange that Montgomery would later lend his nickname to a comedy troupe – Monty Python – for he had a prickly personality and a knack of always rubbing fellow officers up the wrong way.

Churchill quipped that he was “in defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable”.

Monty was certainly vain.

When once asked to name the three generals he most admired he replied: “The other two would be Alexander the Great and Napoleon.”

But no one could doubt his resolve, with the writer George Bernard Shaw memorably describing him as “that intensely compacted hank of steel wire ”.

After the war Monty was made Commander in Chief of the British Army of Occupation, worked for Nato and took the title Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

He died in 1976, aged 89, at the Hampshire home he had restored using lumber given to him by the grateful governments of Australia and New Zealand.

A liberated French village even changed its name to Colleville-Montgomery in his honour.

Monty remains a controversial figure whose campaign record is hotly debated by historians, as is the suggestion that he was a repressed homosexual – although there is little evidence to back up this theory .

However, it is difficult to argue with the verdict of Arthur “Bomber” Harris that Monty was “a soldier who knew his onions”.

Perhaps the words of Churchill on Monty’s most famous battle are his best epitaph: “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”