The Modest King and the Egocentric General

How George VI managed Field Marshal Montgomery, Britain's famously difficult military commander during the Second World War

King George VI with General Bernard Law Montgomery in Tripoli, June 1943

I’ve been in Britain for a week, and as I’ve walked the handsome streets of central London that were once pockmarked by massive German bombing, my thoughts have turned to the Second World War and the upcoming 80^th anniversary of V-E Day on May 8^th. Inevitably those thoughts brought to mind Britain’s most prominent military leader, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, popularly known as “Monty.”

While much has been written about Montgomery’s career, less is known about his dealings with King George VI during the conflict. The King’s diaries that I read in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle—as part of my research for George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy-- offer an illuminating window into his relationship with the man described as “indomitable in retreat, invincible in advance, insufferable in victory.”

Born in November 1887, Monty had been an infantry officer in the British Army since before the First World War. At the Battle of Ypres he nearly died when a sniper’s bullet tore through one of his lungs. He gave up both alcohol and smoking and focused on fitness and discipline—traits he expected from his troops.

A distinctive public persona

He rose steadily through the ranks, serving in Ireland, Palestine, and India, gaining a reputation for detailed preparation and raising morale. But many of his fellow officers were put off by Montgomery’s overweening confidence and abrasive manner. He had a self-aggrandizing habit of taking credit for victories secured by others. He also cultivated a distinctive public persona by wearing a black beret and assumed a down-to-earth image to instill loyalty in his troops. Notwithstanding his eccentricities and personality quirks, his superiors promoted him to major-general in 1938.

As a division commander in the British Expeditionary Force deployed to France after the outbreak of war in September 1939, Monty honed his troops for combat. When the German Blitzkrieg swept through France and the Low Countries in May 1940, he efficiently organized his division’s evacuation from the beaches at Dunkirk under sustained German fire. He was one of the last generals to leave for Britain.

“A highly competent, daring, and energetic soldier”

General Montgomery moved to the foreground for King George VI in August 1942 when Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS)—the British government’s main military adviser and strategist—appointed him commander of Britain’s beleaguered Eighth Army in Egypt. In July, they had fought Axis forces to a stalemate at El Alamein in the western desert and suffered heavy losses. As Montgomery’s commanding officer in France, Brooke had admired his resilience and regarded him as a protégé. When warned about Monty’s brusqueness and arrogance, Churchill said, “In Montgomery we have a highly competent, daring, and energetic soldier….If he is disagreeable to those about him, he is also disagreeable to the enemy.”

The King, however, was dubious when he wrote in his diary on August 8^th, “I wonder how it will work.” Monty, he said, was “very difficult.”