Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives

by Peter Caddick-Adams

Overview

“An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters” who famously fought each other in numerous battles during WWII, from Egypt to D-Day (Kirkus).

Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel faced one another in a series of extraordinary battles that established each man as one of the greatest generals in history. Born four years apart, their lives were remarkably similar. Each came from provincial roots, nearly died in WWI, yet emerged from that great conflict with glowing records.

Through their many duels, including their legendary conflicts in North Africa and later at the Normandy D-Day invasion, Peter Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities. Monty and Rommel explores how each general was raised to power by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how the innovative military strategy and thought of both permeate down to today's armies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468309065
Publisher:	ABRAMS, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	653
Sales rank:	627,377
File size:	7 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter Caddick-Adams has been a professional military historian for over twenty years and also served for thirty years in the British Army. He was twice deployed on operations as the UK's official historian in Bosnia and Iraq.

Table of Contents

Maps ix

Prologue xxi

Part 1 Baptism and Fire

1 The Irishman 3

2 The Swabian 15

3 First Combats 30

4 Cheating Death 48

5 Learning the Trade 62

6 Bloody Red Tabs 87

7 The Mountain Lion 95

8 Mud and Mountains 103

9 The Last Year 128

Part 2 Interwar: Preparations

10 Coping with Peace 155

11 Preparing for War 173

Part 3 The Making of Modern Major Generals

12 Phoney War 203

13 Blitzkrieg 220

14 Duel in the Desert I 243

15 Duel in the Desert II: The Battles of El Alamein 268

Part 4 Once More Unto the Breach

16 Two Return to France 311

17 Defending Normandy 338

18 Britain's Last Hurrah! 363

19 Where is Rommel? 381

20 Exploiting the Beachhead 394

21 Plots and Breakouts 417

22 Beyond the Bocage 442

Part 5 The Final Duel: Reputations

23 How Will History Judge Me? 453

24 The Desert Fox Reborn 470

Afterword 487

Notes 501

Bibliography 545

Acknowledgements 577

Chronology 580

Guide to Ranks 589

List of Illustrations 591

Index 593

Editorial Reviews

Bernard Law Montgomery and Erwin Rommel are ideal subjects for a comparative military biography. These two WWII generals confronted each other directly over a significant period of time, under different conditions: the deserts of North Africa and Normandy’s woodlands. Their styles were fundamentally different. Rommel was a master of maneuver; Montgomery excelled in the set-piece battle. Rommel was an improviser; Montgomery was a planner. Rommel was a gambler; Montgomery possessed an infinite capacity for avoiding risk. But Caddick-Adams, a distinguished British military writer and defense analyst, demonstrates as well that the two commanders had much in common. Each understood the strengths and limitations of the armies in which he served and the forces he commanded. Montgomery knew British soldiers could not be made to fight like Germans. Rommel was aware that the Third Reich was waging war on a shoestring and had to take risks for victory. Both lacked political sophistication. Montgomery faced dismissal by Winston Churchill in the war’s final months. Rommel’s misjudgment of Hitler cost him his life. But each was a master of the battlefield, feared and respected by his opponents. Without choosing between them, Caddick-Adams compares Rommel to a bold “modernist painter” and Montgomery to a painstaking “seventeenth-century minimalist.” It is a striking, appropriate conclusion to an excellent book. 40 b&w photos; 10 maps. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Two consummate military men who led their respective countries to victories receive the full-on character treatment by a British military historian. An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters." — Kirkus Reviews

"Bernard Law Montgomery and Erwin Rommel are ideal subjects for a comparative military biography. Without choosing between them, Caddick-Adams compares Rommel to a bold 'modernist painter' and Montgomery to a painstaking 'seventeenth-century minimalist.' It is a striking, appropriate conclusion to an excellent book." — Publishers Weekly

"Behind-the-scenes descriptions that place the reader directly in the action of World War II, the character analysis, and the biographical context are sure to satisfy all curious readers in military biography or World War II history." — Library Journal

"Peter Caddick-Adams's book brilliantly captures the lives and the personalities of these two extraordinary men. In short, Monty and Rommel is not only a first-class work of military history, but one of those books that makes you stop and think, and connect the dots from the past to the present. The author is masterful at bringing alive these two very different (and very difficult) personalities, and has scads of good stories about them . . . Never mind, this is a terrific book, and well worth reading carefully. Unlike most military history it has a certain novelistic depth, and its two major characters are unfailingly interesting." — The Daily Beast

"[A] highly engaging which is stronger on war storytelling than on political analysis, but perhaps wiser than its subjects in recognizing that." — New Yorker

From the Publisher

"Peter Caddick-Adams's book brilliantly captures the lives and the personalities of these two extraordinary men. In short, Monty and Rommel is not only a first-class work of military history, but one of those books that makes you stop and think, and connect the dots from the past to the present. The author is masterful at bringing alive these two very different (and very difficult) personalities, and has scads of good stories about them . . . Never mind, this is a terrific book, and well worth reading carefully. Unlike most military history it has a certain novelistic depth, and its two major characters are unfailingly interesting."

The Daily Beast

Two consummate military men who led their respective countries to victories receive the full-on character treatment by a British military historian. While heavy with military detail, Caddick-Adams' dual biography manages to move fluidly between the events in the two great generals' lives. Bernard Montgomery (1887–1976) and Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) both hailed from middle-class, nonmilitary families; received their "baptism by fire" during battle in World War I and were wounded; wrote tactical textbooks; and were instrumental in their respective countries' battles during World War II in North Africa and Normandy. Though they never met, they shared a similar oppositional temperament in regards to their superiors. Both leaders were happiest on the front line. Rommel only lasted a year (1918) at the General Staff Corps, unlike most of Hitler's later marshals, preferring to teach during the interwar years, and publishing his influential Infantry Attacks, in 1937. Montgomery trained fledging divisions in the Territorial Army, including six years in India. Rommel was put in charge of Hitler's military escort in 1936, then a panzer division in the blitz of France in 1940. Though he had no armored experience, he was spectacularly successful, and again in North Africa. The Normandy invasion caught Rommel "tending his wife's roses in the garden at Herrlingen," while Montgomery led as the highly effective Allied land-force commander. Caddick-Adams emphasizes Rommel's ethical behavior as a war commander, urging Hitler repeatedly to cede a "political situation" in the face of Armageddon, with fatal consequences to his own life. The author considers at length the postwar mythmaking regarding both generals. An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters.

Kirkus Reviews