6/8: 20th Century Generalship: 6/8: The Commanders: The Leadership Journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel by Lloyd Clark (Author)
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 2 April 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
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6/8: 20th Century Generalship: 6/8: The Commanders: The Leadership Journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel by Lloyd Clark (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Commanders-Leadership-Journeys-Bernard-Montgomery/dp/0802160220/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IW4D1GLPGRA5&keywords=the+commanders+lloyd+clark&qid=1674136061&s=books&sprefix=THE+COMMANDERS%2Cstripbooks%2C141&sr=1-1
Born in the two decades prior to World War I, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel became among the most recognized and successful military leaders of the 20th century. However, as acclaimed military historian Lloyd Clark reveals in his penetrating and insightful braided chronicle of their lives, they charted very different, often interrupted, paths to their ultimate leadership positions commanding hundreds of thousands of troops during World War II and celebrated as heroes in the United States, Britain, and Germany.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelorette with Professor Lloyd Clark, the leadership journey of George Patton, |
| 0:10.8 | Bernard McCummery and Erwin Rommel, the book is in total of the commanders. |
| 0:15.4 | Rommel goes to North Africa in March of 41 and goes to Libya, where we're going to start |
| 0:20.1 | with what we believe to be the successful rise of Bernard McCummery's skill set as a trainer, |
| 0:29.8 | as a lecturer, as a scholar of the battlefield, a man who pictures things in his mind before he |
| 0:38.0 | gives the order and he's not looking for debate, he's not looking for another method or committee work. |
| 0:44.4 | This is a man who dictates, he had a father who preached and when he gets into the pulpit, |
| 0:51.7 | this is the word of the Lord and it is the word of Bernard McCummery. So Bernard McCummery is a sign |
| 0:58.1 | to the eighth army, my note here, with some expectation that he will be able to turn around what has been |
| 1:08.1 | a catastrophe so far with the Germans and the Italians pushing them around. |
| 1:14.0 | So by January of 42 is my reading here, I'm going pretty fast, by January of August of 42, |
| 1:24.0 | yes, August of January of 42, he takes up the southeastern command, the 100,000, and then he's |
| 1:32.2 | pushed to the eighth army, which is in Cairo, he takes Freddy Diganon, his brother-in-law with him, |
| 1:40.6 | and everybody in the eighth army is curious about this man. What was his reputation before him |
| 1:46.1 | when he joins North Africa? There was not much known about him in the wider army. |
| 1:52.4 | Alan Brooke, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, the head, the professional head of the British |
| 1:57.7 | Army, is his great patron and I think that Montgomery owes a great deal to him. Churchill was |
| 2:04.4 | circumspect about Montgomery, believing that he didn't have the panache, the drive, the risk-taking |
| 2:12.6 | requirements to turn the situation around, but eventually because there was perhaps nobody else |
| 2:18.5 | that was better situated, Montgomery got the job and his task then was to not win over his superiors, |
| 2:25.6 | but to win over eight army, who were completely demoralized. Immediately, he starts planning an attack. |
| 2:30.8 | Was that in order he was given by his superiors? Did Churchill say I'm sending you out there to attack? |
... |
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