Bernard Montgomery
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Celebrated for his victories in North Africa and Europe, Bernard Montgomery built a reputation for meticulous planning and caution that many soldiers admired. But his record was not without controversy, from tense rivalries with his allies to the failed gamble of Operation Market Garden. Was 'Monty' truly one of the war’s great commanders, or has his reputation been shaped by myth and wartime propaganda?
This is the second episode of our "Commanders" series, where we dig into the lives and decisions of five legendary WWII commanders. To guide us through the story of Monty, we're joined by Peter Caddick-Adams, a military historian and author specialising in the Second World War.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:41.2 | It's the 13th of October 1914. It's the 13th of October 1914. |
| 0:47.9 | Autumnnal rain has turned the fields of French Flanders into clinging mud. |
| 0:54.8 | A low grey sky presses down over the frontier between France and Belgium. |
| 1:00.7 | Near the village of Maitre, just a few miles from the medieval cloth hall of Ipra, the British expeditionary force is bracing for yet another clash with the advancing |
| 1:05.2 | German army. Among the officers moving forward through the hedgerows is a 26-year-old lieutenant of the 1st Battalion, |
| 1:13.7 | the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Bernard Law Montgomery. |
| 1:19.4 | It is one of countless junior officers trying to steady their exhausted men at the end of a long, |
| 1:26.5 | punishing retreat. |
| 1:29.0 | Since August, a small army of professionals at the British descent to France, known as the British |
| 1:33.0 | Expeditionary Force, has been fighting almost continuously. |
| 1:37.7 | It has retreated from Mons. |
| 1:40.6 | It turned and counter-attacked Le Cato. |
| 1:43.5 | It fought along the marne. |
| 1:45.7 | It surged north towards the coast, during the race to the sea, as both sides attempted to outflank each other a desperate scramble across northern France and Belgium. |
... |
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