June 6, 1944: Rommel vs Montgomery with Patton in the wings: 3/8: The Commanders: The Leadership Journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel by Lloyd Clark
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 5 June 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
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June 6, 1944: Rommel vs Montgomery with Patton in the wings: 3/8: The Commanders: The Leadership Journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel by Lloyd Clark
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.
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS I in the world. I'm John Batcher with Professor Lloyd Clark, Director of Research |
| 0:09.9 | the Center for Army Leadership at the Royal Military Academy at Sanhurst, as well as Professor |
| 0:15.9 | Royal Research Fellow and War Studies Humanities Research Institute University of Buckingham. |
| 0:21.3 | We're discussing his new book about leadership, which the professor tells me is his critical |
| 0:27.4 | today in the 21st century when we're dealing with drones and robots, as it was in the 19th |
| 0:33.0 | century with cavalry tactics in the 20th century inventing the tank. We go now to George |
| 0:38.5 | Patton. George Patton is part of an army that does not proceed to France immediately in |
| 0:44.3 | 1914. The bloodletting is appalling. In 1917, it is the decision of the President, Mr. Wilson |
| 0:52.4 | and Congress to commit the U.S. to the war. And therefore Patton needs to find a way to the |
| 0:58.1 | battle. He wants to fight. He wants to be a general, and he believes war will make him a general. |
| 1:03.2 | So he appeals to Pershing to take him along in June of 17, which is a year before the U.S. |
| 1:10.1 | really gets into the fight. The spring of 18 is when the U.S. fights, but he goes off as |
| 1:15.5 | imagining himself as a hero. And here in, Professor is striking. I have a note here that Patton |
| 1:24.2 | publishes or writes a brief notes on the Army Regiment of tanks. There early on now, he in |
| 1:34.3 | 1916, 1917, the tank has been invented by the British Army. And Patton is suddenly steered into |
| 1:42.4 | thinking about it. Is it comfortable for him? He is a horseman and a cavalryman by trade. |
| 1:48.1 | I think it is difficult for him as a cavalryman, but not difficult for him as a professional. |
| 1:57.3 | He recognized that change in dures. And then maybe the day of the horse cavalry had passed, |
| 2:04.4 | and that the future was mechanized warfare. But he had to trade, obviously, a very careful line |
| 2:10.2 | when peddling that sort of an argument. And certainly his family, his regimental family, |
| 2:16.0 | would react very badly against that, even if the Army more generally could see the merits in his |
| 2:22.0 | argument. But gradually, we see him play that out very, very carefully and very successful. |
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