The Great War threw up an overwhelming rhetoric of modernity and futurism, which led to some very grave consequences when it came to preparing for the next war. The most dramatic example of this perhaps lay in the role of strategic bombing, where technologically primitive air forces somehow managed to persuade the British and some other governments that they could destroy cities in a few hours, and that defence was quite impossible. The 1930s belief that ‘the bomber will always get through’ led to a massive diversion of funds away from battlefield weapons into strategic bombers which, by 1939, were vulnerable to fighters, still very inaccurate and almost negligible in their ability to damage the enemy war effort. It took the best part of five years’ combat for bomber technology to catch up with the pre-war claims that had been made for it, during which time the men who had to ‘go over the top’ in this new battle of attrition were shot down like their predecessors in the infantry of the Great War. It is a bitter irony that the RAF could claim most of its many privileges by promising effective long-range attacks on Germany, yet in fact won its most obvious victory by destroying German bombers in the skies over Britain.45
If air forces were the most vociferous purveyors of over-optimistic futurism, the armoured forces were not so very far behind. In the mid-1930s the CIGS, General Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, followed most of army opinion in setting aside the horse and the purely colonial role in favour of a mechanised all-arms battle in Europe.46 His reasonable and realistic views had a narrow tightrope to walk, however, since they were beset simultaneously from two sides. On one hand they had to beat off pessimists like Liddell Hart, whose fear of a new war and a new Passchendaele had led him into excessive reliance on standoff aerial bombardment.47 This opinion was particularly influential with the Treasury between 1937 and 1939, when army funding was seriously cut. It meant that at the start of the war Britain had only two armoured divisions, and no factory capable of making modern heavy tanks.48 Indeed, it would not be until March 1945 – long after the proverbial horse had bolted – that a really satisfactory main battle tank would eventually be fielded.
On the other hand, the reasonable middle ground was simultaneously under pressure from the Royal Tank Corps itself, where Fuller’s disciples were preaching a futuristic ‘all-tank’ doctrine that left little room for the other arms. In Egypt Percy Hobart taught something like this to the nascent 7th Armoured Division until he was sacked for his obsession;49 and similar views found their way into both the thinking and the official manuals of the whole armoured corps.50 The idea was to get right away from the slow, complex and frustrating warfare of the trenches, and embrace independent manoeuvres in the open spaces – stylish, opportunistic and decisive. Fuller had sometimes described tanks as ‘land battleships’ operating like a fleet at sea,51 while many were the subalterns who had thrilled to Lawrence’s tales of desert raiding with the Bedouin. Classical theories of war were clearly obsolete in the new age of fast-moving, tracked steel cavalry!
The ‘all-tank’ ideology scarcely seemed to matter in the 1940 French campaign, where only one British armoured brigade could be effectively brought into action. On the contrary, the Germans’ victory was often erroneously attributed exclusively to their tanks, which for good measure were also – scarcely correctly – assumed to be technically vastly superior to those of the allies.52 Nor was emphasis on the tank pernicious in O’Connor’s brilliant desert campaign, fought against the Italians over the following Christmas and New Year. He commanded acclimatised veterans who knew enough of their business to moderate dogma by common sense; so he was able to insist on the ‘proper application of the three arms’ in each of his battles. For example, the culminating fight at Beda Fomm was opened and sustained for the vital first four hours by ‘Combeforce’ – a small column containing armoured cars, infantry, anti-tank and field guns – but no tanks at all.53
After Beda Fomm, however, Rommel arrived with a solidly organised all-arms force, just as the British rotated their experienced formations out of the line. The brunt of the battle had to be borne by fresh troops starting almost from scratch, and basing their tactics only upon press speculation, theoretical manuals and rumour. Since the power of the tank and the romantic appeal of small raiding columns seemed to be central to desert lore, it was around those two features that most unit commanders wanted to centre their methods.
Despite considerable self-congratulation by both sides, however,54 the supposed ‘purity’ of the armoured battle in the desert was ultimately an illusion. Rommel did admittedly enjoy an immense advantage over his compatriots in Europe, insofar as his command contained no horsed transport or gun teams. Nevertheless, his mobile spearhead of three armoured and two motor divisions was always counter-balanced by five or six infantry divisions.55 This infantry was expected to be able to sustain itself without tank support,56 in defensive positions or set-piece assault operations, leaving the armour free to fight its own opportunist war of manoœuvre elsewhere. Within each Panzer Division, however, there was also the equivalent of one infantry and one artillery regiment, as well as the armoured regiment itself, making two to four infantry battalions supporting two tank battalions.57 Hence the division contained adequate resources to undertake combats of every type and in every phase of operations – at least within a somewhat restricted frontage. German practice, furthermore, dictated that it should fight well concentrated whenever possible, with the artillery well to the fore.58
On the allied side the distinction between ‘armour’ and ‘infantry’ was seen in rather different terms. In essence, the tank was placed on a higher pedestal within both the armoured and the infantry divisions than was the case in the Axis armies: there seemed to be a quite widespread feeling that once friendly tanks had arrived on the battlefield everyone else could relax. The British maintained only around one active Armoured Division in the desert theatre until the start of 1942 – but it normally contained an enormous number of tanks. In the ‘Crusader’ operation of November 1941, 7th Armoured Division put no less than 480 tanks into the field, split into three armoured brigades each of three tank battalions. Each brigade thus had more tanks than a whole Panzer Division. Supporting all these tanks, however, the British division contained only three infantry battalions and little more artillery than could be found in a German division. From these we may further discount the divisional ‘support group’ since, in the dispersed penny-packet fights so dear to the desert cavalry, it often fell behind the armour and missed the battles. The level of infantry and artillery normally available to the British tanks can therefore be described as almost negligible. Each brigade contained only about two infantry companies and 16 field guns.59
21st Panzer Division, November 1941.
7th Armoured Division, November 1941.
As if to compensate for this ‘tank-heavy’ armoured division, the British would normally attach independent, heavy but slow-moving, ‘I’ tank60 brigades and regiments to their infantry formations. Unlike their opponents, they were not usually happy for infantry to fight without any armoured support at all, but instead tended to give it more than the case actually warranted.61 This habit may be attributed not only to the inflated prestige enjoyed by the tank itself, but also to the relatively poor quality and quantity of the towed anti-tank artillery available to the British before the summer of 1942. A notorious despondency followed any removal of close-support armour, since the Afrika Korps had overrun all too many British infantry formations for there to be any complacency on that particular point.
Diametrically opposite to the Germans in their concepts, therefore, the British fielded armoured formations, for a ‘cavalry’ role, that were highly mobile but terribly fragile – while their infantry divisions, if supported by a good ‘I’ tank brigade, could be expected to achieve almost as much as the Panzer Divisions, albeit at a much slower pace. The Germans thus placed most of their emphasis on their armoured spearheads as opposed to their infantry divisions, whereas it was the infantry division which tended t
o be seen as the predominant formation within Eighth Army.62 For the British it was to be a characteristically ‘infantry’ style of warfare which emerged from the desert campaign, and it was to be Montgomery the methodical infanteer who became their greatest captain.
This is not to say that the British particularly wanted the war to become dominated by infantry, since we have already glimpsed their initially deep faith in the tank and dislike of static attritional combat. Their problem was rather that in the eighteen months following Beda Fomm in February 1941, the tank did not seem capable of delivering a convincing offensive. Once Rommel had established siege lines around Tobruk, he proved frustratingly difficult to dislodge. When he was finally pushed back in December, it was only after a distinctly Pyrrhic63 British victory in the ‘Crusader’ operation, which was soon reversed in humiliating disaster at Gazala. This in turn led to defensive battles at First Alamein and Alam Haifa, and it was only in October 1942, at Second Alamein, that the Eighth Army began to roll convincingly westwards. Since it had enjoyed at least a three to two superiority in tank numbers throughout most of the period, it could surely be forgiven for believing that this particular weapon was something less than the total key to successful offensive action that had originally been promised.
Montgomery’s contribution was to condemn panaceas and remind the army of the continuity of tactical principles, the ‘proper application of the three arms’, and firm centralised control. Out of the window went the last vestiges of the all-tank armoured division.64 Out went the freedom of formation commanders to pick and choose their manoeuvres as they wished. Out went the tiny independent ‘Jock columns’ that used to dash around the desert looking impressive but – after Combeforce’s epic stand at Beda Fomm – rarely achieving a great deal. Montgomery even reversed Auchinleck’s quite sensible desire to fight by brigade groups, which had performed well at First Alamein and elsewhere. He believed that they contained inadequate supporting arms and services and, by neglecting the principle of concentration, led to defeat in detail. He therefore designated the Division, united in one place and with all its assets available, as the basic tactical unit.65 This was a more cumbersome solution than Auchinleck’s, and did not long survive in practice; but it was intended to ensure that centralised control could be maintained and sufficient resources brought to bear in each engagement. Distressingly, however, it also helped to move combat back to the type of protracted frontal slugging that had been so roundly reviled in the Great War. In its new guise, this could be made almost acceptable only by a realistic promise that victory would eventually be inevitable.
7th Armoured Division, November 1942.
Montgomery always wanted to reassure his men that everything was totally under control. His approach drew on the old infantry principle of imitating a parrot climbing the wall of its cage – with two feet always secure before the next forward reach with the beak. He certainly wanted to seize the initiative and force the enemy into predictable reactions;66 but within that framework he would deliberately set realistic targets that his men could attain at relatively low risk. This approach worked well in ordinary circumstances, but was less successful when it came to moving predominantly armoured formations forward into speculative ventures on the far side of predominantly infantry battles. No less than his predecessors, he seems to have retained a rather rigid view of how ‘armoured’ action should be conceptually separate from ‘infantry’ action. As in the Great War, in fact, he wanted the cavalry to be kept back as a corps de chasse or masse de manoeuvre,67 ready to spring blithely through ‘the G in Gap’68 once the gap had been made. Also as in the Great War, he encountered serious practical problems of timing, logistics and traffic control when that sublime moment actually arrived. After experiencing this, Haig had called for his cavalry to be more closely integrated as a rearward portion of the assault itself, but this advice had not been heeded either at the time or later in the Second World War.69 The legacy was that at Alamein the armoured formation commanders who were passed forward through the infantry
… feared that their tanks, on emerging from a minefield, would come under effective fire from anti-tank guns sited for the purpose and dug in. In fact this happened again and again, for the British armour frequently failed to make full use of the supporting arms.70
At Alamein the armoured corps was at first even given a defensive role upon emerging on the far side of the infantry battle. They were supposed to cover the ‘crumbling’ of the German defences, in rather the same way that the Egyptian anti-tank screens were deployed in 1973 to cover the reduction of the Bar Lev line. They failed to give full satisfaction, however, and later in the battle they were pulled back,71 regrouped and switched to passing through a new assault – ‘Supercharge’ – which also at first fell short of a total breakthrough. The corps de chasse was finally able to move into full pursuit only after the Germans had started to retreat – but then it rapidly fragmented, ran out of supplies and was stymied by the enemy rearguard. Even though Montgomery would be able to claim an impressive mobile victory when X Corps outflanked the Mareth Line in May 1943, his general experience of massed armour at Alamein had been less than happy. In January 1944 he even flatly stated ‘I will never employ an armoured corps’,72 which seemed to preclude any further use of a corps de chasse.
This resolution did not long survive D Day, however, and in Normandy there were several new attempts at a massed armoured breakout. Nevertheless, the pre-planned infantry and artillery preparations usually failed to go deep enough, leaving the enemy with plenty of time to reinforce defensive screens further to the rear. Operation ‘Goodwood’ was perhaps the most spectacular example of this, but there were others.73 Tanks were
too often … exhorted to dash forward when everything else had gone wrong and the main enemy defence had hardly been touched. The result was that when opportunities really did occur and when the opposition really was weak, the infantry commanders were not prepared to put their trust in exploiting tactics, preferring to plod on with successive “well laid-on” attacks and many of the tank soldiers by that time were chary of doing it anyway.74
The final breakout came only in operation ‘Cobra’, on the American front just south of St Lô, where by 27 July two days of carpet bombing and intense infantry attacks had almost worn a gap in a much weakened German defence which lacked its customary depth. Flying in the face of many earlier experiences, General Collins now successfully gambled that the gap could be fully opened by an armoured assault. His tanks started to roll, aiming to halt and consolidate at Coutances; however, in the event it was found that Patton’s VIII Corps could pass through, exploit in great depth and take on the full mantle of corps de chasse that had so long eluded the British.75 Patton was able to motor through France, preempting battle as the Germans had done in 1939–41, until finally bogging down on the fortified fields of Gravelotte, outside Metz.
It has often been stressed that Montgomery was ‘cautious and methodical’, but in fact that is not the whole story, since in most of his battles he initially set a very optimistic and demanding timetable for the attack. Although he correctly estimated that the whole battle of Alamein would last 10–12 days, he expected the main enemy position to be breached in the first night. The armour intended to move through the gap, to cover it from the far side, was set in motion only four hours after the initial offensive began.76 Again, in both operation ‘Market-Garden’ and the battle of the Reichswald, XXX Corps’ spearhead had to pass down a single long road within three days fom H Hour, when in fact it needed, respectively, a fortnight and a month.77
In Normandy Montgomery was more ambitious still, since he wanted Caen to be seized on D Day itself, as part of an almost instantaneous transition from infantry landings and beach-clearing to a phase where ‘great armoured columns’ would sweep inland ‘to seize objectives and to keep the enemy unbalanced’.78 This was partly because everyone, especially Churchill, had learned from Anzio that it is vital to move off the beaches at top spe
ed;79 but it was also a far from unique instance of Montgomery trying to overrule difficulties by willpower alone. Anzio had highlighted some very important potential sources of delay in amphibious operations, but they were no more allowed to modify the CiC’s timetable than would other predictable obstacles at ‘Goodwood’ or ‘Market-Garden’.
Montgomery’s reputation for caution is surely based not on his original intentions in these battles, but on the painstaking slowness with which they actually unfolded. It was one thing to designate ambitious objectives, but quite another to achieve them quickly. Yet we do not think of Haig as ‘cautious’ when, although he ordered and expected a breakthrough on the Somme on 1 July 1916, his battle actually continued until half-way through November. We tend to think of his long battle more as an act of recklessness or waste. We are suspicious of protestations that it was constructive after all, just because it ‘wrote down’ the enemy strength or helped our allies to make progress elsewhere. Where, then, is the secret of Montgomery’s reputation as an effective commander in the offensive? Presumably it lies in the fact that each of his battles – apart from ‘Market-Garden’, for which he is accused, precisely, of recklessness – eventually led to a significant bound forward. This allowed the defeats, delays and frustrations of the fighting to be accepted after the event as intended parts of the plan. He himself systematically sought to reinforce this impression, and to rewrite the history books accordingly.
When he first took over Eighth Army Montgomery had been very anxious to show that, unlike his predecessors, he would not be caught out by one of Rommel’s surprises. He was also keen to give his soldiers the self-confidence of believing that everything was going strictly according to plan. Preparations for the battle of Alam Haifa were based on this,80 from which it was but a short step to a doctrine that every battle should be a predictable, carefully organised and timetabled event. Hence it was, ironically, Montgomery himself who drew his own caricature as a slow-moving and cautious general. It came to be vitally important to him to claim that he always kept ‘balance’ in his battles, which he disarmingly defined as a state whereby ‘it is never necessary to react to the enemy’s thrusts and moves’.81
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