August 17th, 1943.
Two columns of dust rose on the winding roads leading to Msina, Sicily.
One flew the Union Jack.
The other flew the Stars and Stripes.
Both commanders had driven their men to exhaustion for weeks, not to defeat the Germans, but to beat each other to the prize.
George S.
Patton sat in his command vehicle, pushing his driver to go faster.
Somewhere on a parallel road, Bernard Montgomery was doing the same thing.
The port city of Msina was the symbolic trophy of the entire Sicilian campaign.
[clears throat] Whoever entered first would claim victory.
Whoever arrived second would spend the rest of the war remembering this humiliation.
And both men knew it.
Patton’s third infantry division reached the outskirts of Msina on the evening of August 16th.
His men pushed through the night fighting exhaustion and scattered German rear guards.
By dawn on August 17th, American soldiers were entering the city.
Montgomery’s troops arrived hours later.
The British general found American flags already flying over Msina.
Patton had won the race, and Montgomery would never forgive him for it.
To understand why these two men despised each other, you have to understand who Montgomery was in the summer of 1943.
He wasn’t just a British general.
He was the British general, the hero of Elamagne, the man who had finally defeated Raml.
Britain had suffered nothing but defeats for three years.
Dunkerk, Greece, Cree, Singapore, Tbrook.
The British army had been humiliated across three continents.
Then Montgomery arrived in North Africa and everything changed.
Elamagne in October 1942 was Britain’s first major land victory of the war.
Churchill called it the end of the beginning.
Montgomery became the most famous British soldier since Wellington.
He was arrogant, theatrical, and absolutely certain he was the finest general alive.
He wore a distinctive black beret with two cap badges.
He issued personal messages to his troops.
He cultivated relationships with journalists who portrayed him as a military genius.
George Patton had a problem.
He was arguably the best tactical commander in the Allied forces, but almost nobody knew it yet.
The Americans had embarrassed themselves at Casarine Pass in February 1943.
[clears throat] German panzers had routed inexperienced American troops, killing or capturing thousands.
Patton was brought in to fix the disaster.
He took command of second corps and transformed it in weeks through brutal discipline and aggressive training.
Soldiers who had been slovenly and undisiplined suddenly looked like professionals.
Units that had broken under fire learned to hold their ground.
By the time the North African campaign ended, American forces had proven themselves in combat.
But Montgomery got the credit.
Montgomery was the theater star.
Patton was a supporting actor who had cleaned up someone else’s mess.
The British press barely mentioned American contributions.
Montgomery gave interviews suggesting his eighth army had carried the campaign while the Americans learned how to fight.
And Patton seethed the plan for Sicily was where the hatred truly began.
Operation Husky would be the first major allied invasion of Europe, the dress rehearsal for everything that came after.
And Montgomery demanded control.
The original plan gave both armies meaningful objectives.
Patton’s seventh army would land on the western beaches and drive toward Polalmo.
Montgomery’s eighth army would land on the eastern beaches and drive toward Msina.
Two thrusts, two armies, shared glory.
Montgomery rejected this plan.
He insisted that his eighth army should have the primary role.
He wanted the Americans relegated to protecting his flank while British forces captured the important objectives.
He went over the heads of American commanders and appealed directly to Eisenhower.
Eisenhower, desperate to maintain Allied unity, gave Montgomery what he wanted.
The plan was rewritten.
[clears throat] Patton’s army would guard Montgomery’s flank while Montgomery made the main assault toward Msina.
Patton was furious.
He had been reduced to a supporting role in what should have been an equal partnership.
He told his staff that Montgomery had stolen the campaign before it even started.
But he followed orders for now.
Montgomery’s plan fell apart almost immediately.
His eighth army landed successfully on the eastern beaches, but then ran into fierce German resistance around Katana.
The Germans had fortified the coastal road that Montgomery needed to reach Msina.
Day after day, Montgomery’s forces attacked.
Day after day, they were thrown back.
The eighth army, which was supposed to sprint to Msina while the Americans watched, was stuck in bloody stalemate.
Montgomery blamed everyone but himself.
He blamed the terrain.
He blamed the Germans for fighting too hard.
He blamed the Americans for not drawing enough German forces away from his front.
What he never did was admit that his plan had failed.
Meanwhile, Patton was guarding Montgomery’s flank with a much larger force than the mission required.
He had an entire army sitting idle while Montgomery bled his troops against German defenses.
Patton saw an opportunity.
Patton went to his commander, General Harold Alexander, with a proposal.
Instead of sitting on Montgomery’s flank, he would drive west across Sicily and capture Polarmo.
It wasn’t part of the plan.
But the plan was already failing.
Alexander, a British general who understood that something had to change, gave Patton permission.
Patton unleashed his army in one of the most spectacular advances of the war.
In just 72 hours, Patton’s forces [clears throat] covered over 100 miles of mountainous terrain.
They captured Polarmo on July 22nd, taking thousands of prisoners and massive quantities of supplies.
It was exactly the kind of bold, aggressive movement that Montgomery had failed to execute on the other side of the island.
The press went wild.
Suddenly, George Patton was front page news around the world.
The American general who had captured a major city while the famous Montgomery was stuck in the mud.
Patton had stolen the spotlight and he had done it deliberately.
Montgomery was humiliated.
He sent messages to Alexander complaining that Patton was grandstanding.
He argued that capturing Polarmo was meaningless because Msina was the real objective.
But everyone knew the truth.
Patton had shown him up.
With Polarmo captured, Patton turned east toward Msina.
Now both armies were racing for the same prize.
The competition that the Allied high command had tried to prevent was happening anyway.
Montgomery pushed his exhausted troops harder.
He tried flanking movements around the German defenses.
He launched amphibious operations to land troops behind enemy lines.
Nothing worked fast enough.
Patton drove his men relentlessly.
He accepted casualties that a more cautious commander would have avoided.
He used his own amphibious operations, leapfrogging troops along the northern coast.
He was determined to reach Msina first, no matter what it cost.
The rivalry had become personal in a way that affected operational decisions.
Both commanders were taking risks and pushing their men beyond reasonable limits, not because military necessity demanded it, but because neither could stand losing to the other.
Patton 1.
[clears throat] His third infantry division entered Msina on August 17th, 1943, hours before Montgomery’s forces arrived.
When a British patrol finally reached the city, they found American soldiers already in control.
Patton staged a theatrical welcome.
He greeted the arriving British officers with exaggerated courtesy, rubbing their faces in his victory while pretending to be gracious.
Montgomery was not present.
He had sent subordinates rather than witness his humiliation personally.
The message was clear to everyone watching.
The American army was not the junior partner Montgomery had dismissed.
George Patton was not a supporting actor in Montgomery’s war.
The special relationship between Britain and America would be a rivalry as much as an alliance.
Patton wrote to his wife that it was the greatest moment of his career.
He had beaten the famous Montgomery in a fair race, but the victory came with a cost that Patton didn’t yet understand.
During the Sicilian campaign, George [clears throat] Patton made two catastrophic mistakes that nearly ended his career.
He slapped two soldiers suffering from combat fatigue in field hospitals, accusing them of cowardice.
The incidents became public.
Eisenhower was furious.
The press demanded Patton’s dismissal.
Politicians called for his court marshal.
Patton was forced to apologize publicly to the soldiers he had struck, to the medical staff who had witnessed it, and to every division in his army.
Eisenhower kept Patton in uniform because he believed Patton was too valuable to lose.
But the slapping incidents gave Eisenhower a reason to sideline Patton [clears throat] when it came time to plan the invasion of France.
Montgomery had his own complaints about Patton’s behavior in Sicily.
He told anyone who would listen that Patton was undisiplined, reckless, and unsuited for high command.
The slapping incidents proved Montgomery right in the eyes of many senior officers.
When D-Day planning began, Montgomery was named ground commander for the invasion.
Patton was left in England commanding a fictional army designed to deceive the Germans.
The man who had won Sicily was being used as a decoy while Montgomery led the real invasion.
June 6th, 1944, the Allies invaded France and Bernard Montgomery was in command of all ground forces.
American, British, and Canadian troops stormed the beaches under Montgomery’s overall direction.
It was the pinnacle of his career.
Patton watched from England, commanding phantom divisions in a deception operation.
He was the most aggressive commander in the Allied armies, and he was sitting out the most important battle of the war.
Montgomery’s performance in Normandy was controversial from the start.
He promised to capture the city of Khan on D-Day.
It took over a month.
He launched offensive after offensive that gained little ground at enormous cost.
The British sector became a grinding stalemate.
Montgomery blamed the terrain, the weather, the Germans, and privately the Americans for not attacking aggressively enough.
What he never admitted was that his own cautious, methodical style was poorly suited for the breakout that Normandy required.
On August 1st, 1944, George Patton finally got his chance.
His third army became operational in France, and he was given the mission of exploiting the breakout that American forces had finally achieved at St.
Low.
What followed was one of the most spectacular campaigns in military history.
Patton’s armored columns swept across France at speeds that seemed impossible.
They covered 30, 40, 50 miles a day.
They liberated town so fast that German garrison surrendered to forward units while rear headquarters still thought the front was miles away.
In two weeks, Patton’s third army advanced further than Montgomery’s forces had moved in two months.
[clears throat] The contrast was impossible to ignore.
While Montgomery was still fighting for every hedgero in his sector, Patton was racing toward Germany.
Montgomery watched his rival success with barely concealed fury.
He complained that Patton was getting preferential treatment in supplies and reinforcements.
He argued that Patton’s recklessness would lead to disaster.
But the newspapers didn’t care about Montgomery’s methodical approach.
They cared about Patton’s tanks racing across France.
The American general was becoming the most famous Allied commander of the war.
As Allied forces approached Germany, Montgomery demanded a change in strategy.
He wanted all available resources concentrated for a single thrust into Germany under his command.
He would drive straight to Berlin and end the war by Christmas.
Patton wanted the opposite.
He believed his third army could break through German defenses and reach the Rine before Montgomery even got started.
He argued for a broad front strategy with multiple axes of advance.
Eisenhower sided with neither man completely.
He approved a broad front approach that kept both armies moving, but he gave Montgomery priority for special operation.
Market Garden would drop paratroopers behind German lines to capture bridges in the Netherlands.
Patton was furious.
Supplies that could have gone to his third army were being diverted to Montgomery’s airborne gamble.
He believed Eisenhower was rewarding failure and punishing success.
September 17th, 1944.
Operation Market Garden began with the largest airborne assault in history.
Thousands of paratroopers dropped into the Netherlands to capture bridges at Einhovven, Nymeagen, and Arnum.
Montgomery’s ground forces would race up a single highway to link up with them.
It was a disaster.
The plan was too ambitious, too dependent on everything going right.
German resistance was far stronger than intelligence had predicted.
The highway turned into a shooting gallery.
At Arnham, the bridge too far.
British paratroopers held out for nine days against overwhelming German forces.
Relief never came.
Of the 10,000 men dropped at Arnham, fewer than 2,000 escaped.
The rest were killed or captured.
Montgomery declared Market Garden 90% successful.
Almost no one agreed.
The operation had failed to achieve its strategic objective, consumed enormous resources, and caused thousands of casualties.
Patton, who had been forced to halt his advance because supplies went to Market Garden, was vindicated.
He had warned that Montgomery’s plan was reckless.
Now Montgomery’s great gamble had failed while Patton’s army sat idle for lack of fuel.
December 16th, 1944.
The Germans launched their last major offensive of the war through the Arden forest.
American forces were caught completely by surprise.
Within days, German panzers had created a massive bulge in the Allied lines.
Montgomery’s forces were north of the bulge.
Patton’s third army was south.
Eisenhower gave Montgomery temporary command of American forces north of the breakthrough while Patton was ordered to wield his entire army 90° and counterattack from the south.
What Patton did next became legendary.
He turned three divisions from their eastern advance and sent them north in the middle of winter through terrible weather over roads clogged with retreating troops.
In 48 hours, his forces had moved over 100 m and were attacking the German flank.
It was the most impressive logistical feat of the war.
No other commander could have done it.
Patton had relieved Baston and was rolling up the German advance while Montgomery was still organizing his counterattack in the north.
January 7th, 1945, Bernard Montgomery held a press conference about the Battle of the Bulge.
what he said nearly destroyed the Allied alliance.
Montgomery described how he had taken command of the northern sector when the Americans were reeling from the German attack.
He implied that his leadership had saved the situation.
He talked about bringing order to chaos and preventing a disaster.
He barely mentioned Patton.
He barely mentioned the American divisions that had held Baston.
He made it sound like Montgomery and the British Army had rescued the Americans from their own incompetence.
The American press erupted.
Patton was livid.
Omar Bradley, normally a calm and diplomatic man, threatened to resign if Montgomery was given command of any more American troops.
Eisenhower had to personally intervene to prevent the alliance from fracturing.
Montgomery had stolen credit for the greatest American victory of the war.
Patton’s impossible march to Baston, the heroic stand of the 101st Airborne, the sacrifices of American soldiers across the Arden, all of it was minimized so Montgomery could claim the spotlight.
The final months of the war brought one last humiliation for Montgomery.
Eisenhower had planned for Montgomery’s 21st Army Group to make the main crossing of the Rine.
Montgomery spent weeks preparing an elaborate assault.
On March 7th, 1945, soldiers from the American 9th Armored Division found the Ludenorf Bridge at Remigan still standing.
They crossed immediately, establishing the first Allied bridge head across the Rine.
[clears throat] Patton himself crossed the Rine on March 22nd with a hasty assault that caught the Germans offguard.
He called Bradley that night and added a request.
He wanted Bradley to keep it secret until the next day so Patton could get more troops across before Montgomery’s carefully planned operation began.
When Montgomery launched his massive Ry crossing on March 23rd with airborne drops, naval support, and overwhelming artillery, Patton had already been across for a day.
The newspapers couldn’t help making the comparison.
Montgomery needed an army group and weeks of preparation to do what Patton had done on the fly.
The Patton Montgomery rivalry wasn’t just personal drama.
It had real consequences for the war.
Resources that should have gone to whoever could use them best were instead divided to satisfy both egos.
Operations were launched not because they were strategically optimal, but because one commander couldn’t stand seeing the other get the glory.
Eisenhower spent enormous amounts of time and energy managing the rivalry instead of fighting the Germans.
He made compromises that satisfied neither man and may have prolonged the war.
Soldiers died because their commanders were more focused on beating each other than on beating the enemy.
The race to Msina, the competition in Normandy, the arguments about Market Garden, all of it distracted from the mission.
George Patton died on December 21st, 1945 from injuries sustained in a car accident in Germany.
He was 60 years old.
He never got to write his memoirs, never got to defend his record against Montgomery’s version of events.
Bernard Montgomery lived until 1976.
He wrote memoirs, gave interviews, and spent decades burnishing his reputation.
He outlived almost everyone who could contradict him.
In his memoirs, Montgomery wrote that Patton was good for pursuit, but not much else.
Patton’s diaries called Montgomery a tired little man who would have been fired in any army except the British.
But memory has a way of finding the truth.
Today, Patton is remembered as one of the greatest American generals in history.
Montgomery is remembered as a capable but difficult commander whose reputation exceeded his achievements.
Montgomery had more resources, more support, and more political influence throughout the war.
He was given command of D-Day, while Patton led a fictional army.
He was given priority for Market Garden, while Patton’s army ran out of fuel.
And with all those advantages, Montgomery’s record was mixed at best.
Khan took a month instead of a day.
Market Garden was a costly failure.
His press conference about the bulge revealed a man more concerned with his reputation than with truth.
Patton achieved more with less.
He won when given the chance.
He was right about strategy more often than Montgomery.
And he did it all while fighting not just the Germans, but a British rival who wanted him sidelined.
That’s the verdict of history on the greatest rivalry of World War II.
The general who died young is remembered as a legend.
