Sunday, October 28, 2001		Books

OFF THE SHELF
The queer man who won a world war
Review by V.N. Datta

ABOUT 20 years ago Nigel Hamilton had published an authoritative full-scale biography of Field Marshal Montgomery highlighting his military accomplishments. Monty’s victory at the battle of El Alamein has been universally acknowledged as a turning point in favour of the British during World War II when the Germans were defeated, and they had to flee. Winston Churchill, the then British Prime Minister, declared in the House of Commons that before El Alamein the British never had a victory and afterwards never had a defeat. It must be emphasised that the victory lay not just in the British conduct of the war but in a wider scale of things. Hamilton has now brought out a new book entitled "The Full Monty of Alamein 1887-1942" (Penguin Press, London, pages 902, £ 25).

The title of the study is provocative. Not a comprehensive study of the subject; this work focuses primarily on Montgomery’s "strange sexuality". The author confesses in the preface that his father, the late Brig Sir Danish Hamilton, a former editor of the Sunday Times, would have been "aghast" at his son now peering into Monty’s passionate interest in "sex of a wrong sort". Anthony Powel the novelist in his popular work "The Military Philosophers" wrote that few subjects are more fascinating than other peoples’ sexual habits and aberrations.

It is not generally known that Montgomery visited India in early 1947 and held discusssions with Viceroy Mountbatten, British military officers and Indian political leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. He was strongly opposed to the idea of the division of the armed forces and urged for their joint command but the proposal found no favour.

Thereafter, he prepared a scheme for the gradual withdrawal of the British forces from India which Mountbatten was to implement. During his stay in India, Montgomery met quite a number of Indian political leaders and held discussions with them which he recorded later in his autobiography. His meeting with Jinnah makes interesting reading. He urged Jinnah not to insist on the partition of the country. Jinnah replied there was no way out and quipped, "Look the Hindus worship the cow, which we eat." Monty’s jaws dropped at this reply.

In this study Hamilton, while using some new material from the Berlin archives, praises Monty’s unique leadership at El Alamein where "this small General in a matter of weeks turned round a defeated horde into a victorians army." According to Hamilton, in ferocity, bravery and sheer sacrifice, this battle can be compared to Agincourt and Stalingrad. It laid down the foundation of the force that would cross the channel with overwhelming power on D-Day.

Nigel Hamilton describes graphically how Monty managed to inspire the demoralised 8th army before El Alamein when all seemed to have been lost. Not only his tactical skills which he displayed but also his intense humane attitude towards his troops turned the tide and brought victory. The following conversation with a young soldier shows his approach. Monty asked, "You, what is your most valuable possession?" "My rifle," the youngman replied. Monty said, "No, it is your life and I am going to save it for you." He would explain to his troops that he would never attack without full artillery and air support. That is why his troops trusted him and he became their darling.

Hamilton tells us a good deal about Monty’s private life. A great man in parts, he was deeply interested in books, gardening and dogs. He loved the hills. Being lonely, taciturn and shunning social life, he tended his own garden unobtrusively. Being oppressed by a sense of loneliness, he found solace in the company of young boys and developed strong homosexual propensities. The author surmises that it was the influence of Greek literature which shaped his seeking gratification in homosexual urges.

The author points out that, on one side, Monty had insisted as a pre-war commandant that the brothels in Alexandria be "clean", but, on the other, he was "homosexual" too. Hamilton also pinpoints Monty’s outburst in the House of Commons while debating the Social Offences Bill which he condemned as a "Charter of Buggery".

A man of enormous personal vanity, his appetite for fame was enormous. He was convinced that fame could come only through professional excellence which meant perfection of the self, total commitment his profession as a soldier. From this object, he was never to swerve. He had a tearing spirit and would never give in.

A significant point the author has made about the El Alamein battle where its commander Lieut-General Lumson "reached the verge of mutiny refusing to send in tanks to be picked off by the deadly German 88 mm guns". Hamilton regards it as one of the lasting disgraces of the war which resulted in a tank debacle.

Hamilton emphasises Monty’s deep and abiding concern about young soldier’s lives. Behind his cold, stern and somewhat overbearing exterior, there lurked affection for young men who were prepared to risk their lives in the service of their country. The author states that Monty did not act upon his homosexual impulses though they were deep and powerful. Initially Churchill disliked him and refused to appoint him to the 8th Army in 1942.

The compulsion of circumstances left him with no choice but to send Monty to the desert where he reversed Britain’s years of defeat and became a legendary hero. How? That is the question to which his biographer addresses.

After proposing to a 17-year old girl he had known barely for half an hour Monty married a war widow, a marriage which almost stunned everyone who knew him "as a misogynist, by being happy and fulfilling". During his youth, Monty was known to spend most of his time in the company of boys. He was by nature open-hearted and enjoyed good fun. All his love and human interest was in young men and it was this extraordinary trait in his character which Hamilton thinks was the "well-spring of his revolutionary approach to command", circumventing thereby "stubborn traditions and hierarchical conventions" which militated against democratic success on the battlefield.

The Germans were formidable foes. In the initial stages of the war the Germans had suffered reverses. The British had proved a poor opponent in battle when pitted against an enemy as professional and disciplined as the Germans. So Monty thought that in these circumstances the best way to fight the Germans was to mould the human material and to make his troops fight more intelligently, more skilfully and more effectively and even in the process, to die for the country. By virtue of his inspiring leadership he enthused his troops. According to Hamilton, the success of the 8th army lay not in tanks and weapons but in the determination displayed by his troops to fight and even be prepared to lay down life for the worthy cause.

Hamilton asks whence came this inspiration which had fired his troops to vanquish the Germans. He thinks that for more than three decades Monty had sublimated his repressed homosexual urges into building the qualities of inspiring leadership. Monty became one of the finest teachers and military trainees of the inter-war period. His quest for learning was infinite. He ran classes for aspiring young officers and lectured in military academies. He possessed remarkable histrionic gifts. A man of exquisite charm, he had an elegant way of expressing his ideas in simple terms.

Hamilton states that Monty’s attachment to young men remained within limits — he was "passionately devoted, caring and challenging". This close bond Monty formed with young men was to translate to larger military formations — a company, a battalion, a brigade, a division and at El Alamein, an army in battle.

Thus Hamilton concludes that Monty became the most revolutionary combat commander of World War II "a soldier of democracy and an inspiration to us all, of whatever background and orientation".