Physical description

Index, ill, maps, p.614.

Publication type

non-fiction

Summary

Two men came to personify generalship in the Second World War: Bernard Montgomery for the British and Erwin Rommel for the Germans. In the span of a few years, they fought a series of extraordinary duels across several theaters of war. Ever since, historians have assessed their leadership, personalities, and skill. Born four years apart, the two men followed a remarkably similar trajectory. Military historian Peter Caddick-Adams explores their lives, beginning with their provincial upbringing and the brutal trench fighting of World War I--where both nearly died. Obsessed with fitness and training, the future field marshals emerged with glowing records. They taught in staff colleges, wrote infantry textbooks, and fought each other as divisional commanders in 1940 before taking charge of their respective armies as the war raged on. This first comparative biography of these two soldiers explores how each was "made" by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how their strategies permeate down to today's armies.