He received a Spartan education
Raised by a father and a mother Anglican Bishop of iron, Monty, as was known from Alamein, was a man of Spartan habits, which never abandoned. The first time I dined with Churchill, this wine and offered him a cigar. Never drink or smoke, answered the astonished premier, who smoked pure and was a heavy drinker. It is known that Monty only eat boiled food and pie.
Bernard Law Montgomery was born on November 17, 1887 in Kennington, a suburb of London. Still very young, he accompanied his parents to Tasmania, an island south of Australia, compared to Melbourne. The brothers considered him a pest, and his mother gave him a slap ever saying a word with Australian accent.
In 1901 the family returned to Britain. Montgomery was sent first to school Sao Paulo for a little while, and when he discovered his vocation military at age 19 (1906), could join the Royal Academy of Santhrust. From a total of 177 applications to join it, got the number 72, not very bright. Always lacked oratorical skills, in addition to its shrill voice does not help. But in return, quickly became an expert in electromagnetic communications, on which he wrote his first book, and when he left the Academy had already gained a certain prestige.
Wounded in the First World War
The December 12, 1908, Montgomery, as an officer of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, is sent to India to Peshawar, where he was until 1911. By clicking the First World War was twenty-six years and was sent to France. Participates in the Battle of Ypres brilliantly, where it is badly wounded in the chest and a leg, but recovered well and returned voluntarily to the front, shortening the period of leave granted to him had to convalesce. Do not want to miss anything of the war, covered with decorations and finishing with the rank of captain.
Until 1927, when he was already in his forties, did not think to marry, but this year fell in love with a war widow named Betty Hobart, with two children, and married in London on July 29, 1927. Years after the wedding, Monty was placed back in India, this time in Quetta, where Betty died of a venomous bite of a mosquito on 19 October 1937. Monty did not come back to marry. As she had had a son, David, who would not hear of a military career of his father, as Monty had wanted to speak so little of his ecclesiastical career.
By clicking the Second World War, Montgomery takes command of a famous 8th Division, in what was called the Division of Ferro, which came to form part of the Expeditionary Corps British envoy to France and had to be reembarcado at Dunkirk, saving more than 300 thousand men, but with an enormous loss of material. Churchill would say that this was the worst time to England.