Important mission in the desert
The great opportunity in the military command of Montgomery's Eighth Army, the most celebrated fighting unit of the British Army. There had been serious problems with it: they had succeeded in his command men like Wawll, Ritchie and Auchinlek three generals who criticize severely Monty in his memoirs. The Eighth Army was the one who stood between the Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Rommel, Cairo and Alexandria, which had fallen on the power of the Axis would open the doors of the Middle East and perhaps Asia.
Rommel had reached a certain forcefulness with the Eighth Army, and hoped to build you a definitive blow to August 30, 1942, the day that Montgomery was appointed its commander. It was a terrible battle, a giant battle between marshals, German and British tanks involving one thousand, three hundred and thirty thousand men, which included several Italian divisions, two thousand planes and hundreds of artillery pieces.
The Battle of Alamein ended November 4, lasted twelve days and the Afrika Korps was virtually out of combat, giving him 30,000 prisoners. From that time did nothing more than to retreat - against Hitler's orders - to Tunis, where they surrendered their weapons to the enemy in May 1943. When the battle ended, Monty was a person almost legendary, a national hero on which the British turned their gratitude and honor.
The defeat of Rommel
What is certain is that the Eighth Army had more means that the Afrika Korps, because while he received all sorts of human and material reinforcements, it had to be content with what was on the ground, as he approached the end, Rommel had very few operational tanks. Of course, none of this takes Monty the merits. Ably move masses of men and material against a formidable enemy with Romell ahead and dodge all his traps, tricks and ambushes, was a great feat, Monty was consecrated, that battle in the desert as one of the great strategists of the Second World War, and when it came time to give him top honors, the King did so Par as Viscount of Alamein. Viscount Why only when the general himself Alexander, named after Viscount in 1946, was made ??Count in 1952? Monty must not have liked, because he was very jealous of their merits and almost never had a good opinion of others.
At large North African victories Eighth Army followed those of Sicily and mainland Italy, to Monte Cassino. The Allies had agreed on opening a second front in Europe, and Montywas called to London by Churchill, to take charge of Allied troops who were involved in Operation Overlord, the Normandy landings.
