Why Montgomery Tried to Sideline the Americans — and Lost Sicily Anyway скачать в хорошем качестве

Why Montgomery Tried to Sideline the Americans — and Lost Sicily Anyway

Summer, 1943. Allied planning headquarters, North Africa. A ceiling fan turns lazily above a table covered in maps. Outside, the heat presses into stone walls. Inside, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery draws a red line across Sicily—Route 124, the straight road to Messina. The kind of road that decides who gets the headline… and who gets written into the footnotes. And with one quiet planning change, Montgomery makes sure the British get the main road—and the Americans get the flank. Operation Husky was supposed to be a joint push north. Route 124 was wide enough for multiple divisions to advance side by side. American and British forces could have driven together, trapped German units, and ended the campaign faster. But Montgomery rewrote the plan. He claimed logistics. He warned of traffic jams. The reality was simpler: pride. He wanted the decisive route to Messina for the Eighth Army alone. Patton’s Seventh Army was pushed west—relegated to secondary objectives, perimeter security, and “support.” It wasn’t collaboration. It was containment. Then Sicily changed. As Montgomery advanced methodically—stopping to build overwhelming force each time he met resistance—Patton looked at the empty western map and saw wasted power. With only vague permission from General Alexander, he moved anyway. On July 19th, 1943, Patton unleashed the Seventh Army toward Palermo—over 100 miles of mountains, heat, and broken roads. His commanders were given 72 hours. They marched day and night. They blasted new routes through rock. They bypassed resistance and kept moving. On July 22nd, Palermo fell. American headlines exploded. British papers called it a sideshow. Montgomery complained Patton was grandstanding. But every professional soldier watching understood the truth: Patton had proven the Americans could move faster—and strike harder—than British doctrine allowed. And then Patton turned east. Suddenly it became an unspoken race to Messina. Not officially a competition—because admitting that would admit the alliance was fighting for credit. But everyone knew: whoever entered Messina first would claim Sicily. Montgomery pushed harder than his own caution allowed, even copying Patton’s amphibious leapfrogs. But it was too late. Patton’s momentum had already rewritten the campaign. On August 17th, American troops entered Messina first—only hours ahead of the British. Yet the bitter irony remained: while two Allied armies measured victory in miles and headlines, German commanders used the time to evacuate tens of thousands of troops and thousands of vehicles across the Strait to mainland Italy. Sicily became a win for the newspapers… and a missed opportunity for the war. But it proved something that would echo into 1944 and beyond: the United States was no longer Britain’s junior partner. Not in manpower. Not in industry. And now—not in battlefield competence. This documentary reveals: ✓ How Montgomery’s WW2 command choices sidelined U.S. forces in Operation Husky ✓ Why Route 124 became a battlefield of pride in the Mediterranean Theater ✓ How Patton’s Palermo drive reshaped the race to Messina in World War II ✓ The human cost of coalition rivalry during WW2 strategy decisions ✓ Why Sicily became a turning point for Allied leadership in WW2 history “History is not written by those who win — but by those who understand why they almost lost.” 🔔 Subscribe for untold WWII intelligence stories, strategic miscalculations, and the turning points that shaped modern history. 📚 SOURCES: “Patton: A Genius for War” — Carlo D’Este “Monty: The Field Marshal” — Nigel Hamilton U.S. Army Green Books: Sicily and the Surrender of Italy British Official Histories (Mediterranean & Middle East) German after-action summaries and postwar officer interrogations, 1945–1947