Editing Bernard Montgomery (section)

==== Operation Market Garden ====
Montgomery was able to persuade Eisenhower to allow him to test his strategy of a single thrust to the [[Ruhr Area|Ruhr]] with [[Operation Market Garden]] in September 1944. The offensive was strategically bold,<ref name="Lanning"/> although [[Lieutenant General]] [[Humfrey Gale]], the "senior administrative and logistics officer"<ref name="Buckley">{{cite book |last=Buckley |first=John |date=2013 |title=Monty's Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe, 1944-5 |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |page=213 |isbn=978-0-300-13449-0}}</ref> for SHAEF ([[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]]) considered Montgomery's narrow-thrust strategy to be "logistically unrealistic",<ref name="Buckley"/> and in his opinion "a ruse merely to demonstrate later that he had been prevented from winning the war quickly by Eisenhower's caution."<ref name="Buckley"/> At a strategy meeting on 10 September 1944, Montgomery became so belligerent that Eisenhower was prompted into saying "Steady, Monty! You can't speak to me like that. I'm your boss."<ref name="Buckley"/> Following the Allied breakout from Normandy, Eisenhower favored pursuing the German armies northwards and eastwards to the [[Rhine]] on a broad front. Eisenhower relied on speed, which in turn depended on logistics, which were "stretched to the limit".{{sfn|Pogue|1954|pp=254–255}} SHAEF did provide Montgomery with additional resources, principally additional [[locomotive]]s and [[rolling stock]], and priority for air supply.{{sfn|Pogue|1954|p=255}} Eisenhower's decision to launch Market Garden was influenced by his desire to keep the retreating Germans under pressure, and by the pressure from the United States to use the [[First Allied Airborne Army]] as soon as possible.{{sfn|Pogue|1954|p=269}}

Montgomery's plan for Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944) was to outflank the [[Siegfried Line]] and cross the Rhine, setting the stage for later offensives into the Ruhr region. The 21st Army Group would attack north from Belgium, {{convert|60|mi|km}} through the Netherlands, across the Rhine and consolidate north of Arnhem on the far side of the Rhine. The risky plan required three Airborne Divisions to capture numerous intact bridges along a single-lane road, on which an entire Corps had to attack and use as its main supply route. The offensive failed to achieve its objectives.<ref>A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan.</ref>

Both Churchill and Montgomery claimed that the operation was nearly or 90% successful, "since they had got nine-tenths of the way to Arnhem",<ref name="Beevor">{{cite book |last=Beevor |first=Antony |date=2019 |title=Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944 |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |page=365 |isbn=978-0-670-91867-6}}</ref> prompting Air Chief Marshal Tedder to derisively comment that "one jumps off a cliff with an even higher success rate, until the last few inches."<ref name="Beevor"/> However, in Montgomery's equivocal acceptance of responsibility he blames lack of support, and also refers to the [[Battle of the Scheldt]], which was undertaken by Canadian troops not involved in Market Garden. Montgomery later said:

{{blockquote|It was a bad mistake on my part—I underestimated the difficulties of opening up the approaches to Antwerp ... I reckoned the Canadian Army could do it while we were going for the Ruhr. I was wrong ... In my—prejudiced—view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded ''in spite of'' my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate.{{sfn|Montgomery|1958|pp=243, 298}}}}

In the aftermath of Market Garden, Montgomery made holding the Arnhem salient his first priority, arguing that the Second British Army might still be able to break through and reach the wide open plains of northern Germany, and that he might be able to take the Ruhr by the end of October.{{sfn|Copp|Vogel|1985|pp=12, 14}} The Germans under ''[[Generalfeldmarschall]]'' [[Walther Model]] attempted to [[Battle of the Nijmegen salient|retake the Nijmegen salient]] in early October, but were beaten back. In the meantime, the First Canadian Army finally achieved the task of clearing the mouth of the river Scheldt, despite the fact that, in the words of Copp and Vogel, "Montgomery's Directive required the Canadians to continue to fight alone for almost two weeks in a battle which everyone agreed could only be won with the aid of additional divisions".{{sfn|Copp|Vogel|1985|p=14}}