Montgomery: Friends Within, Foes Without

In this new study of personal relationships within the British (including Canadian) Command in 21st Army Group during the campaign in North-West Europe in 1944-1945, Malcolm Pill considers the scope and depth of these relationships, ranging from those of the Secretary of State for War to the Corps Commanders. Montgomery is central. His great success in the management of his own multinational team is contrasted with the hostility created and lack of success achieved with those outside his team. Pill explores the importance of his great skill with the written word. The relevance of these personal relationships to the success of Britain's last major campaign as a great power is assessed as are the post-war consequences for those involved.

On retirement as a Lord Justice of Appeal, Malcom Pill took an MA in Military History at Buckingham University. His lifelong interest in military history was stimulated during his father's service in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War, described in A Cardiff Family in the Forties (1999), reading Chester Wilmot's The Struggle for Europe and his own National Service and Territorial Service in the Royal Artillery. He studied the Laws of War as a part of the Cambridge International Law LLM and a has held a long-term professional interest in behavioural studies and assessing oral and written evidence.