Known to all as ‘Monty’, Bernard Law Montgomery’s greatest achievement was to give the British Army self-belief after Dunkirk, ensuring that his troops were inspired to embark on the long struggle to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. The self-proclaimed ‘cad’ of the army would regularly tour his forces to talk to them in person, but employed disastrously outdated tactics in the Second World War. Yet he still secured famous wins in North Africa, most notably in the second Battle of El-Alamein. He followed that by leading his troops into Europe, first by invading Italy in September 1943 and then commanding the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944. However, his strategy for the Battle of Arnhem proved a costly failure.

No other general was so hated by his peers; no other general was held in such affection by the ordinary ranks and by the public. Now, fifty years since his death, Montgomery remains a highly controversial figure. This balanced, accessible and fresh account of one of Britain’s most complex war heroes looks beyond the battlefield. Delving into Montgomery’s belligerent Victorian boyhood, his family’s legacy of financial precariousness, his love-hate relationship with Winston Churchill and his dubious romances, Gary Mead asks what life experiences and personal secrets influenced this man’s volcanic emotional life and, ultimately, his multifaceted and disputed legacy.

Definitive and profound, Montgomery: Unbeatable, Unbearable captures the motives, spirit and psychological complexities of the man dubbed Britain’s last great soldier.