Bernard Law Montgomery Quotes

In real war an officer may have only one chance at succeeding. Consider each problem.

This high proportion of history's decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy.

One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself; if he is ignorant what his adversary is about?

In war, the policy of least exertion always risks being paid for dearly.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.

In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.

Act after having made assessments. The one who first knows the measure of far and near wins - this is the rule of armed struggle.

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now.

Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.

I am going to Spain to fight an army without a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without an army.

Never completely encircle your enemy. Leave him some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if trapped.

We always make the mistake, the fatal mistake in the case of military people, of imagining that each war will be a kind of version of the one that happened previously.

Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose.

The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them.

I have studied the enemy all my life. I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders. I have even read his philosophers and listened to his music. I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles. I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances. And he hasn't the slightest idea of what I'm going to do. So when the time comes, I'm going to whip the hell out of him.

Every decision in government is so important, especially when it comes to the military where thousands of people can lose their lives.

In battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve.

The secret of war lies in the communications.

I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts.

If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.

No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account.

Writing books for me is anyway much like a military campaign. I confess to fighting my way through with military metaphors. There is a strategy, an overall concept, and there are tactics along the way…Tradition would say I was a 'child of Mars.'

Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.