Sublime

For Montgomery, given the horrendous British losses in the trench warfare of World War I, attrition was unthinkable. Instead, he preferred to keep the enemy off balance by maneuvering and then deliver a concentrated blow at a single point. Rather than conduct a broad-front offensive, Monty sought to breach the enemy line and exploit the breakthroug

A legendary battlefield commander, Leclerc was most famous for fighting his way north with a Free French force 420 miles from Fort Lamy in Chad to join the British Eighth Army in the Sahara in February 1941.

Never again, he swore, would he send young troops into “open ground against their superiors both in number and discipline.”36 This strategy was neither glamorous nor particularly congenial to Washington’s personality, but it might prove sure and effective.37