ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Field-Marshal Montgomery's conduct of the 1944-45 North-West Europe campaign in the light of two interlinked influences: conducting a campaign in a way designed to maintain the morale of your own troops, and with great concern to avoid casualties. These influences respectively may be termed the maintenance of morale and casualty conservation. The chapter also examines Montgomery's operational conduct as Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, which comprised 2nd British and 1st Canadian Armies. It describes the morale of 21st Army Group's forces during the campaign. Montgomery's operational method was encapsulated by his expression Colossal Crack. The chapter provides morale problems existed within Montgomery's command, but that his forces advanced into Germany with their morale still intact. By 1944, the British leadership realised that if Britain emerged after Germany's defeat with virtually no army, then Britain's say in post-war Europe would be diminished.
