ABSTRACT
When Lieutenant-General B. L. Montgomery landed at Cairo on the morning of August 12, 1942, he must have felt very strongly that fate had taken a hand in his affairs. Less than a week earlier he had been touring Scotland with General Paget, inspecting the newly-formed British 1st Army preparing for its role in ‘Torch’, the Anglo-American force for the assault on North-West Africa. General Alexander had been nominated to the British command under General Eisenhower. Suddenly Montgomery found himself appointed to the command following Alexander’s transfer to the Middle East. Before he had had time to shave the next morning, or to meet his new Commander-in-Chief, he was ordered at once to take command of the Eighth Army at Alamein. The death of General Gott had catapulted Montgomery into an aircraft, and into a dead man’s shoes before the dead man had tried them on.
