Britain’s most famous wartime general has been tainted by revelations in newly released secret papers, reports Alan Travis from London
The reputation of Britain’s most famous wartime general, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, has been dealt a body blow by the disclosure of secret papers revealing that he advocated a racist imperial “masterplan” for post-war Africa.
As chief of the Imperial Defence Staff in 1948, “Monty” secretly submitted a serious plan to turn the continent into a white supremacist bulwark against the “very great potential danger” of a well-organised and growing communist movement in Africa.
His “grand design” was based on a two-month tour of 11 African countries in late 1947 during which he concluded that the African “is a complete savage and is quite incapable of developing the country himself”, according to British Public Record Office papers just released under the 50-year rule.
The field marshal’s top-secret and highly confidential report so alarmed the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that he had to call a special Downing Street meeting of senior ministers to discuss how to handle what was seen, even then, as a highly embarrassing plan. Montgomery’s lectures were watched to ensure he did not voice his criticisms in public.
The Africa tour itself had been kept secret from all but a handful of government ministers.
A diplomatically worded rebuttal drafted by the colonial secretary, Arthur Creech Jones, pointed out to Montgomery that the “uniform policy of native administration with the Union of South Africa” he was advocating for Britain’s African colonies was “completely unacceptable”.
The Labour government also had to tell the viscount that the aim of the Union of South Africa was “maintaining white supremacy”, while Britain’s official post-war policy sought to build self-government in Africa. Any political link-up with the South African system was most undesirable.
It is clear that many of Montgomery’s views came direct from South Africa’s General Jan Smuts, whose expansionist claims to Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Swaziland and Basutoland (now Lesotho) he endorsed.
Montgomery’s attitude to incipient African autonomy movements is summed up in one recommendation: “We should have no nonsense with the United Nations Organisation about Tanganyika; it should be absorbed into the British bosom.” In his private memorandum to the prime minister, Montgomery was scathing about African leaders such as Haile Selassie in Ethiopia whom he called a pathetic figure, adding, “to give the Emperor any more lands would be utterly absurd”.
He was also contemptuous of British and other European colonial settlers, saying they had masses of servants, were lethargic, lacked drive and needed “a good jolt to make them face up to their Empire responsibilities”. Some long-serving British colonials he met in Ethiopia had even become “mentally unstable”.
Africa would progress, he declared, only if there was an injection of “fresh blood into each colony” in the form of large numbers of men with brains, and go-getters who would “adventure courageously as did Cecil Rhodes”.
There were just three million whites among Africa’s 150-million people, he pointed out, and 2,5-million of them were in the Union of South Africa.
“There is an increasing social and political consciousness developing in the African peoples; this is a very great potential danger and must be watched …
“Already communist agents are active in all parts of Africa and they are exploiting to the full the lack of any uniform native policy throughout the British territories. Every colony, as well as the Union of South Africa, has different native laws. This situation is a menace.”
To the Labour government’s rebuttal, Montgomery made a stoical response: “I am delighted to hear that there is a clear policy … for the development of Africa. I went all round that continent and failed to discover anything of that sort myself. Possibly I am very stupid!!!”
“It is obvious we disagree fundamentally … time will show which of us is right.”
Keepers of Montgomery’s flame were this week shocked and embarrassed that the reputation of Britain’s most famous wartime general had been tainted by the revelation that he was a racist.
Some biographers, relatives and former comrades pleaded for the disclosures not to sully his reputation as a brilliant strategist. Others conceded defeat, saying Montgomery’s place in British history had been permanently damaged.
Lord Chalfont, who served in Burma from 1941 to 1944 and wrote Montgomery of Alamein, said an icon had tumbled.
“It hasn’t been said about him before. He was always thought of as [racially] tolerant, I would never have suspected him of racism.”